DARPA

Treating life-threatening bloodstream infections in combat situations is challenging, especially when the pathogen responsible is unknown. So, DARPA has called on Harvard’s Wyss Institute to use its groundbreaking biotech to fight this deadly threat.

In preparation for a permanent human colony on the Moon, DARPA has awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman to develop a highly ambitious lunar railway concept. It's part of the agency's 10-year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study.

Researchers at Rice University have shown how they can hack the brains of fruit flies to make them remote controlled. The flies performed a specific action within a second of a command being sent to certain neurons in their brain.

In anticipation of future space projects involving giant structures in orbit and on the Moon, DARPA has announced the start of its Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials and Mass-efficient Design (NOM4D) program.

DEET may be an effective mosquito repellent, but it can cause irritation, and has to be reapplied every few hours. Scientists are now working on a more innocuous, longer-laster alternative, that involves introducing genetically engineered bacteria onto the skin.

DARPA is planning to develop a "travel adapter" for the human body. Called the ADvanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness (ADAPTER), the new program aims to produce a device to help soldiers handle jet lag and diarrhea.

A new research program from DARPA is looking to remove those pesky hallucinatory side effects from psychedelic medicines such as MDMA & psilocybin.

Plants aren't likely to be eavesdropping on our conversations anytime soon, but they could be gathering different types of intelligence if a new DARPA program bears fruit. The agency is pursuing research into genetically modifying plants to turn them into self-sustaining surveillance sensors.

DARPA has just announced the Safe Genes program, a project that is set to invest US$65 million over four years in seven teams that will investigate ways to make gene editing technologies safer, more targeted and potentially even reversible.

DARPA's ambitious launch-a-day spaceplane is a step closer to lift off after Boeing announced that it's been assigned the contract to work with the agency to design, build and test a technology demonstration vehicle for the Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program.

Recently, a geneticist was mysteriously abducted in Washington DC, leading to the US government deploying a small army of detectives to foil a dirty bomb plot. At least, that was the fictional scenario of a DARPA field test of the SIGMA project developing technology to combat nuclear terrorism.

​It's one of the basic facts of science: Heat something and it expands. But a team of scientists from LLNL have gone counterintuitive and invented a 3D-printed material that shrinks when heated.