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Visual illusion reveals what today’s AI vision is missing

Our eyes do not always tell us exactly where things are—and that may be a feature of how biological vision works, rather than simply a flaw. A new study by York University researchers uses a common illusion to ask: If artificial intelligence is meant to see more like us, should it make some of the same systematic perceptual “mistakes”?

For example, after staring at something moving steadily in one direction, a stationary object viewed immediately afterward can appear slightly displaced in the opposite direction. This well-known visual illusion, called a motion aftereffect, gives scientists an unusual window into the computations underlying perception: The image itself has not moved, but our experience of where it is has changed.

The study, titled “The macaque IT cortex but not current artificial vision networks encode object position in perceptually aligned coordinates,” is published today in Current Biology.

Even when AI behaves just like us, people still rate it as less conscious than humans

Stories about AI systems deceiving users, cooperating with one another or pursuing their own goals increasingly invite us to talk about them as if they had minds of their own. But do people really believe that AI is conscious? A new LMU study suggests that they draw a surprisingly sharp line between intelligent behavior and consciousness.

The study, recently published in the journal Cognition, was led by Dr. Louis Longin from LMU’s Chair of Philosophy of Mind together with his colleagues Dr. Bahador Bahrami, professor Ophelia Deroy and other collaborators.

“Whereas previous studies have typically asked general questions about whether AI actually has mental states, our study is the first to directly compare how people attribute the same mental states to AI and humans behaving in exactly the same way, under identical circumstances,” says Longin.

A laser that stays locked without active control

EPFL researchers have developed a chip-based laser that keeps a very stable frequency across its tested operating range, without needing active electronic control. Their research is published in the journal Nature Photonics.

Lasers provide the precise light needed for atomic clocks, quantum sensors, fiber-optic monitoring, coherent communications and distance measurements. These applications depend on lasers whose optical frequency remains exceptionally stable. The most precise systems often rely on bulky laboratory lasers, which limits their use in compact and portable technologies.

Semiconductor lasers offer a practical alternative. They are small, electrically powered and suitable for large-scale manufacturing. Their frequency, though, tends to fluctuate much more than that of the fiber lasers used in precision systems.

Protons ride moving waves to reach record energy with long-pulse lasers

Imagine a proton catching a wave and surfing it to gain speed. While the imagery may seem wild, the premise of laser-driven ion acceleration has promise as an alternative to conventional accelerators. However, the ultrathin targets used to drive this increase in ion energy are vulnerable to the weak prepulse that precedes the main high-intensity laser pulse, meaning an adaptation in the process is necessary.

Nevertheless, researchers from the University of Osaka have now used lasers to create a moving electric field that accelerates protons to very high energies. This adapted approach could ultimately contribute to the development of next-generation particle accelerators, with fewer concerns about target vulnerabilities. The findings have been published in Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics.

Physicists who uncovered the first particle accelerator were honored with a Nobel Prize 75 years ago

While scientists are known for their dedication to their research, crawling on the floor to avoid electrocution for the sake of a measurement seems a little excessive. But this is what British physicist John Cockcroft and Irish physicist Ernest T.S. Walton had to do in the early 1930s while studying the structure of atomic nuclei. Luckily, their efforts led to their receiving the Nobel Prize in 1951.

In the early 1930s, scientists were just beginning to discover the extraordinary world hidden inside the atom, which is made up of a dense center, called the nucleus, with electrons orbiting around it.

Nobel laureate Ernest Rutherford had already shown that radioactive materials sometimes emitted particles, naturally changing the makeup of their atomic nuclei. When energetic particles collided with atomic nuclei, they could trigger a reaction that rearranged the protons and neutrons in the nucleus—sometimes transforming one element into another. But scientists could only study this phenomenon using particles from radioactive decays, which provided limited energy and intensity.

A Few Picoseconds Reveal Superconductivity’s Hidden Breaking Point

Ultrafast current pulses let scientists push superconductors beyond their usual experimental limits before vortices and heat could interfere.

The method revealed striking differences in how two superconducting materials break down and could expose quantum behavior that conventional measurements miss.

Superconductivity is one of the most remarkable behaviors found in quantum materials. When some materials are cooled below a specific transition temperature, their electrical resistance disappears, allowing current to move through them without losing energy as heat.

Scientists Simulated Moons Being Blown Apart — and Found Something Unexpected

A study suggests that icy moons can still harbor oceans after catastrophic collisions, a finding that could help guide the search for life beyond Earth.

Many moons orbiting Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are thought to conceal liquid water beneath miles of icy shell. These buried oceans hold a basic ingredient for life as we know it, making them promising places to search for extraterrestrial organisms in a region shaped by violent collisions.

Scientists suspect some of today’s moons are reassembled remnants that were repeatedly shattered by space debris and pulled back together. This cosmic demolition derby raises a critical question for astrobiologists: Do massive collisions destroy a moon’s ocean and extinguish any chance for life?

Warlock ransomware breach SharePoint in water, telecom operator attacks

The China-linked ransomware group Warlock targeted a water utility, a telecom provider, a regional government body, and a university by exploiting SharePoint vulnerabilities to gain initial access.

Over the past two months, the threat actor appears to have focused on countries speaking Portuguese and Spanish across Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

The gang emerged in June 2025 and gained notoriety a month later after exploiting a chain of zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft SharePoint known as ToolShell (CVE-2025–49704, CVE-2025–49706, CVE-2025–53770, and CVE-2025–53771).

GitLab warns of critical RCE vulnerability in AI Gateway service

GitLab warned customers today to immediately patch a critical AI Gateway vulnerability that could let attackers run arbitrary commands on vulnerable instances.

AI Gateway is a service that gives access to AI-native GitLab Duo features. While GitLab operates its own cloud-based AI Gateway instance used by GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, and GitLab Dedicated, users can also deploy their own self-hosted instances on GitLab Self-Managed through GitLab Duo Self-Hosted.

Tracked as CVE-2026–90970, this security flaw stems from an improper neutralization weakness and can let attackers with basic privileges and Duo Agent Platform access execute arbitrary commands on unpatched instances.

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