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The Linkielist

Daily Archives: April 14, 2021

New Treatment Makes Teeth Grow Back

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A new experimental treatment could someday give people a way to grow missing teeth, if early research on lab animals holds up.

Scientists at Japan’s Kyoto University and the University of Fukui developed a monoclonal antibody treatment that seems to trigger the body to grow new teeth, according to research published last month in the journal Science Advances. If upcoming experiments continue to work, it could eventually give us a way to regrow teeth lost in adulthood or those that were missing since childhood due to congenital conditions.

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eventually the team found that blocking a gene called USAG-1 led to increased activity of Bone Morphogenic Protein (BMP), a molecule that determines how many teeth will grow in the first place, and allowed adult mice to regrow any that they were missing.

The experiment also worked on ferrets, which the researchers say is important because their teeth are far more humanlike than mouse teeth are.

“Ferrets are diphyodont animals with similar dental patterns to humans,” Kyoto researcher and lead study author Katsu Takahashi said in the press release. “Our next plan is to test the antibodies on other animals such as pigs and dogs.”

There’s still a long way to go before they reach human trials, but continued success in those upcoming trials would be a promising sign for the future of a clinical treatment that lets us naturally regrow our missing teeth.

Source: New Treatment Makes Teeth Grow Back

Northrop’s servicing robot extends the life of an orbiting satellite by five years

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Intelsat’s IS-10-02 communications satellite was running low on fuel — it’s been in orbit since 2004, after all, and has already exceeded its original mission lifespan by five years. Thanks to Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle-2 (MEV-2), however, it gained another five years of life and will stay operational instead of being decommissioned. MEV-2 launched in August and has been making its way to the satellite in geosynchronous orbit since then. On Monday, it caught up to its target and clamped onto it to provide the IS-10-02 with more fuel.

According to TechCrunch, a representative described the robotic spacecraft as a “jetpack for the 10-02 satellite.” The spokesperson explained the docking process as follows:

“The MEV-2 docking system consists of a probe that we insert into the liquid apogee engine on the aft end of a satellite. Nearly 80% of satellites in orbit have this featuring, allowing the MEV service a variety of customers. The liquid apogee engine acts as a “cone to capture” to help guide the probe which once it passes through the throat of the engine, expands to capture the client satellite. The probe is then retracted pulling three stanchions, or feet, up against the launch adaptor ring, securely clamping the two vehicles together.”

This marks the first time a life-extension services vehicle was able to dock with an active satellite in its operational GEO orbital location. MEV-2’s predecessor, the MEV-1, clamped onto Intelsat’s IS-901 last year. That satellite was already out of fuel and was docked out of its original orbit at the time, though. As TechCrunch notes, Northrop Grumman had to ensure that MEV-2’s approach wouldn’t disrupt its target’s operation and orbit. By successfully doing so, the aerospace corporation proved that it’s possible to service active satellites, which means companies can potentially save millions by extending the life of their older space objects.

MEV-2 will stay with IS-10-02 before moving on to extend the life of another satellite. In addition to the MEV, the company is working on robotic vehicles that can do in-orbit repair, augmentation, assembly and inspection. Those vehicles will also be used to deliver life-extending pods to satellites to extend their mission lifespan without the need to remain docked with their targets. Northrop Grumman is hoping to launch both those technologies by 2024.

Source: Northrop’s servicing robot extends the life of an orbiting satellite by five years | Engadget

How to Keep Attackers From Locking You Out of WhatsApp

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WhatsApp representatives told Forbes that the easiest way to protect yourself against this kind of an attack is to make sure you’ve associated an email address with your two-step verification process so the attacker won’t be able to spoof your identity. You can do that right now by pulling up WhatsApp, loading its Settings, tapping on Two-Step Verification, and inputting your email address (or checking to make sure you’ve already done so).

This isn’t going to block the attack per se, but it’ll make it a lot easier for WhatsApp’s customer service team to help you out should you find yourself in a “prevented from authenticating my account” feedback loop—which is what will happen if an attacker reaches out to WhatsApp posing as you, claiming that your account has been hacked and that WhatsApp should deactivate it. (You’ll then “receive” codes to revert the mistaken de-registration, only you won’t be able to input them because of the previous trick, which will have temporarily banned you for entering too many incorrect 2FA codes.)

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Source: How to Keep Attackers From Locking You Out of WhatsApp

FBI deletes web shells from hundreds of compromised Microsoft Exchange servers before alerting admins

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The FBI deleted web shells installed by criminals on hundreds of Microsoft Exchange servers across the United States, it was revealed on Tuesday.

The Feds were given approval by the courts to carry out the deletions, which occurred without first warning the servers’ owners, following the discovery and exploitation of critical vulnerabilities in the enterprise software.

Shortly after Microsoft raised the alarm early last month over the security holes in Exchange and provided fixes for the vulnerabilities, miscreants swarmed to exploit the programming blunders and hijack unpatched installations. (Certain groups were even breaking in Exchange servers via the holes before their existence was public knowledge.)

The FBI found hundreds of such compromised deployments with backdoors installed by one cyber-gang in particular, leading to agents asking the courts to allow them to go in and delete the malicious code. The court approved the action and the document was unsealed this week, 30 days later.

“Although many infected system owners successfully removed the web shells from thousands of computers, others appeared unable to do so, and hundreds of such web shells persisted unmitigated,” the Justice Department noted in an announcement. “Today’s operation removed one early hacking group’s remaining web shells, which could have been used to maintain and escalate persistent, unauthorized access to US networks.”

The FBI deleted the shells by issuing a command through the web shell to the server “which was designed to cause the server to delete only the web shell (identified by its unique file path),” it said. Critically, however, the Feds did not touch the servers themselves and so they remain unpatched and open to infiltration.

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Source: FBI deletes web shells from hundreds of compromised Microsoft Exchange servers before alerting admins • The Register

What I very much like about this is that they got a court order approving the behaviour before going out and doing it.

$291 Adobe Cancelation Fee Sees Twitter Users Argue it’s ‘Morally Correct’ to Pirate Software

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A $291 Adobe cancelation fee has provoked fierce criticism of the creative software company.

A post from a customer has gone viral on Twitter, after he discovered that he would have to pay nearly $300 to bring his Creative Cloud subscription to an end.

It has sparked a discussion about Adobe’s practices, with many others coming forward to say that they too have faced extremely steep cancelation fees when they’ve tried to cut ties with the company.

A screenshot uploaded to the micro-blogging site by Twitter user @Mrdaddguy showed that they faced a $291.45 fee to cancel their Adobe Creative Cloud plan.

At the time of publication the tweet has attracted more than 13,000 retweets, more than 4,000 quote tweets, and more than 70,000 likes.

Twitter users have been almost universally in agreement in their criticism of the company, with some describing the cancelation fee as “absurd”, “disgusting,” and likening it to being held hostage by the company.

“Adobe has been holding me hostage for the better part of a year on a free trial that magically converted to a yearlong subscription with a wild cancellation fee,” wrote Twitter user Laura Hudson. “Blink twice if they have you too.”

Some have weighed into the conversation by suggesting alternatives to Adobe’s suite of products, such as Clip Studio Paint, Procreate, Blender, Krita, Paint tool Sai, many of which are either free to use or available as one-time purchases.

Others, meanwhile, are arguing that Adobe’s penalty fees are so severe that it should be considered “morally correct” to pirate the company’s software in revenge.

“Adobe on their hands and knees begging us to pirate their software,” wrote Twitter user JoshDeLearner.

“This thread is a great reminder of why it’s morally correct to pirate Adobe products,” wrote Dozing Starlight. A multitude of similar tweets can be found here.

Source: $291 Adobe Cancelation Fee Sees Twitter Users Argue it’s ‘Morally Correct’ to Pirate Software – Newsweek