CISA added CVE-2026–12569 to its KEV catalog as attackers exploit the PTC Windchill flaw to deploy JSP web shells.
Category: futurism
Non-invasive brain stimulation: current and future applications in neurology
Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) shows considerable promise as a therapeutic strategy for neurological and psychiatric disorders. This Review explores the role of NIBS techniques, including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial electrical stimulation, for treating cognitive impairments, speech and language difficulties, and motor control deficits in people with neurodegenerative or brain lesion disorders.
Scientists find molecular-level evidence for two structures in liquid water
A study published in Nature Physics provides new molecular-level evidence from simulations that liquid water is not a single uniform substance, but a constantly shifting mixture of two distinct microscopic structures.
The idea that water might exist in two distinct structural states is not new. For decades, scientists have theorized that liquid water is composed of two interconvertible local structures—one denser and more disordered, the other less dense and more ordered.
This “two-state model” has been invoked to explain water’s many anomalous properties, including why it becomes easier to compress as it cools and why it reaches maximum density at 4°C (39°F) rather than at its freezing point. But the model has remained controversial because direct molecular-level evidence for the two structures has been elusive.
Thirsty desert lizards inspire a new water-harvesting system
When the desert horned lizard (Phrynosoma platyrhinos) is thirsty, it cannot just lap up water or scoop it up like a bird because it lives in environments where water is extremely scarce. Typically, it’s found in damp soil or, even more rarely, in drops of rain.
Instead, its skin contains microscopic channels between overlapping scales that pull in moisture by capillary action. But how it gets that water from these channels into its mouth has remained a mystery until now.
Scientists have discovered how that happens, and it inspired them to design a water-harvesting system that borrows from how the reptiles do it.
Room-temperature laser hits record stability with 68-cm optical cavity
Scientists at NPL have demonstrated the best-reported laser frequency stability achieved with an optical reference cavity operating at room temperature, marking a major advance in ultrastable laser technology. The team’s results have been published in Optica.
Ultrastable lasers produce light of exceptional spectral purity and are a critical enabling technology for optical atomic clocks. These are the next generation of atomic clocks based on atomic transitions in the optical domain. These clocks underpin the most precise timekeeping ever achieved and are central to future technologies ranging from advanced navigation to fundamental physics.
The NPL team measured a fractional frequency instability of 4 × 10⁻¹⁷, achieved for the first time using a room-temperature optical reference cavity. Until now, comparable performance had only been realized internationally using complex cryogenic systems.
