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Hydrogen (H 2) is currently discussed as an ideal energy carrier in a world requiring renewable energies. Hydrogen has the highest gravimetric energy density of all chemical fuels (141 MJ/kg), which is three times higher than gasoline (46 MJ/kg). However, its low volumetric density restricts its widespread use in transportation applications —as current storage options require a lot of space.

At ambient temperature, hydrogen is a gas, and one kilogram of hydrogen occupies a volume of 12,000 liters (12 cubic meters). In fuel-cell vehicles, hydrogen is stored under a very high pressure of 700 times the atmospheric pressure, which reduces the volume to 25 liters per kilogram of H 2.

Liquid hydrogen shows a higher density resulting in 14 liters per kilogram, but it requires extremely low temperatures since the boiling point of hydrogen is minus 253 °C.

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Two-dimensional van der Waals materials have been the focus of work by numerous research groups for some time. Standing just a few atomic layers thick, these structures are produced in the laboratory by combining atom-thick layers of different materials (in a process referred to as “atomic Lego”).

Interactions between the stacked layers allow the heterostructures to exhibit properties that the individual constituents lack.

The coupling of two different electron-hole pairs leads to a fusion of their properties. (Image: L. Sponfeldner, SNI and Department of Physics, University of Basel)

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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.

Six fake applications available on the Nitrokod website. When installing any of these programs, the malicious effects do not manifest until after a sequence of dropper for almost a month after installation, in order to hide such effects from the antiviruses.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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