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MOF thin films reveal hidden dense packing, challenging decades of porous assumptions

Due to their high porosity, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are regarded as promising materials for innovative applications, which is why the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 2025 for their discovery. They are used, for example, to store gases, to capture CO2 and for the targeted delivery of medicines.

While the structure of MOFs in the form of large crystals can be determined with relative ease, thin films have largely remained a mystery. Yet it is precisely the structure that is decisive for the properties and for potential applications.

A team led by Roland Resel and Egbert Zojer from the Institute of Solid State Physics at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), together with colleagues from the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry (led by Paolo Falcaro) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (led by Christof Wöll), has now solved this puzzle.

Cisco finally confirms attackers exploiting Unified CM flaw

Cisco confirmed that attackers are now exploiting a Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM) vulnerability patched in early June.

Unified CM (formerly known as Cisco CallManager) is the central control system for Cisco IP telephony systems, handling call routing, device management, and telephony features.

Threat actors without privileges can exploit the vulnerability (CVE-2026–20230) remotely in low-complexity server-side request forgery (SSRF) attacks by sending a crafted HTTP request.

Opera rolls out Paste Protect feature to fight ClickFix attacks

Opera has introduced Paste Protect, a security feature designed to block ClickFix-style attacks that trick users into executing malicious commands through social engineering.

ClickFix is a widely used technique where victims are deceived into copying dangerous code or commands to the clipboard and then executing them in the command-line interface.

Typically, the ruse is a verification process or some form of problem-fixing instructions. However, they are only designed to trick the target into performing dangerous actions.

Unlocking the ‘black box’ of carbon materials: Study reveals origins of defect peaks

Carbon materials, such as carbon fibers and activated carbons, are essential across a wide variety of fields, encompassing everything from aerospace engineering to fuel cells and thermal insulation. For decades, Raman, infrared and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have been the primary tools used to analyze carbon materials. However, because of their diverse structural conditions and inconsistencies in their interpretation, researchers have found it challenging to assign specific spectral peaks to exact, localized chemical structures.

The detailed origin and nature of these peaks, and their exact effect on important material characteristics, have often remained unclear.

To tackle this issue, a research team led by Associate Professor Yasuhiro Yamada from the Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University, Japan, used isotropic pitch-based carbon fiber—a cost-effective material widely used for high-temperature thermal insulation—as a general model to analyze carbon materials prepared at high temperatures of 1,473 K (1,200 °C) or higher.

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