168 articles from WEDNESDAY 15.9.2021

This US company sold iPhone hacking tools to UAE spies

When the United Arab Emirates paid over $1.3 million for a powerful and stealthy iPhone hacking tool in 2016, the monarchy’s spies—and the American mercenary hackers they hired—put it to immediate use. The tool exploited a flaw in Apple’s iMessage app to enable hackers to completely take over a victim’s iPhone. It was used against hundreds of targets in a vast campaign of surveillance...

COVID-19 virus rapidly evolves to higher infectivity during in vitro growth, which may be a step toward lower virulence

Attenuated viral vaccines for rubella, measles, yellow fever and other diseases are widely used. Can a similar vaccine be developed for COVID-19? Researchers have now published a foundational study for that possibility. They asked a simple question: Which mutations predominate when the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is grown in successive generations -- called passages by virologists -- in...

Cartilage resurfacing implant reduces pain, restores hip joint function in dogs

A textile-based implant containing cartilage derived from stem cells reduced pain and restored hip joint function to baseline levels in a study of dogs with symptoms of moderate osteoarthritis. The study, led by researchers at North Carolina State University, Washington University in St. Louis and Cytex Therapeutics Inc., could be a significant first step toward preventative, less invasive joint...

New algorithmic approach predicts strong leaders

Research on leadership has long recognized the importance of understanding how leaders are perceived, and past studies have used a variety of techniques to examine different aspects of leadership. In a new study, researchers developed a computational method to predict and identify the correlates of leadership perceptions. The researchers used the method to predict leadership perceptions for more...

NASA confirms thousands of massive, ancient volcanic eruptions on Mars

Some volcanoes can produce eruptions so powerful they release oceans of dust and toxic gases into the air, blocking out sunlight and changing a planet's climate for decades. By studying the topography and mineral composition of a portion of the Arabia Terra region in northern Mars, scientists recently found evidence for thousands of such eruptions, or "super eruptions," which are the most violent...