Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) students U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Max Leutermann and Swedish Armed Forces Maj. Patrik Liljegard, developed an innovative solution to NATO’s Bold Machina (BOMA) design challenge, a 90-day sprint “to understand the unique counter uncrewed aerial systems (c-UAS) challenges posed to maritime [special operations forces] combatant craft and propose next steps to close an existing capability gap.”

The NPS BOMA students leveraged their education, operational insights, and prototyping with industry at NPS’ Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) program. The result of the students’ efforts to capitalize on the NPS innovation ecosystem is a novel c-UAS detection system evaluated at sea during the Bold Machina (BOMA) exercise in the Netherlands this past September. 

Throughout the naval forces and across U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), the need to advance national defense applications of artificial intelligence is profound. And the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) continues to answer the call. Announced today, NPS’ brand new Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI) degree will confer the advanced knowledge, skills, and practices necessary to develop, assess, and deploy AI for the U.S. Navy, the joint force and our allied and partner militaries. Graduates through the new program will be prepared to lead AI integration within their communities and across the DOD.

As the New Year approaches, many people resolve to get in shape, but sticking with a new exercise routine can be as much a mental challenge as a physical one. FIU neuroscientist Marcelo Bigliassi says the mind – not the body – is often what holds exercisers back, but the brain can be trained to overcome mental barriers and learn to enjoy exercise. 

Bigliassi, an assistant professor who studies the brain-body connection, has found that even people with low tolerance for exercise discomfort can adapt by gradually exposing themselves to small challenges, effectively raising their threshold for what feels difficult.  

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor James Santiago's new Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) facility represents a key milestone in Santiago’s plans to advance the university’s reputation as a nationally recognized center for CEA and CEA-technology research. 

A team of engineers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed ways to rapidly evaluate new thermal protection materials for hypersonic vehicles. Their three-year research project combined computer modeling, laboratory experiments and flight testing to better understand how heat shields behave under extreme temperatures and pressures, and to predict their performance much faster than before.

JMIR Publications’ News & Perspectives Section Tackles Digital Divide: New Article Explores Innovative Strategies to Bring Rural Americans High-Quality Digital Health Care