All posts tagged: researchers

Online ads weaponised to deliver ‘zero-click’ spyware, researchers say

Online ads weaponised to deliver ‘zero-click’ spyware, researchers say

Published by Miika Tikkanen

An Israeli advertising agency has been serving millions of online adverts that allow “zero-click” spyware to be used against targets, researchers at a Canadian university have said. Citizen Lab, a digital investigations research unit at the University of Toronto, said it believed dozens of devices at the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera had been compromised by spyware delivered through ads run by Discover-Tech, which describes itself as a specialised digital advertising agency. According to Citizen Lab, Discover-Tech operates a software platform called Controlium that allows its clients to “mass-profile and deanonymise” internet users then covertly hack targets with third-party spyware. Unlike infections that rely on people interacting with links or files, the spyware requires no interaction from the victim to be installed, making it a new delivery technique, Citizen Lab says. The infections happen without a user’s knowledge, and in a matter of seconds, according to Citizen Lab. “[The online advertising] ecosystem is being weaponised at a massive scale to profile millions of users, then silently infect targets with zero-click mercenary spyware,” the report says. According …

Researchers watched 150 episodes of Bluey. Here’s what they found

Researchers watched 150 episodes of Bluey. Here’s what they found

Published by Daniella Wilson

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in She’s six years old, lives in Brisbane and might just be one of the best resilience coaches on television. We’re talking about Bluey, the animated Aussie pup whose adventures have captured the hearts of families around the world. But as our new study reveals, Bluey isn’t just entertaining kids, she’s modelling how to deal with life’s ups and downs. Why is resilience so important? Resilience isn’t just about “toughing it out”. It’s the ability to cope with challenges, adapt to setbacks and recover from difficulties. It’s a vital part of healthy child development. Research shows resilience helps children manage stress, regulate their emotions, build better relationships, and even perform better at school. Without it, children may be more vulnerable to anxiety, depression and poor coping skills later in life. Bluey first aired in 2018 (Disney+) Children today face growing mental health challenges, including anxiety and emotional dysregulation. For example, a …

Why Some Researchers Think Dementia Is ‘Type 3 Diabetes’

Why Some Researchers Think Dementia Is ‘Type 3 Diabetes’

Published by Sam Flores

Though it doesn’t currently have a cure – or even a single diagnostic test – some researchers are beginning to see dementia as potentially “treatable”. A recent report from Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) and health writer Paul Gallagher showed that experts have become “optimistic” about the disease due to newly released drugs and an “unprecedented” boom in dementia research. An older addition to that corpus is a 2020 paper that suggests that dementia could be considered a third kind of diabetes. It says that the relationship between poorly-controlled blood sugar and dementia onset is “so strong that some have called Alzheimer’s ‘diabetes of the brain’ or ‘type 3 diabetes (T3D)’”. How is diabetes linked to dementia? Alzheimer’s Society shared that people with type 2 diabetes (when the body becomes more resistant to the sugar-regulating hormone, insulin) are more likely to develop dementia than the general population. The same is also true of those with type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune condition where the body attacks its own insulin-making cells. And the longer you live …

Psychedelics have brought mysticism into modern medicine. Researchers are listening.

Psychedelics have brought mysticism into modern medicine. Researchers are listening.

Published by Jenni Sidey

Millions of Americans now use psychedelics, as mounting evidence suggests that substances like psilocybin, ketamine and ayahuasca may help alleviate depression and other mental health conditions. “Psychedelic medicine” is becoming increasingly mainstream, with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly recently agreeing to acquire one such drug developer for up to $3.8 billion. But when you speak to someone who took psychedelics with therapeutic intentions, they don’t just say they feel better. They talk about transcendence: strange visions, encounters with ancestors,  perhaps even meeting God. This is new territory for mainstream Western psychiatry and culture. A psychedelic isn’t  just medicine, yet taking one isn’t just “tripping.” So what is it? Notre Dame medical anthropologist Aidan Seale-Feldman studies such questions. She’s spent the past couple years interviewing people who took psychedelics for improved mental health in settings ranging from underground churches to clinical trials, and, in many cases, emerged with a reshaped worldview. The Well spoke with Seale-Feldman about the possibilities and risks of psychedelic medicine, the rise of what she calls “secular mysticism,” and what these experiences reveal …

Can you lend me a hand? Researchers are developing wearable robotic limbs

Can you lend me a hand? Researchers are developing wearable robotic limbs

Published by Miika Tikkanen

How many times have you asked someone to hold open a door while carrying something, or fumbled with your front-door keys with your arms full of shopping? Wouldn’t it be great if you could give yourself the extra hand you need? This is one of the goals of human movement augmentation, a new and growing area of research that aims to extend human capabilities beyond their natural limits. Within this field, researchers are developing and studying artificial limbs that can be added to the human body. These are known as supernumerary robotic limbs, or SRLs. Current SRLs are largely experimental, but in the future wearable robotic limbs could help in a range of areas. They could have an impact in manufacturing, healthcare, space, music, arts, gaming and rehabilitation. Technology that boosts people’s physical and mental abilities is no longer the preserve of science fiction. In this new series, we explore cutting-edge ways that human capabilities could be augmented now and in the near future – and the ethics of these innovations. Unlike prostheses, SRLs increase …

Researchers Say They’ve Found the Truth About Thomas Jefferson

Researchers Say They’ve Found the Truth About Thomas Jefferson

Published by Daniella Wilson

Three hours after Thomas Jefferson died at his Monticello home on July 4, 1826, his personal secretary, Nicholas Trist, snipped a lock of the Founder’s gray hair, still faintly reddish blond. Trist then tied the hair with orange thread and placed it in a paper packet, along with a short note describing what he’d done. In an era before photography or modern embalming, hair was an easily preserved reminder of a beloved friend or relative who’d died. Trist did not know that he was also securing physical evidence that, two centuries later, would help resolve one of the nation’s oldest and most contentious historical debates: whether the author of the Declaration of Independence, the nation’s third president, had children with Sally Hemings, a woman he enslaved for half a century and never freed. After a covert and exhaustive 15-year effort led by the Smithsonian Institution, a team of geneticists, genealogists, historians, and anthropologists believe it has found proof that Jefferson fathered at least two of Hemings’s six children. On Tuesday, Richard Kurin, a Smithsonian cultural …

When DNA tests find skeletons in your family’s closet, these researchers want to know about it

When DNA tests find skeletons in your family’s closet, these researchers want to know about it

Published by Sam Flores

Get RNS’ thoughtful, essential religion reporting every morning. Sign up for free! (RNS) — When Joseph Stuart was two weeks into his new job at Brigham Young University as an assistant professor of history, a student came into his office for advice. She sat down to talk but didn’t make eye contact, instead looking past Stuart to stare out his office window. “I found out something about my family,” she began. Through DNA testing, she’d recently learned she had a half-sibling she never knew existed. This discovery rocked the certainty of what she thought she knew about her parents and their family’s history. She also wondered what this meant for the afterlife in a religion that teaches that families can be together forever if they’ve been sealed in a Latter-day Saint, or Mormon, temple. Stuart was uniquely positioned to help, as he teaches courses on genealogy and the family at BYU, the only university in the world that offers an undergraduate degree in family history. He’s also a committed Latter-day Saint who believes in eternal …

Researchers Think A Brain 'Switch' Could Be The Root Cause Of Alzheimer's

Researchers Think A Brain 'Switch' Could Be The Root Cause Of Alzheimer's

Published by Sam Flores

!function(n){if(!window.cnx){window.cnx={},window.cnx.cmd=[];var t=n.createElement(‘iframe’);t.display=’none’,t.onload=function(){var n=t.contentWindow.document,c=n.createElement(‘script’);c.src=”//cd.connatix.com/connatix.player.js”,c.setAttribute(‘async’,’1′),c.setAttribute(‘type’,’text/javascript’),n.body.appendChild(c)},n.head.appendChild(t)}}(document);(new Image()).src=”https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=8b034f64-513c-4987-b16f-42d6008f7feb”;cnx.cmd.push(function(){cnx({“playerId”:”8b034f64-513c-4987-b16f-42d6008f7feb”,”mediaId”:”93d083ad-b462-4e00-b7f4-e5a132e35883″}).render(“6aaa5dc2e4b0477c43c06561”);}); Alzheimer’s disease, a form of dementia, accounts for 60-80% of cases in the UK. Researchers have long linked Alzheimer’s to a buildup of amyloid plaques and tau tangles in the brain. These are both proteins that have been compared to the “trigger and bullet” in the development of the condition.  But we don’t have a single cause of the disease. Nor do we know what kicks off the problematic buildup of amyloid plaques and tau tangles, which seems to begin years before symptoms appear. However, a new paper published in Nature has suggested that a molecular “switch” called ERBB4 may set up a chain reaction when activated in the wrong neurons, which could lead to cognitive impairment.  What did the study find?  The researchers initially began by looking at astrocytes and microglia in mice. These are types of cells called glial cells that protect and maintain brain health. Healthy glial cells can remove “waste” synapses, or points of contact between communicating neurons, from the brain. The scientists wondered whether they become overactive among those with dementia, …

Potential root cause of Alzheimer’s may have just been discovered

Potential root cause of Alzheimer’s may have just been discovered

Published by Sam Flores

A small shift in a brain molecule may explain how Alzheimer’s disease turns from an abnormal nerve connection to a condition affecting memories, a new study suggests. According to previous research, abnormal protein clumps known as amyloid plaques and tau tangles are the key drivers of Alzheimer’s. The clumps are a hallmark of a wider breakdown in which nerve cells become overactive, lose their connections and see supporting cells turn reactive. But how these changes link to cognitive decline remains one of the disease’s central mysteries. The new study, from the Institute of Basic Science in South Korea, says a receptor protein molecule, ERBB4, may be the missing link. An abnormal activation of this molecule in nerve cells called excitatory neurons can initiate several Alzheimer’s-related problems at once. Researchers found that a distinct population of excitatory neurons emerged early in the Alzheimer’s process and they carried the ERBB4 receptor. The receptor allows nerve cells to respond to external signals. In the study, researchers first probed two types of brain cells, called astrocytes and microglia, which …

What is recursive self-improvement? Why AI researchers are worried

What is recursive self-improvement? Why AI researchers are worried

Published by Miika Tikkanen

How do you get from a chatbot that sometimes makes things up to a machine that humans might struggle to control? There are several steps in that argument, and plenty of uncertainty. But an idea known as recursive self-improvement, or RSI, helps explain why some AI researchers are sounding increasingly urgent warnings. The premise is straightforward. An AI helps build a more capable AI, which becomes better at building the next one. In simple terms, the systems get better at getting better. It is easy to see the appeal. For scientists, doctors, engineers and business owners, increasingly capable AI could help accelerate drug discovery, design better batteries, improve manufacturing and develop software faster. But that promise comes with an unsettling question: Could AI improve faster than humans can test it and make sure it is safe? SEE ALSO: Anthropic’s CEO urges the industry to slow down, and Sam Altman agrees That concern is at the heart of an essay published on Sept. 12 by Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive of Anthropic, the company behind …