A network of 1,600 video cameras surveils Marseille residents in the name of public safety, but this type of policing tool is rarely useful in solving crimes. Digital rights activists are fighting back.

For Nano the creep of increased surveillance has personal resonance. She grew up in Albania as it lurched between different political regimes in the 1990s. Her father, a politician, opposed the party that was in power for part of that time. “It was a very difficult period for us, because we were all being watched,” she says. Her family suspected that the authorities had installed bugs in the walls of their home. But even in France, freedoms are fragile. “These past five years France has lived for much of the time in a state of emergency,” she says. “I’ve seen more and more constraints put on our liberty.”

Concerns have been raised throughout the country. But the surveillance rollout has met special resistance in Marseille, France’s second-biggest city. The boisterous, rebellious Mediterranean town sits on some of the fault lines that run through modern France. Known for hip bars, artist studios, and startup hubs, it is also notorious for drugs, poverty, and criminal activity. It has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in Europe but is stranded in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, a region that leans far right. The city pushes back. Its attitude could be summed up by graffiti you might pass as you drive in on the A7 motorway: “La vie est (re)belle.”

NSO Group, the world’s most notorious hacking company, could soon cease to exist. But even if NSO Group is no more, there are plenty of rivals who will rush in to provide the hacking capability that more and more governments demand.

But even if NSO Group is no more, there are plenty of rivals who will rush in to take its place. And the same old problems haven’t gone away.

And threatening to put traditional banks out of business. What would a world without banks look like, and would you even miss them? https://econ.st/3s76sYS

The Islamist victors claim to have changed since they ran the country twenty years ago. Few believe them | Asia.

Effective COVID-19 vaccines arrived in record time. That success story, years in the making, offers lessons that could help prevent future outbreaks, including pandemic influenza.

This article was produced for Sabin Vaccine Institute by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazine’s board of editors.

Not every vaccine-acquired antibody automatically allows you to jet off.

A patchwork of complicated cross-border travel rules is causing confusion | Graphic detail.

The habits and flaws tycoons share with dynastic rulers | Business.

We can all learn from how today’s young people evaluate truth online.

Members of Gen Z are presumably more digitally savvy than their predecessors, but influencer culture perpetuates their sharing of misinformation.

Mysterious strands of DNA that seemingly assimilate genes from many different organisms in their surrounding environment have been discovered in a Californian backyard.

Scientists have named these elements “Borgs”, and their discovery could help us not just understand the evolution of microorganisms, but their interactions within their ecosystems, and their role in the broader environment.

According to geomicrobiologist Jill Banfield from the University of California, Berkeley, Borgs could make for a tremendously significant discovery.

The company’s research into a mind-reading device is over, for now. Some scientists said it was never possible anyway.