Science

Microsoft has rolled out fixes for security vulnerabilities in Windows and Office, which the company says are being actively abused by hackers to break into people’s computers. The exploits are one-click attacks, meaning that a hacker can plant malware or gain access to a victim’s computer with minimal user interaction. At least two flaws can be exploited by tricking someone into clicking a malicious link on their Windows computer. Another can result in a compromise on opening a malicious Office file. The vulnerabilities are known as zero-days, because the hackers were exploiting the bugs before Microsoft had time to fix them. Details of how to exploit the bugs have been published, Microsoft said, potentially increasing the chance of hacks. Microsoft did not say where they had bee...

The Winter Olympic Games, this year hosted in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, have increasingly had to rely on human-made snow due to climate change. Shrinking snowpacks, rising temperatures, fewer freezes and shorter snow seasons have led to an estimated 85% of competition surfaces in the 2026 Olympics requiring artificial snow. The two host cities this year have created massive artificial reservoirs to provide sources of water for snowmaking. Cortina d’Ampezzo itself has experienced a 3.6 degrees Celsius increase in average February temperature and 41 fewer freezing days annually since they first hosted the games in 1956. This could also have significant financial implications for cities scheduled to host future Winter Games, as many may soon be unable to do so. By the 2050s, only 52...

When most Americans think of NASA, they imagine astronauts sitting on top of giant rockets launching into space. NASA astronauts walking on the moon are some of our most iconic images. Much less known is that NASA does Earth Science too.The first satellite dedicated to Earth observation was Landsat, initially launched in 1972. The most recent replacement, Landsat 9 was launched in 2021, thus providing the only 53-year continuous record of the Earth surface.In the 1970s and 1980s, computers did not have the capacity to process satellite images of the entire Earth, so the data were only used regionally. Today, global scale analyses can be done in minutes. Back in the 1980s, measurements begun in 1957 at Mauna Loa Hawaii and what’s now known famously as the Keeling Curve was just beginning to...

Apple has released security updates to fix a zero-day vulnerability that was exploited in an "extremely sophisticated attack" targeting specific individuals. Tracked as CVE-2026-20700, the flaw is an arbitrary code execution vulnerability in dyld, the Dynamic Link Editor used by Apple operating systems, including iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and visionOS. Apple's security bulletin warns that an attacker with memory write capability may be able to execute arbitrary code on affected devices. Apple says it is aware of reports that the flaw, along with the CVE-2025-14174 and CVE-2025-43529 flaws fixed in December, were exploited in the same incidents. "An attacker with memory write capability may be able to execute arbitrary code," reads Apple's security bulletin. "Apple i...

In late January a new social media site took a certain corner of the internet by storm. Moltbook was conceived as a space where AI assistants could let off steam, chat and compare notes on their bosses, but it quickly became the focus of breathless claims that the singularity had arrived as the bots started badmouthing their humans and plotting an uprising. So what’s the truth about Moltbook? Madeleine Finlay hears from Aisha Down about what it tells us about AI, and about us. Source link

Stenko Vlad/Shutterstock 3D printing has become more and more accessible over the years, and 3D printers are more reliable than ever. Entry-level 3D printers typically cost less than $100, and the printing process itself is pretty straightforward once you have a design file loaded. You can even tap int...

by Neal Morton, The Hechinger Report February 12, 2026 LEHI, Utah — It was the last class before Thanksgiving break, and high school math teacher Sarah Gale was dishing out more than her usual lessons on data science. “I can smell it,” said one student, pressing her sleeve to her face, as Gale walked around the classroom with a jar and samples of Marmite. The salty spread is popular in Australia and Britain, but far less so here, in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. “Yeast extract? Disgusting,” said another student, reading from the jar, as her peers mimicked coughs and dry heaves.  The Marmite was more than a culinary dare. Gale, who teaches at Lehi High School, brought it to help her students understand a 2017 study on whether doctors’ bedside manner influenced their patient’s compliance. ...

Image: Nintendo If you plan on picking up Mario Tennis Fever on the Switch 2 this week, be ready for a day one update bumping the new software up to Version 1.0.1. According to the official patch notes on Nintendo's Japanese website, the development team has apparently "fixed some issues" to improve the gameplay. However, it doesn't specify what exactly has been updated. If we find out what has changed, we'll let you know. Perhaps, more importantly, this launch update is required to access the game's Switch Online features. Once you've updated to this version, you'll no longer be able to play locally or via LAN with older versions of the game - so make sure you are running the same update when playing together with family and friends. As our reviewer PJ O'Reilly mentioned in his Mario Tenn...

Raiden Pham, who was diagnosed with UBA5 disorder in 2021, with his mother Linda Pham. Photo courtesy of Tommy and Linda Pham and the Raiden Science Foundation   UMass Chan Medical School has licensed an adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy to the Raiden Science Foundation (RSF) to develop a clinical treatment for UBA5 disorder. “The Raiden Science Foundation has been instrumental in propelling academic research into UBA5 disorder forward,” said lead investigator Toloo Taghian, PhD, assistant professor of genetic & cellular medicine and radiology at UMass Chan. “Without their support and backing we couldn’t have reached this important milestone. We are excited to be working with such highly motivated and skilled professionals at RSF and look forward to the next steps of clinical ...

Highguard, a new multiplayer shooter from developers who worked on games like Apex Legends and Call of Duty, launched just over two weeks ago, but developer Wildlight Entertainment is already cutting jobs at the company, according to posts from affected staffers on LinkedIn. Former Wildlight level designer Alex Graner says that “most of the team at Wildlight” was laid off today, which was backed up by former lead tech artist Josh Sobel.”Today we made an incredibly difficult decision to part ways with a number of our team members while keeping a core group of developers to continue innovating on and supporting the game,” Wildlight says in a statement. “We’re proud of the team, talent, and the product we’ve created together. We’re also grateful for players who gave the game a shot, and those...