Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI)

A new threat targeting infrastructure in the energy industry has been uncovered by security specialists. The attack, known as Shamoon, is said to have hit “at least one organisation” in the sector. Shamoon is capable of wiping files and rendering several computers on a network unusable. On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company said an

Genetic engineering allows different species of bacteria to communicate with each other in the gut of a living mouse, setting the stage for a synthetic microbiome More than 1,000 species of bacteria have been identified in the human gut, and understanding this incredibly diverse “microbiome” that can greatly impact health and disease is a hot

“Maybe it’s time to push for metal-free catalysts in commercial devices,” Researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the University of North Texas have made what they believe is the first metal-free bifunctional electrocatalyst that performs as well or better than most metal and metal oxide electrodes in zinc-air batteries. Zinc-air batteries are expected to

Image via Wikipedia Last year, we wrote about a fascinating “art” project, called “Significant Objects,” that involved a bunch of writers buying up random cheap/worthless trinkets, but then listing them on eBay along with a creative (fictional) story about the object. The “story” was given away for free, but the object cost money. What those

Iowa State University engineers have developed a new flexible, stretchable and  tunable “meta-skin” that uses rows of small, liquid-metal devices to cloak an object from the sharp eyes of radar. The meta-skin takes its name from metamaterials, which are composites that have properties not found in nature and that can manipulate electromagnetic waves. By stretching

Three years ago, Terry Hope was working as an engineer on a Canadian schooner. He wanted to take along an electric scooter, but was told by the captain that he couldn’t bring aboard anything that couldn’t fit in a suitcase. His response, naturally, was to set about designing an electric scooter that could fit inside a

There is simply no exaggerating the importance of the oceans to earth’s overall ecological balance. Innovation Needed Their health affects the health of all terrestrial life. A new report by an international coalition of marine scientists makes for grim reading. It concludes that the oceans are approaching irreversible, potentially catastrophic change. The experts, convened by

The idea of pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is a beguiling one. Could it ever become real? THOSE who worry about global warming have a simple answer to the problem. Simple in theory, that is: stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In practice that is rather hard to do. But there is

Increased data volume and writing speed in a new antiferromagnetic-based memory Data hurtle down fiber-optic cables at frequencies of several terahertz. As soon as the data arrive on a PC or television, this speed must be throttled to match the data processing speed of the device components, which currently is in the range of a

A machine-learning method discovered a hidden clue in people’s language predictive of the later emergence of psychosis — the frequent use of words associated with sound. The journal npj Schizophrenia published the findings by scientists at Emory University and Harvard University. The researchers also developed a new machine-learning method to more precisely quantify the semantic richness of