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Sep 6, 2022

Nitrokod stealth malware hides on a pc for a month before it goes to work infects over 111,000 users

Posted by in categories: cryptocurrencies, cybercrime/malcode

A Turkish entity going by the name of Nitrokod has been accused of running a campaign by spoofing a desktop version of Google Translate to actively mine cryptocurrency from its more than 111,000 users across eleven countries (UK, US, Sri Lanka, Greece, etc., Israel, Germany, Turkey, Cyprus, Australia, Mongolia, and Poland) in 2019.

In addition to Google Translate, there are five other fake desktop applications on the Nitrokod website. Most of them impersonate programs that are not officially available as desktop applications, but as web or mobile applications, which makes the desktop version created by the attackers particularly attractive. In any case, they are popular applications that can be found on websites such as Softpedia and UpToDown.

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Sep 6, 2022

Discovery of new types of microfossils may answer age-old scientific question

Posted by in category: evolution

Scientists have long pondered how and when the evolution of prokaryotes to eukaryotes occurred. A collaborative research team from Tohoku University and the University of Tokyo may have provided some answers after discovering new types of microfossils dating 1.9 billion years.

Details of their findings were published in the journal Precambrian Research on August 19, 2022.

The Gunflint Formation traverses the northern part of Minnesota into Ontario, along the northwestern shores of Lake Superior. The first bacterial microfossils were discovered there in 1954, with Gunflint microfossils now recognized as a “benchmark” in the field of life evolution.

Sep 6, 2022

SU(N) Matter Is About 3 Billion Times Colder Than Deep Space — Opens Portal to High-Symmetry Quantum Realm

Posted by in categories: alien life, particle physics, quantum physics

Physicists from Japan and the U.S. used atoms about 3 billion times colder than interstellar space to open a portal to an unexplored realm of quantum magnetism.

“Unless an alien civilization is doing experiments like these right now, anytime this experiment is running at Kyoto University it is making the coldest fermions in the universe,” said Rice University’s Kaden Hazzard, corresponding theory author of a study published on September 1, 2022, in the journal Nature Physics.

As the name implies, Nature Physics is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal covering physics and is published by Nature Research. It was first published in October 2005 and its monthly coverage includes articles, letters, reviews, research highlights, news and views, commentaries, book reviews, and correspondence.

Sep 6, 2022

SpaceX gets $1.4 billion contract for five more NASA astronaut launches

Posted by in category: space travel

SpaceX’s partnership with NASA just got $1.4 billion sweeter, as the space agency announced Wednesday that it’s extending its deal with the company to cover five additional missions.

Sep 6, 2022

Amazon is closing 2 facilities with a total of 300 employees and reportedly scrapping plans for 42 new buildings

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Amazon is having to curtail growth of its vast delivery network which exploded in size during the pandemic.

Sep 6, 2022

Can a Seattle Start-Up Launch a Fusion Reactor Into Space?

Posted by in categories: military, nuclear energy, satellites, sustainability

Practical nuclear fusion is, famously, always 10 years in the future. Except that the Pentagon recently gave an award to a tiny startup to launch a fusion power system into space in just five.

There is no shortage of organizations, from VC-backedstartups to nation states, trying to realize the dream of cheap, clean, and reliable power from nuclear fusion. But Avalanche Energy Designs, based near a Boeing facility in Seattle, is even more ambitious. It is working on modular “micro fusion packs,” small enough to hold in your hand yet capable of powering everything from electric cars to spaceships.

Last month, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) announced it had awarded Avalanche an unspecified sum to develop its Orbitron fusion device to generate either heat or electricity, with the aim of powering a high-efficiency propulsion system aboard a prototype satellite in 2027. The contract to Avalanche was one of two awarded by the DIU—the second going to Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear for development of its radioisotope battery.

Sep 6, 2022

These tiny homes are 3D printed from 100,000 recycled plastic bottles

Posted by in category: habitats

The startup Azure Printed Homes uses a range of recycled plastic to build 180-square-foot spaces that start at just $40,000.

Sep 6, 2022

Are Most Sites Vulnerable Due to Lack Of Encryption?

Posted by in categories: encryption, internet

This post is also available in: he עברית (Hebrew)

Bypassing complex encryption has become a main goal and pursuit to State-actors and cybercriminals alike. It has never been more important to focus on updated, resilient HTTPS configurations, according to the TLS Telemetry Report by F5 Labs, which uncovers the extent of internet encryption and the potential use or abuse of web encryption for malicious purposes.

Based on the screening of the top million websites in the world, the report claims that more than half of the web servers still allow unsecured RSA Exchange. In addition, the negation of authorization remains problematic, due to the prevalence of legacy servers updated only rarely.

Sep 6, 2022

Astronomers Discover Clouds of Sand In The Atmosphere of A Failed Star

Posted by in category: space

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have given us direct confirmation that some alien worlds have clouds of rock.

The telescope has directly detected silicate clouds in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf – the first time, according to an international team of astronomers, that such a detection has been made in a planetary-mass companion outside the Solar System.

The complete findings, the team says, constitute the best spectrum yet for a planetary mass-object. These results could not only help us better understand these so-called ‘failed stars’, but represent just a foretaste of what the JWST can do.

Sep 6, 2022

New technique significantly increases lifetimes of fuel cells and other devices

Posted by in categories: energy, materials

The adoption rate of fuel cells has increased owing to the rising need for clean energy.

In a research that could jump-start the work on a range of technologies, including fuel cells, which are key to storing solar and wind energy, MIT researchers have found a simple way to significantly increase the lifetimes of fuel cells and other devices – changing the pH of the system.

Fuel/electrolysis cells made of materials known as solid metal oxides are in interest for several reasons. In electrolysis mode, they are very efficient at converting electricity from a renewable source into a storable fuel like hydrogen or methane. This storable fuel can be used in the fuel cell mode to generate electricity when the sun is not shining, or the wind isn’t blowing.