Submission + - Bank of America kindly asks that you don't share your password with your AI asst (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In an email blast to customers titled “Protecting your finances in the Al World,” Bank of America urged customers to never share their username and password with another person or an outside service, “including an Al-enabled tool or agent that offers to act on your behalf.”

You can practically sense the frustration in the person sending the email. Still, customers are increasingly handing over their log-ins as personal AI assistants grow more popular. Sharing your banking username and password with an AI assistant runs the risk that it could do something with your finances without your knowledge, or that your bank thinks someone’s raiding your account and locks you out of it. Worse, a security flaw in the AI assistant could result in it leaking your banking credentials elsewhere, giving financially motivated hackers a way into your bank account.

Submission + - New Discovery Reveals Shakespeare Co-Wrote Play With His Famous Rival Marlowe (greekreporter.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: Nisha Zahid of the Greek Reporter writes that new research has found that William Shakespeare collaborated with Christopher Marlowe on Edward III, a historical play published anonymously in 1596. The findings suggest Shakespeare was the main author, while Marlowe contributed several sections. The discovery challenges the long-held belief that the two playwrights were primarily rivals.

Dr. Rory Loughnane, a Shakespeare scholar at the University of Kent, said the research establishes Shakespeare’s leading role “beyond any reasonable doubt.” The findings could settle a centuries-old debate over the play’s authorship. Scholars had previously linked Shakespeare to several scenes but remained uncertain about how much of the work he wrote.

The researchers used computer-based text analysis to compare Edward III with confirmed works by 10 playwrights active between the late 1580s and mid-1590s.

In one test, the analysis attributed 23 sections of the play to Shakespeare and nine to Marlowe. The results suggest Shakespeare wrote most of the work, with Marlowe contributing a smaller portion. The findings build on earlier research into the play’s disputed authorship.

A 2016 study had already identified Marlowe as a co-author of Shakespeare’s three Henry VI plays. Combined with the new findings, that research suggests Shakespeare and Marlowe maintained a working relationship across several plays during their early careers. Their collaboration on Edward III, believed to have been written around 1592, suggests the two writers worked together while both were in their 20s.

The findings add to scholarly understanding of Shakespeare’s early career and the collaborative nature of Elizabethan theater. The research is expected to appear in the winter issue of the academic journal Shakespeare Quarterly.

Submission + - Rubin Telescope discovers a new solar system planet (behindtheblack.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Using data from the Rubin Telescope in Chile, astronomers have discovered a new planet in the outer solar system beyond Neptune, joining Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake as the five known large Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO) so far discovered.

On the evening of 13 October, [Matthew] Holman was running data collected by Rubin earlier in 2026 through a search code he developed with CfA colleague Kevin Napier. The code is built to look at billions of detections of moving objects, compare them, and find the detections that correspond to the same object. Using this method, Holman uncovered ED138, and he immediately noticed that its brightness and distance indicated that it is unusually large. “My first reaction was one of excited disbelief,” says Holman. “Objects like this are very rare, so I immediately started checking whether I or the code had done something wrong.”

To remove any doubt, a detailed search through the data began in the hopes of uncovering more observations of ED138. Juri searched Rubin’s catalogs and images and found 20 more observations, going back to 4 March 2026. In all, Rubin observed ED138 30 times on 20 nights between 4 March and 11 July. Additional archival images from the DOE-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam), and uncovered by the Asteroid Institute’s ADAM Precovery service, provided data going all the way back to 2016. These data allowed the team to trace more than 10 years of ED138's orbit. DECam is mounted on the NSF Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF NOIRLab.

ED138 is currently at a distance of about 46 astronomical units (au), where 1 au is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. For reference, dwarf planet Pluto has an average distance of 40 au. This classifies ED138 as a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) — objects that orbit the Sun at a distance greater than Neptune’s.

The data suggests this new planet is the largest TNO object so far discovered, though at present the size estimate is very uncertain, from 350 to 1400 miles in diameter.

Submission + - This frog bacterium wiped out cancer tumors in mice with a single dose (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: Science Daily has reported that scientists at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) have identified a naturally occurring bacterium from the intestines of Japanese tree frogs (Dryophytes japonicus) that demonstrated remarkable anticancer activity in mice. The findings, published in Gut Microbes, introduce a new approach to cancer treatment that uses living bacteria to directly target tumors rather than simply altering the gut microbiome.

In a mouse model of colorectal cancer, a single intravenous dose of E. americana completely eliminated tumors, producing a 100% complete response (CR) rate. The researchers emphasize that these findings are limited to mice, but they believe the results provide an encouraging proof of concept for developing new bacterial cancer therapies.

First, E. americana directly attacks tumors. As a facultative anaerobic bacterium, it thrives in both oxygen rich and oxygen poor environments, allowing it to multiply inside the oxygen deprived regions commonly found within tumors. Once there, the bacterial population increased by roughly 3,000 fold within 24 hours after treatment, directly damaging cancer cells.

Second, the bacterium stimulates the immune system. Its presence attracted T cells, B cells, and neutrophils into tumors. These immune cells then released inflammatory signaling molecules, including TNF- and IFN-, which strengthened the immune response and promoted cancer cell death.

One of the most striking findings was that E. americana accumulated almost exclusively inside tumors and did not colonize healthy organs.

They found that the bacteria were rapidly cleared from the bloodstream, with a half life of approximately 1.2 hours, and became undetectable within 24 hours. No bacterial colonization was detected in healthy organs, including the liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, or heart.

The treatment caused only mild, temporary inflammation that returned to normal within 72 hours. During a 60 day observation period, the researchers found no evidence of chronic toxicity.

Submission + - Industry executives knew for decades that microplastics were infiltrating the hu (latimes.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: Susanne Rust of the Los Angeles Times reports that industry executives knew for decades that microplastics were infiltrating the human body.

Scientists today say we’re just beginning to understand the harm that the tiny bits of plastic we drink, eat and breathe are doing to the human body.

Internal memos among company scientists and executives obtained by The Times reveal that for at least half a century, the plastics industry has been aware of and concerned about the potential for microplastic contamination in the human body.

But recently discovered chemical company documents dating back several decades show that industry scientists have long been aware of — and concerned about — the way microplastic particles migrate beyond the gut in animals and humans, depositing in important organs. And the potential for that knowledge to affect the plastic food packaging industry.

Their concern goes back to 1974 and a scientific meeting at a New York City hotel, where a German gastroenterologist presented a scientific paper that showed for the first time that ingested particles like microplastics could infiltrate the rest of the body.
His presentation was largely overlooked by the government scientists in attendance but became a point of worried discussion among company scientists.

Tracey Woodruff, professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford University, who reviewed the documents, said they indicate scientists and executives at major chemical companies have known and remained silent even as microplastics accumulated in tissues. She likened it to other industries that knew about pollutants — greenhouse gases, asbestos and tobacco — but did not take action to make them safer.

A spokesperson with the chemical industry’s largest trade group took issue with that characterization.
“Scientific debate over what the evidence shows is not silence. It is how sound science and effective policy advance,” said Craig Davis, senior director of plastics chemistry at the American Chemistry Council. “Our industry is committed to advancing microplastics science by supporting independent research and policies that would do so.”

The Plastics Industry Assn. did not respond to requests for comment.

Submission + - New Operating System Uses Hardware-Based Memory Protection Model (frute.net)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: FRUTE asks what an operating system looks like when the CPU, language runtime, garbage collector, compiler, and authority model are designed together instead of bolted together after the fact.

Conventional systems make language runtimes recover structure from untyped words, make security policy chase ambient names, and make garbage collectors infer which machine values are pointers. FRUTE moves those facts into the architecture: values are tagged, authority is explicit, and Scheme is treated as a first-class systems language.

Most CPUs treat memory as undifferentiated bits, then ask every compiler, runtime, kernel, and debugger to remember what those bits mean. FRUTE values carry architectural tags, so the machine can distinguish pointers, fixnums, characters, capabilities, bitmaps, and runtime objects directly.

Submission + - One Shared Key Lets Phones Unlock or Immobilize 2 Million Cars (youtube.com)

Submitted by cortex
cortex writes: A WIRED Investigations video (YouTube) shows UC San Diego researchers discovering that dealer-installed KARR (and SWDS) aftermarket car alarms—estimated in more than 2 million U.S. vehicles, mostly from Southern California dealerships since around 2017—share a single Bluetooth authentication key. Anyone within Bluetooth range can use a simple reverse-engineered app to silently unlock doors, disable the alarm, honk the horn, flash lights, or immobilize a parked car so it won’t start, often without the owner even knowing the hidden under-dash module is present or active (it can still respond even if the paid service was declined). The vendor (Acrisure Protection Group) has released a manual firmware patch via the KARR smartphone app; owners can check for a KARR/SWDS window sticker or a blinking light under the dash. Full details in the accompanying WIRED story.

Submission + - Will AI expose the rickety infrastructure of the internet? (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by sziring
sziring writes: A startling announcement went out earlier this week: Due to recently discovered vulnerabilities in the open source programming language PHP, website owners had to immediately patch their sites â" or if they couldnâ(TM)t update right away, they should take the sites down to be safe.
On this weekâ(TM)s episode of TechCrunchâ(TM)s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean Oâ(TM)Kane, and I discussed the significance of the PHP-ocalypse and whether weâ(TM)ll see more incidents like this in the future.
Sean called this âoea real reckoning momentâ that highlights how âoewhen you get down to the bone level of the internet,â everything seems to be âoeheld together by glue and dreams.â And with widespread access to large language models and AI agents, itâ(TM)s only going to become easier to find these vulnerabilities. (That said, these specific vulnerabilities were found by human researchers, not AI models.)
Kirsten, meanwhile, wondered if weâ(TM)re about to see the âoenext level of prepper doom [â¦] because you could see how banks could get exploited, and [with] data and privacy concerns, it just feels a lot bigger than we can fix right now.â
Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Sean Oâ(TM)Kane: The internet is breaking in lots of ways this week, it seems.
I think the best way to think about this, if people are coming into this kind of cold: How many times over the last 10 years have we had these moments where something breaks or something nearly breaks, where one person maintaining one tiny repro repository as a hobby or whatever happens to catch that something nefarious is going on and and saves us from the infrastructure of the internet completely crumbling?
Now multiply that by a billion, when people have access to not only extremely advanced software in the form of these LLMs that everybody uses, but also the ability to task them to go out and do it themselves, with creating AI agents that are single-minded at accomplishing those things.
Weâ(TM)re seeing a balance of two things happening this week. One is a bunch of the labs and companies like Google and OpenAI actually had people go out and find a bunch of vulnerabilities, including the one with PHP. And then we also have a bunch of people seeming to rush to take advantage of those vulnerabilities to try and hack into websites. So we have governments taking down websites, we have really popular websites that are going down briefly to be able to fix this vulnerability.
This is a real reckoning moment, where weâ(TM)re going to find out the downside risk of building so much of the internet on open source technology like PHP. When you really get down to the bone level of the internet, it is held together with glue and dreams.

Submission + - An AI Disconnect

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Jordyn Holman of the NY Times writes: When it comes to artificial intelligence, chief executives and their work forces aren’t seeing eye to eye. Corporate leaders, increasingly in earnings calls and interviews, tout productivity gains and say they are doing right by their workers as they roll out the technology. But workers are much more concerned about being supplanted, and they don’t trust their company’s executives.

A survey from the Milken Institute-Harris Poll Listening Project recently found that more than two-thirds of business leaders expect they will be better off financially in five years because of A.I., while just 27 percent of the U.S. work force felt the same way — a whopping 41 point gap. Workers also see less A.I. transformation than leadership does. Nearly three-fourths of leaders say A.I. has significantly changed the way work is done, compared with 58 percent of entry and midlevel employees, according to a report released this month from the Wharton School.

“We have corner offices and cubicles, driving the same economy, but living in completely different realities,” John Gerzema, C.E.O. of the Harris Poll, said in an email. “There is a gulf in hope between what leaders think A.I. could bring to companies and what employees feel it is taking away from them.” What might be worse is that C.E.O.s don’t seem to recognize the disconnect, or that they’re losing the trust of their workers.

Submission + - Wolves Descend on Finnish Villages After Google Hacked Down 1,300 Acres of trees (futurism.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Earlier in October, Finnish authorities ordered Google’s affiliate data center developer Tuike Finland Oy to immediately suspend the illegal cutting of some 1,300 acres of forest. The tech giant was given a week to draft a report explaining its actions, which soon became a flashpoint for Europe’s growing outrage over the data center boom.

As the anger grew, reporters descended on the scene — and what they found is a clear-cut example of the AI revolution’s impact on the environment.

New reporting by the Guardian shed fresh light on the impacts of Google’s deforestation. After the 1,300 acres of pristine boreal forests were reduced to tracts of mud and stumps, fauna which once called the woods home has been forced to vacate.

Submission + - Tesla does not allow people to repair their own vehicles (newrepublic.com)

Submitted by smooth wombat
smooth wombat writes: A decade ago, Rich Benoit bought a used Tesla at auction. The car had been flooded and he thought he'd repair it. When he reached out to Tesla to buy parts, they said no.

“They literally just said no,” he said. “I thought it was going to be a lot easier: ‘Hey, I’ll just buy a battery, put a battery in, put a new motor in, you know, buy some new interior parts.’ They literally said no. I’ve never seen anything like that before, and I think that’s what started the journey for me.”

Benoit’s professional background was in I.T., but this launched a new career in fixing electric cars, and he also runs a now 10-year-old YouTube channel with co-founder Carl Hewitt about his work, called Rich Rebuilds. He says nearly every electric vehicle company has responded the same way Tesla did. So his new career intersected quickly with the right-to-repair movement, which argues that companies shouldn’t be allowed to refuse access to the information and equipment people need to make repairs on the products they’ve purchased.

At least nine states have passed right-to-repair laws—most of them blue, along with Texas and Kansas—and every state has debated similar laws that would require at least some manufacturers to provide the tools people need to make repairs on their products. A federal bill is sitting in the House, waiting for potential consideration in the lame-duck session, but it’s unlikely to rise to the top of Congress’s long to-do list. For Benoit, though, this is about much more than just fixing cars. “This kind of encompasses a larger overarching theory that the corporations own what you have,” he said. “You don’t own anything. You just rent it.”

Submission + - How we're Strengthening PHP Security

Submitted by Mirnotoriety
Mirnotoriety writes: Today's PHP Security Release, and How We're Strengthening PHP Security

“Earlier today, the PHP project released PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35. These releases fix two critical vulnerabilities that, under the right conditions, allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute code on servers running PHP.”

CVE-2026-109618 / GHSA-w8hw-w9fx-j79w: RCE via OOM corruption (out-of-memory): If a request reached PHP's memory_limit at exactly the wrong moment, PHP could leave partially initialized internal data behind and later treat it as valid, corrupting memory.

CVE-2026-109619 / GHSA-6wmf-4rv5-p3rp: RCE via stale global state: A fatal error at the wrong point could leave internal state pointing to memory that belonged to a previous request ..

Submission + - SpaceX in talks for 80,000 cell sites to build nationwide wireless network (yahoo.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Space Exploration Technologies Corp is in discussions to secure access to at least 80,000 cell sites across the United States, according to Bloomberg, signaling a concrete step toward establishing a fourth nationwide wireless carrier. The satellite giant is negotiating with major tower operators, including Crown Castle International Corp, as it gathers the physical infrastructure required to complement its orbital network.

The potential leasing agreements are expected to reach into the billions of dollars, reflecting the vast scale of the physical network required. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has positioned the initiative as a direct challenge to incumbent carriers, supported by recent regulatory milestones and strategic spectrum acquisitions.

The Federal Communications Commission granted SpaceX approval to launch 15,000 specialized satellites engineered to stream mobile connectivity directly to standard smartphones. Integrating tens of thousands of ground sites will allow the company to manage signal density and deliver reliable broadband across dense suburban and urban corridors.

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