Moletronics, Insonification, and More from JASON
Nearly two dozen reports from the JASON defense advisory panel have just been added to the archive of JASON reports on the Federation of American Scientists website.
New additions (all pdf) include a 2004 report on “DNA Barcodes and Watermarks,” a 2001 report on “Moletronics” or molecular electronics, and a 1998 report on “Insonification for Area Denial” (where “insonification” means the projection of focused sound waves). Scanned copies of older JASON reports have been OCR’d to render them word searchable.
A partial, chronological list of unclassified JASON titles from 1963 to 2009 (pdf) was prepared by Allen Thomson, who also helped gather the latest additions to the online collection.
The JASON panel is regularly tasked to investigate challenging, complex issues that are on the horizon if not the forefront of defense science. But many of the panel’s reports are sufficiently well written that they are at least partially intelligible to non-specialists. No new JASON reports have been approved for public release since October 2009.
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