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NASA Plans to Test Fire on The Moon Ahead of Future Missions

There’s one particular challenge facing the crewed missions of the near future that scares mission planners more than almost any other: fire.

A new paper from researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center and Johnson Space Center and Case Western Reserve University details a planned mission to test the flammability of materials on the Moon’s surface – where they expect flame to act much differently than it does here on Earth.

On Earth, gravity causes hot gases to rise, drawing fresh, cool oxygen to the base of the flame. In some cases where the material is marginally flammable, this can result in a phenomenon called “blowoff”, which actually extinguishes the fire.

Atomic Clocks Could Reveal The Hidden Quantum Nature of Time Itself

Although there are many variables in life, there’s one metric by which our existence is strictly measured: time.

We think of it as rigid, smooth, and unidirectional – the arrow of time flies straight and true, and all we can do is go where it leads.

But what if time is a little more loosey-goosey than our experience of it suggests? What if it harbors a hidden quantum nature?

Up to 4% of People Can Hear Colors or Taste Words. Here’s Why

Have you ever tasted a word, or seen colors while listening to music?

If you have, you may be among the 1% to 4% of people who have a fascinating trait known as synaesthesia.

Synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon where the activation of one sense, such as hearing, triggers the activation of another, usually unrelated sense, such as sight. This means people with synaesthesia often experience additional sensations compared to the rest of us.

The Gentlemen ransomware now uses SystemBC for bot-powered attacks

A SystemBC proxy malware botnet of more than 1,570 hosts, believed to be corporate victims, has been discovered following an investigation into a Gentlemen ransomware attack carried out by a gang affiliate.

The Gentlemen ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation emerged around mid-2025 and provides a Go-based locker that can encrypt Windows, Linux, NAS, and BSD systems, and a C-based locker for ESXi hypervisors.

Last December, it compromised one of Romania’s largest energy providers, the Oltenia Energy Complex. Earlier this month, The Adaptavist Group disclosed a breach that Gentlemen ransomware listed on its data leak site.

China’s Apple App Store infiltrated by crypto-stealing wallet apps

A set of 26 malicious apps on Apple App Store impersonate popular wallets, such as Metamask, Coinbase, Trust Wallet, and OneKey, to steal recovery or seed phrases and drain them of cryptocurrency assets.

The threat actor used multiple methods to imitate official products, including typosquatting and fake branding, to lure users in China into downloading them.

Because such apps are restricted in the country, the attacker published them as games or calculator apps, likely in the hope of being perceived by the users as a trick to bypass the bans in the country.

US Army Tests Autonomous Golden Shield Counter-drone System in Live-fire Exercise

The U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division has completed the latest phase of its counter drone experimentation, a live-fire exercise from April 7–9 testing cUAS systems for its “Golden Shield” counter-drone concept for an armored formation. This significant step in the division’s Pegasus Charge initiative incorporated autonomous cUAS battlefield effectors for the first time, advancing efforts to protect U.S. forces from the growing threat of small unmanned aerial systems. Exercise Golden Shield integrated advanced sensors, kinetic and non-kinetic effectors and command-and-control systems to create an autonomous cohesive defense against small UAS. The effort, led by the 1st Cavalry Division in collaboration with Army DEVCOM and industry partners, aims to enhance the protection of armored vehicles and their crews while maneuvering. The system links sensors and weapons on tactical vehicles to automatically detect, track and engage threats, significantly shortening the sensor-to-shooter timeline and reducing cognitive load.

“The intent is to take these systems we tested this week and begin to integrate them within our armored formations’ training,” said Maj. Kevin Correa, 1st Cavalry Division’s air and missile defense chief. “In that way, we are able to fully exercise not only the systems, but the tanker’s ability to manage these systems while conducting their normal operations.”

“The future is formation-based layered protection, and this is the start of that,” said Alfred Grein, executive director for Research and Technology Integration for the U.S. Army Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center. “Some (of the systems) are more mature than others. But understand that’s part of why we do experiments to determine what we think is ready to hand-off to Soldiers in the field environment.”

Thales Secures Military Navigation in Electronic Warfare Environments with the TopStar Smart Receiver

Thales launches the TopStar Smart Receiver, a three-in-one ultra-compact solution providing land forces with resilient positioning, navigation and timing capabilities, while maintaining radio communications in increasingly contested electronic warfare environments. TopStar Smart Receiver can be integrated into land vehicles, drones and munitions. Produced entirely within a sovereign European industrial base, TopStar Smart Receiver is assembled at Thales’ site in Valence, France. This solution is already available for testing in real-world conditions.

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