Sci-Tech news

• The sixth mass extinction has officially begun and could threaten humanity's existence, scientists warn

  19-06-2015 20:47 via
  
  Researchers say a new study shows 'without any significant doubt' that we are entering the sixth great mass extinction on Earth.
  
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• Homeland security cybercops say patch TrueConf (Russia's Zoom) if you're using it

  21-08-2026 18:29 via theregister.com
  
  CISA has ordered US federal agencies to patch two exploited flaws in TrueConf, a Russian-built video conferencing platform, after compromised servers were caught handing malware to unsuspecting meeting participants. The US cybersecurity agency on Thursday added CVE-2026-72529 and CVE-2026-72530 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, saying both have been used in real-world attacks. What CISA doesn't say is who is being attacked, or where. The only publicly documented attacks exploiting
  
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• Musk fumbles the timetable for first Starship catch

  21-08-2026 18:14 via theregister.com
  
  CEO Elon Musk says SpaceX probably won't attempt to catch a returning Starship for several months, walking back his earlier suggestion that it could happen on the next test flight. In a post on his social media platform, X, Musk said: "We will probably catch the ship with the tower in a few months." He added that if a tower had been waiting at sea where Starship splashed down last month, "it would have been caught." During SpaceX's first earnings call as a public company, Musk was more bullish,
  
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• Noah's Ark mystery deepens as new scans show boat-shaped formation is more than just rock

  21-08-2026 17:53 via dailymail.com
  
  A discovery at a site some believe contains the remains of Noah's Ark provides evidence that the formation is not simply a solid mass of rock.
  
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• UFO 'that looked like a giant nuclear weapon' stalked me before disappearing into sea, says NASA scientist

  21-08-2026 17:48 via dailymail.com
  
  A respected NASA scientist has revealed a terrifying UFO encounter over the US, and the shocking action the Air Force took in response.
  
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• SickKids children’s hospital bandages up careers website after intruder breaks in

  21-08-2026 17:45 via theregister.com
  
  Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, commonly referred to as SickKids, says the data of current and former staff, as well as job applicants, was exposed after an intruder exploited a security flaw in a third-party software application used by the hospital. SickKids, which may ring a bell for those who have kept close tabs on ransomware news in recent years, said the intrusion affected its external careers site, which has now been restored. “Clinical systems and patient information w
  
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• Are we living in Aliens? As the movie celebrates its 40th anniversary, scientists reveal what the cult film got right…and wrong

  21-08-2026 17:45 via dailymail.com
  
  This month, the cult science fiction classic Aliens celebrates its 40th anniversary. But what did this visionary sequel get right about the future of technology?
  
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• Flock Safety Extends Surveillance Capabilities As Sam Altman Hides In The Shadows

  21-08-2026 17:36 via technocracy.news
  
  Flock Safety received a startup grant from Y Combinator in 2017 when Sam Altman was President. YC bills itself as a high-touch startup accelerator that coaches early founders, connects them with a dense investor and alumni network, and prepares them to raise institutional capital. Altman always picked high-probability disruptive companies. Without Altman, Flock would never have been picked by Andreessen Horowitz for major funding. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor. .
  Vehicle surveillance giant F
  
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• NASA scientist details moment UFO 'that looked like a giant nuclear weapon' stalked him and his wife

  21-08-2026 17:16 via dailymail.com
  
  A respected NASA scientist has revealed a terrifying UFO encounter over the US, and the shocking action the Air Force took in response.
  
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• Hackers poison popular Rust crates to steal developers' credentials

  21-08-2026 16:57 via theregister.com
  
  Hackers slipped malware into several popular Rust packages this week, turning routine software builds into a route onto developers' machines. The Rust Security Response Team disclosed the supply chain attack on Thursday after receiving a tip about a crate called proc-macro1. An investigation found that its build script fetched malware from a remote server. The attack extended beyond a single dodgy crate. Someone had published a new version of arrayref, a legitimate and widely used Rust package,
  
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• The dark side of viral cat videos: Behaviours deemed cute or funny are actually signs of feline distress, study warns

  21-08-2026 16:48 via dailymail.com
  
  The internet is awash with viral videos of cats doing silly things - but experts have warned your cute, funny or grumpy feline might actually be incredibly distressed.
  
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• NASA engineer claims UFO that 'looked like a giant nuclear weapon' stalked him after baffling military encounter

  21-08-2026 16:32 via dailymail.com
  
  A respected NASA scientist has revealed a terrifying UFO encounter over the US, and the shocking action the Air Force took in response.
  
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• AMD grabs more CPU share while pricier PCs punish desktop demand

  21-08-2026 16:05 via theregister.com
  
  The processor market is sending mixed signals, with server and mobile shipments rising while desktop CPU volumes decline amid higher system prices. Meanwhile, AMD's House of Zen has taken market share from Intel across every category. For Q2 2026, Mercury Research says total processor shipments were lower than in the same period a year ago, attributing this to much lower system-on-chip (SoC) and embedded volumes due to AMD's declining games console business, plus a large drop in desktop CPU volu
  
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• 'We let you down': GitHub pledges to scale up before developers give up

  21-08-2026 15:15 via theregister.com
  
  GitHub's handwringing continued this week as CTO Vladimir Fedorov offered more detail about the August 17 outage – while carefully avoiding the word "sorry." The outage lasted 7 hours and 47 minutes and disrupted developers worldwide. Actions, pull requests, issues, Copilot, and APIs were among the services affected as the platform failed to scale with demand. "If you were trying to ship software that day, we let you down," wrote Fedorov. The incident followed another outage involving Acti
  
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• Vatican performs ancient ritual with 1,700-year-old skull that divides Christians

  21-08-2026 15:13 via dailymail.com
  
  A 1,700-year-old skull was returned to a gold bust of a saint in an ancient Catholic ritual that saw one of the Vatican's most powerful cardinals bow and kiss the relic.
  
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• The Alps are crumbling: Climbers face deadly risk as Europe's scorching summer triggers record rockfalls - with Mont Blanc the worst hit, scientists warn

  21-08-2026 14:56 via dailymail.com
  
  This summer's warm weather might seem like a blessing for outdoor enthusiasts, but the scorching weather has created a deadly risk for climbers in the Alps.
  
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• $10K phishing kit claims it can plant rogue passkeys for persistent access to pwned accounts

  21-08-2026 14:18 via theregister.com
  
  A phishing kit for sale on Russian-language cybercrime forums claims it can enroll attacker-controlled passkeys on compromised accounts, providing persistent access after passwords are changed. Advertised at around $10,000 for the base package, with additional modules sold separately, iAuthFlow v2 aims to solve a common problem for attackers: being locked out after the victim detects the compromise. Defenders would ordinarily revoke session tokens and rotate credentials. Those measures remain ne
  
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• What colours do you see? Mind-boggling optical illusion tricks your brain into seeing red and blue in a black and white spinning wheel

  21-08-2026 14:11 via dailymail.com
  
  A bizarre optical illusion tricks your brain into seeing colours in a black and white spinning disk.
  
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• Vatican cardinal kisses 1,700-year-old skull in rare ancient Catholic ritual that divides Christians

  21-08-2026 14:09 via dailymail.com
  
  A 1,700-year-old skull was returned to a gold bust of a saint in an ancient Catholic ritual that saw one of the Vatican's most powerful cardinals bow and kiss the relic.
  
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• The Grand National of the future? Chinese startup unveils a huge ride-on robot horse

  21-08-2026 13:24 via dailymail.com
  
  A Chinese startup has unveiled a huge 'cyber horse' robot that people can actually ride.
  
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• Microsoft lets you swap New Outlook's looks with the face of Outlook Classic

  21-08-2026 13:15 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft is rolling out a setting that makes Outlook on the Web and New Outlook for Windows look and feel like Classic Outlook through a theme that tweaks the visual style and layout. "This update is designed to help users who are transitioning from classic Outlook by providing a more familiar experience while maintaining the capabilities of the new Outlook," Microsoft said. Importantly, it won't add back the bits from Classic Outlook that are currently missing from New Outlook. For example, th
  
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• You're never too old to party! Clubbing boosts wellbeing for middle-aged women, study finds

  21-08-2026 12:47 via dailymail.com
  
  It's often seen as an activity for the younger generations. But if you're a middle-aged woman, it's time to dust off your dancing shoes - as a study has revealed that clubbing is good for you.
  
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• Microsoft sounds alarm as perfect-10 Entra ID flaw comes under attack

  21-08-2026 12:15 via theregister.com
  
  Microsoft has fixed a maximum-severity vulnerability in Entra ID that attackers were already exploiting in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2026-69836, the vulnerability carries the maximum CVSS score of 10.0 and could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute code remotely in Microsoft's cloud identity service. Microsoft disclosed the flaw on Thursday, along with the unwelcome news that exploitation had already been detected. Entra ID, formerly known as Azure Active Directory, sits at the heart of i
  
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• Devious tourists across Spain caught red-handed using AI scams to dodge hefty restaurant bills

  21-08-2026 12:13 via dailymail.com
  
  Some tourists are using AI dishonestly to dodge paying for restaurant meals in Spain.
  
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• Wi-Fi 7's WPA3 protections come with a compatibility catch

  21-08-2026 11:14 via theregister.com
  
  Broadband industry research body CableLabs is warning that attempts to make Wi-Fi 7 access points accommodate older devices can create compatibility problems of their own, and wants hardware makers to prioritize support for the industry's workaround. Wi-Fi 7 products have been finding their way into buyers' hands for a couple of years now, with the Wi-Fi Alliance kicking off its certification program for the latest iteration of the wireless network tech at the start of 2024. CableLabs is concern
  
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• Europe's never-ending scorching summer: Timelapse reveals the vast swathes of the continent that have hit 40°C over the last four months

  21-08-2026 11:14 via dailymail.com
  
  Created using data from NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS), the timelapse shows the daily maximum surface air temperature across Western Europe from 1 May to 19 August.
  
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• Debian is 33, Haiku is 25, and neither is standing still

  21-08-2026 10:26 via theregister.com
  
  This is a quiet time of year in tech circles – perhaps explaining why, 25 and 33 years ago, the people behind two ambitious operating system projects kicked them off. Debian Last weekend, the Debian project turned 33 years old. The Linux kernel first appeared in September 1991, so it was not quite two years old when Ian Murdock announced the new distribution. (Indeed, the term "distribution" itself hadn't really caught on yet – his announcement only uses the word as an adjective.) Sa
  
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• EE invites mobile users to live life in the 5G Fast Lane – for a price

  21-08-2026 09:44 via theregister.com
  
  Mobile operator EE has launched Fast Lane, using 5G network slicing to prioritize subscribers' connections when its network is congested. According to EE, BT Group's mobile network, Fast Lane anticipates congestion and seamlessly moves eligible connections onto a dedicated network slice. EE says this should help Fast Lane users continue streaming or accessing the internet when nearby customers may be waiting. Naturally, EE is offering the feature through its new premium pay-monthly plan, Full Wo
  
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• Developer given Mission:Impossible - fixing rubbish code that could crash a city - simply chose not to accept it

  21-08-2026 08:30 via theregister.com
  
  ON CALL Making it through a working week can feel like a dangerous adventure. That's why The Register offers a little certainty and safety by always using Friday morning to share a new edition of On Call – the reader-contributed column sharing your tales of tech support. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Socrates," who many years ago was the "fresh-faced manager of a small software department." Socrates' employer had sold some monitoring hardware to a client that made equipment f
  
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• Cisco bug severity warning reads like Olympic gymnastics scores: 10, 10, 9.9, 9.6, and 7.5.

  21-08-2026 07:33 via theregister.com
  
  Cisco has revealed its Secure Workload Software, a micro-segmentation tool formerly known as Tetration that is supposed to stop attackers moving laterally across a network, has four critical flaws plus another high-severity bug. CVE-2026-20315 and CVE-2026-20317 are the two perfect-ten-rated bugs. Both relate to improper access control. Cisco has not offered much detail about either, saying only that 20315 “covers authorization, authentication, privileges, and bypasses” and that 2031
  
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