Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 7

Aptima will lead the commercialization arm of DARPA’s Semantic Forensics program (SemaFor), building on its prior role as the test and evaluation lead for the initiative. Launched by DARPA’s Information Innovation Office in 2020, SemaFor aims to detect and analyze media not just at the signal level such as alterations in pixel data or compression artifacts, but also at the semantic level.

The new contract represents DARPA’s attempt to push SemaFor’s cutting-edge research beyond the defense and Intelligence Community and into broader commercial and public sector adoption. The program represents a conceptual leap from earlier forensics programs by targeting the intent behind media manipulation and its effects on public understanding and discourse.

The “SemaFor program is developing technologies to defend against multimedia falsification and disinformation campaigns,” DARPA explained in its FY 2025 budget justification document. “Statistical detection techniques have been successful, but media generation and manipulation technologies applicable to imagery, voice, video, text, and other modalities are advancing rapidly. Purely statistical detection methods are now insufficient to detect these manipulations, especially when multiple modalities are involved.”

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Japan on Friday enacted a new law that would permit the country’s authorities to preemptively engage with adversaries through offensive cyber operations to ensure threats are suppressed before they cause significant damage.

The new law, which was first mooted in 2022, is intended to help Japan strengthen its cyber defense “to a level equal to major Western powers” and marks a break from the country’s traditional approach to cyber defense, which had tracked closely to its Article 9 constitutional commitment to pacifism.

The new Active Cyberdefense Law mirrors recent reinterpretations of Article 9, providing Japan’s Self-Defence Forces with the right to provide material support to allies under the justification that failing to do so could endanger the whole of the country.

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Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have discovered that Cepheid variable stars in our neighboring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), are moving in opposing directions along two distinct axes. They found that stars closer to Earth move towards the northeast, while more distant stars move southwest.

This newly discovered movement pattern exists alongside a northwest-southeast opposing movement that the scientists previously observed in .

These complex bidirectional movements along two different axes indicate that the SMC is being stretched by multiple external gravitational forces—its larger neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), in one direction and another currently unknown mechanism in the other. The findings are published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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“Space weather can impact systems that use IT for critical functions and everyday processes,” James Spann, a senior scientist at the Office of Space Weather Observations at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) department, told Space.com in an email. “These space weather impacts can have the same symptoms as a cyberattack, where systems will be brought down, or lockup, or transmit erroneous information.”

NESDIS oversaw a tabletop space weather exercise conducted in May 2024, the first such drill testing the U.S. preparedness for a major solar storm. Results of the exercise, which brought together 35 US government agencies, were published in a report in April.

In one of the simulations during the exercise, NOAA and the U.S. Air Force reported a severe solar flare and radio burst, but another federal department or agency “reported contradictory information, suggesting that the radio and communications disruptions were possibly the result of a cyberattack,” according to the report. Above all, it showed the need for effective communication following such events.

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For decades, astronomers have discovered hundreds of protoplanetary disks—structures believed to represent the early stages of our own solar system. However, most of these discoveries lie within our neighborhood, which may not reflect the extreme conditions found in other parts of the Milky Way.

Among the most dynamic and turbulent regions is the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) near the Milky Way galactic center, where and density may shape star and planet formation in fundamentally different ways. Studying protoplanetary systems in the CMZ provides a rare opportunity to test and refine our theories of solar system formation.

An international team of researchers have conducted the most sensitive, highest-resolution, and most complete survey to date of three representative molecular clouds in the Milky Way’s CMZ. Their observations revealed over five hundred dense cores—the sites where stars are being born.

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“The backing of these global financial institutions is a testament to the strength of our business and the resonance of our mission,” Krishna Rao, Anthropic’s finance chief, said in a statement.

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University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, San Diego researchers developed an injectable sealant for rapid hemostasis and tissue adhesion in soft, elastic organs.

Formulated with methacryloyl-modified human recombinant tropoelastin (MeTro) and Laponite silicate nanoplatelets (SNs), the engineered hydrogel demonstrated substantial improvements in tissue adhesion strength and hemostatic efficacy in preclinical models involving lung and arterial injuries.

Injuries to such as lungs, heart, and complicate surgical closure due to their constant motion and elasticity. Sutures, wires, and staples are mechanically fixed, risking when applied to tissues that expand and contract with each breath or heartbeat. Existing hemostatic agents, including fibrin-based sealants, aim to stem blood flow but may trigger intense coagulation responses in patients with clotting disorders.

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