Lifeboat Foundation

Narrator: Here on Earth, our atmosphere shields us from 77% of the sun’s radiation. But astronauts in space don’t have that natural shield, making them vulnerable to blistering temperatures, severe sunburn, and even cancer-causing cell damage. So to combat that, they wear white suits that reflect the sun’s harmful radiation. It’s just like how painting a wall white keeps the room cooler than a dark color because lighter paint absorbs 35% less heat.

Cathleen Lewis: It’s the ideal color to keep the astronauts safe. If you’re planning to go out in outer space, that reflective nature is an absolute.

Narrator: But those white EVA suits aren’t the only garment in an astronaut’s closet. When heading into space or coming home, NASA astronauts wear a bright orange suit similar in color to the safety vests Air Force pilots wear, and it’s for similar reasons because that loud orange stands out against the blue ocean and sky and is perfect for attracting attention, so if there’s a malfunction during landing and astronauts have to abandon ship, so to speak, they need to be easy to spot for rescue crews. That’s why orange was the color of choice for missions like Russia’s Vostok program as well as current ISS launch and reentry suits.

The most energetic light ever seen emanating from the Sun has just been detected, creating a new puzzle for solar physicists to solve.

A 6-year observing campaign by more than 30 institutions across North America, Europe, and Asia has resulted in the first ever detection of solar gamma radiation in the teraelectronvolt (TeV) range.

Continue reading “Scientists Detect Highest-Energy Light Ever Seen From The Sun” »

The Clop ransomware gang has once again altered extortion tactics and is now using torrents to leak data stolen in MOVEit attacks.

Starting on May 27th, the Clop ransomware gang launched a wave of data-theft attacks exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in the MOVEit Transfer secure file transfer platform.

Exploiting this zero-day allowed the threat actors to steal data from almost 600 organizations worldwide before they realized they were hacked.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced a record-breaking $299,997,000 fine imposed on an international network of companies for placing five billion robocalls to more than 500 million phone numbers over three months in 2021.

The fined companies operated as Sumco Panama, Virtual Telecom, Davis Telecom, Geist Telecom, Fugle Telecom, Tech Direct, Mobi Telecom, and Posting Express.

“The enterprise violated a multitude of robocall prohibitions by making pre-recorded voice calls to mobile phones without prior express consent, placing telemarketing calls without written consent, dialing numbers included on the National Do Not Call Registry, failing to identify the caller at the start of the message, and failing to provide a call-back number that allowed consumers to opt out of future calls,” explained the FCC press release.

In collaboration with CISA, the NSA, and the FBI, Five Eyes cybersecurity authorities have issued today a list of the 12 most exploited vulnerabilities throughout 2022.

Cybersecurity agencies in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom called on organizations worldwide to address these security flaws and deploy patch management systems to minimize their exposure to potential attacks.

Threat actors increasingly focused their attacks on outdated software vulnerabilities rather than recently disclosed ones during the previous year, specifically targeting systems left unpatched and exposed on the Internet.

Automation is taking hold at more companies, and businesses building the robots are looking for workers.

The James Webb Space Telescope continues to provide answers about the earliest days of the universe, but it’s also discovering more questions.

Question marks, to be precise. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team at the European Space Agency (ESA) released an image on Wednesday (June 26) offering the most detailed look yet at two actively forming young stars located 1,470 light-years from Earth in the Vela Constellation. In the image, the stars, named Herbig-Haro 46/47, are surrounded by a disk of material that “feeds” the stars as they grow for millions of years.

Seitz et al. use DNA origami as a scaffold for viral capsid proteins to create virus capsids in the shapes of rings, tubes, and more! They employ cryo-EM to obtain 3D structures of some of their nanomolecular constructs and they show that multi-layer capsids occur at high concentrations of capsid proteins. Exciting work! #nanotechnology #biotechnology #syntheticbiology #genetherapy

DNA and RNA origami nanostructures direct the size, shape and topology of different virus capsids in a user-defined manner while shielding encapsulated origamis from degradation.

They finally reached ignition again last week, according to a statement Sunday from the lab. The news was first reported by the Financial Times.

“In an experiment conducted on July 30, we repeated ignition,” the statement read. “Analysis of those results is underway. As is our standard practice, we plan on reporting those results at upcoming scientific conferences and in peer-reviewed publications.”

Unlike fission, the process used in current nuclear power plants, fusion involves smashing atoms together instead of splitting them apart. It theoretically can supply carbon-free energy without long-lasting radioactive waste. But generations of scientists have struggled to master it in a controlled reaction, even though it has been the power source of nuclear weapons for decades.