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Former ransomware negotiator pleads guilty to BlackCat attacks

41-year-old Angelo Martino, a former employee of cybersecurity incident response company DigitalMint, has pleaded guilty to targeting U.S. companies in BlackCat (ALPHV) ransomware attacks in 2023.

Together with two other Sygnia and DigitalMint ransomware negotiators (33-year-old Ryan Clifford Goldberg and 28-year-old Kevin Tyler Martin), Martino was charged with conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce by extortion, interference with interstate commerce by extortion, and intentional damage to protected computers.

Martino was initially identified only as “Co-Conspirator 1” in an October 2025 indictment, but was named in court documents unsealed in March. Martin and Goldberg also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct commerce by extortion and are facing up to 20 years in prison each.

UK probes Telegram, teen chat sites over CSAM sharing concerns

Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s independent communications regulator, has launched an investigation into Telegram based on evidence suggesting it’s being used to share child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

The investigation was launched under the UK’s Online Safety Act to examine whether the social media and instant messaging (IM) service is complying with its illegal content safety duties, which require it to prevent CSAM from being shared.

Ofcom says it received evidence regarding the alleged presence and sharing of CSAM on Telegram from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, and that it had also conducted its own assessment of the platform.

New study reveals CRISPR enzyme that responds to human DNA methylation

Cancer cells excel at evading detection, but subtle chemical differences set them apart from healthy cells. Now, a team of scientists from Wageningen University & Research and Van Andel Institute has identified a way to exploit this distinction. Using a variant of CRISPR, a modern tool for editing DNA, they distinguished tumor DNA from healthy DNA and selectively cut only the former. The study, published today in Nature, is an early but promising step toward a cancer therapy that targets and destroys tumor cells with high precision.

The new method relies on methyl groups, small chemical tags attached to DNA that regulate whether genes are on or off. This process, called DNA methylation, is altered in cancer cells and can act as a molecular “fingerprint” that differentiates malignant cells from healthy ones.

Survival strategies of Rhinocladiella similis in perchlorate-rich Mars like environments

Fungi can live on mars face_with_colon_three

Dos Santos, A., Schultz, J., Souza, F.O. et al. Survival strategies of Rhinocladiella similis in perchlorate-rich Mars like environments. npj Microgravity 11, 18 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41526-025-00475-y.

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Secondary causes of diabetes: a crossroad of endocrinology and oncology

Cancer and diabetes share a bidirectional relationship, with cancer increasingly recognised as an associated factor of diabetes, both from the disease itself and its treatments. In this Review, we aim to: summarise the distinct mechanisms of dysglycaemia arising from cancer and neuroendocrine tumour treatments, including targeted therapies such as PI3K–AKT–mTOR inhibitors, antibody–drug conjugates, immune checkpoint inhibitors, corticosteroids, and somatostatin receptor ligands; examine the often overlooked aspect of the secondary cause of diabetes as an early manifestation of cancer; and highlight research gaps and encourage a collaborative care approach to manage the rising rate of dysglycaemia as a result of cancer and its evolving treatments.

The autoantigen TRIM21 assembles proinflammatory immune complexes after lytic cell death

Proinflammatory lytic cell death releases cytosolic TRIM21, which binds to circulating antibodies and is internalized by macrophages, stimulating cross-antigen presentation and inflammation in Sjögren’s disease.

Learn more in Science Immunology.

TRIM21/Ro52 assembles proinflammatory immune complexes.

De novo fast motion computation in the primate visual cortex

He et al. suggest that MT and MST neurons can generate velocity selectivity anew by integrating sequential visuotopic activations from the V1 rather than by simple inheritance, as the V1 is no longer direction selective at high speeds. This de novo velocity computation provides a parsimonious explanation for fast motion processing in the primate brain.

Mechanical Thrombectomy and Final Infarct Volume in Patients With Stroke

In Stroke due to medium or distal vessel occlusion, endovascular treatment plus best medical treatment preserved more brain tissue and was linked to improved imaging outcomes and better clinical recovery compared with medical treatment alone.

Interventions EVT plus BMT compared with BMT alone.

Main Outcomes and Measures Primary outcome was calculated as the difference in volume of tissue at risk and the final infarct volume divided by the tissue at risk (change in Vrel). We defined a Vrel of 0.8 or greater as a good imaging outcome, meaning that at least 80% of the brain tissue initially at risk was not infarcted at 24 hours. Additionally, the association between brain tissue preserved and clinical outcome at 90 days was investigated.

Results From the 447 patients (252 [56.4%] male; median [IQR] age, 77.0 [68.0–84.0] years) included in this secondary analysis, 226 received EVT plus BMT and 221 received BMT alone. Median (IQR) time of the follow-up imaging was 22.9 (19.2−25.5) hours. Median (IQR) Time to maximum less than 6 seconds (Tmax6) volume was 34.0 (20.0−50.0) mL. Median follow-up infarct volume was 7.0 (1.0−22.9) mL. The median (IQR) change in absolute volume in the EVT plus BMT group was 23.6 (5.7−38.9) mL and 14.8 (0−30.3) mL in the BMT group. Median (IQR) change in Vrel was 0.8 (0.2−1.0) in the EVT plus BMT group and 0.6 (0−0.9) in the BMT group. Odds for reaching a change in Vrel of 0.8 or greater were higher in the EVT plus BMT group compared with BMT (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.6; 95% CI, 1.1−2.3) and with successful reperfusion compared with no successful reperfusion (aOR, 2.5; 95% CI, 1.3−4.8). Patients with a change in Vrel of 0.8 or greater had a better clinical outcome at 90 days.

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