Armed with Science | Tag Archive | President Barack Obama

The BRAIN Initiative

Filed under Videos by jtozer on April 14, 2013 at 7:10 am {no comments}

President Barack Obama has announced a new research initiative to prevent, treat and cure brain injuries. The “BRAIN Initiative” gives scientists the tools they need to get a better picture of how the brain functions.

In his upcoming budget, the President plans to propose $100 million in 2014 –or what he calls a “significant investment” in the project– by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to start the BRAIN Initiative.

The goal is to better understand how brain cells interact to help crack the code of brain injury and disease.

Specifically, DARPA plans to explore new tools to measure and analyze electrical signals to the brain, as well as, researching the vast spectrum of the brain’s functionality.

To learn more about traumatic brain injury awareness, visit Health.mil.

Story and information provided by Health.mil

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Taking On The Threat of WMDs

Filed under Technology by jtozer on April 9, 2013 at 7:03 am {no comments}

A new partnership between U.S. Strategic Command and the University of Nebraska is pushing the envelope to address what Air Force Gen. C. Robert Kehler, Stratcom’s commander, calls one of the most pervasive threats to the United States: weapons of mass destruction.

Army Staff Sgt. Maliek Kearney and Army Sgt. Danielle Doucette transfer a sample of simulated nuclear fallout as Ruth Anne Sorter from the Department of Energy looks on during the Prominent Hunt exercise in Indiana that helped test the Defense Department’s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear enterprise. (U.S. Army photo by Lt. Col. Carol McClelland )

Kehler, who’s been tasked by President Barack Obama under the unified command plan to lead the Defense Department’s efforts to combat WMDs, championed the first university-affiliated research center to be sponsored by a combatant command.

Stratcom entered into a five-year contract with the University of Nebraska in late September, establishing the 13th UARC within the Defense Department. All are committed to cutting-edge research in some of the most challenging areas confronting the United States, explained Evan J. Hoapili, Stratcom’s deputy director of capabilities and resource integration.

“The purpose of a UARC is to focus a high-level, world-class research university on a specific, enduring, technical hard problem.”

“The idea is to create a continuity of research and focus and generate out-of-the-box thinking to solve a problem that is vexing the department,” Hoapili told American Forces Press Service.

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The Way Ahead For Cybersecurity

Filed under Cyber Security, STEM, Technology by jtozer on February 25, 2013 at 7:03 am {no comments}

The cybersecurity policy President Barack Obama announced during his annual State of the Union address is a step toward protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure,said the commander of U.S. Cyber Command.

Army Gen. Keith B. Alexander, also director of the National Security Agency, joined senior U.S. officials from the White House and the Commerce and Homeland Security departments to discuss strengthening the cybersecurity of the country’s critical infrastructure.

“We need a way of sharing information between government and industry — both for information sharing and hardening our networks,” he said. “I think what we’re doing in the executive order tackles, perhaps, the most difficult issue facing our country: How do we harden these networks when, across all of industry and government, those networks are in various states of array? We’ve got to have a way of reaching out with industry and with government to solve that kind of problem.”

The general said the new cybersecurity policy is important to strengthening the country’s defenses against cyberattacks.

“The systems and assets that our nation depends on for our economy, for our government, even for our national defense, are overwhelmingly owned and operated by industry,” he explained. “We have pushed hard for information sharing.”

Private-sector companies have the information they need to defend their own networks in a timely manner, he said. “However, information sharing alone will not solve this problem,” he added. “Our infrastructure is fragile.” The executive order Obama signed to put the new cybersecurity policy into effect sets up a process for government and industry to start to address the problem, the general said.

But although the president’s new executive order helps to bring about some solutions, Alexander said, it isn’t comprehensive.

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Honoring An Innovator

Filed under Featured, STEM by jtozer on February 11, 2013 at 7:28 am {no comments}

Astronaut John Young leaps from the lunar surface as he salutes the U.S. flag at the Descartes landing site during the Apollo 16 extravehicular activity. Astronaut Charles Duke, Jr. took the photo. The lunar module “Orion” is on the left. The lunar roving vehicle is parked beside Orion and the object behind Young (in the shadow of the lunar module) is the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph. (Photo: NASA)

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Space Science Division (SSD) scientist Dr. George Carruthers has received the 2012 Medal of Technology National and Innovation. This is the nation’s highest honor for technology achievement, and it is bestowed by the president of the United States upon America’s leading innovators.

The award ceremony was held at the White House on February 1, 2013.

Dr. Carruthers grew up during the space race and was intrigued with space science.

While still a boy, he began building telescopes and model rockets and was an enthusiastic reader at the local libraries. His love for space science extended through his youth and eventually led him to pursue degrees in Aeronautical, Nuclear, and Astronomical Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Following his graduate studies, he accepted a position at NRL in 1964, after receiving a fellowship in Rocket Astronomy from the National Science Foundation. Throughout his tenure in the NRL SSD, Dr. Carruthers has focused his attention on far ultraviolet observations of the earth’s upper atmosphere and of astronomical phenomena.

In 1969 he received a patent for his pioneering instrumentation, “Image Converter for Detecting Electromagnetic Radiation Especially in Short Wave Lengths,” which detected electromagnetic radiation in short wave lengths.

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Army Researcher Receives Top White House Award

Filed under Featured, STEM by jtozer on August 18, 2012 at 7:28 am {no comments}

Maria Urso, a researcher from the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine at Natick Soldier Systems Center, in Natick, Mass. will receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers award at the Baird Auditorium at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. (Photo Credit: David Kamm, RDECOM)

A young researcher from the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine has received top honors for scientific excellence.

Maria Urso will receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, or PECASE, at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. She will also go on a White House tour and meet President Barack Obama as part of the whirlwind honors of this award.

Urso will be among nearly 100 other budding scientists and engineers who receive this year’s award based on scientific merit, as well as involvement in the community.

The PECASE is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

“Discoveries in science and technology not only strengthen our economy, they inspire us as a people,” Obama said. “The impressive accomplishments of today’s awardees so early in their careers promise even greater advances in the years ahead.”

Urso, who has worked in U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine’s, or USARIEM’s, Military Performance Division at Natick Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., since 2006, received the award for her scientific contributions in the area of cellular mechanisms of musculoskeletal injury and repair and for her service to both military and civilian communities.

“Getting this award is the greatest thing to happen to me,” Urso said. “To be recognized for the work you are doing, the work you plan to do and the contributions you have made to the community. There is no greater honor at this point in my career. I still cannot grasp the fact that I was selected.”

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Wanted: Robot. Willing To Pay $2M

Filed under Challenge, Robots by jtozer on April 16, 2012 at 7:40 am {2 comments}

Written by Jessica L. Tozer

Hey you, robot enthusiast!

Do you want two million dollars? Can you build amazing robots? If so, have we got the most awesome contest FOR YOU! No, seriously. This isn’t the premise for a 1980′s SciFi action flick. This is for real, folks.

Hey, haven't I seen you in a video game somewhere? (Artist's concept image courtesy of DARPA)

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is offering millions to the person who creates a robot designed to handle disasters of epic proportion. The kind humans can’t handle, no matter how noble or determined we are. No, not the asteriod-hurling-to-Earth type (although truthfully that would currently fall into the things-we-can’t-handle-no-seriously-Bruce-Willis-isn’t-going-to-save-us category).

All epic movie montages aside, DARPA really is looking for robots that can handle things that are too dangerous for humans, like the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant last year.

This is more than just the work of a machine. This robot has to go above and beyond the call of autonomous duty in order to handle the kind of crisis we’re talking about. As awesome as that sounds, it’s not quite as unprecedented as you might think.

The truth is, the use of robots in serious situations is nothing new.

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White House S&T Advisor Tours the Naval Research Laboratory

Filed under Education & Culture, STEM, Technology by glenn.selby on March 24, 2012 at 10:42 am {no comments}

Director of the Institute for Nanoscience at the NRL, Dr. Eric Snow, briefs Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Dr. John P. Holdren, during a tour of NRL prior to attending the opening of the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research. (U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released)

Advisor to President Barack Obama for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Dr. John P. Holdren visited the Navy’s corporate laboratory, March 16, to dedicate the opening of the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR) and tour the sprawling 130-acre Washington, D.C., campus.

“For nearly 90 years NRL has served the Navy, Marine Corps and our Nation in ever evolving capacities,” said Dr. Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “This new facility, dedicated today, builds on a grand NRL tradition of military research and innovation.”

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), established through Congress in 1976, is mandated to advise the President and others within the Executive Office of the President on the effects of science and technology (S&T) on domestic and international affairs and lead interagency efforts to develop and implement sound S&T policies and budgets to provide the greatest benefit to society.

With the objective to enable continued scientific leadership in autonomy, the state-of-the-art laboratory will become the nerve center for autonomy research for the Department of Defense (DoD) and will provide specialized facilities to support highly innovative research in intelligent autonomy, sensor systems, power and energy systems, human-system interaction and network and communications platforms.

“Today, the Navy and Marine Corps rely on robotics and autonomous systems for a host of missions, including unmanned air vehicles providing intelligence in Afghanistan, robots that defeat improvised explosive devices, and submersibles that explore the depths of the ocean,” added Holdren.

To see a photo album form Dr. Holdren’s tour of the research facilities, visit the Naval Research Laboratory’s Facebook Page.

Read the full story at the Naval Research Laboratory’s website.

DOD Develops Cyberspace Rules of Engagement

Filed under Cyber Security, Featured, STEM, Technology by glenn.selby on March 23, 2012 at 8:25 am {no comments}

By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

Whether by land, sea or air, Defense Department leaders have long crafted rules of engagement to determine how, where and when forces can attack the enemy. They expect soon to complete the same for their newest domain: cyberspace, the assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs said today.

“We are working closely with the Joint Staff on the implementation of a transitional command-and-control model for cyberspace operations” while reviewing existing rules of engagement, Madelyn R. Creedon told the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities.

Teresa M. Takai, DOD’s chief information officer, and Army Gen. Keith Alexander, commander of U.S. Cyber Command, joined Creedon at the hearing.

“This interim framework,” Creedon told the panel, “will standardize existing organizational structures and command relationships across the department for the application of the full spectrum of cyberspace capabilities.”

Describing DOD’s strategies for operating in cyberspace, Creedon said the department maintains more than 15,000 network enclaves and 7 million computing devices in installations around the globe.

“DOD continues to develop effective strategies for ensuring the United States is prepared for all cyber contingencies along the entire spectrum,” she added, “from peace to crisis to war.”

In times of fiscal constraint, Creedon said, DOD also is taking advantage of efficiencies provided by information technology advances.

“The department has been working around the clock, often in close cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies,” she said, to protect the nation from cyber threats that include the theft of intellectual property, as well as damage to the defense industrial base, the economy and national security.

The department hit a “significant milestone” last July with the release of its first strategy for operating in cyberspace, Creedon said. The document builds on President Barack Obama’s International Strategy for Cyberspace and the DOD Quadrennial Defense Review, and guides the department’s military, business and intelligence activities in cyberspace in support of national interests, she said.

The DOD works closely with colleagues in the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State, Treasury, Commerce and other agencies, she added, and pursues bilateral and multilateral engagements to enhance security and develop norms of behavior in cyberspace.

Takai told the panel that DOD’s $37 billion information technology budget request for fiscal year 2013 includes a range of IT investments, including $3.4 billion for cyber security efforts to protect information, information systems and networks against known cyber vulnerabilities.

It also includes $182 million for Cyber Command for cyber network defense, cryptographic systems, communications security, network resiliency, workforce development, and development of cyber security standards and technologies department-wide.

Among efforts to improve effectiveness and efficiency, Takai explained, “is consolidation of the department’s IT infrastructure, networks, computing services, data centers, application and data services, while simultaneously improving the ability to defend that infrastructure against growing cyber threats.”

Her office is leading the implementation of the initiatives, the chief information officer added, “but it is important that we work closely with the services, Joint Staff and U.S. Cyber Command to more aggressively modernize our overall information systems.”

A pillar of that modernization is a move to a single, joint network architecture, Takai said, allowing DOD and Cyber Command better visibility into network activity and better defense against cyber attacks.

Individually, she said, the services and agencies have taken action to better position the information enterprise and security posture.

The department has made significant progress in several areas, Takai said. One effort involved deploying a modular system called a host-based security system that enhances situational awareness of the network and improves the ability to detect, diagnose and react to cyber intrusions.

“We’ve also taken the lead in assessing the risk of the global supply chain to our critical information and communications technology,” Takai added, and has instituted a successful defense industrial base cyber security and information assurance program.

Alexander said cyber defense requires contributions not only from DOD, but from Homeland Security, the FBI, and the Defense Information Systems Agency — “all key partners in helping us do our cyber mission.”

Cyber space is becoming more dangerous, he added.

“The intelligence community’s worldwide threat brief to Congress in January raised cyber threats to just behind terrorism and [nuclear] proliferation in its list of the biggest challenges facing the nation.”

The task of assuring cyberspace access, the general said, “has drawn the attention of our nation’s most senior leaders over the last year and their decisions have helped to clarify what we can and must do about developments that greatly concern us.”

Cyber Command is specifically charged with directing the security, operation and defense of DOD’s information systems, he added, “but our work and actions are affected by threats well outside DOD networks … threats the nation cannot afford to ignore.”

Dangers are not something new in cyberspace.

“Nation-state actors in cyberspace are riding a tide of criminality,” the general said. “Several nations have turned their resources and power against us and foreign businesses and enterprises, even those that manage critical infrastructure in this country, and others.”

For the panel, Alexander described five key areas Cyber Command is working on:

– Building the enterprise and training the force;
–Developing a defensible architecture;

–Getting authorities needed to operate in cyberspace;

–Setting the teamwork properly across U.S. government agencies; and

–Creating a concept of operations for operating in cyberspace.

“I think we’re making progress,” Alexander said, “but … the risks that face our country are growing faster than our progress and we have to work hard on that.”

Check out the Defense.gov special on Cyber Security.