Army Program Seeks to Heighten Soldiers’ Cognition
A properly trained soldier can distinguish a vegetarian from a meat-eater based on their smell, a new Army publication says, since “different diets produce different human odors.”
He or she can to determine the age, gender and even the mental state of a target by studying their footprints.
Not simply a warrior, the ideal soldier is also an intelligence analyst, a cultural anthropologist, and a student of human nature with the ability to confront and overcome adversity — Sherlock Holmes and Leatherstocking and a bit of Tarzan, all in one.
That, at any rate, seems to be the goal of the US Army’s Advanced Situational Awareness program, which trains soldiers to discern even subtle anomalies in the combat environment, to swiftly assess their implications, and to act decisively in response.

Advanced Situational Awareness “optimizes human performance through building the skills necessary to develop agile, resilient, adaptive, and innovative Soldiers who thrive in conditions of uncertainty and chaos.”
The program was described in Advanced Situational Awareness, US Army Training Circular TC 3-22.69, 316 pages, April 2021.
Let’s see what rules we can rewrite and beliefs we can reset: a few digital service sacred cows are long overdue to be put out to pasture.
Nestled in the cuts and investments of interest to the S&T community is a more complex story of how the administration is approaching the practice of science diplomacy.
Surprise! It’s a double album drop with the release of both the President’s Budget Request (PBR to us, not Pabst Blue Ribbon) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) last Friday.
If properly implemented, a comprehensive reform program to accomplish regulatory democracy that is people-centered and power-conscious could be essential for addressing complex policy changes such as the climate challenge.