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Microsoft updates Windows DLL that triggered security alerts

Microsoft has resolved a known issue that was causing security applications to incorrectly flag a core Windows component, the company said in a service alert posted this week.

The list of affected systems is quite extensive and includes both client (Windows 10 and Windows 11) and server (Windows Server 2012 through Windows Server 2025) platforms.

According to widespread user reports over the past several months, third-party security software flagged Windows assets, including WinSqlite3.dll, a dynamic link library (DLL) included with the Windows system libraries that implements the SQLite database engine, as vulnerable to attacks exploiting a memory corruption vulnerability (CVE-2025–6965).

Google plans to make Chrome for Android an agentic browser with Gemini

Google appears to be testing a new feature that integrates Gemini into Chrome for Android, allowing you to use agentic browser capabilities on your mobile device.

As spotted by Leo on X, Google is testing agentic capabilities and Gemini integration for Chrome on Android.

This claim is based on new references spotted on Chromium, which is the source code of Chrome.

Google’s Personal Intelligence links Gmail, Photos and Search to Gemini

Google is rolling out ‘Personal Intelligence,’ a new Gemini feature that pulls your data from Gmail, Photos, Google Search, and other products.

There are a couple of use cases for Personal Intelligence. Instead of offering generic answers, Gemini can use details from places you already store them.

This makes the whole experience more ‘personal.’

Progress in stem cell-based embryo models and their applications in developmental biology and biomedicine

This Review discusses recent advances and key challenges in the development of human stem cell-based embryo models, and highlights their applications in fundamental biology and translational potential while emphasizing the importance of ethical frameworks and public engagement.

Familial Hypercholesterolemia Screening in Childhood and Early Adulthood: A Cost-Effectiveness Study

Sequential childhood or early adulthood screening for familial hypercholesterolemia may lower lifetime CVD risk, but is unlikely to be cost-effective unless ongoing follow-up for elevated cholesterol is widely implemented.

This study uses a computer model to estimate the cost-effectiveness of sequential familial hypercholesterolemia screening at age 10 or 18 years using 3 low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) thresholds.

VTA monosynaptic connections by local glutamate and GABA neurons and their distinct roles in behavior

While the connectivity of VTA dopamine neurons is well studied, less is known about the connectivity of VTA glutamate and GABA neurons. Here, authors show that these neurons form local circuits to modulate reward, aversion, feeding and locomotion.

How a unique class of neurons may set the table for brain development

The way the brain develops can shape us throughout our lives, so neuroscientists are intensely curious about how it happens. A new study by researchers in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT that focused on visual cortex development in mice, reveals that an important class of neurons follows a set of rules that while surprising, might just create the right conditions for circuit optimization.

During early brain development, multiple types of neurons emerge in the visual cortex (where the brain processes vision). Many are “excitatory,” driving the activity of brain circuits, and others are “inhibitory,” meaning they control that activity. Just like a car needs not only an engine and a gas pedal, but also a steering wheel and brakes, a healthy balance between excitation and inhibition is required for proper brain function.

During a “critical period” of development in the visual cortex, soon after the eyes first open, excitatory and inhibitory neurons forge and edit millions of connections, or synapses, to adapt nascent circuits to the incoming flood of visual experience. Over many days, in other words, the brain optimizes its attunement to the world.

This new tool could tell us how consciousness works

The technology has entered use in recent years, but it isn’t yet fully integrated into research. Now, two MIT researchers are planning experiments with it, and have published a new paper they term a “roadmap” for using the tool to study consciousness.

“Transcranial focused ultrasound will let you stimulate different parts of the brain in healthy subjects, in ways you just couldn’t before,” says Daniel Freeman, an MIT researcher and co-author of a new paper on the subject. “This is a tool that’s not just useful for medicine or even basic science, but could also help address the hard problem of consciousness. It can probe where in the brain are the neural circuits that generate a sense of pain, a sense of vision, or even something as complex as human thought.”

Transcranial focused ultrasound is noninvasive and reaches deeper into the brain, with greater resolution, than other forms of brain stimulation, such as transcranial magnetic or electrical stimulation.

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