All posts filed under: Science

Drug Sites Hijacked Spotify’s Search Ranking Through Fake Podcasts, Report Finds

Drug Sites Hijacked Spotify’s Search Ranking Through Fake Podcasts, Report Finds

Published by skeptic

For the past year, Spotify has been quietly purging tens of thousands of podcasts that advertised illegal online pharmacies. A report released Thursday by Senator Maggie Hassan, ranking member of the Joint Economic Committee, faults the company for acting only after news outlets exposed the content and her office spent nearly a year pressing for answers. None of what it removed was sent to law enforcement, the report says. Spotify reportedly removed more than 57,000 podcast episodes and 3,000 shows, and took enforcement action against 3,500 accounts, all pushing links to illegal online pharmacies advertising opioids, benzodiazepines, and stimulants for sale without a prescription. Nevertheless, the report frames the cleanup as a moderation failure. The report leans on one comparison in particular: Spotify acted against more than 3,500 accounts for drug content in 2025 but fewer than 100 the year before. The committee presents the jump as evidence the company moved only after it came under scrutiny. Spotify offered a different explanation: that its older counts are incomplete because, as it says in the report, …

Grapheal secures €2.5M EIC grant for real-time PFAS monitoring

Grapheal secures €2.5M EIC grant for real-time PFAS monitoring

Published by skeptic

French deep-tech company Grapheal has secured a €2.5m grant through the latest European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator programme to advance its next-generation PFAS monitoring technology. The funding will support the development and commercialisation of PFAST, a portable graphene-based sensing platform that detects harmful PFAS contaminants in water within minutes. The grant comes as European regulators introduce stricter controls on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly known as “forever chemicals.” New requirements under the EU Drinking Water Directive are increasing pressure on water utilities to conduct more frequent testing and demonstrate compliance with tighter contamination limits. With the additional funding, Grapheal aims to accelerate deployment of its field-ready sensor system, enabling water treatment operators to perform real-time PFAS monitoring without relying on laboratory analysis that can take weeks to deliver results. Rising demand for faster PFAS monitoring PFAS comprise a family of roughly 12,000 synthetic chemicals used across a wide range of industrial, consumer and technological applications. Their extreme persistence in the environment has led to widespread contamination across Europe, with studies identifying thousands of affected …

Electrochemical bath provides new way to recycle lithium-ion batteries

Electrochemical bath provides new way to recycle lithium-ion batteries

Published by skeptic

Cornell researchers have developed an electrochemical solution that can regenerate the electrodes of lithium-ion batteries. The recycled batteries could then regain up to 95% of their original power and last longer when reused. Published in Energy and Environmental Science by lead author postdoctoral researcher Kiwon Kim, the project to recycle lithium-ion batteries was led by Vibha Kalra, the Fred H. Rhodes Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering. Co-authors include doctoral student Chenlu Yang and Sabine Gallagher at Argonne National Laboratory, with additional support provided by the Pao-Wang Fellowship. Subverting the linear “take-make-dispose approach” of batteries Spent lithium-ion batteries, when they are not causing extremely hot fires in electric vehicles, often end up in landfill, where they leak chemicals into the surrounding environment. As well as this detrimental effect on nature, this approach is in conflict with the limited global supply of critical raw materials like nickel and cobalt, which are needed to manufacture lithium-ion batteries. “When these lithium-ion batteries came about, nobody was thinking about how these minerals are limited …

Best Smart Chess Boards (2026): Chessnut, Millennium

Best Smart Chess Boards (2026): Chessnut, Millennium

Published by skeptic

Playing chess can be challenging, fun, and at times frustrating. Garry Kasparov called the game “mental torture.” With virtually limitless possibilities, chess offers unparalleled depth, and you could easily fill a library with books on how to play it. The internet has opened up a wealth of potential competitors, and smart chess boards enable you to play anyone online or off, not to mention dabble in a variety of chess programs. I’ve been testing smart chess boards for the past month or so, with the help of my chess-mad eldest, and these are my top picks. The Smart Chess Boards I Recommend Most Chessnut Pro Electronic Chessboard For my opening gambit, I’m recommending the Chessnut Pro. With a classic wooden design, the Chessnut Pro feels like a regular board, but there are smarts hidden within. The beechwood pieces are beautifully weighted, an important but often underestimated feature. They feel great in hand, and the set includes a pair of extra Queens. This is a full tournament-size board (55 cm or 21.7 inches), so you’ll need …

Signal Alums Reveal ‘Encrypted Spaces,’ a System for Making Private Collaboration Apps

Signal Alums Reveal ‘Encrypted Spaces,’ a System for Making Private Collaboration Apps

Published by skeptic

Encrypted Spaces is, in some sense, the next generation of the Signal protocol, but for more complex and fully featured tools that go beyond messaging and calls, says Matt Green, a cryptography-focused professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins. “They’ve built a system that’s kind of an extension of what end-to-end encryption can be, where you have an actual architecture for doing end-to-end encrypted collaboration,” says Green, who reviewed a white paper outlining the Encrypted Spaces project and a prototype application. “You can think of it as the Signal protocol for collaboration apps.” Unlike Signal, however, the code that the Encrypted Spaces group has released is, for now, not a single, ready-for-use application. Instead, it’s a code repository that the group is inviting cryptography researchers and developers to review, with the goal of eventually allowing coders to build their own encrypted collaborative apps—but without needing any cryptography knowledge. “We want to make it so there’s no reason a developer wouldn’t want to make their application end-to-end encrypted, because it becomes so easy,” Trapp says. Change …

Dramatic photo of ibis being guided to their winter homes wins award

Dramatic photo of ibis being guided to their winter homes wins award

Published by skeptic

Gunnar Hartmann’s winning image from Nature‘s Scientist at Work photo competition 2026 Gunnar Hartmann Poaching and a changing climate forced the northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) out of the northern foothills of the Alps around 400 years ago. But now they are on their way back. This photograph shows Helena Wehner flying in the passenger seat of an ultralight aircraft, singing a German song through a megaphone to guide the birds on their way to their new winter homes. Wehner, behind pilot Johannes Fritz, is part of an Austrian conservation group known as Waldrappteam – named after the ibis’s local name – which is trying to establish a healthy European population once more. The birds are hand-raised by human carers and form bonds, which means they are happy to follow even the people riding in the aircraft. Since its inception in 2004, the migration project has amassed numerous followers and fans from local communities along the birds’ route. The 50-day journey covers 2800 kilometres from south-east Germany to south-west Spain. The stunning shot of the …

our study of Enron traders shows how easily the language of trust can be abused

our study of Enron traders shows how easily the language of trust can be abused

Published by skeptic

From election debates to job interviews, language shapes our perceptions of how trustworthy other people are. This power can be used to build healthy relationships, but it can also be used to manipulate and deceive. To better understand this darker side of building trust, my colleagues and I turned to the corporate world – a domain that offers plenty of cautionary tales. Our case study was among the most notorious, involving one of the world’s largest energy companies of the 1980s and 90s: Enron. This Texas-based company went bankrupt in 2001 after it emerged it had been systematically falsifying its financial records on a massive scale. Its West Power division manipulated California’s electricity markets by exploiting flaws in the state’s newly deregulated system, boosting profits while triggering one of the worst energy crises in US history by creating artificial power shortages. To manipulate the markets, Enron traders had to win – then keep – the trust of partners, clients and regulators. Subsequent US federal investigations led to the release of more than 500 of their …

Best Portable Monitors (2026): Add a Second Screen I’ve Tested

Best Portable Monitors (2026): Add a Second Screen I’ve Tested

Published by skeptic

Being away from the office means working on my laptop—and with that comes productivity slipping away into oblivion. The problem, for me at least, is the screen, or rather, the lack of them. A portable monitor solves this dilemma handily, working just like an external monitor setup does in the office, but with mobility also in mind. While larger portable monitors (especially multi-panel ones) may require a dedicated power connection, most can use your laptop’s USB port for all the juice they need. The portable monitor category is a very large one, occupied by both name-brand producers of laptops and desktop monitors as well as plenty of companies you’ve never heard of. For this buying guide, I evaluated 20 portable monitors from a wide range of manufacturers that represent price points ranging from $70 to nearly $700. I’m splitting my top recommendations across four major categories, with runners-up available for most of them. The Best Overall Portable Monitor Arzopa Z3FC Portable Monitor If you are simply looking for a single extra screen to have alongside …

YouTube Appears to Be Making Money Off of Sanctioned Iranians’ Accounts

YouTube Appears to Be Making Money Off of Sanctioned Iranians’ Accounts

Published by skeptic

As the US war with Iran continues to roil the Middle East, new research shared exclusively with WIRED shows that YouTube is hosting and possibly profiting from dozens of channels linked to US-sanctioned groups linked to the Iranian government, including many with direct ties to the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The research, from the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project, identified more than 75 channels that appear to be run by entities that have been officially sanctioned by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which has been enforcing sanctions against Iran for decades. The channels have been monetized, meaning that YouTube runs ads on their videos that generate revenue. The researchers documented ads for companies ranging from Subaru to Verizon, TurboTax, the weight-loss drug Ozempic, and fast-food outlet KFC. In one case, the researchers observed an ad for the US Customs and Border Protection running on a video produced by Iran’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts. “That means YouTube placed an ad paid for with US tax dollars on a …

Fiido Air Carbon Fiber Electric Bike Review: A Light, Quiet Ebike

Fiido Air Carbon Fiber Electric Bike Review: A Light, Quiet Ebike

Published by skeptic

It picks up quickly at lights, and acceleration—especially in Sport mode—is reassuringly quick when it’s time to overtake. I’m delighted by how effortless the overall performance is, and how smoothly the torque kicks in. What’s more, moving it, wheeling it through the house, lifting it onto bike racks, and even just doing basic things like locking it up, is just easier in every way. The motor is quiet, too. While not totally silent, it’s not a distraction. Impressively, too, the Air can also be ridden reasonably easily without electric assist. A 30-pound single speed bike won’t set any track records, but if power does fail you—or more likely, you misjudge the battery level and forget to charge overnight like I did—it won’t be too much of a workout to get home. But please don’t confuse this commuter-style electric bike with a powerful mid-drive motor electric bike. With a meagre motor and only one gear (and quite a low one at that) it does not love hills. Steady inclines are easy, but there’s one short, sharp-ish …