Researchers at Binghamton University are using computer vision and machine-learning to detect landmines from aerial images. Their results reveal the importance of out-of-sample (OOS) testing, which evaluates a model on independently collected images beyond the dataset used to train and tune it. “It’s easy to get numbers in the 80 or 90 percent range if you’re not doing out-of-sample testing,” said…
2026 R&D layoff tracker: Healthcare and chemical sectors spike while defense backlogs and chip demand hold strong
U.S. employers announced 108,435 job cuts in January 2026, the highest January total since 2009 and a 118% jump from the same month last year. But the headline number, driven largely by UPS shedding 30,000 workers after severing ties with Amazon and Amazon’s own 16,000-person management restructuring, obscures what’s happening underneath in R&D-intensive industries. Healthcare…
Former LLNL, Los Alamos director Anastasio receives 2025 Foster Medal for nuclear security leadership
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Director Kim Budil announced today that Michael R. Anastasio is the recipient of the 2025 John S. Foster Jr. Medal. Anastasio is the only person to have served as director of both Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories The honor cites Anastasio’s four-decade role in U.S. stockpile stewardship, work…
Sandia team designs and builds deployable high-security vault in six months
High-security vaults have long been used to protect nuclear weapons and materials from theft, sabotage or unauthorized access, typically in permanent bunkers or fixed facilities like the Weapons Storage and Security System vaults embedded in NATO aircraft shelters. For transport, specialized trailers such as the Safe Secure Transport developed in the 1970s have provided secure…