Lifeboat Foundation

With the onset of first snow and sub-zero temperatures in East Ladakh, the Indian Army troopers, equipped with US-made blizzard masks, have settled down for the winter against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with the focus of national security planners now shifting to beefing maritime security.

While the four-nation QUAD multilateral exercises under Malabar begin next Tuesday, the Indian military planners have decided to give top priority to Eastern Naval Command and island territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep to counter any threat from PLA Navy in Indian Ocean. The Western Naval Command has also been asked to spread out its assets with Karwar base in Karnataka as focus.

The plan follows a security assessment that pitched concern around China’s PLA Navy way over the maritime threat from the Pakistan Navy.

New research^[1] presented at the 29th EADV Congress, EADV Virtual, shows that socks coated in zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) can prevent bromodosis (foot odor) and pitted keratolysis (bacterial infection causing smelly feet), reducing the negative impact this embarrassing condition has on quality of life.^[2]

Developed by the Royal Thai Airforce, the ZnO-NP-coated socks were trialed in a real-life setting by researchers at Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University in Thailand. They found that the antibacterial efficacy of ZnO-NPs, along with its safety and compatibility with human skin, makes it the perfect compound to incorporate into textiles, including socks, to prevent unpleasant foot odor.

The double-blinded, randomized, controlled trial was conducted with 148 cadets at the Thai Naval Rating School. Bromodosis and pitted keratolysis are a common complaint in military personnel, with foot lesions, including pitted keratosis, occurring in over a third of naval cadets in Thailand (38.5%).^[2]

Senior U.S. officials revealed Thursday that security threats have been made against top Pentagon authorities not only when traveling outside the U.S., but when on American soil.

Frist reported by NBC News on Thursday and verified for Fox News by a senior Department of Defense representative, security officials believe the threats made could be linked to the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani by American forces in January, though definitive links could not reportedly be made.

The names of the Pentagon officials were not released, but they are believed to have been senior leadership involved in the operation that oversaw the takedown of Soleimani. Military leaders have also reportedly been targeted.

SpaceX is preparing to conduct a national security mission for the United States Space Force. The aerospace company is tasked to deploy the military’s fourth new-generation series Global Positioning System satellite, known as GPS-III Space Vehicle 04. On October 2nd, SpaceX attempted to launch the satellite to orbit but at around two seconds before the 9:43 p.m. EDT liftoff time, launch controllers aborted the launch at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 40.

During the Live broadcast of the launch attempt the Principal Integration Engineer at SpaceX John Insprucker said the next launch opportunity for this mission is on Saturday, October 3rd at 9:39 p.m. EDT. but the rocket did not attempt a second launch because SpaceX found issues on one of the Falcon 9 rocket’s nine Merlin 1D engines. According to SpaceX founder and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, the Falcon 9 rocket carrying the GPS-III satellite experienced an “unexpected pressure rise in the turbomachinery gas generator,” he wrote. “… We’re doing a broad review of launch site, propulsion, structures, avionics, range & regulatory constraints this weekend. I will also be at the Cape next week to review hardware in person,” he said early October.

SpaceX’s Vice President of build and flight reliability, Hans Koenigsmann, said during a news conference on October 28th that SpaceX engineers worked alongside the U.S. Space Force and NASA to perform a deep investigation into the issue. They came to the conclusion that the Falcon 9 engine issue was due to a residue of a “masking lacquer” designed to protect sensitive parts during anti-corrosion anodizing treatment. Koenigsmann told reporters the SpaceX vendor that performed the lacquer coating treatment failed to remove all of the lacquer afterward, causing a blockage of small vent holes for Merlin engine valves. “It’s not necessarily bad,” he said, “In most cases, it rattles the engine, and it may cause a little bit of damage to the engine. In extreme cases, it may cause more damage to the engine.” SpaceX officials announced they would fix the issue by replacing the engine. Now, SpaceX targets to deploy GPS-III Space Vehicle 04 satellite atop the Falcon 9 no earlier than Thursday, November 5th at 6:24 p.m. EDT [date is subject to change]. This mission is important for the United States because the GPS-III satellite is designed to upgrade the satellite constellation that actively provides navigation services to over 4 billion users.

As the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) explores designs for a ship that could operate without humans aboard, the agency is keeping the Navy involved in the effort to ensure it progresses forward should the program’s work succeed.

While the Navy is creating unmanned surface vehicles based off designs meant for ships that could bring humans aboard, the No Manning Required Ship (NOMARS) program is the first to pursue a design that takes humans out of the calculation.

Gregory Avicola, the NOMARS program manager, told USNI News in a recent interview that DARPA has had conversations with Navy offices like PMS-406, the service’s program executive office for unmanned and small combatants, and the Surface Development Squadron, which has been tasked with developing the concept of operations for unmanned surface vehicles, since the agency started the NOMARS initiative.

Military hierarchies are, by necessity, rigid structures. DARPA’s ‘Mosaic Warfare’ project aims for something much more fluid and adaptable, with AI doing the logistical grunt work so human commanders can get creative.

Tuomas Sandholm, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, is not a poker player—or much of a poker fan, in fact—but he is fascinated by the game for much the same reason as the great game theorist John von Neumann before him. Von Neumann, who died in 1957, viewed poker as the perfect model for human decision making, for finding the balance between skill and chance that accompanies our every choice. He saw poker as the ultimate strategic challenge, combining as it does not just the mathematical elements of a game like chess but the uniquely human, psychological angles that are more difficult to model precisely—a view shared years later by Sandholm in his research with artificial intelligence.

“Poker is the main benchmark and challenge program for games of imperfect information,” Sandholm told me on a warm spring afternoon in 2018, when we met in his offices in Pittsburgh. The game, it turns out, has become the gold standard for developing artificial intelligence.

Tall and thin, with wire-frame glasses and neat brow hair framing a friendly face, Sandholm is behind the creation of three computer programs designed to test their mettle against human poker players: Claudico, Libratus, and most recently, Pluribus. (When we met, Libratus was still a toddler and Pluribus didn’t yet exist.) The goal isn’t to solve poker, as such, but to create algorithms whose decision making prowess in poker’s world of imperfect information and stochastic situations—situations that are randomly determined and unable to be predicted—can then be applied to other stochastic realms, like the military, business, government, cybersecurity, even health care.

The U.S. Army’s next-generation infantry fighting vehicle could feature German DNA. German defense contractor Rheinmetall is teaming up with American defense contractor Raytheon to offer the company’s KF41 Lynx infantry fighting vehicle to the U.S. Army. The Army is looking to replace its thousands of M2 Bradley fighting vehicles with a newer design that is not only better in every way, but also has the ability to be remotely controlled on the battlefield.

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Japan and the United States on Monday began air, sea and land exercises around Japan in a show of force in the face of increased Chinese military activity in the region. The Keen Sword exercise is the first big drill since Yoshihide Suga became Japan’s prime minister last month with a vow to continue the military build-up aimed at countering China.