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Scientists detect new ‘quantum echo’ in superconducting materials

Scientists at the U. S. Department of Energy Ames National Laboratory and Iowa State University have discovered an unexpected “quantum echo” in a superconducting material. This discovery provides insight into quantum behaviors that could be used for next-generation quantum sensing and computing technologies.

Superconductors are materials that carry electricity without resistance. Within these are collective vibrations known as “Higgs modes.” A Higgs mode is a that occurs when its electron potential fluctuates in a similar way to a Higgs boson. They appear when a material is undergoing a superconducting phase transition.

Observing these vibrations has been a long-time challenge for scientists because they exist for a very short time. They also have complex interactions with quasiparticles, which are electron-like excitations that emerge from the breakdown of superconductivity.

New research connects quantum computing power to the security of cryptographic systems

Experts say quantum computing is the future of computers. Unlike conventional computers, quantum computers leverage the properties of quantum physics such as superposition and interference, theoretically outperforming current equipment to an exponential degree.

When a quantum computer is able to solve a problem unfeasible for current technologies, this is called the “.” However, this edge is not guaranteed for all calculations, raising fundamental questions regarding the conditions under which such an advantage exists. While previous studies have proposed various sufficient conditions for quantum advantage, the necessity of these conditions has remained unclear.

Motivated by this , a team of researchers at Kyoto University has endeavored to understand the necessary and sufficient conditions for quantum advantage, using an approach combining techniques from quantum computing and cryptography, the science of coding information securely.

The 100-year journey from quantum science to quantum technology

You may not have realized it yet, but the United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology.

However, it really is something to celebrate, not least because the electronic device that you are using to read this article depends on some of the advanced applications of quantum phenomena.

This year was chosen because 2025 marks the centenary of the publication of the first articles on , also known as quantum physics.

Theory for aerosol droplets from contaminated bubbles may shed light on spread of pollution, microplastics, and more

Bubbles burst when their caps rupture. Children discover this phenomenon every summer day, but it also underpins key mechanisms for the spread of pollutants, contaminants, and even infectious disease through the generation of aerosol droplets. While bubble bursting has been extensively studied in pure substances, the impact of contaminants on bursting dynamics has not received widespread attention.

Researchers in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have conducted a systematic study to investigate bubble-bursting jets—aerosol particles sprayed when bubble surfaces rupture—when surface contaminants are present. The laboratory of mechanical science and engineering professor Jie Feng developed a model predicting the influence of contaminants on jet size and experimentally confirmed it.

The study is published in the journal Physical Review Letters, where it was selected as an Editors’ Suggestion.

Hyper-Volumetric DDoS Attacks Reach Record 7.3 Tbps, Targeting Key Global Sectors

Cloudflare on Tuesday said it mitigated 7.3 million distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in the second quarter of 2025, a significant drop from 20.5 million DDoS attacks it fended off the previous quarter.

“Overall, in Q2 2025, hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks skyrocketed,” Omer Yoachimik and Jorge Pacheco said. “Cloudflare blocked over 6,500 hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks, an average of 71 per day.”

In Q1 2025, the company said an 18-day sustained campaign against its own and other critical infrastructure protected by Cloudflare was responsible for 13.5 million of the attacks observed during the time period. Cumulatively, Cloudflare has blocked nearly 28 million DDoS attacks, surpassing the number of attacks it mitigated in all of 2024.

Abacus dark web drug market goes offline in suspected exit scam

Abacus Market, the largest Western darknet marketplace supporting Bitcoin payments, has shut down its public infrastructure in a move suspected to be an exit scam.

Exit scams occur when the operator of a marketplace decides to vanish with the money they hold in escrow for various transactions between platform users.

Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs reports that Abacus shutting down so abruptly has all the indications of either an exit scam or a covert law enforcement operation dismantling the activity.

Windows KB5064489 emergency update fixes Azure VM launch issues

Microsoft has released an emergency update to fix a bug that prevents Azure virtual machines from launching when the Trusted Launch setting is disabled and Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) is enabled.

The bug impacted Windows Server 2025 and Windows 11 24H2 and was introduced during the July Patch Tuesday security updates.

“This update addresses an issue that prevented some virtual machines (VMs) from starting when Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) was enabled,” explains Microsoft.

Police disrupt “Diskstation” ransomware gang attacking NAS devices

An international law enforcement action dismantled a Romanian ransomware gang known as ‘Diskstation,’ which encrypted the systems of several companies in the Lombardy region, paralyzing their businesses.

The law enforcement operation codenamed ‘Operation Elicius’ was coordinated by Europol and also involved police forces in France and Romania.

Diskstation is a ransomware operation that targets Synology Network-Attached Storage (NAS) devices, which are commonly used by companies for centralized file storage and sharing, data backup and recovery, and general content hosting.