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Ultrafast electron microscope in Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory.

Ultrafast electron microscope opens up new avenues for the development of sensors and quantum devices.

Everyone who has ever been to the Grand Canyon can relate to having strong feelings from being close to one of nature’s edges. Similarly, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have discovered that nanoparticles of gold act unusually when close to the edge of a one-atom.

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Recorded Future, an incident-response firm, noted that threat actors have turned to the dark web to offer customized services and tutorials that incorporate visual and audio deepfake technologies designed to bypass and defeat security measures. Just as ransomware evolved into ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) models, we’re seeing deepfakes do the same. This intel from Recorded Future demonstrates how attackers are taking it one step further than the deepfake-fueled influence operations that the FBI warned about earlier this year. The new goal is to use synthetic audio and video to actually evade security controls. Furthermore, threat actors are using the dark web, as well as many clearnet sources such as forums and messengers, to share tools and best practices for deepfake techniques and technologies for the purpose of compromising organizations.

Deepfake phishing

I’ve spoken with CISOs whose security teams have observed deepfakes being used in phishing attempts or to compromise business email and communication platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams. Cybercriminals are taking advantage of the move to a distributed workforce to manipulate employees with a well-timed voicemail that mimics the same speaking cadence as their boss, or a Slack message delivering the same information. Phishing campaigns via email or business communication platforms are the perfect delivery mechanism for deepfakes, because organizations and users implicitly trust them and they operate throughout a given environment.

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Batteries are widely used in everyday applications like powering electric vehicles, electronic gadgets and are promising candidates for sustainable energy storage. However, as you’ve likely noticed with daily charging of batteries, their functionality drops off over time. Eventually, we need to replace these batteries, which is not only expensive but also depletes the rare earth elements used in making them.

A key factor in life reduction is the degradation of a battery’s structural integrity. To discourage structural degradation, a team of researchers from USC Viterbi School of Engineering are hoping to introduce “stretch” into battery materials so they can be cycled repeatedly without structural fatigue. This research was led by Ananya Renuka-Balakrishna, WiSE Gabilan Assistant Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and USC Viterbi Ph.D candidate, Delin Zhang, as well as Brown University researchers from Professor Brian Sheldon’s group. Their work was published in the Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids.

A typical battery works through a repetitive cycle of inserting and extracting Li-ions from electrodes, Zhang said. This insertion and extraction expands and compresses the lattices. These volume shifts create microcracks, fractures and defects over time.

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A team of scientists found an unusual trick for growing bigger, heartier crops: inserting a human gene related to obesity and fat mass into plants to supersize their harvest.

Augmenting potatoes with the human gene that encodes a fat-regulating protein called FTO, which essentially alters the genetic code to rapidly mass-produce proteins, made otherwise identical potato plants grow crops that were 50 percent larger, Smithsonian Magazine reports. By growing more food without taking up more space for agriculture, the scientists say their work could help fight global hunger — without adding to its climate impact.

“It [was] really a bold and bizarre idea,” University of Chicago chemist Chuan He, coauthor of a paper published in Nature Biotechnology, told Smithsonian. “To be honest, we were probably expecting some catastrophic effects.”

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Summary: Lower cholesterol levels may put people with schizophrenia at higher risk for violent behaviors, including self-harm and suicide. Researchers say lower cholesterol levels make brain cells less sensitive to serotonin, increasing symptoms of depression, impulsivity, and aggression.

Source: Brunel University.

Linked to lower risk of heart attacks and strokes, low cholesterol may also be a sign people with schizophrenia are at high risk of self-harm, suicide and violence.

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Scientists say a rare shark “virgin birth” may be the first of its kind after a baby shark was born in an all-female tank in an Italian aquarium.

The baby smoothhound shark, named Ispera, which means hope in Sardianian, was born at the Acquario di Cala Gonone in Sardinia, Italy, according to Italian outlet AGI.

Its mother had spent ten years living in a tank with one other female, the outlet said, and scientists suspect the newborn could be the first documented case of shark parthenogenesis in that species.

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A team of researchers may have found an antibody that can neutralize all known novel coronavirus strains, including the developing variants.

GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology recently conducted a huge collaborative study by scientists and developed a new antibody therapy, called Sotrovimab. During the project, they discovered a new natural antibody “that has remarkable breadth and efficacy,” according to the Berkeley Lab.

The scientists reportedly discovered a new antibody, called S309, which “neutralizes all known SARS-CoV-2 strains — including newly emerged mutants that can now ‘escape’ from previous antibody therapies — as well as the closely related original SARS-CoV virus,” according to a press release from the Berkeley Lab.

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This week: A look at who could succeed Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook when he eventually retires, the company settles a $100 million lawsuit with developers and gives up basically nothing, and details on plans for a larger Apple Watch.

The Starters

This past week marked Tim Cook’s 10-year anniversary as Apple Inc.’s CEO. After a decade on the job and with the end of his reign closer than the beginning, it’s time to take another look at who could one day succeed him.

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