Daily Archives: October 21, 2021

Researchers design antibodies that destroy old cells, slowing down aging

Posted on by

No one knows why some people age worse than others and develop diseases -such as Alzheimer’s, fibrosis, type 2 diabetes or some types of cancer- associated with this aging process. One explanation for this could be the degree of efficiency of each organism’s response to the damage sustained by its cells during its life, which eventually causes them to age. In relation to this, researchers at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and the University of Leicester (United Kingdom) have developed a new method to remove old cells from tissues, thus slowing down the aging process.

Specifically, they have designed an antibody that acts as a smart bomb able to recognize specific proteins on the surface of these aged or senescent . It then attaches itself to them and releases a drug that removes them without affecting the rest, thus minimizing any potential side effects.

[…]

“We now have, for the first time, an antibody-based drug that can be used to help slow down in humans,” noted Salvador Macip, the leader of this research and a doctor and researcher at the UOC and the University of Leicester.

“We based this work on existing cancer therapies that target specific proteins present on the surface of cancer cells, and then applied them to senescent cells,” explained the expert.

All have a mechanism known as “cellular senescence” that halts the division of damaged cells and removes them to stop them from reproducing. This mechanism helps slow down the progress of cancer, for example, as well as helping model tissue at the embryo development stage.

However, in spite of being a very beneficial biological mechanism, it contributes to the development of diseases when the organism reaches old age. This seems to be because the immune system is no longer able to efficiently remove these senescent cells, which gradually accumulate in tissues and detrimentally affect their functioning.

[…]

The drug designed by Macip and his team is a second-generation senolytic with high specificity and remote-controlled delivery. They started from the results of a previous study that looked at the “surfaceome,” the proteins on the cell’s surface, to identify those proteins that are only present in senescent cells. “They’re not universal: some are more present than others on each type of aged cell,” said Macip.

In this new work, the researchers used a monoclonal antibody trained to recognize senescent cells and attach to them. “Just like our antibodies recognize germs and protect us from them, we’ve designed these antibodies to recognize old cells. In addition, we’ve given them a toxic load to destroy them, as if they were a remote-controlled missile,” said the researcher, who is the head of the University of Leicester’s Mechanisms of Cancer and Aging Lab.

Treatment could start to be given as soon as the first symptoms of the disease, such as Alzheimer’s, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s, arthritis, cataracts or some tumors, appear. In the long term, the researchers believe that it could even be used to achieve healthier aging in some circumstances.

Source: Researchers design antibodies that destroy old cells, slowing down aging

Study: Recycled Lithium Batteries as Good as Newly Mined

Posted on by

[…]

while the EV battery recycling industry is starting to take off, getting carmakers to use recycled materials remains a hard sell. “In general, people’s impression is that recycled material is not as good as virgin material,” says Yan Wang, a professor of mechanical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. “Battery companies still hesitate to use recycled material in their batteries.”

A new study by Wang and a team including researchers from the US Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), and battery company A123 Systems, shows that battery and carmakers needn’t worry. The results, published in the journal Joule, shows that batteries with recycled cathodes can be as good as, or even better than those using new state-of-the-art materials.

The team tested batteries with recycled NMC111 cathodes, the most common flavor of cathode containing a third each of nickel, manganese, and cobalt. The cathodes were made using a patented recycling technique that Battery Resourcers, a startup Wang co-founded, is now commercializing.

[…]

The researchers made 11 Ampere-hour industry-standard pouch cells loaded with materials at the same density as EV batteries. Engineers at A123 Systems did most of the testing, Wang says, using a protocol devised by the USABC to meet commercial viability goals for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He says the results prove that recycled cathode materials are a viable alternative to pristine materials.

[…]

“We are the only company that gives an output that is a cathode material,” he says. “Other companies make elements. So their value added is less.”

Their technology involves shredding batteries and removing the steel cases, aluminum and copper wires, plastics, and pouch materials for recycling. The remaining black mass is dissolved in solvents, and the graphite, carbon and impurities are filtered out or chemically separated. Using a patented chemical technique, the nickel, manganese and cobalt are then mixed in desired ratios to make cathode powders.

[…]

[…]

Source: Study: Recycled Lithium Batteries as Good as Newly Mined – IEEE Spectrum

Client-Side Scanning Is An Insecure Nightmare Just Waiting To Be Exploited By Governments or companies. Apple basically installing spyware under a nice name.

Posted on by

In August, Apple declared that combating the spread of CSAM (child sexual abuse material) was more important than protecting millions of users who’ve never used their devices to store or share illegal material. While encryption would still protect users’ data and communications (in transit and at rest), Apple had given itself permission to inspect data residing on people’s devices before allowing it to be sent to others.

This is not a backdoor in a traditional sense. But it can be exploited just like an encryption backdoor if government agencies want access to devices’ contents or mandate companies like Apple do more to halt the spread of other content governments have declared troublesome or illegal.

Apple may have implemented its client-side scanning carefully after weighing the pros and cons of introducing a security flaw, but there’s simply no way to engage in this sort of scanning without creating a very large and slippery slope capable of accommodating plenty of unwanted (and unwarranted) government intercession.

Apple has put this program on hold for the time being, citing concerns raised by pretty much everyone who knows anything about client-side scanning and encryption. The conclusions that prompted Apple to step away from the precipice of this slope (at least momentarily) have been compiled in a report [PDF] on the negative side effects of client-side scanning, written by a large group of cybersecurity and encryption experts

[…]

Only policy decisions prevent the scanning expanding from illegal abuse images to other material of interest to governments; and only the lack of a software update prevents the scanning expanding from static images to content stored in other formats, such as voice, text, or video.

And if people don’t think governments will demand more than Apple’s proactive CSAM efforts, they haven’t been paying attention. CSAM is only the beginning of the list of content governments would like to see tech companies target and control.

While the Five Eyes governments and Apple have been talking about child sex-abuse material (CSAM) —specifically images— in their push for CSS, the European Union has included terrorism and organized crime along with sex abuse. In the EU’s view, targeted content extends from still images through videos to text, as text can be used for both sexual solicitation and terrorist recruitment. We cannot talk merely of “illegal” content, because proposed UK laws would require the blocking online of speech that is legal but that some actors find upsetting.

Once capabilities are built, reasons will be found to make use of them. Once there are mechanisms to perform on-device censorship at scale, court orders may require blocking of nonconsensual intimate imagery, also known as revenge porn. Then copyright owners may bring suit to block allegedly infringing material.

That’s just the policy and law side. And that’s only a very brief overview of clearly foreseeable expansions of CSS to cover other content, which also brings with it concerns about it being used as a tool for government censorship. Apple has already made concessions to notoriously censorial governments like China’s in order to continue to sell products and services there.

[…]

CSS is at odds with the least-privilege principle. Even if it runs in middleware, its scope depends on multiple parties in the targeting chain, so it cannot be claimed to use least-privilege in terms of the scanning scope. If the CSS system is a component used by many apps, then this also violates the least-privilege principle in terms of scope. If it runs at the OS level, things are worse still, as it can completely compromise any user’s device, accessing all their data, performing live intercept, and even turning the device into a room bug.

CSS has difficulty meeting the open-design principle, particularly when the CSS is for CSAM, which has secrecy requirements for the targeted content. As a result, it is not possible to publicly establish what the system actually does, or to be sure that fixes done in response to attacks are comprehensive. Even a meaningful audit must trust that the targeted content is what it purports to be, and so cannot completely test the system and all its failure modes.

Finally, CSS breaks the psychological-acceptability principle by introducing a spy in the owner’s private digital space. A tool that they thought was theirs alone, an intimate device to guard and curate their private life, is suddenly doing surveillance on behalf of the police. At the very least, this takes the chilling effect of surveillance and brings it directly to the owner’s fingertips and very thoughts.

[…]

Despite this comprehensive report warning against the implementation of client-side scanning, there’s a chance Apple may still roll its version out. And once it does, the pressure will be on other companies to do at least as much as Apple is doing to combat CSAM.

Source: Report: Client-Side Scanning Is An Insecure Nightmare Just Waiting To Be Exploited By Governments | Techdirt

CSAM is like installing listening software on a device. Once anyone has access to install whatever they like, there is nothing stopping them from listening in to everything. Despite the technically interesting name CSAM basically it’s talking about the manufacturer installing spyware on your device.

‘Flight Simulator: GOTY Edition’ adds new aircraft and locations on November 18th

Posted on by

Microsoft is spicing up Flight Simulator with an expanded re-release, although this one may be more ambitious than some. It’s releasing Flight Simulator: Game of the Year Edition on November 18th with both a heaping of new content as well as some meaningful feature upgrades. To start, there are five new stand-out aircraft, including the F/A-18 Super Hornet — you won’t have to wait until the Top Gun expansion to buzz the tower in a fighter jet. You’ll also get to fly the VoloCity air taxi, PC-6 Porter short-takeoff aircraft, the bush flying-oriented NX Cub and the single-seat Aviat Pitts Special S1S.

The GOTY upgrade adds eight airports, including Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Patrick Space Force Base. Eight cities will get photogrammetry detail upgrades, such as Helsinki, Nottinghm and Utrecht. There are accordingly new tutorials (such as bush flying and IFR) and Discovery Flights.

The update adds useful features, too. You’ll have early access to DirectX 12 features, an improved weather system and a developer mode replay system, among other improvements.

Most notably, you won’t have to pay for any of this as a veteran player— existing Flight Simulator owners will receive a free update on both Windows PCs and Xbox Series X/S. The paid GOTY release exists chiefly to entice first-timers. For everyone else, this is billed as a “thank you” upgrade that could keep them coming back.

Source: ‘Flight Simulator: GOTY Edition’ adds new aircraft and locations on November 18th | Engadget

Facial recognition scheme in place in some British schools – more to come

Posted on by

Facial recognition technology is being employed in more UK schools to allow pupils to pay for their meals, according to reports today.

In North Ayrshire Council, a Scottish authority encompassing the Isle of Arran, nine schools are set to begin processing meal payments for school lunches using facial scanning technology.

The authority and the company implementing the technology, CRB Cunninghams, claim the system will help reduce queues and is less likely to spread COVID-19 than card payments and fingerprint scanners, according to the Financial Times.

Speaking to the publication, David Swanston, the MD of supplier CRB Cunninghams, said the cameras verify the child’s identity against “encrypted faceprint templates”, and will be held on servers on-site at the 65 schools that have so far signed up.

[…]

North Ayrshire council said 97 per cent of parents had given their consent for the new system, although some said they were unsure whether their children had been given enough information to make their decision.

Seemingly unaware of the controversy surrounding facial recognition, education solutions provider CRB Cunninghams announced its introduction of the technology in schools in June as the “next step in cashless catering.”

[…]

Privacy campaigners voiced concerns that moving the technology into schools merely for payment was needlessly normalising facial recognition.

“No child should have to go through border style identity checks just to get a school meal,” Silkie Carlo of the campaign group Big Brother Watch told The Reg.

“We are supposed to live in a democracy, not a security state. This is highly sensitive, personal data that children should be taught to protect, not to give away on a whim. This biometrics company has refused to disclose who else children’s personal information could be shared with and there are some red flags here for us. “Facial recognition technology typically suffers from inaccuracy, particularly for females and people of colour, and we’re extremely concerned about how this invasive and discriminatory system will impact children.”

[…]

Those concerned about the security of schools systems now storing children’s biometric data will not be assured by the fact that educational establishments have become targets for cyber-attacks.

In March, the Harris Federation, a not-for-profit charity responsible for running 50 primary and secondary academies in London and Essex, became the latest UK education body to fall victim to ransomware. The institution said it was “at least” the fourth multi-academy trust targeted just that month alone. Meanwhile, South and City College Birmingham earlier this year told 13,000 students that all lectures would be delivered via the web because a ransomware attack had disabled its core IT systems.

[…]

Source: Facial recognition scheme in place in some British schools • The Register

The students probably gave their consent because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t get any lunch. The problem with biometrics is that they don’t change. So if someone steals yours, then it’s stolen forever. It’s not a password you can reset.