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Category: materials

New BlackFile extortion group linked to surge of vishing attacks

A new financially motivated hacking group tracked as BlackFile has been linked to a wave of data theft and extortion attacks against retail and hospitality organizations since February 2026.

The group, also tracked as CL-CRI-1116, UNC6671, and Cordial Spider, is impersonating corporate IT helpdesk staff to steal employee credentials and demand seven-figure ransoms, according to information shared by cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 with the Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC).

Unit 42 security researchers have also linked BlackFile with moderate confidence to “The Com,” a loose-knit network of English-speaking cybercriminals known for targeting and recruiting young people for extortion, violence, and the production of child sexual exploitation material (CSAM).

Real-time impedance-based cell migration measurements with integrated electrodes on porous membranes for next generation microphysiological systems

A new laboratory technique for measuring how quickly cells penetrate and pass through a porous membrane and reach the opposite side could help identify cancer cells with the greatest potential to spread in the human body.

The method relies on tiny electrodes placed on either side of an artificial membrane. The electrodes measure changes in electrical resistance as cells pass through the material. The most aggressive cancer cells pass through the membrane more rapidly than other cells.

The illustration depicts cells (green and blue) moving through a membrane (grey) studded with microelectrodes (gold rings).

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We present a novel microfluidic device capable of electrically interrogating both surfaces of a porous membrane quantitatively and in real time using electrical impedance spectroscopy to monitor cell migration. This device holds patterned gold electrodes on both sides of the membrane, which enable independent impedance measurements on each side of the membrane. We introduce the term cross-over cell migration (CoCM) to describe this dual-sided approach, which allows precise monitoring of cells at their seeding location and as they move through a porous membrane. To ensure reliable tracking, we developed a normalization method, the CoCM index, that allows us to compare both membrane surfaces directly in real-time. Human renal carcinoma cells (786-O) were passively seeded in the device’s top microfluidic chamber, and we collected impedance data from both sides of the membrane surfaces simultaneously over a three-day period. These measurements successfully captured the onset and progression of cell migration across the membrane interface. We tracked the cells with fluorescence imaging in parallel to validate our impedance data. As cells appeared in focus on the bottom-side electrode surface, their numbers kept increasing over the course of our experiment. The CoCM index decreased by about 20% in the top chamber and increased by approximately 15% in the bottom chamber. Symmetrical CoCM index trends appeared after 40 h, consistent with the fluorescent images captured. Finally, we performed live-cell fluorescence assays to confirm post-experiment cell viability and to quantify migrated cells, further validating our CoCM platform measurements. This platform is a valuable tool not only for real-time and quantitative cell migration studies of cancer and other cells in bulk but also for future studies of single-cell migration processes.

Physicists revive 1990s laser concept to propose a next-generation atomic clock

Researchers in the US and Germany have unveiled a theoretical blueprint for an atomic clock driven by a highly synchronized laser, where atoms work in concert rather than independently. Publishing their results in Physical Review Letters, Jarrod Reilly at the University of Colorado, Simon Jäger at the University of Bonn, and their colleagues in the US and Germany revived an idea first proposed in the 1990s—possibly charting a course toward the narrowest-linewidth lasers ever achieved.

In a conventional laser, a mirrored cavity bounces light back and forth between atoms, building up a bright, coherent beam. A superradiant laser works differently: rather than relying on the cavity to maintain coherence, the atoms themselves act as single coordinated emitters, collectively synchronizing their light emission.

Following early theoretical ideas emerged in the 1990s, the concept didn’t gain concrete traction until 2008, when researchers at the University of Colorado proposed that superradiant lasers could serve as a new kind of atomic clock.

Tim Maudlin | Bell’s Theorem and Beyond: Nobody Understands Quantum Mechanics | The Cartesian Cafe

Tim Maudlin is a philosopher of science specializing in the foundations of physics, metaphysics, and logic. He is a professor at New York University, a member of the Foundational Questions Institute, and the founder and director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics.

#quantum #physics #philosophy #determinism.

Patreon (bonus materials + video chat):
/ timothynguyen.

In this very in-depth discussion, Tim and I probe the foundations of science through the avenues of locality and determinism as arising from the Einstein-Poldosky-Rosen (EPR) paradox and Bell’s Theorem. These issues are so intricate that even the Nobel Prize committee incorrectly described the significance of Bell’s work in their press release for the 2022 prize in physics. Viewers motivated enough to think deeply about these ideas will be rewarded with a conceptually proper understanding of the nonlocal nature of physics and its manifestation in quantum theory.

I. Introduction.
00:25 : Biography.
05:26 : Interdisciplinary work.
11:45 : Physicists working on the wrong things.
16:47 : Bell’s Theorem soft overview.
24:14: Common misunderstanding of \.

UK probes Telegram, teen chat sites over CSAM sharing concerns

Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s independent communications regulator, has launched an investigation into Telegram based on evidence suggesting it’s being used to share child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

The investigation was launched under the UK’s Online Safety Act to examine whether the social media and instant messaging (IM) service is complying with its illegal content safety duties, which require it to prevent CSAM from being shared.

Ofcom says it received evidence regarding the alleged presence and sharing of CSAM on Telegram from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, and that it had also conducted its own assessment of the platform.

How Elasticity Shapes Nematic Criticality

A 19th-century theory of elasticity inspires a new way to analyze a quantum phase transition that has become central to modern quantum materials research.

When a crystalline metal enters a so-called nematic state, the onset of strong fluctuations among interacting electrons spontaneously breaks the crystal’s rotational symmetry and distorts both the physical lattice and the notional Fermi surface. This transition, known as nematic criticality, has been observed near the onset of superconductivity in cuprates, pnictides, and twisted bilayer graphene and could hold the key to explaining these poorly understood forms of superconductivity. Now Joe Meese and Rafael Fernandes of the University of Illinois-Champaign have proposed that nematic criticality is more selective in how it breaks rotational symmetry than previously assumed [1, 2]. The selectivity arises not from a novel microscopic mechanism but from a geometric constraint.

Nematic order typically develops spontaneously upon cooling; hydrostatic pressure can shift the transition, while uniaxial stress can tune the transition or induce nematicity by linearly coupling to lattice strain. Because of this connection, nematic order obeys the same mechanical laws as other continuous lattice deformations do. Consequently, as Meese and Fernandes showed, nematic order splits into two classes. One class is compatible with the lattice and can turn critical; the other is incompatible with the lattice and is therefore suppressed (Fig. 1). In the conventional picture, the energy cost of completing a nematic transition is “softened”—that is, reduced by the emergence of fluctuations as the transition is approached. That condition remains true in Meese and Fernandes’ picture, but the softening is not spread over all the possible distortions allowed by symmetry. Rather, elasticity itself selects the modes that participate in nematic criticality.

There’s a range of magic angles to study superconductivity in a twisted 2D semiconductor

Last year, tungsten diselenide (WSe2) had its magic moment. Two independent research groups discovered “magic angles” at which two atom-thin layers of the unique semiconductor, when twisted relative to one another into what’s known as a moire pattern, can superconduct electricity. Cory Dean and his colleagues at Columbia documented superconductivity at a 5° twist angle; upstate at Cornell, Jie Shan and Kin Fai Mak’s team saw it at around 3.5°. Until then, graphene was the only other moire material capable of the feat.

Writing again in Nature on April 1, Dean and his colleagues fill in what happens between their observed magic angle and Cornell’s. Though the initial results struck researchers as two potentially distinct types of superconductivity, they are in fact smoothly connected. “Graphene has a magic angle of 1.1°. WSe2 has a magic continuum,” said Columbia physics graduate student Yinjie Guo, lead author of both Columbia Nature papers.

That wide continuum of superconducting twist angles makes WSe2 a more robust platform to explore the phenomenon than graphene, which cannot deviate by more than a tenth of a degree from its magic angle. “That’s a very specific condition you have to get to, and it’s been a real bottleneck,” noted Dean. “Working with WSe2 is extremely reproducible, which makes it much more possible to build new theories about superconductivity.”

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