NASA’s Perseverance rover has been exploring the ancient lakebed in Jezero crater on Mars since landing there in February 2021. The rover holds 43 sample tubes containing Martian material of scientific interest, but a crucial challenge lies ahead: bringing these samples back to Earth. As planetary scientist David Shuster notes, “These samples are the reason … Read more
Prolonged sitting can have negative effects on our brain function, cognition, and blood flow. While it’s challenging to implement exercise interventions in real-life scenarios, a little bit of body work can go a long way in offsetting these declines. Researchers found that regular bouts of brief whole-body activity can counterbalance the negative impacts of prolonged … Read more
In a breakthrough, researchers from Korea have successfully engineered E. coli bacteria to produce thermally stable plastics similar to polystyrene and PET. This achievement is significant as it marks the first time microbes have produced polymers made entirely of monomers with aromatic sidechains. The team constructed a novel metabolic pathway that enabled the bacteria to … Read more
Scientists have created the world’s fastest microscope, capable of capturing images of electrons in flight by hitting them with one- quintillionth-of-a-second electron pulses. This feat is remarkable, as electrons travel at roughly 1367 miles per second (2,200 kilometers per second), making them capable of circumnavigating the Earth in only 18.4 seconds. The new device, a … Read more
Oil giant Halliburton has acknowledged an “issue” affecting certain company systems, which is reportedly linked to a cyberattack. According to sources familiar with the matter, the cyberattack appears to be impacting business operations at Halliburton’s Houston campus and some global networks. The company would not confirm or deny the nature of the incident but stated … Read more
For the first time, scientists have obtained high-resolution images of the North Star’s surface using the CHARA Array on Mount Wilson in California. The images revealed previously unknown features on Polaris’ surface, including large bright and dark spots that change over time. Polaris is a Cepheid variable star, which means it brightens and dims periodically. … Read more
Hackers have exploited a recently patched PHP remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2024-4577) to deploy a new backdoor malware called Msupedge on a university’s Windows systems in Taiwan. The attackers likely gained access to the compromised systems by exploiting the flaw, which was patched in June. Msupedge is a notable backdoor that uses DNS traffic to … Read more
The European Space Agency’s Juice mission has achieved two historic firsts on its journey to study Jupiter’s icy moons. The spacecraft, launched in April 2023, conducted its first flyby of the moon and Earth in succession, as well as the first double gravity assist maneuver. On August 19, Juice flew by Earth’s moon at 5:15 … Read more
Researchers from the Universities of Göttingen and Oxford, in collaboration with the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), have developed a high-resolution fluorescence microscope that can capture even the tiniest cell structures. The new microscope boasts a resolution better than five nanometres (five billionths of a metre), roughly equivalent to the width of a hair split … Read more