Lifeboat Foundation

A new robotic headgear allows mice to move freely while being attached to heavy and cumbersome brain-recording machinery, allowing scientists to track their brain activity in motion, according to a new report by Spectrum published on Thursday. The development could have major implications in neuropathy and other sciences of the brain.

Under normal circumstances, researchers analyze brain activity in an awake mouse by fixing the animal’s head in a stiff unmovable position beneath a microscope. This however severely limits the mouse’s range of motion and therefore does not produce accurate results.

As Ted Abel, chair of neuroscience and pharmacology at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, who was not involved in the study, explained to Spectrum, this approach is not conducive to usable outcomes.

A study observes a triple protostar system with spiral arms of gas that feed material to baby stars and finds a new mechanism for multiple star formation.

A team of international researchers has discovered how three baby stars are being fed by spiral arms of gas in a triple protostar system. The team, led by Professor Jeong-Eun Lee from Seoul National University, used the powerful Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescopes to observe the system called IRAS 04239+2436, located about 460 light-years away from Earth.

Continue reading “Research finds three baby stars fed by spiral arms of gas” »

SpaceX set a new record and did a launch at the same tower only 3 days, 22 hours, and 33 minutes after the last launch there. And this was after the launch was rescheduled due to bad weather.

If SpaceX could maintain a pace of once every 4 days for all 3 towers, they would be doing about 274 launches/year! While they clearly won’t launch that fast in the near future, they are gaining steam. And they are working on activating a fourth tower!

Continue reading “Starlink-96 (6-8) Mission (Falcon 9)” »

Billionaire Elon Musk acquired social media platform Twitter, which he has since rebranded to X, for $44 billion in 2022.

With the acquisition, Musk now controls the platform and has the power to make changes and, in some cases, snatch away usernames that people have been using for decades.

What Happened: When Twitter announced its rebrand to X, some users pointed out the interesting fact that one person owned the @X handle on the platform, leading to theories of a buyout by Musk to get the one-letter username.

Narrator: Here on Earth, our atmosphere shields us from 77% of the sun’s radiation. But astronauts in space don’t have that natural shield, making them vulnerable to blistering temperatures, severe sunburn, and even cancer-causing cell damage. So to combat that, they wear white suits that reflect the sun’s harmful radiation. It’s just like how painting a wall white keeps the room cooler than a dark color because lighter paint absorbs 35% less heat.

Cathleen Lewis: It’s the ideal color to keep the astronauts safe. If you’re planning to go out in outer space, that reflective nature is an absolute.

Narrator: But those white EVA suits aren’t the only garment in an astronaut’s closet. When heading into space or coming home, NASA astronauts wear a bright orange suit similar in color to the safety vests Air Force pilots wear, and it’s for similar reasons because that loud orange stands out against the blue ocean and sky and is perfect for attracting attention, so if there’s a malfunction during landing and astronauts have to abandon ship, so to speak, they need to be easy to spot for rescue crews. That’s why orange was the color of choice for missions like Russia’s Vostok program as well as current ISS launch and reentry suits.

The most energetic light ever seen emanating from the Sun has just been detected, creating a new puzzle for solar physicists to solve.

A 6-year observing campaign by more than 30 institutions across North America, Europe, and Asia has resulted in the first ever detection of solar gamma radiation in the teraelectronvolt (TeV) range.

Continue reading “Scientists Detect Highest-Energy Light Ever Seen From The Sun” »

The Clop ransomware gang has once again altered extortion tactics and is now using torrents to leak data stolen in MOVEit attacks.

Starting on May 27th, the Clop ransomware gang launched a wave of data-theft attacks exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in the MOVEit Transfer secure file transfer platform.

Exploiting this zero-day allowed the threat actors to steal data from almost 600 organizations worldwide before they realized they were hacked.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced a record-breaking $299,997,000 fine imposed on an international network of companies for placing five billion robocalls to more than 500 million phone numbers over three months in 2021.

The fined companies operated as Sumco Panama, Virtual Telecom, Davis Telecom, Geist Telecom, Fugle Telecom, Tech Direct, Mobi Telecom, and Posting Express.

“The enterprise violated a multitude of robocall prohibitions by making pre-recorded voice calls to mobile phones without prior express consent, placing telemarketing calls without written consent, dialing numbers included on the National Do Not Call Registry, failing to identify the caller at the start of the message, and failing to provide a call-back number that allowed consumers to opt out of future calls,” explained the FCC press release.

In collaboration with CISA, the NSA, and the FBI, Five Eyes cybersecurity authorities have issued today a list of the 12 most exploited vulnerabilities throughout 2022.

Cybersecurity agencies in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom called on organizations worldwide to address these security flaws and deploy patch management systems to minimize their exposure to potential attacks.

Threat actors increasingly focused their attacks on outdated software vulnerabilities rather than recently disclosed ones during the previous year, specifically targeting systems left unpatched and exposed on the Internet.