North Korean officials are looking for new medicines to treat Kim Jong Un’s health problems related to obesity, including high blood pressure and diabetes, according to South Korea’s spy agency. Kim has regained weight and appears to be about 140 kilograms (308 pounds) again, putting him at high risk of heart disease. He has shown … Read more
Scientists have developed a new method to break down toxic “forever chemicals” at room temperature and without using UV light. The technique is effective, breaking down 100% of certain pollutants overnight. This method can recover useful components for reuse. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are stable and resistant to water and heat due to their … Read more
Hackers found a way to create Google Workspace accounts without verifying their email addresses. They did this by using a special request that tricked the verification process. Once they had an account, they could log in to third-party services that use “Sign in with Google” for authentication. Google’s engineers confirmed that hackers were already using … Read more
Microsoft: Ransomware gangs exploit VMware ESXi auth bypass in attacks July 29, 2024 01:06 PM Microsoft warns that ransomware gangs are actively exploiting a VMware ESXi authentication bypass vulnerability (CVE-2024-37085) in attacks. This medium-severity security flaw was discovered by Microsoft researchers and fixed with the release of ESXi 8.0 U3 on June 25. The bug … Read more
As biotech startups develop ways to resurrect the woolly mammoth, an international team of scientists have reconstructed the iconic Ice Age beast’s 28 pairs of chromosomes. This genetic breakthrough was made possible by a chromosome extracted from a 52,000-year-old mammoth that freeze-dried soon after death in northeastern Siberia. This fossilized chromosome provides unprecedented details about … Read more
Complex life on Earth may be much older than thought. A group of scientists found evidence in Gabon showing environmental conditions for animal life 2.1 billion years ago. However, they believe these organisms were restricted to an inland sea and didn’t spread globally. The research adds to a debate over whether unexplained formations in Franceville, … Read more
Nuclear fusion race: ‘Flexible’ stellarators could give US edge over China A team of 24 physicists from leading plasma research institutes in the US has released a white paper suggesting that the country should construct a “flexible” stellarator facility to stay ahead in nuclear fusion technology. This comes as China and Russia advance their own … Read more
The text discusses the formation of star-planet systems and how angular momentum plays a crucial role in shaping the system’s configuration. Here’s a simplified summary: 1. A massive clump of matter collapses under its own gravity, becoming asymmetrical with one axis longer than others. 2. The collapse causes the shortest axis to become pancaked, forming … Read more
Elon Musk’s ambitious eye implants, which aim to restore and even exceed normal human vision, are unlikely to reach this goal, according to scientists who have used virtual patients to expose the limitations of this technology. The researchers at the University of Washington used detailed computational modeling simulations to demonstrate that cortical implants like Blindsight … Read more
This is an excerpt from philosopher Ian Hacking’s book “The Social Construction of What?” (1999). The author argues that all scientific frameworks are interest-dependent, meaning they are shaped by the values, beliefs, and goals of the researchers who create them. He uses the example of astronomical nomenclature to illustrate this point. Hacking is not saying … Read more