Sustainable Flourishing

‘Universal’ detector spots AI deepfake videos with record accuracy– www.newscientist.com

pgnewser August 4, 2025 0

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A universal deepfake detector has achieved the best accuracy yet in spotting multiple types of videos manipulated or completely generated by artificial intelligence. The technology may help flag non-consensual AI-generated pornography, deepfake scams or election misinformation videos.

The widespread availability of cheap AI-powered deepfake creation tools has fuelled the out-of-control online spread of synthetic videos. Many depict women – including celebrities and even schoolgirls – in nonconsensual pornography. And deepfakes have also been used to influence political elections, as well as to enhance financial scams targeting both ordinary consumers and company executives.

But most AI models trained to detect synthetic video focus on faces – which means they are most effective at spotting one specific type of deepfake, where a real person’s face is swapped into an existing video. “We need one model that will be able to detect face-manipulated videos as well as background-manipulated or fully AI-generated videos,” says Rohit Kundu at the University of California, Riverside. “Our model addresses exactly that concern – we assume that the entire video may be generated synthetically.”

Kundu and his colleagues trained their AI-powered universal detector to monitor multiple background elements of videos, as well as people’s faces. It can spot subtle signs of spatial and temporal inconsistencies in deepfakes. As a result, it can detect inconsistent lighting conditions on people who were artificially inserted into face-swap videos, discrepancies in the background details of completely AI-generated videos and even signs of AI manipulation in synthetic videos that don’t contain any human faces. The detector also flags realistic-looking scenes from video games, such as Grand Theft Auto V, that are not necessarily generated by AI.

 

Efforts to Ground Physics in Math Are Opening the Secrets of Time– www.wired.com

pgnewser August 4, 2025 0

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Now, three mathematicians have finally provided such a result. Their work not only represents a major advance in Hilbert’s program, but also taps into questions about the irreversible nature of time.

“It’s a beautiful work,” said Gregory Falkovich, a physicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science. “A tour de force.”

Under the Mesoscope

Consider a gas whose particles are very spread out. There are many ways a physicist might model it.

At a microscopic level, the gas is composed of individual molecules that act like billiard balls, moving through space according to Isaac Newton’s 350-year-old laws of motion. This model of the gas’s behavior is called the hard-sphere particle system.

Now zoom out a bit. At this new “mesoscopic” scale, your field of vision encompasses too many molecules to individually track. Instead, you’ll model the gas using an equation that the physicists James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann developed in the late 19th century. Called the Boltzmann equation, it describes the likely behavior of the gas’s molecules, telling you how many particles you can expect to find at different locations moving at different speeds. This model of the gas lets physicists study how air moves at small scales—for instance, how it might flow around a space shuttle.

New 3D-Printed Titanium Alloy is Stronger Than the Standard – Yet 30% Cheaper – Good News Network

pgnewser August 4, 2025 0

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Engineers from an Australian University have produced a new type of 3D-printed titanium that’s about a third cheaper than commonly used titanium alloys.

A team of engineers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) developed the groundbreaking alloy by replacing expensive vanadium with more accessible elements. By rethinking how titanium alloys are designed, the team created a material with improved performance and more uniform microstructure—key factors for aerospace and medical applications.

The team has filed a provisional patent on their innovative approach, which has also been outlined in a paper published in Nature Communications.

The study’s lead author Ryan Brooke, working at the university’s Centre for Additive Manufacturing, will investigate the next steps of commercializing the technology, saying the field of 3D-printed titanium alloys was ripe for innovations.

“3D printing allows faster, less wasteful and more tailorable production yet we’re still relying on legacy alloys (like Ti-6Al-4V) that doesn’t allow full capitalization of this potential. It’s like we’ve created an airplane and are still just driving it around the streets,” he said in a university press release.

Google has turned 2 billion smartphones into a global earthquake warning system — it’s just as effective as seismometers– www.livescience.com

pgnewser July 30, 2025 0

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Google has harnessed motion sensors on more than 2 billion smartphones to create an earthquake early-warning system that’s as effective as standard seismometers, a new study reveals.

Between 2021 and 2024, the company’s Android Earthquake Alerts (AEA) system captured more than 11,000 quakes through smartphone accelerometers and issued more than 1,200 alerts to Android users across 98 countries.

This system has led to a tenfold increase in the number of people with access to earthquake alerts, from 250 million in 2019 to 2.5 billion today. The researchers published their findings July 17 in the journal Science.

Researchers turn yoghurt into tissue repair gel– cosmosmagazine.com

pgnewser July 28, 2025 0

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Researchers are one step closer to developing a gel that can be used to repair and regenerate tissue.

The team from Columbia University in the US has created an injectable hydrogel using a by-product of milk and yoghurt – extracellular vesicles (EVs).

Experiments in mice showed that within one week the yoghurt EV hydrogel promoted the formation of new blood vessels, a process known as angiogenesis which is required for effective tissue healing and regeneration.

“Being able to design a material that closely mimics the body’s natural environment while also speeding up the healing process opens a new world of possibilities for regenerative medicine,” says Artemis Margaronis, a graduate research fellow at Columbia Engineering.

Extracellular vesicles are tiny sacs that are secreted by cells and carry important materials like proteins, DNA and mRNA. EVs allow cells to communicate and transport complex materials, something scientists have found difficult to replicate in the lab.

Quantum Scientists Have Built a New Math of Cryptography– www.quantamagazine.org

pgnewser July 25, 2025 0

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Hard problems are usually not a welcome sight. But cryptographers love them. That’s because certain hard math problems underpin the security of modern encryption. Any clever trick for solving them will doom most forms of cryptography.

Several years ago, researchers found a radically new approach to encryption that lacks this potential weak spot. The approach exploits the peculiar features of quantum physics. But unlike earlier quantum encryption schemes, which only work for a few special tasks, the new approach can accomplish a much wider range of tasks. And it could work even if all the problems at the heart of ordinary “classical” cryptography turn out to be easily solvable.

But this striking discovery relied on unrealistic assumptions. The result was “more of a proof of concept,” said Fermi Ma, a cryptography researcher at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing in Berkeley, California. “It is not a statement about the real world.”

Now, a new paper by two cryptographers has laid out a path to quantum cryptography without those outlandish assumptions. “This paper is saying that if certain other conjectures are true, then quantum cryptography must exist,” Ma said.

New tool maps tumor cell history and location to reveal growth patterns– phys.org

pgnewser July 25, 2025 0

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All life is connected in a vast family tree. Every organism exists in relationship to its ancestors, descendants, and cousins, and the path between any two individuals can be traced. The same is true of cells within organisms—each of the trillions of cells in the human body is produced through successive divisions from a fertilized egg, and can all be related to one another through a cellular family tree. In simpler organisms such as the worm C. elegans, this cellular family tree has been fully mapped, but the cellular family tree of a human is many times larger and more complex.

In the past, Whitehead Institute Member Jonathan Weissman and other researchers developed lineage tracing methods to track and reconstruct the family trees of cell divisions in model organisms in order to understand more about the relationships between cells and how they assemble into tissues, organs, and—in some cases—tumors. These methods could help to answer many questions about how organisms develop and diseases like cancer are initiated and progress.

Now, Weissman and colleagues have developed an advanced lineage tracing tool that not only captures an accurate family tree of cell divisions, but also combines that with spatial information: identifying where each cell ends up within a tissue.

Will China’s Rare Earth Dominance Die in Wyoming?

pgnewser July 25, 2025 0

Wyoming’s New Rare-Earth Mine Could End China’s Monopoly – Daily Signal

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The first new U.S. rare-earth mine in 70 years broke ground this month in Wyoming.

Ramaco Brook Mine, which contains 1.7 million tons of rare earth minerals, is a “groundbreaking discovery” that “marks a turning point for America,” the Department of Energy announced.

Gene editing shown to correct rare brain mutations in mice– cosmosmagazine.com

pgnewser July 22, 2025 0

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Scientists have used a single injection to correct gene mutations caused by an ultra-rare disease, improving symptoms and survival rates in mice.

Published in Cell, the gene editing study targeted the 2 most common mutations that cause alternating hemiplegia in childhood (AHC).

AHC is a rare neurological disorder affecting 1 in a million people. Symptoms, which usually begin before the age of 18 months, include weakness and paralysis in one or both sides of the body, muscle stiffness and, in some cases, seizures.

Current treatments help with symptom management but there is no known cure for AHC.

The researchers consisted of a team from the Rare Disease Translational Centre, the Broad Institute and the not-for-profit, RARE Hope.

Mice models were previously developed by Markus Terrey and Cathleen Lutz, vice president of the Rare Disease Translational Centre.

“Five years ago, people would have thought that going into the brain of a living organism and correcting DNA was science fiction. Today, we know this is doable,” says Terrey, who co-led the study.

Scientists may have found a way to extend lifespan without strict dieting; here’s what the research shows |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser June 22, 2025 0

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For centuries, humanity has pursued the secret to a longer life through alchemy, mythology, and, more recently, science. While the philosopher’s stone remains a myth, researchers have discovered a reliable method to extend lifespan in animals: eating less. Known as dietary restriction, this practice triggers biological mechanisms that slow aging and improve longevity. However, strict dieting is difficult and unsustainable for many. The pressing question now is whether we can replicate these benefits without giving up the joy of food. Could science develop treatments that mimic the effects of calorie restriction, offering a longer, healthier life—without constant hunger?

… Rapamycin, which was initially identified in Easter Island soil in the 1970s, is a potent immunosuppressant drug utilised to suppress organ transplant rejection. Its anti-aging applications result from its capacity to inhibit a primary molecular switch (mTOR) that informs cells that nutrients are abundant. By suppressing this message, rapamycin mimics the action of dietary deprivation at the cell level. Actually, a combination of rapamycin with another medication, trametinib, has been found to further prolong the lifespan of mice.Metformin is a compound found in the French lilac plant that is commonly prescribed to manage blood sugar levels in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Like rapamycin, it targets the body’s nutrient-sensing mechanisms. With its extensive record of safety and widespread use, it’s been a potential life-extending candidate.Yet the review of 167 studies involving eight vertebrate animals—from fish to rats—found no persistent evidence that metformin prolonged lifespan. This would indicate it might not be able to deliver all the benefits of dietary restriction, at least singly.

The FDA Just Approved a Long-Lasting Injection to Prevent HIV– www.wired.com

pgnewser June 20, 2025 0

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The US Food and Drug Administration has just approved lenacapavir, an injectable form of HIV prevention that is almost 100 percent effective and requires only two doses per year. Science magazine described the medicine the most important scientific advance of 2024.

In clinical trials, lenacapavir proved to be 99.9 percent effective in preventing HIV infection through sexual transmission in people weighing more than 35 kilograms. The drug, an antiretroviral, works not by stimulating an immune response, but by blocking HIV from reproducing during its early stages—specifically, by disrupting the function of the virus’s capsid protein. This happens so long as the body receives injections every six months.

Lenacapavir has already been approved in some countries as a treatment for HIV in people with forms of the virus that are resistant to other treatments. However, prior to this week, its prophylactic use had not been approved anywhere, making the FDA’s decision a significant new development in the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The drug is not the first medicine that can be taken preemptively to protect against an HIV infection: pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) pills were already available in many countries, including the United States. But these must be taken every day, and ensuring ongoing access to these medicines, and that people actually remember to take them, is a known challenge. It’s hoped the long-lasting effects of lenacapavir will make it easier for people to stay protected against the virus.

Scientists Announce Major Breakthrough as Ivermectin Nanoparticles Destroy Brain Cancer Cells– slaynews.com

pgnewser June 16, 2025 0

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Leading oncology scientists in Brazil have just announced a major breakthrough in the fight against cancer.

A team of scientists at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) has discovered that ivermectin nanoparticles destroy cancer cells, massively reducing tumors.

In a groundbreaking preclinical study, researchers led by Drs. Maiara Callegaro Velho and Ruy Carlos Ruver Beck showed that a nano-encapsulated form of ivermectin, when delivered intranasally, reduced glioma tumor volume in rats by over 70%.

The discovery is being hailed as a major development in the fight against glioblastoma, one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer.

The results of the study were published in ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering.

This is the first study to investigate “nose-to-brain IVM delivery using nanotechnology,” the authors noted.

The team tested two ivermectin nanoformulations:

• IVM-NC: Ivermectin encapsulated in poly(ε-caprolactone) nano capsules

• IVM-MCM: Ivermectin within mesoporous silica particles

New laser smaller than a penny can measure objects at ultrafast rates– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser June 3, 2025 0

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Researchers from the University of Rochester and University of California, Santa Barbara, engineered a laser device smaller than a penny that they say could power everything from the LiDAR systems used in self-driving vehicles to gravitational wave detection, one of the most delicate experiments in existence to observe and understand our universe.

Laser-based measurement techniques, known as optical metrology, can be used to study the physical properties of objects and materials. But current optical metrology requires bulky and expensive equipment to achieve delicate laser-wave control, creating a bottleneck for deploying streamlined, cost-effective systems.

The new chip-scale laser, described in a paper published in Light: Science & Applications, can conduct extremely fast and accurate measurements by very precisely changing its color across a broad spectrum of light at very fast rates — about 10 quintillion times per second. Unlike traditional silicon photonics, the laser is made with a synthetic material called lithium niobate and leverages a physical phenomenon known as the Pockels effect, which changes the refractive index of a material when an electric field is present.

A new technology for extending the shelf life of produce– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser May 22, 2025 0

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We’ve all felt the sting of guilt when fruit and vegetables go bad before we could eat them. Now, researchers from MIT and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) have shown they can extend the shelf life of harvested plants by injecting them with melatonin using biodegradable microneedles.

That’s a big deal because the problem of food waste goes way beyond our salads. More than 30 percent of the world’s food is lost after it’s harvested — enough to feed more than 1 billion people. Refrigeration is the most common way to preserve foods, but it requires energy and infrastructure that many regions of the world can’t afford or lack access to.

The researchers believe their system could offer an alternative or complement to refrigeration. Central to their approach are patches of silk microneedles. The microneedles can get through the tough, waxy skin of plants without causing a stress response, and deliver precise amounts of melatonin into plants’ inner tissues.

3D printing in vivo using sound– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser May 9, 2025 0

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Imagine if doctors could precisely print miniature capsules capable of delivering cells needed for tissue repair exactly where they are needed inside a beating heart. A team of scientists led by Caltech has taken a significant step toward that ultimate goal, having developed a method for 3D printing polymers at specific locations deep within living animals. The technique relies on sound for localization and has already been used to print polymer capsules for selective drug delivery as well as glue-like polymers to seal internal wounds.

Previously, scientists have used infrared light to trigger polymerization, the linking of the basic units, or monomers, of polymers within living animals. “But infrared penetration is very limited. It only reaches right below the skin,” says Wei Gao, professor of medical engineering at Caltech and a Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator. “Our new technique reaches the deep tissue and can print a variety of materials for a broad range of applications, all while maintaining excellent biocompatibility.”

Gao and his colleagues report their new in vivo 3D-printing technique in the journal Science. Along with bioadhesive gels and polymers for drug and cell delivery, the paper also describes the use of the technique for printing bioelectric hydrogels, which are polymers with embedded conductive materials for use in the internal monitoring of physiological vital signs as in electrocardiograms (ECGs). The lead author of the study is Elham Davoodi, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Utah, who completed the work while a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech.