Ancient rocks reveal that Earth’s magnetic field during the Ediacaran may not have been chaotic after all.
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PTC warns of imminent threat from critical Windchill, FlexPLM RCE bug
PTC Inc. is warning of a critical vulnerability in Windchill and FlexPLM, widely used product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, that could allow remote code execution.
The security issue, identified as CVE-2026–4681, could be leveraged through the deserialization of trusted data.
Its severity has prompted emergency action from German authorities, with the federal police (BKA) reportedly sending agents to affected companies to alert them to the cybersecurity risk.
Firefox now has a free built-in VPN with 50GB monthly data limit
Mozilla released Firefox 149 with added privacy protection through a built-in VPN tool offering up to 50GB of monthly traffic.
The feature uses a secure proxy server to route only traffic from the browser, unlike the company’s commercial Mozilla VPN, which covers system-wide traffic.
“Whether you’re using public Wi-Fi while traveling, searching for sensitive health information, or shopping for something personal, this feature gives you a simple way to stay protected,” Mozilla says.
New light trap design supercharges atom-thin semiconductors
Scientists have found a clever way to supercharge ultra-thin semiconductors by reshaping the space beneath them rather than altering the material itself. By placing a single-atom-thick layer of tungsten disulfide over tiny air cavities carved into a crystal, they created miniature “light traps” that dramatically boost brightness and optical effects—up to 20 times stronger emission and 25 times stronger nonlinear signals. These hollow structures, called Mie voids, concentrate light exactly where the material sits, overcoming a major limitation of atomically thin devices.
New lipid nanoparticle design improves precision of mRNA vaccine delivery
Penn Engineers have redesigned a key component of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), the delivery vehicles behind mRNA vaccines, to steer the particles toward lymph nodes while reducing off-target delivery to the liver. The advance could make mRNA vaccines more efficient, potentially achieving strong immune protection at lower doses.
“The more particles that reach the lymph nodes, the fewer particles each dose needs,” says Michael J. Mitchell, Associate Professor in Bioengineering (BE) and senior author of a new study in Journal of the American Chemical Society that describes how the researchers modified the ionizable lipid, a key LNP ingredient that helps mRNA enter cells.
In animal models, the new “aroLNPs,” whose name refers to the addition of a chemical structure called an “aromatic ring” to the ionizable lipid, delivered at least 10-fold less mRNA to the liver compared to the LNP formulation in the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, while maintaining similar levels of lymph-node delivery.
A spinel crystal structure exhibits unusual, pressure-induced superconductivity
Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with an electrical resistance of zero. Superconductivity is generally observed when materials are cooled down to extremely low temperatures. In some cases, however, like in so-called high-temperature superconductors, this property emerges at higher temperatures.
Researchers at the Center for High Pressure Science & Technology Advanced Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences and other institutes recently observed pressure-induced superconductivity in CuIr2S4, a spinel that typically becomes an insulator when cooled below about 230 K, meaning that electricity can no longer flow through it.
Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, shows that progressively tuning this material’s crystal structure using pressure prompts the emergence of two distinct superconducting phases, dubbed SC-I and SC-II, with a maximum transition temperature of 18.2 K.
