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A rewritable DNA hard drive may help solve the growing data storage crisis

Around the world, scientists are exploring an unexpected solution to the growing data crisis: storing digital information in synthetic DNA. The idea is simple but powerful—DNA is one of the most compact, durable information systems on Earth. But one issue has held the field back. Once data is written into DNA, it can’t be changed.

Now, researchers at the University of Missouri are helping to solve that problem by transforming DNA from a one-time medium into a rewritable digital hard drive. Their research is published in the journal PNAS Nexus.

“DNA is incredible—it stores life’s blueprint in a tiny, stable package,” said Li-Qun “Andrew” Gu, a professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at Mizzou’s College of Engineering. “We wanted to see if we could store and rewrite information at the molecular level faster, simpler and more efficiently than ever before.”

First 3D reconstruction of the face of ‘Little Foot’ completed

Identified as the most complete Australopithecus fossil discovered to date, “Little Foot” was buried in sediments whose movement and weight caused fractures and deformations, making analysis of its skull—and more particularly its face—difficult. This anatomical region, which is essential for understanding the adaptations of our ancestors and relatives to their environment, has now been virtually reconstructed for the first time by a CNRS researcher and her British and South African colleagues. These are published in Comptes Rendus Palevol.

A comparative analysis of this reconstruction with several extant great apes and three other Australopithecus specimens reveals that the face of “Little Foot” is closer in terms of size and morphology to Australopithecus specimens from eastern Africa than to those from southern Africa. This finding raises questions about the relationships between these different populations and about the chronology of the evolutionary processes that reshaped the faces of these hominins, particularly the orbital region, which appears to have been subject to strong selective pressures.

The skull was first transported to the Diamond Light Source synchrotron (United Kingdom), where it was carefully digitized. The research team then virtually isolated the bone fragments using semi-automated methods and supercomputers. Their realignment resulted in a 3D reconstruction with a resolution of 21 microns. More than five years were required to complete this reconstruction.

Heavier hydrogen makes silicon T centers shine brighter for quantum networks

Quantum technologies, computers or other devices that operate leveraging quantum mechanical effects, rely on the precise control of light and matter. Over the past decades, quantum physicists and material scientists have been trying to identify systems that can reliably generate photons (i.e., light particles) and could thus be used to create quantum technologies.

One approach for generating photons relies on silicon color centers, such as the emerging T center. Color centers are defects or irregularities in the crystal structure of silicon characterized by a different arrangement of atoms.

The T center and other silicon color centers can emit light in the wavelength band that is already used by fiber-optic internet cables, which is desirable for the development of quantum networks and quantum communication systems.

National report supports measurement innovation to aid commercial fusion energy and enable new plasma technologies

To operate fusion systems safely and reliably, scientists need to monitor plasma fuel conditions and measure properties like temperature and density that can affect fusion reactions. Making these measurements requires specialized sensors known as diagnostics.

A new report sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recommends increased investment in America’s fusion diagnostic capabilities, a critical new technology that could provide DOE and Congress with information to speed up the delivery of commercial fusion power plants.

The report was produced as part of the DOE’s 2024 Basic Research Needs Workshop on Measurement Innovation, sponsored by the DOE’s Office of Science’s Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program. It was chaired by Luis Delgado-Aparicio, head of advanced projects at the DOE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), and co-chaired by Sean Regan, a distinguished scientist and the director of the Experimental Division at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

Laser-within-a-laser delivers MeV X-ray radiography in picoseconds

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) is the hottest place on Earth for the briefest of moments during an experiment. Now, it can be one of the brightest places thanks to the Advanced Radiographic Capability (ARC), NIF’s laser-within-a-laser. How this is possible and how it’s measured is detailed in a paper in Physics of Plasmas titled “Development and scaling of MeV X-ray radiography at NIF-ARC.”

“This paper is a culmination of 13 NIF experiments over five years of data gathering, analyzing experiments, modeling and refining diagnostics,” said LLNL physicist Dean Rusby, the paper’s first author. “We’re able to create and measure an MeV X-ray source that can’t be done anywhere else on Earth.”

Scientists unveil universal aging mechanism in glassy materials

“Glass” has a unique and distinct meaning in physics—one that refers not just to the transparent material we associate with window glass. Instead, it refers to any system that looks solid but is not in true equilibrium and continues to change extremely slowly over time. Examples include window glass, plastics, metallic glasses, spin glasses (i.e., magnetic systems), and even some biological and computational systems.

When a liquid is cooled very quickly—a process called quenching—it doesn’t have time to organize into a crystal but becomes stuck in a disordered state far from equilibrium. Its properties—like stiffness and structure—slowly evolve through a process called “aging.”

Now, a research team from the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has proposed a new theoretical framework for understanding the universal aging behavior of glassy materials. The study is published in the journal Science Advances.

Fake Google Security site uses PWA app to steal credentials, MFA codes

A phishing campaign is using a fake Google Account security page to deliver a web-based app capable of stealing one-time passcodes, harvesting cryptocurrency wallet addresses, and proxying attacker traffic through victims’ browsers.

The attack leverages Progressive Web App (PWA) features and social engineering to deceive users into believing they are interacting with a legitimate Google Security web page and inadvertently installing the malware.

PWAs run in the browser and can be installed from a website, just like a standalone regular application, which is displayed in its own window without any visible browser controls.

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