Researchers at Cornell University have found that it is possible to hide malware code inside of AI neural networks, Tech Xplore reports. Zhi Wang, Chaoge Liu, and Xiang Cui have posted a paper describing their experiments with injecting code into neural networks on the arXiv preprint server. As computer technology grows ever more complex, so do attempts by criminals to break into machines running new technology for their own purposes, such as destroying data or encrypting it...
There may be a global focus on COVID-19, but it's a good time to ask if a cure is finally in sight for HIV. Although many antiretroviral medications have been approved over the years, new strategies are under development that theoretically could deliver a knockout blow to HIV, Medical Xpress reports. Medical investigators are exploring the possibility of gene therapy as a potential HIV cure. Other teams are examining CAR T-cell therapy, a form of...
NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected a pulse of high-energy radiation that had been racing toward Earth for nearly half the present age of the universe, reports Phys.org. Lasting only about a second, it turned out to be one for the record books – the shortest gamma-ray burst (GRB) caused by the death of a massive star ever seen. GRBs are the most powerful events in the universe, detectable across billions of light-years. Astronomers classify...
NASA selected SpaceX to launch a planned voyage to Jupiter's icy moon Europa, reports Phys.org. The Europa Clipper mission is scheduled to launch in October 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The contract is worth $178 million. The mission was previously supposed to take off on NASA's own Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Critics have called the SLS a...
Weather is a tricky science, particularly at very high altitudes, with the mix of plasma and neutral particles. In sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) – large meteorological disturbances related to the polar vortex in which the polar stratosphere temperature increases as it is affected by the winds around the pole – the polar vortex is weakened. SSWs also have profound atmospheric effects at great distances, causing changes in the hemisphere opposite from the location of...
An attempt at purifying New Delhi's notoriously polluted air will see 40 giant fans push out filtered air in the heart of the Indian capital's posh downtown shopping district, reports Tech Xplore. But the $2-million "smog tower" has no shortage of doubters. The 25-metre-high tower is meant to filter air over a one-square-kilometer radius around the swanky shops and cafes in Connaught Place. "Smog is an annual phenomenon because of particulate matter. So we are (trying)...
Many popular websites fell offline today in a widespread outage of service, reports the BBC. Visitors attempting to reach some sites received DNS errors, meaning their requests could not reach the websites. Affected services included Airbnb, UPS, HSBC bank, British Airways, and the PlayStation network used for online games. Internet outage monitoring platform DownDetector reported thousands of problems from its users across dozens of platforms. As some websites began to appear again for users in Europe and the...
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have designed a new class of molten sodium batteries for grid-scale energy storage, Tech Xplore reports. Molten sodium batteries have been used for many years to store energy from renewable sources, such as solar panels and wind turbines. However, commercially available molten sodium batteries, called sodium-sulfur batteries, typically operate at 520-660 degrees Fahrenheit. Sandia's new molten sodium-iodide battery operates at a much cooler 230 degrees Fahrenheit instead. "We've been working to bring the...
Under the picturesque dawn sky of the West Texas desert, Jeff Bezos, the 57-year-old ex-Amazon CEO and founder of space tourism company Blue Origin, rocketed into space for a brief moment, calling it, "the first step of something big," CNET reports. It happened 52 years to the day since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin pressed their boot prints into the moon. Atop the Blue Origin rocket, locked inside a gumdrop-shaped capsule, Bezos, his brother Mark, aeronautics...
Headlines across the world tell us that hundreds of people have died after the recent heat waves in Canada and the northwestern U.S. The stories invariably blame climate change and admonish us to tackle it urgently. What they mostly reveal, however, is how one-sided, alarmist reporting leaves us badly informed, writes Bjorn Lomborg in the Financial Post. The stories are based on a kernel of truth. Global warming is a real problem, and rising temperatures...
