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Backdoored PyTorch Lightning package drops credential stealer

A malicious version of the PyTorch Lightning package published on the Python Package Index (PyPI) delivers a credential-stealing payload targeting browsers, environment files, and cloud services.

The developer disclosed the supply-chain attack on April 30, saying that version 2.6.3 of the package included a hidden execution chain that downloads and executes a JavaScript payload.

PyTorch Lightning is a deep learning framework used for pretraining and fine-tuning AI models. It is a popular package, amassing more than 11 million downloads last month.

How a ‘90s Zelda PC port became a fangame factory, turning one legend into a thousand

The same way you might play Dragon Quest and rush to assemble a tribute in RPG Maker, players have been making their own old-school adventures in ZQuest for decades. The results range from the quaint to the damn near authentic, and the cream of the crop is collected on a database-slash-forum called PureZC. It’s a visually lean, community-driven treasure trove the likes of which I didn’t think existed on the internet anymore. Custom games, all of which are called “quests” and disseminated as.qst files to be plugged into ZQuest, are split up into a few genres: Metroidvania, NES-style, dungeon romper, randomizer, and so on.

Like Venezia and Clark said, you can go a long way without writing so much as a line of code (though the option is there, should you opt to push the engine beyond its normal scope using the ZScript language). A fan favorite metroidvania quest from 2024, The Deep, features puzzles that incorporate shadows and fog, conveyor belts, a hookshot like you might remember from A Link to the Past, and all sorts of other novelties.

It’s easy to see how it took home the gold in a community contest, but all the more intriguing when you learn it did so in a “non-scripted bracket” and was built in just over three weeks. Bigger, multi-year endeavors like Lost Isle and The Hero of Dreams are lengthy and fully-featured games in their own right—projects that, if you squint, look and feel remarkably like unreleased Game Boy Advance games. While the quests are diverse, numbering over a thousand, reverence for the 40-year-old Nintendo series is the one thing that makes it all cohere.

A common parasite in the brain is far more active than we thought

A parasite carried by billions isn’t dormant at all—it’s running a secret survival operation inside the brain.

A common parasite long thought to lie dormant is actually much more active and complex. Researchers found that Toxoplasma gondii cysts contain multiple parasite subtypes, not just one sleeping form. Some are primed to reactivate and cause disease, which helps explain why infections are so hard to treat. The discovery could reshape efforts to develop drugs that finally eliminate the parasite for good.

Physical exercise protects against Toxoplasma gondii infection-induced muscle atrophy and microvascular rarefaction

FNDC5/irisin detection was performed by a sandwich ELISA reaction using DuoSet® ELISA Development Systems kit (R&D Systems), according to manufacturer’s instructions. Blood samples were collected at 10 or 40 dpi, allowed to sit for at least 1 h, and then centrifuged for 10 min at 224 g in a refrigerated centrifuge (4 °C) to isolate the serum. Samples were stored at −80 °C until irisin detection.

Serum samples were assayed for TNF-α, INF-γ, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, and IL-17a using a Cytometric Bead Array (CBA) Th1/ Th2/ Th17 kit (BD Biosciences), according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Data were acquired using a Cytoflex S (Beckman Coulter) flow cytometer. After data acquisition, dedicated software (FCAP Array, BD Biosciences) was used to analyze the results by gating bead populations, calculating MFI values, generating standard curves, and determining analyte concentrations. These analyses were performed at the Flow Cytometry Facility of the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz).

T. gondii infection was quantified using RT-qPCR with bag1 and enolase2 primers to detect bradyzoite and tachyzoite forms, respectively, according to49. Ct values were compared to a standard curve amplification, derived from known T. gondii RNA concentrations. The standard curve was constructed with six 10-fold dilutions, starting with 6.0 × 106 parasites for either bradyzoites or tachyzoites. Primer sequences are available in Table 2.

An ultrasound-scanning in vivo light source

Beautifully executed paper on putting mechanoluminescent nanoparticles into blood circulation of mice which express optogenetic channels. Focused ultrasound can then trigger targeted light emission and control of neural activity in the brain and elsewhere.

A deep-tissue light source made from mechanoluminescent transducers stimulated by focused ultrasound enables wide imaging of live animal vasculature, and modulation of neuronal activity and behaviour.

One missing metabolic step can turn cancer’s DNA-copying machinery into a lethal weakness

Loss of an enzyme necessary for a process called lipoylation disrupts the way cancer cells copy their DNA, increasing their vulnerability to a class of anticancer drugs known as PARP inhibitors, a study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers shows.

The findings, published in Science Advances, reveal a previously unrecognized mechanism to protect DNA replication and genome stability that could lead to new treatments for some cancers.

“This study shows that metabolism doesn’t just fuel cancer cells—it also directly shapes how DNA is copied and protected. This helps explain why inhibiting lipoylation could make tumors especially sensitive to PARP inhibitors,” said Yuanyuan “Faith” Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology and a member of the Experimental Therapeutics Research Program in the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern. Dr. Zhang co-led the study with first author Zengfu Shang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology in the Zhang Lab.

Ultrafast MRI uncovers brain signal direction: New scan may help decode autism, Alzheimer’s and hallucinations

Researchers at the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon have for the first time managed to identify with an imaging technique whether nervous impulses in the brain of rats are flowing in a “bottom-up” (feedforward), carrying information about visual input, or a “top-down” (feedback) direction, carrying information about expectations or predictions on a given task or about the perception of the world around us. Their results, published in Nature Communications, could have important implications for understanding changes in the brains of people with hallucinations, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, and other conditions.

Joana Carvalho, first author of the new study, who at the time was working in the Preclinical MRI lab led by senior author Noam Shemesh (she has since become a group leader at Coimbra University), “came up with the ideas, did the experiments and analyzed the results. I just brought the MRI expertise,” says Shemesh good-humoredly. Co-author Koen V. Haak from Tilburg University (Netherlands) gave assistance with the computational models and the others helped with the experiments.

The team showed that spontaneous feedforward and feedback nervous impulses in these rodents (the brain never sleeps) each have a unique, distinct signature, which can be detected by using a method they developed, called uFLARE (UltraFast Layer-Resolved Encoding), a neuroimaging technique designed to map brain activity with unprecedented high temporal and spatial resolutions.

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