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" Today, I exercised my privileges as PM&amp;#039;s science editor to get a sneak peek at some of the cutting-edge research happening at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). After relinquishing my social security number for a lanyard and ID tag, I was soon being waved into the most restricted buildings in Idaho Falls. Ever wonder just what goes on behind the closed doors of a Department of Energy facility? Here&amp;#039;s your chance to find out. \u2014Jennifer Bogo 10 a.m. &amp;quot;Let me tell you about my history with Popular Mechanics,&amp;quot; says INL nuclear physicist Gus Caffrey. &amp;quot;I was given a subscription to the magazine when I was only 7 years old. As a kid, I didn&amp;#039;t get to see many industrial or technical things, and I liked it very much.&amp;quot; He flips open a notebook and draws a rectangle with a circle on either side, sketching from memory something he once saw in PM. &amp;quot;This is a hovercraft,&amp;quot; he says, gesturing with his pencil. &amp;quot;You promised I would have one by 1975.&amp;quot; (Um, sorry, Gus, but that was before my time. May I suggest a nice personal air vehicle instead?) Caffrey&amp;#039;s childhood interest in science and technology has found a mature home here at the national lab. His specialty is nuclear nonproliferation. INL built the first reactor in the world to generate electricity from nuclear power, and it&amp;#039;s slated to be the site of an exotic new demonstration plant. But &amp;quot;nuclear power will only have a role in the U.S. if it&amp;#039;s perceived as safe and economical,&amp;quot; Caffrey says. One of the concerns is that spent fuel rods will be diverted for nefarious purposes, so Caffrey and his colleagues are developing technology, such as a columnated detector, to determine if anyone has tampered with the contents of spent fuel casks. They are also working on a way to detect radioactive material in standard shipping containers\u2014namely by shooting them with high-energy gamma rays. 10:40 a.m. Tall gray &amp;quot;pods&amp;quot; line a backroom in the Control Systems and Cyber Security Test Center, a relatively new endeavor for the 57-year-old national lab. A joint project of the Department of Energy and Homeland Security, this is where cyber security experts (ie. experts at hacking) look for vulnerabilities in SCADA systems donated by manufacturers such as Areva. Power, chemical, water and telecommunications infrastructure are all run by specialized control systems, which Infrastructure Protection Strategist Michael Assante tells me are an all too vulnerable fusion of old and new tech. After devising creative ways to hack into software, INL&amp;#039;s cyber experts tell its owners how to fix and protect it\u2014ensuring one less avenue for anyone who wants to mess with the grid. 1:10 p.m. Chemical scientist Mason Harrup has a thick southern accent\u2014really thick. He says &amp;quot;phosphosine&amp;quot; like it&amp;#039;s a brand of Tennessee whiskey. It is actually a viscous amber goo with excellent conductive properties that he&amp;#039;s holding upside down in a vial. Harrup picks up a thin sheet of polymer to demonstrate how he has just reinvented the lithium-ion battery. By combining phosphosine with ceramics in just the right way, he&amp;#039;s invented a solid electrolyte that preserves conductivity and solves the insidious problem of the slowly leaking current. At near 100 percent efficiency, and a low but steady electric flow, the batteries will soon find their way into biomedical devices like pacemakers, where it&amp;#039;s best to have a battery that doesn&amp;#039;t run out of juice. They will also be ideal for use in space: Liquid electrolytes in conventional lithium-ion batteries freeze at 0 F; these are still operational at minus 200 F.  2:25 p.m. Kevin Kenney, Christopher Wright and I are sitting in an upstairs conference room where we put on dark sunglasses and then turn off the lights. On a screen before us grain flows through a 3-D combine, and the two scientists talk about how virtual engineering\u2014software able to run a slew of models in one simulation\u2014can be used to solve some of the problems facing biofuels today. Kenney and Wright are trying to figure out how to make cellulosic ethanol production compatible with no-till farming practices, which by definition leaves feedstock lying on the field. Installing a sheet metal baffle in a combine at just the right angle, they discovered, separates the straw from the chaff\u2014increasing the value of the feedstock that goes to the processing plant while leaving less valuable organic material in the field as fertilizer. 3:20 p.m. When I walk into INL&amp;#039;s robotics lab, I have a pretty good grasp of the obstacles I need to navigate to reach principal research scientist Douglas Few. I&amp;#039;m not the only one. A red ATRV-Jr. is cruising around, too, creating a map of walls and tables and even people that is projected like blue legos onto a nearby monitor. The Tonka-like vehicle is equipped with an Intelligence Kernel, Few explains\u2014software architecture that will allow any robot to autonomously avoid obstacles, plan paths, track objects, build maps and be controlled with different levels of operator intervention. Whether a robot is &amp;quot;searching for mines, mapping high radiation areas, conducting urban search and rescue, or is Rosie, the Jetson&amp;#039;s maid, it needs the same basic behaviors,&amp;quot; Few says. When recently installed in a countermine robot, the Intelligence Kernel proved more accurate than humans at seeking out and recording the location of buried landmines. The lab is now working with iRobot to give intelligence capabilities to PackBots used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Intelligent robots: ATRV-Jr. and PackBot at Idaho National Lab. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a785/3434746/>