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Physicist Christian Schneider has been awarded a prestigious Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for his groundbreaking research into two-dimensional materials and their optical properties. Schneider, a professor at the University of Oldenburg in Germany, will receive approximately two million euros in funding over the next five years to support his “Dual Twist” project.

This research focuses on a novel class of atomically thin materials and their remarkable properties, which hold significant promise for advancing optical technologies.

Together with his team, Schneider will develop experimental set-ups specially designed to study the unique properties of the materials under investigation using light, and pave the way for their application in novel quantum technologies. ERC Consolidator Grants aim to support excellent scientists conducting innovative research in Europe and help them to consolidate their scientific independence. Out of a total of 2,313 applications, the ERC has now selected 328 projects for funding, 67 of which are based in Germany.

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Researchers at MIT have developed a design framework for controlling ultrasound wave propagation in microscale acoustic metamaterials, focusing on the precise positioning of microscale spheres within a lattice.

This approach enables tunable wave velocities and responses, and is applicable in fields like ultrasound imaging and mechanical computing.

Acoustic Metamaterials

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22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q) raises schizophrenia risk through skull malformations linked to the Tbx1 gene, affecting cerebellar development. This highlights how non-brain factors like bone defects can influence neurological disorders.

The chromosomal disorder 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q) has emerged as one of the strongest risk factors for schizophrenia. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital identified malformed regions of the cerebellum in both laboratory models and patients with 22q, attributing these malformations to improper skull formation.

Additionally, the researchers linked the skull malformation to the loss of a single gene: Tbx1. This research highlights that neurological disorders can arise from sources outside the nervous system, such as defects in skull development. The findings were published in Nature Communications.

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A threat actor tracked as MUT-1244 has stolen over 390,000 WordPress credentials in a large-scale, year-long campaign targeting other threat actors using a trojanized WordPress credentials checker.

Researchers at Datadog Security Labs, who spotted the attacks, say that SSH private keys and AWS access keys were also stolen from the compromised systems of hundreds of other victims, believed to include red teamers, penetration testers, security researchers, as well as malicious actors.

The victims were infected using the same second-stage payload pushed via dozens of trojanized GitHub repositories delivering malicious proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits that targeted known security flaws, along with a phishing campaign prompting targets to install a fake kernel upgrade camouflaged as a CPU microcode update.

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Because glucose metabolism is disrupted in several different neurodegenerative disorders, this treatment strategy also shows promise for other brain conditions.

“The beneficial effect on brain metabolism by IDO1 inhibition cuts across different types of pathology,” Andreasson said.

“It is exciting to think that this may be a more general mechanism that could be targeted in other neurodegenerative disorders, like Parkinson’s disease, where you have accumulation of a-synuclein, or ALS, where there is accumulation of tdp-43.”

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I have liked kdnuggets for a while now. I used it for information on Tensorflow. This is cool though:

Neural networks are the building blocks behind every advanced AI system nowadays: from computer vision solutions to generative AI solutions and language models, most real-world solutions that involve some degree of AI have intricate neural network architectures at their core. But, what are neural networks and how do they perform surprisingly well in intelligently solving challenging tasks? To satisfy your curiosity at no cost, this post lists five resources to help you understand the mechanisms behind neural networks.

Here are five free resources in diverse formats and difficulty levels to acquaint with deep learning models at no cost.

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Salk scientists establish novel Link between cell nutrition and identity, say targeting nutrient-dependent activity could improve immunotherapies.

The decision between scrambled eggs or an apple for breakfast probably won’t make or break your day. However, for your cells, a decision between similar microscopic nutrients could determine their entire identity. If and how nutrient preference impacts cell identity has been a longstanding mystery for scientists—until a team of Salk Institute immunologists revealed a novel framework for the complicated relationship between nutrition and cell identity.

The findings were published in Science on December 12, 2024.

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