Have you ever heard of “Allostatic Load” and “Operator Syndrome?”
I stumbled across the work of Christopher Frueh while doing some research on physiological, psychological and hormonal stress mitigation. Frueh, along with his team of researchers, psychologists and former SOF operators, has been exploring the human mind, defining PTSD and outlining Special Operator’s Syndrome. This is one of the only programs in the country specifically designed to help those suffering from this condition.
“Allostatic load” is the cost on your body of chronic stress and physical demands of a career with the military special forces, according to Science Direct. The military recipe for “burning the candle at both ends” includes high intensity physical fitness training, the high stress of operations and being away from home, the trauma of witnessing death, war or injury. Add in the inability to sleep or eat well, and the operator limits the two main recovery responses, which leads to chronic stress. This adds up to Allostatic Overload.
The Air Force Research Laboratory awarded SpaceX an $8.5 million contract to investigate manufacturing techniques for heat shields that protect hypersonic vehicles in flight.
WASHINGTON — The Air Force Research Laboratory awarded SpaceX an $8.5 million contract to investigate advanced materials and manufacturing techniques for heat shields that protect hypersonic vehicles in flight.
Heat protection is a critical technology to shield hypersonic vehicles from the intense heat experienced when flying at more than five times the speed of sound.
The Defense Department is hungry for small drones that will track objects and fly into buildings, combat zones and other dangerous areas with little help from remote pilots. Self-piloting drones will become a key part of fighting and other military activities in the years to come, said Mike Brown, director of the Defense Innovation Unit, a Pentagon organization that aims to facilitate cooperation between the military and the tech industry.
While much has been made of tech’s unwillingness to work with the Pentagon, start-ups are still plumbing the industry’s decades-long ties to the military.
The unit has yet to actually send power directly back to Earth, but that technology has already been proven. If the project develops into huge kilometers-wide space solar antennae, it could beam microwaves that would then be converted into fuel-free electricity to any part of the planet at a moment’s notice.
Scientists working for the Pentagon have successfully tested a solar panel the size of a pizza box in space, designed as a prototype for a future system to send electricity from space back to any point on Earth.
Things are getting pretty heated in the South China Sea.
The United States and China are engaged in the first military back-and-forth of the new year, sending many ships and aircraft into the South China Sea over the past few days.
This latest round kicked off with the return of an American carrier battle group to the region, followed by an unprecedented flight of eight Chinese bombers into nearby Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). Both sides piled on more fighters, surveillance aircraft, and bombers, making this dance-off a considerable escalation over previous years.
Dr. Hassan A. Tetteh, MD, is the Health Mission Chief, at the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, serving to advance the objectives of the DoD AI Strategy, and improve war fighter healthcare and readiness with artificial intelligence implementations.
Dr. Tetteh is also an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, adjunct faculty at Howard University College of Medicine, a Thoracic Staff Surgeon for MedStar Health and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and leads a Specialized Thoracic Adapted Recovery (STAR) Team, in Washington, DC, where his research in thoracic transplantation aims to expand heart and lung recovery and save lives.
In the past, Dr. Tetteh has served as Chief Medical Informatics Officer, United States Navy, and Division Lead for Futures and Innovation at Navy Medicine’s Headquarters, a Command Surgeon for the National Defense University, and as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, assigned to the U.S. Congress, Congressional Budget Office, (CBO).
Dr. Tetteh served as Ship’s Surgeon and Director of Surgical Services for the USS Carl Vinson battle group in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, deployed as a trauma surgeon to Afghanistan’s Helmand and Nimroz provinces in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, and has supported special joint forces missions to South America, the Middle East, the South Pacific, Australia, and Africa. He earned both the Surface Warfare Medical Department Officer and Fleet Marine Force Qualified Officer designations, and his military honors include two Meritorious Service Medals and the Joint Service Commendation Medal.
Dr. Tetteh is also an accomplished author, including the novel “Gifts of the Heart”, “Star Patrol” (co-authored with his son Edmund Tetteh), as well as “The Art of Human Care” and “The Art of Human Care for COVID-19″ (illustrated by his daughter Ella Bleue), and has published numerous articles on surgical innovation, health information technology, ethics, wounded warriors, and process improvement. He also serves on the board of directors for the Brooklyn, New York based Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, Fayetteville, Arkansas based Champions for Kids, and Miriam’s Kitchen, a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit that works to end chronic homelessness.
Dr. Tetteh received his B.S. from State University of New York (SUNY), his M.D. from SUNY Downstate Medical Center, his M.P.A. from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, M.B.A. from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, and M.S. in National Security Strategy with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence from the National War College. He completed his thoracic surgery fellowship at the University of Minnesota and advanced cardiac surgery fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Tetteh is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management, board certified in thoracic surgery, general surgery, clinical informatics, and healthcare management, and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
This bolt-on system creates a drone that can fly straight out of your fabricator.
It’s been very cool to watch 3D printers and laser cutters evolve into fairly common tools over the last decade-ish, finding useful niches across research, industry, and even with hobbyists at home. Capable as these fabricators are, they tend to be good at just one specific thing: making shapes out of polymer. Which is great! But we have all kinds of other techniques for making things that are even more useful, like by adding computers and actuators and stuff like that. You just can’t do that with your 3D printer or laser cutter, because it just does its one thing—which is too bad.
Instead of firing missiles, planes may carry and launch unmanned drones that will be able to shoot their own missiles to search and destroy targets.
Aerospace giant Northrop Grumman is wasting no time in this competition.
Just two days after DARPA named it as one of three competitors for the LongShot contract, the company released an image of its concept for an air-launched unmanned aircraft system (UAS), Aviation Week reported.
Imagine an unmanned aircraft, speeding ahead of its launch aircraft, that itself can fire multiple air-to-air intercept missiles that can seek out and destroy.
