Archive | July 30, 2010 | Armed with Science

Three Ways Virtual Reality Can Improve Military Training

Filed under Education & Culture, Technology by John Ohab on July 30, 2010 at 11:23 am {one comment}

AETC collaborates their virtual world work through an active participation in the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds.

Col. John Thompson is the Future Learning Advisor to the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) Director of Plans, Programs, Requirements, and Assessments. He is responsible for facilitating innovation across AETC’s recruiting, training and education mission.

Efficiency of flight simulators has improved since they first appeared in the 1930s. My first flight as a commercial airline pilot was with a full passenger load because the fidelity of the flight simulator made the training so realistic that it didn’t require aircraft flight hours.

We now have a similar capability available for a far broader training and education spectrum. We can now use virtual environments to train more efficiently or in environments that are too dangerous to recreate.

The key to this training is a realistic immersion. You need to feel like you are present in the environment. The virtual environment provides the immersion and the scalability is drastically improved. An example of the scalability is a base exercise which is generally limited to a portion of the base. The reason for the limit is due to some portion of the mission needing to continue. However, if a weapon of mass destruction were to be used in a large city it would likely effect large portions of multiple bases (like Joint Base San Antonio). We can use a virtual environment to train such a cataclysmic event. AETC is testing large-scale exercise scenarios in a virtual environment by building the Joint Base San Antonio command post.

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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to DoD Science and Technology Blogs

Filed under Education & Culture, Technology by John Ohab on July 29, 2010 at 4:33 pm {3 comments}

Though it is logistically unlikely that a giant strand of DNA would be able to use a computer, this image represents the fusion of science and blogging. (Image: Army Logistics University)

While it is logistically unlikely that a giant strand of DNA would be able to use a computer, this image represents the fusion of science and blogging. (Image: Army Logistics University)

Dr. John Ohab is a new technology strategist at the Department of Defense Public Web Program.

One of the unique aspects of Armed with Science is that most of our content is written firsthand by scientists, engineers, and other subject matter experts across the Department of Defense (DoD) and the federal government.

For organizations or programs without their own blog, such as HAARP or the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Armed with Science is a great platform to build more awareness for their work, while also providing researchers an opportunity to get some blogging experience. Other organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Defense Centers of Excellence maintain fantastic blogs, and together, we can highlight joint scientific endeavors and reach entirely new audiences that we might have otherwise missed. Over the last year and a half, we’ve partnered with more than 100 different organizations across DoD, the federal government, academy, and industry.

Well, all of this got me thinking: how many DoD blogs are primarily focused on science and technology topics? (italics indicate pensive thought)

Below, I’ve listed in alphabetical order eight of those DoD blogs, but there is a good chance I missed some. If so, let me know, and I’ll add it the list.

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What Can Rivers Tell Us About Climate Change? [ICESCAPE]

Filed under Earth Sciences by John Ohab on July 28, 2010 at 2:23 pm {no comments}

Dr. Kevin Arrigo is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford University. He is the Chief Scientist for NASA’s ICESCAPE (Impact of Climate change on the Eco-Systems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment) mission this summer onboard US Coast Guard Cutter HEALY.

“The Arctic Ocean is unique in that it is almost completely surrounded by land,” relates Karen Frey, an Assistant Professor at Clark University, as she flashes a map on the screen.

Because of this unusual geography, numerous rivers swollen from the spring thaw disgorge their contents onto its broad, shallow coastal areas. Karen tells us how this makes the Arctic Ocean particularly vulnerable to contemporary changes taking place on the Arctic tundra, such as accelerating permafrost melt. As these previously frozen soils melt, they release compounds that have been stored there for thousands of years. These compounds drip into the groundwater and eventually end up in the network of rivers and streams that criss-cross the tundra in spring and summer.

Karen is interested in how much of this stuff is reaching the Arctic Ocean in rivers and what impact it is having on coastal ecosystems. Some of these compounds are easy to track because they give the water a distinctive yellow-brown color. Called colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), they form when decaying vegetation gets wet – similar to what happens when you dip your tea bag into a cup of hot water. Although these compounds are chemically benign, they reduce water clarity – which is bad for phytoplankton – and release carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide when they get blasted by the Sun’s UV rays.

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Tech Tuesday: Inside the Pentagon Technology Expo

Filed under Technology by John Ohab on July 27, 2010 at 7:12 pm {no comments}

TechTuesday By Petty Officer 2nd Class Elliott Fabrizio

The Pentagon held its Technology Expo on Tuesday with more than 40 companies displaying the latest in defense hardware and software.

For this week’s Tech Tuesday, I navigated my way through an ocean of business cards and free pens to highlight a few of the expo’s more interesting exhibits.

Just to get this out of the way, all of the booths were thrilling (especially the caterer’s booth with the chicken wings). These three represent the ones I personally thought were the most interesting and that in no way reflects an official ranking system or a lack of quality in any other exhibit. No angry letters please.

X-treme Protection Series (XPS) Shield Line

MC2 Fabrizio holds one of the mobile barricade's removal side panels with Brook Thomas from Patriot 3 Inc. Ballistics Division. (Photo: Patrick Raffaele)

MC2 Fabrizio holds the mobile barricade's removable side panels with Brook Thomas from Patriot 3 Inc., Ballistics Division. (Photo: Patrick Raffaele)

Patriot 3, a tactical ops company, recently began marketing their new X-treme Protection Series XPS shield line to police agencies and the military, and it definitely has that elite special forces look. The XPS-G2 is a rolling bunker meaning it can provide an ideal source of cover for clearing a building or working a security checkpoint.

It’s made up of six panels, each able to withstand high-powered rifle rounds. The four side panels can be removed and used as individual bullet-proof shields. Fully assembled, it forms a three-person-wide wall on wheels. The side panels can fold like wings, enabling the unit to move through all commercial doorways. It’s topped off with three ballistic viewing ports and a small gun port in the center, so there’s no reason to leave the safety of this mobile barricade.

“You can actually do offenses with this, as opposed to just being in a defensive position. You’ve got a rolling bunker you can move forward as you advance,” said Brook Thomas, Patriot 3 Inc., Ballistics Division.

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Eat or Be Eaten: The Life and Times of Phytoplankton

Filed under Earth Sciences by John Ohab on July 27, 2010 at 4:53 pm {no comments}

Sharmila Pal, a graduate student at the University of South Carolina, studies organic carbon, or dead particles, sinking from the surface ocean to the deep ocean. (Photo: Haley Smith Kingsland)

Sharmila Pal, graduate student at the University of South Carolina, studies organic carbon, or dead particles, sinking from the surface ocean to the deep ocean. (Photo: Haley Smith Kingsland)

We’re surrounded by a green broth of life. The single-celled algae called phytoplankton are so dense that our instruments disappear from sight a mere few feet after we plunk them into the water.

A few days later, we sample the same area and find…nothing. Or almost nothing.

Phytoplankton are the staple food that sustains much of the Arctic marine ecosystem. The bread of the sea. But where did it all go?

That’s what Sharmila Pal, a graduate student of Claudia Benitez-Nelson (University of South Carolina), wants to find out.

In the Arctic, phytoplankton take advantage of the few months of sunshine and ice-free conditions in the spring and summer to grow to extraordinary numbers. So dense are these “blooms” that they completely overwhelm the ability of the grazers, mostly shrimp-like copepods, to consume them (just picture a cow with an entire pasture to itself). The phytoplankton that don’t get eaten will eventually sink after they suck the surface ocean dry of nutrients. Some of this energy-rich salad will decay as it sinks, but because the Arctic Ocean is so shallow, a lot of it reaches the bottom.

We’re just not sure how much.

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Single Celled Food Factories of the Arctic [ICESCAPE]

Filed under Earth Sciences by John Ohab on July 26, 2010 at 1:05 pm {no comments}

The Arrigo Team: Zach Brown, Matt Mills, Gert van Dijken, Kevin Arrigo, Kate Lowry, Molly Palmer, Haley Kingsland. (Photo: Karen Romano Young)

The Arctic Ocean. It marks the end of the line for the gray whales’ epic 2-3 month, 5000-7000 mile journey. It’s also where Arctic terns raise their chicks after a grueling 12,000 mile migration.

But why here?

Surprisingly, during its abbreviated spring and summer season, the Arctic Ocean hosts among the most biologically rich waters on Earth. When the sun approaches its zenith and the sea ice begins to wane, the Arctic Ocean teems with life. This frenzy of biological activity is fueled by the rapid growth of phytoplankton, those tiny floating photosynthetic dynamos that turn carbon dioxide into sugary snacks for the rest of the Arctic marine food web.

My research group, along with that of Greg Mitchell (Scripps Institution of Oceanography), is interested in how these amazing single celled food factories grow so quickly under such harsh conditions.

Like the tomatoes in your garden, phytoplankton require both sunlight and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus to thrive. A recent up-tick in the amount of phytoplankton, especially in the shallow areas of the Arctic Ocean, indicates that nutrients may now be more abundant than in the past.

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NIST and DARPA Working on Language Translation Devices for U.S. Troops

Filed under Education & Culture, Technology, Videos by John Ohab on July 23, 2010 at 2:27 pm {7 comments}

Dr. John Ohab is a new technology strategist at the Department of Defense Public Web Program.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Defense Department are collaborating on voice translation technology that at one time seemed only possible in Star Trek.

According to a story on the NIST website, a team of NIST scientists have spent the last four years evaluating cutting-edge speech translation technology for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The NIST scientists evaluated three two-way, real-time, voice-translation devices designed to improve communications between the U.S. military and non-English speakers in Afghanistan.

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