Staff Picks

"Beyond delivery, use cases include infrastructure inspections, emergency response, video surveillance, and environmental monitoring. A number of these applications are being tested through partnerships with public authorities, including emergency services. In one example, the fire brigade in a Swiss city was involved in shaping system functionalities for search-and-rescue and emergency response operations." MLH

Tags: publicpicks drones urban

"Sandia National Laboratories serves a unique role in the nuclear security enterprise: lead systems integrator for the nuclear weapons program. The systems integrator ensures that the many complex parts of the weapon and its delivery vehicle work together flawlessly, and that system performance is optimized across all the requirements."

Tags: membernews members federal-labs nuclear publicpicks

"Yet the erosion of public trust in science has significance that goes well beyond any particular policy decision or agency budget. The functioning of modern societies depends on what the English sociologist Anthony Giddens termed "abstract systems": networks of institutions that use technical expertise to "organise large areas of the material and social environments in which we live." From this point of view, the stark polarization of American politics around trust in science not only threatens the legitimacy of particular expert institutions, but also has potentially destabilizing consequences for society as a whole."

Tags: publicpicks trust politics science

"This isn't science fiction. It's ITER, humanity's most ambitious attempt to harness nuclear fusion—the clean and virtually limitless energy source that powers the Sun. Located in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, in southern France, and with a budget approaching €24 billion, ITER brings together 35 countries in an unprecedented scientific effort. The latest critical piece to arrive is the so-called central solenoid, a technological marvel built in the United States. This "magnetic heart" can generate fields powerful enough to trap the superheated plasma needed for fusion reactions. In simpler terms: it's what prevents the miniature sun inside the reactor from spiraling out of control." MLH

Tags: publicpicks fusion

"The office’s latest innovation is known as “Captain Record.” This tool was built to help SOS obtain insights from more than 100 years of documents, making unstructured data searchable for staff, said Robert Fulk, CIO of SOS. A lot of this data was previously “locked up” in PDF formats, he said. The new tool makes tens of millions of records searchable with AI, from business filings to auto dealer records to historical licensing information. These could include PDFs and handwritten documents from decades past. SOS staff can communicate in plain language to ask the model a question or find information." --CAN

Tags: indiana publicpicks artificial intelligence

"Many recent policy actions have aimed at a reduction in the size of the federal workforce, including a reduction-in-force, a hiring freeze, buyouts, and early retirement incentives. As the federal government is the largest single US employer—an estimated over 8 million employees are either employed directly by the federal government or are supported by federal contracts and grants—these policies could have important implications for the labor market.1 In this blog post, I first document the size and characteristics of the federal workforce in September 2024, before these policies were enacted, and then explore actual and potential reductions in the full federally supported workforce. I estimate that the potential reduction in the full federal workforce, including contract and grant employees, could be as high as 1.2 million." MLH

Tags: impact labor market federal employment publicpicks

"Every year, American universities spend millions of dollars patenting inventions developed on their campuses. Big names such as Stanford and the University of California system lead the pack in patent activity, but hundreds of other universities are also trying to strike gold by monetizing intellectual property. The idea is simple: By investing in patents and selling or licensing them to industry, the university will profit. But in practice, this strategy rarely pays off." (gms)

Tags: patents tech transfer higher_ed publicpicks

"New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine made history in 2018 when it became the first top-ranked medical program to offer full-tuition scholarships to all students, regardless of need or merit.  The number of applicants, predictably, spiked in the year that followed. But then, the share of incoming students considered “financially disadvantaged” sank to 3% in 2019, down from 12% in 2017, reports showed.  “Tuition-free schools can actually increase inequity,” said Jamie Beaton, co-founder and CEO of Crimson Education, a college consulting firm.  “Tuition-free colleges experience surges in application numbers, dramatically boosting the competitive intensity of the admissions process,” he said. “This in turn can skew admissions towards middle- or higher-income applicants who may be able to access more effective admissions resources, such as tutoring or extracurriculars.”" MLH

Tags: tuition free publicpicks

"Successful entrepreneurs know how to thrive amid uncertainty. They pare down to the essentials. They lean into change. And they solve problems by sidestepping traditional constraints. With that in mind, we asked four entrepreneurs in residence at the Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship at MIT for advice on managing risk, harnessing artificial intelligence, and launching during uncertain times. "

Tags: mit entrepreneurs publicpicks

" AI “agents” are coming, whether we are ready or not. While there is much uncertainty about when AI models will be able to interact autonomously with digital platforms, other AI tools, and even humans, there can be little doubt that this development will be transformative – for better or worse. Yet despite all the commentary (and hype) around agentic AI, many big questions remain unaddressed, the biggest being which type of AI agent the tech industry is seeking to develop?" MLH

Tags: publicpicks ai

"Since the COVID-19 pandemic, changes in occupied office space in metropolitan downtowns have varied widely across the United States. This variation in the change in occupied office space across downtowns could be due to variation in the composition of employment or the desirability of working in specific downtowns. Some occupations are better suited to remote work than others, and some industries have embraced remote work more enthusiastically than others. In addition, some downtowns may be less desirable places to work due to a wide range of factors, such as the availability of public transit, parking, walkable amenities, public safety, or the quality of existing office buildings. Using detailed data on leased office space, Jordan Rappaport documents that changes in occupied office space since the pandemic have varied widely across both downtowns and neighborhoods within the same downtown. Using detailed data on the composition of employment, he finds that variations in occupation and industry can account for only a modest share of the variation in the change in occupied office space across and within downtowns. Instead, most of the variation is likely attributable to other characteristics that make some downtowns more desirable places to work than others." MLH

Tags: office downtown publicpicks

"These findings, from Gallup’s annual Environment poll conducted March 3-16, come as big technology companies, including Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon, have joined large financial institutions in pledging to greatly increase nuclear power. With artificial intelligence data centers on the rise, tech companies are finding that their energy needs will exceed what is available from other energy sources." -CAN

Tags: publicpicks nuclear energy

"Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) constitute an integral part of the US economy, driving job creation and economic growth. They account for approximately half of private-sector employment and play a crucial role in fostering competition, all the while supporting local communities. Yet, little if any research has focused on how SMB decision-makers think about the economy and how policy changes could affect their decisions. We use a survey of SMB decision-makers that we developed to foray into such research." MLH

Tags: tariffs publicpicks

"Germany will get a new “super–high-tech ministry” responsible for research, technology, and aerospace, according to the coalition agreement published by the incoming government this week."

Tags: publicpicks germany research technology aerospace

"2025 FLC National Meeting Now Virtual and Free to Attend The updated schedule is available here (subject to updates). REGISTER NOW! To better serve our federal tech transfer community, the 2025 FLC National Meeting is moving to a virtual format. This change is in response to the February 26 Executive Order and its impact on travel and spending. The virtual event will kick off on May 13, and feature several courses and sessions each week through June 5.  The updated schedule is available soon. If you have questions, please contact us at info@federallabs.org. "

Tags: federal labs techtransfer publicpicks

"Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has announced a transformative $10 million gift from alumnus Niles Noblitt and his wife, Nancy, to establish the Noblitt Entrepreneurship Program (NEP), a newly endowed initiative focused on fostering innovation, entrepreneurship, and business-focused opportunities for students. The announcement was made during the college’s annual Sawmill Society weekend, a gathering of entrepreneurial alumni and students who network and mentor while learning more about the next generation of innovators at Rose-Hulman."

Tags: publicpicks

"housands of workers have been laid off at the Department of Health and Human Services and now we can include in that the dismantling of HHS' Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization. The entire OSDBU staff has been forced out by the agency, except for executive director Shannon Jackson."

Tags: publicpicks