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New semiconductor maser operates continuously above room temperature

Lasers have become indispensable in everyday life and research, with applications ranging from data transmission and metrology to manufacturing. Masers, by contrast, have so far found hardly any practical applications.

The acronym MASER stands for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. In fact, the maser preceded the laser and works according to the same physical principle. However, instead of producing and amplifying light, it generates and amplifies microwave radiation. Despite their great potential, masers have so far mostly depended on technically demanding operating conditions, such as very low temperatures. This has hindered their widespread application.

A research team led by Professor Vladimir Dyakonov and Privatdozent Dr. Andreas Sperlich from the Chair of Experimental Physics 6 at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) has made a significant breakthrough toward practical maser systems.

Tiny vortices discovered on the sun’s surface

Researchers from the U.S. National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory (NSF NSO), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, and the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) in the U.S. have made a discovery in solar physics. New images of the sun’s surface taken with the world’s largest solar telescope, the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, built and operated by the NSO in Hawaii, along with sophisticated computer simulations, reveal tiny plasma vortices that had never before been visible.

“To detect the vortices, we needed to resolve structures on the solar surface about 20 kilometers (12 miles) in size. That is at the limit of what even the world’s largest solar telescope and state-of-the-art simulations can achieve,” said MPS scientist and co-author of the new publication Michiel van Noort, who, among other things, contributed to the observations and conducted the data reduction and image restoration. The researchers used a broadband imaging camera provided by MPS.

The vortices occur at the edges of so-called granules, which densely cover the sun’s visible surface. They measure between 500 and 2,000 kilometers (310 to 1,240 miles) in diameter. Taken together, they form the sun’s granulation: a pattern reminiscent of bubbles in a boiling liquid.

‘Spooky’ particles transit DC suburbs, a step toward a quantum network

In early 2025, special signals wended their way through a fiber-optic highway strung above the streets and sidewalks of the Maryland suburbs. The arrival of those signals at their destination marks a significant step toward a long-held dream of building a “quantum network.” Researchers believe that this emerging technology could someday link quantum devices in ways that supercharge scientific research, enable ultrasecure communications and boost the power of future quantum computers.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers and collaborators reported this advance in the Journal of Optical Communications and Networking.

Electrostatic nanocorral offers new control over charged excitons and quantum light

Researchers created an electrically tunable quantum nanoscale corral that traps charged excitons and enables precise electrical control of tiny light sources, including their brightness, color and quantum states, the team, led by Boston College physicists, reports today in Nature Nanotechnology.

The findings open new ways to control hybrid charge, photon and spin quantum states.

Scientists Expose Hidden Quantum Identity of a Superconductor

Two strongly coupled superconducting states can disguise themselves as a single energy gap in ultrathin materials.

Two ultrathin superconductors appeared to have a simple internal structure, but closer measurements revealed something more complex. Instead of relying on one superconducting state, each material contains two strongly coupled states whose combined behavior makes them look like a single one.

The finding resolves a persistent mystery surrounding these materials and provides a more accurate picture of how their superconductivity works. That understanding could eventually help researchers develop improved materials for quantum computers, ultra-efficient electronics, advanced sensors, and other superconducting technologies.

Over 250 ClickFix Domains Use Browser Fingerprinting to Hide macOS Malware Lures

A macOS ClickFix operation spanning more than 250 front-end domains now fingerprints visitors before deciding whether to show them a malware lure, a change Microsoft Threat Intelligence tracked on infrastructure it had been watching for weeks.

The server-side gate hides the malicious page from crawlers and sandboxes while presenting selected Mac users with a fake software download. Microsoft said the wider cluster distributed MacSync and Atomic Stealer (AMOS); the chain it analyzed through the gate ended in AMOS.

The attack still requires the user to copy and run an obfuscated command in Terminal. That command retrieves scripts and launches an infostealer targeting credentials, browser data, authentication stores, cryptocurrency wallets, and sensitive files. Microsoft has not disclosed victim numbers, targeted sectors, or the identity of the operators.

Hackers run khunt post-exploitation toolkit from Oracle database

Hackers exploited a SQL injection vulnerability to install a post-exploitation toolkit directly inside an Oracle database that was used to breach a corporate network.

The attack was discovered by Huntress on July 27, 2026, after its security platform detected credential theft on a server hosting an Oracle database server.

Apache access logs showed that the attackers gained access through a vulnerable search engine endpoint in a public-facing Java application running Apache Tomcat.

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