The Department of Health and Human Services is developing ways to use behavioral-based identity capabilities to improve security authentication procedures and move beyond traditional identifiers such as passwords, Nextgov reported Wedesday.

Jose Arrieta, chief information officer of HHS, told attendees at the Nextgov Emerging Technology Summit in Washington, D.C. that the joint effort with the Defense Information Systems Agency builds on HHS’ progress on the HHS Accelerate capability based on blockchain technology. He explained that the new identity authentication capability will bring such technologies to the network’s edge and use 240 behavioral-based characteristics like fingerprints and facial scans to verify the identity of a user.

HHS is currently identifying ways on how to test the capability in the department’s distributed network.

The Department of Energy plans to award $27.6M in grants supporting data science research efforts to speed up discovery capabilities in material sciences and chemistry. DOE said Wednesday that it intends to use the research projects to comprehend chemical properties and related processes that may support the creation of superconductors, alloys and approaches in material synthesis and chemical separation.

“The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other data science techniques is creating new opportunities for advances in chemistry and material sciences,” said Rick Perry, secretary of DOE.

Perry added the initiative will help uncover discoveries that may affect U.S. energy and technological capacities. The agency will pick five national laboratories and 14 universities through a competitive peer review process with the Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Additionally, DOE will obligate $16.5M from fiscal year 2019 funds for the program.

Lisa Costa, chief information officer at U.S. Special Operations Command, told C4ISRNET in an interview published Wednesday that software-defined networking, next-gen laptop and Special Operations Forces hybrid cloud are the emerging networking capabilities SOCOM is investigating. Costa said SOCOM’s cloud strategy is based on application modernization and cloud development.

“The command leverages hyperconverged infrastructure already on the network to host private cloud and take advantage of commercial cloud providers to host our containerized applications,” she added. She cited some of the challenges that SOCOM faces with networked communications, including the increasing demand for near real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data, cybersecurity and IPv6.

Costa said the command is fielding application-centric infrastructure, which she said “will provide orchestration capability, as well as a firewall-like capability to manage network traffic.” She also mentioned SOCOM’s role in the development of the Link 16 AN/PRC-161 handheld tactical radio, AN/PRC-163 handheld radio and the NG Manpack RF-345 tactical radio and the command’s efforts to advance the 5G technology.

Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Keyport took part in a two-week exercise to help marines evaluate new prototype technologies. The Fight the Naval Force Forward Advanced Naval Technology Exercise took place at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina from July 9 to 19, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday.

The event covered tests of technologies designed for various marine operations such as logistics, force protection, communications and command and control. The NUWC team assessed a common unmanned surface vehicle and MRZR, an all-terrain vehicle built to accommodate high-bandwidth communications.

“I think the ANTX is important because it has the potential to significantly speed up the acquisition process,” said Laura Mortimore, a member of the NUWC Division Keyport’s Non-Traditional Programs Office.

The team also tested a shipping container with 3D printers that marines would use to manufacture parts as needed. The exercise’s final day featured demonstrations of projects by various senior officials within the Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.