Ransomware trends signal further woes for UK financial services


ByDr. Tim Sandle

DIGITAL JOURNAL
February 4, 2024

The Akira hacker group is suspected of carrying out the cyber attack in Sweden - Copyright AFP Chris DELMAS

What is the true extent of cyberattack impacting the U.K.? New details concerning the number of security incidents and ransomware incidents reported to the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), with the information obtained by Freedom of Information request.

This information has been obtained by Picus Security into cyber incidents and the subsequent analysis reveals an increase in ransomware incidents in the first half of 2023. Picus received month-by-month data on the number and type of incidents reported to the FCA by financial organizations. This information can be compared to previous FCA data breach statistics, including Picus freedom of information requests for FCA data in 2021 and 2022.

The FCA received 51 cyber incident reports in 2023 (classified as material incidents), up 10 percent compared to 2022. Within this data set, twice as many ransomware incidents were reported in 2023 (19) compared to the same period in 2022. In all, nearly a third of all cyber incidents reported were categorized as ransomware.

A material incident is defined as a cyber incident that results in significant loss of data, or the availability or control of its IT system; or impacts a large number of victims; or one that results in unauthorized access to, or malicious software present on, its information and communication systems.

Commenting on the findings, Dr. Suleyman Ozarslan, Co-Founder and VP of PicusLabs says in a statement sent to Digital Journal: “Ransomware remains a scourge for every sector and every security team. Our data reflects a common pattern seen in recent years. Ransomware gangs burst onto the scene, scale up their campaigns, and put a target on their backs.”

Ozarslan adds: “After the coordinated crackdowns and arrests from global government agencies, ransomware activity can start to die down until the next group looks to fill the void left by their predecessor.”

Financial services has always been one of the biggest targets for both politically and financially motivated cybercriminals.

There are other factors as well accounting for the increase. Ozarslan points out: “Two major Microsoft vulnerabilities may have also contributed to more incidents than usual this year, as was the case in 2021 when the Hafnium hacking group was actively exploiting another Microsoft Exchange Server bug.”

The increasing complexity of malware deployed by adversaries is also a factor.

Here Ozarslan observes: “The Picus Red Report 2023 found that modern malware is now capable of performing far more actions across the cyber-kill chain, to more effectively evade defences. More than one-third of malware samples exhibit more than 20 individual Tactics, Techniques and Procedures.”

Op-Ed: Psychedelic psychotherapy – Just another moneymaking exercise?


ByPaul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
February 4, 2024

Image by © Tim Sandle.

The constant drone in the news about legalization of psychedelics in therapeutic roles is becoming a roar. What’s missing is any sort of coherent “this does that” information. Big money for psychedelic startups is also stirring in the depths of investment land.

…Which leads to a poignant question: So what?

Faddish use of microdoses has been around for years if not decades. It was a buzz thing in Silicon Valley for at least two minutes back when. Mental health is not the most reassuring of subjects for discussion, either. Mental health medications are more famous for problems than solutions.

In this rather turgid environment, the only solid information is that “someone would like to market psychedelics and make money from them, please”.

A pretty common critique is that there’s a lack of evidence for psychedelics in therapeutic roles. There’s some traction in that. Many traditional cultures use psychedelics for spiritual purposes, but not specifically as therapy.

To be fair, many respected research institutions are looking at psychedelics. This clearly isn’t all hype, but it’s a far from simple subject, too.

For example – Can a psychedelic trigger a psychotic episode in a person with mental health issues? How do you make sure to avoid that risk?

This is brain chemistry, and it’s tricky. If you know anything at all about depression, you’ll know the balancing acts involved. Anxiety is pretty grim, too, and you may not even know what triggers it or why.

There are supposedly thousands of psychedelics. How do you choose? How do you know what you’re getting? What’s the psychedelic equivalent of “bath salts”, for instance?

The market for these drugs are people in various conditions from baffled and bewildered to those understandably very wary of more heavily hyped meds that don’t work.

The health sector has done itself no favors with its current image of a purely moneymaking environment for consumers. Trust is no longer a factor in therapeutic options. Goldman Sachs said years ago that “curing patients wasn’t good for business”, and apparently the sector believed them.

So did the world’s much-gouged consumers. Any kind of faith in a new therapy good or bad is going to be colored by that motif. The fact that you can buy some of these new therapies on the street without the consultancy fees doesn’t add much lustre to the idea.

There’s another issue. Psychedelics are a very broad range of types of drugs. Organic psychedelics like mushrooms and mescaline are definitely not the same as synthetics like LSD.

People react very subjectively to these drugs. Some people are hyper-receptive, and the drugs simply don’t work on others. Some people don’t hallucinate on LSD. There’s no One Size Fits All.

Public perception of mental health isn’t exactly a major asset, either. The degree of general ignorance is pretty high at best. Add psychedelics and you have a particular mix of ignorance and ineptitude.

For instance:

How will bosses feel about people “tripping” at work?

How much stigma can you attach to someone with mental health issues in any environment?

Is management literate enough to get basic ideas like they’re there to manage, not to judge?

How long will it take for the world’s much-too-intelligent media to brand anyone taking these drugs as “hippies”?

If they had a clue, what would they do with it?

The merits of psychedelics as therapy are yet to be proven or disproven. The possibility of drivel is now 100%.

Electric truck growth and developments set to take-off in 2025

By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
February 4, 2024

With its sleek design, the Tesla electric semi has been highly anticipated since Musk unveiled a prototype in 2017, but the launch of full-scale production has been delayed well past the initial 2019 expectation -

 © AFP/File SUZANNE CORDEIRO

Major fleets have committed to transitioning at least 30 percent of their new heavy-duty truck purchases to be zero-emission vehicles, including electric models, by 2030. It remains that many companies are daunted by the extra upfront cost of electric trucks. Coupled with this are substantial challenges including the limited availability of chargers.

On the other side, the benefits of electric trucks, increased availability of more makes and models, investments in charging infrastructure, the rapid improvement of the upfront and long-term economics, and policy incentives all point to a near-term boom in their adoption.

Some of these trends are drawn out in IDTechEx’s report, “Electric and Fuel Cell Trucks 2024-2044: Markets, Technologies, and Forecasts”. This report finds that the future of electric trucks hinges on continued innovation in battery technology, further expansion of charging and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure, and acceptance of fuel cell trucks.

Despite the advantages, progress is relatively slow. Electric truck sales shares remain low across most major markets. With the exception of China, Germany, and Netherlands, the cumulative electric medium- and heavy-duty truck sales to date number in the hundreds in most countries (just over 6000 electric trucks were sold across the entire European Union and UK regions in Q1-Q3 2023).

Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), as fully electric vehicles with rechargeable batteries and no gasoline engine, dominate in China. Those most in demand are battery-swap capable vehicles. Such trucks make up around 50 percent of the market share.

Shazan Siddiqi, Senior Technology Analyst at IDTechEx has found that battery swapping will remain a key technology pathway for heavy-duty trucks in China in the coming years. This is in contrast with the number of hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric trucks, which appear to have stalled.

Siddiqi identifies similar pattern in the U.S. where improved models and infrastructure have helped to drive an electrification push in 2023. This is being partially influenced by legislative changes with ten states having signed up to the Californian ‘Advanced Clean Trucks’ regulation, which requires manufacturers to sell a gradually increasing proportion of electrically powered lorries, vans and pickup trucks by 2035.

In Europe, Siddiqi observes that Germany and the Netherlands are the main drivers of growth, making up 65 percent of EU electric truck sales. Volvo Trucks is the current market leader in battery-electric truck sales in Europe.

To achieve future growth, Siddiqi states there needs to be greater scale up fast or ultra-fast charging especially with chargers with rated power of 1 MW.

Cold enough to stop the Internet: Canada, cold and connectivity


By Dr. Tim Sandle\

DIGITAL JOURNAL
Published February 5, 2024

A Canadian Pacific railway locomotive pulls train cars with shipping containers past Morant's Curve near Lake Louise in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Copyright POOL/AFP/File HENRY NICHOLLS

How cold can it get to disrupt technology? How cold does it need to be to disrupt the Internet? If you have ever wondered whether cold weather could freeze your Internet connection, this is something that is perfectly feasible as an expert from Repocket discusses.

Recent sub-zero temperatures across Canada are not just causing travel disruption, the inclement conditions are also causing a stir in cyberspace. How exactly are these icy conditions impacting the Internet?

The Innovation of Icy Interference

Subzero temperatures serve as a challenge to Canada’s vast Internet network. The icy conditions hinder the physical infrastructure that ensures a smooth transition of data. These frosty conditions can cause malfunctions in various critical components, such as transmitting stations and data fibre cables, which account for a major part of the Internet ecosystem.

“There’s a deep link between temperature and technology. The colder it gets, the harder it is for the infrastructure to function optimally,” explains Jason Adler, Software Engineer at Repocket, to Digital Journal.

The Chilled Challenges: Frosty Faults and Frozen Fiber Optics

Two interrelated challenges further add to Internet disruption. These are:Frigid Faults: Extreme cold can lead to equipment failure, as most of it is designed to work within certain temperature ranges. The below-zero temperature disrupts these denominations, leading to malfunctions and breakdowns.Frozen Fiber Optics: Fiber optic cables, the arteries of the Internet, are susceptible to the cold. They can break in frigid conditions, disrupting the flow of data.

Preserving the Canadian Web

“Despite the challenges, it’s not all gloom,” says Adler, “There are actions we can take to preserve Internet connectivity during these cold snaps.” Here are some measures Adler proposes:Stabilize Room Temperature: Keep your devices in a stable environment with temperatures between 20-25 degrees Celsius.

Wi-Fi Range and Position: Make sure your router is centrally located, promoting a good signal throughout your home.

Consider a Signal Extender: A Wi-Fi extender can help boost your signal, especially in larger homes or those with multiple devices.

A recent study in Canada underscored these techniques’ importance. Researchers at the University of Toronto observed an average 45 percent increase in internet speed among Canadian households that opted for strategic router positioning and stabilizing room temperatures.

“We are constantly exploring ways to ensure that Canadians stay connected, even in the freezing cold. Simultaneously, we have to balance reliability, cost, and speed,” Adler adds.

The Big Chill on the Web

Canada’s Internet infrastructure is challenged by the ongoing freezing temperatures, with potential service disruptions caused by equipment failure and damage to fibre optic cables. However, with proactive measures like emergency repairs, smart design, and satellite internet, it is clear that this is not an insurmountable challenge.

Adler’s final thoughts consider the Canadian resilience against the freeze: “We are constantly evolving, just like the landscape we live in. Though we face challenges from the cold, it’s a driver for innovation and growth. Building a robust internet system that can function at icy temperatures—that’s the Canadian way.”

WRITTEN BY Dr. Tim Sandle
Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

A 365-million-year-old fish with an extreme underbite showcases vertebrate diversity

The Conversation
February 2, 2024 

Artist reconstruction of Alienacanthus malkowskii, a 365-million-year-old placoderm fish from Poland and Morocco. (Beat Scheffold & Christian Klug), Author provided

Vertebrates are defined as all animals that possess a vertebral column, or backbone. Most living vertebrates also possess jaws, teeth and paired fins or limbs.

Fossils of the earliest vertebrates help us understand not only how these features originated, but also how they evolved and diversified over time.

Our study, published in Royal Society Open Science, examines 365-million-year-old fossils of a fish with the world’s longest underbite, called Alienacanthus malkowskii. These fossils demonstrate the diversity of jawed vertebrates early on during their evolution.

Alienacanthus is a member of an extinct group of fish called placoderms, which are some of the first jawed vertebrates. They are armoured fish of various shapes and sizes and are essential to understanding the evolution of vertebrates and their features, particularly jaws and teeth.

Together, placoderm jaws and teeth hold evidence of feeding strategies and diets, giving us insights into what and how some of our fishy ancestors ate.

From spine to jaw

In 1957, Polish paleontologist Julian Kulczycki described fossil fishes from the Polish Holy Cross mountains. Among these finds were two partially broken long thin bones which he thought were some weird-looking fin spines from a fish. The odd shape of the so-called spines gave the animal its name, Alienacanthus.

In the late 1990s to early 2000s, members of our research team came across some Moroccan specimens in the collections of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris that included the same bony elements. The team later encountered more specimens from Poland and Morocco, which we identified as belonging to a placoderm.

Alienacanthus had a massive, rounded head with a pointy snout and large eyes. What Kulczycki had identified as spines turned out to be the lower jaws, which extended way past the closing of the mouth, unlike the upper jaws. The teeth were sharp, slightly curved towards the back to trap live prey, and the teeth continued past the closing of the mouth.

Unlike in other placoderms, the upper jaws of Alienacanthus were capable of a slight movement independently of the skull, helping to accommodate the lower jaw.
Most extreme case

The extended lower jaw of Alienacanthus, twice as long as the skull, is unique among placoderms and extremely rare in other living and fossil groups. In most animals, jaw protrusion is seen in the upper jaw, like in the swordfish, or both upper and lower jaws like ichthyosaurs or gharials.

Among living species, only a tiny fish called the halfbeak shows an elongated lower jaw. The halfbeak measures just five to 10 cm in length, while Alienacanthus’ head and jaws alone reach 80 cm. The relative length of the lower jaw is also 20 per cent greater than in the halfbeak.



Of currently living species, only the halfbeak shows an elongated lower jaw.(Shutterstock)

Alienacanthus also holds the title of the oldest case of lower jaw elongation. The previous record belonged to the 310-million-year-old shark Ornithoprion.
The Age of fishes

Alienacanthus and relatives lived during the Devonian period (358 to 419 million years ago), also referred to by paleontologists as the Age of fishes. During this time, a variety of fish groups ruled the oceans, including sharks, bony fishes, jawless fishes and placoderms, which together illustrated a wide range of body, head and jaw shapes.


Alienacanthus stretches that diversity to the limit with such a unique look. Fifteen million years after this animal’s occurrence, placoderms met their demise.

The evolution of more complex jaws allowed for a wider range of feeding and hunting methods. The oldest placoderms favoured a fast-closing mouth for catching prey. But some placoderms started feeding on durophagous animals, with hard shells and exoskeletons, and others may have been filter-feeders.

Alienacanthus used its sharp teeth to catch and trap live prey, possibly using its elongated jaw to confuse or injure its future meal, as seen in swordfish and some ichthyosaurs.

Learning more

The further back in time we go, the more our planet’s continents looked different. During the Late Devonian period, when Alienacanthus lived, Poland was situated on the northeastern coast and Morocco on the southern coast of a vast ocean. The presence of the same species on both ends shows that migration occurred in that ocean at that time, despite sea level fluctuation.

Alienacanthus comprises just one of numerous recent finds in Poland and Morocco from the Late Devonian period. Such discoveries illustrate the remaining high potential for deposits of this age to reveal critical insights about early vertebrates.


Melina Jobbins, Researcher, Evolutionary Biology, University of Zurich; Christian Klug, Professor, Curator of the Palaentological Museum, University of Zurich, and Martin Rücklin, Research group leader, Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Senior researcher, Instituut Biologie Leiden, Leiden University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Study: Trans people more likely to have mental health condition

2024/02/01

Compared to cisgender people, transgender people have a higher risk of a long-term mental health condition, an analysis in the UK suggests. Ole Spata/dpa

Transgender people have a higher risk of having a long-term mental health condition than their cisgender counterparts, according to analysis described as being the first of its kind in England.

Researchers from the University of Manchester said the study of 1.5 million people aged 16 and over, including almost 8,000 transgender people, is the first which can be said to be nationally representative.

The research, published in the Lancet Public Health journal, looked at self-reported mental health conditions.

Its findings suggested the risk of having a long-term mental health condition in England is around one in six for transgender men and women, compared with one in 10 for cisgender men and women.

Cisgender is when a person’s gender identity matches their biological sex at birth.

The researchers used data from the 2021 and 2022 waves of the English GP Patient Survey, where patients were asked if they had a mental health condition – although did not ask for details of which condition – and about whether they had any unmet mental needs in their care.

People were asked how they identified their gender – female, male, non-binary, prefer to self-describe, prefer not to say; and how their gender identity compared with their sex registered at birth, whether cis, trans, or prefer not to say.

The paper said: “Prevalence of long-term mental health conditions tended to be higher among transgender patients compared to patients who were cisgender or who did not state their cisgender or transgender identity, and there were substantial additional health disadvantages among non-binary patients and those who self-described their gender relative to patients with binary gender identities.”

While around one in six cisgender males and cisgender females reported their mental health needs were unmet, the proportion was higher among other gender identity groups, ranging from between one in five (20.0%) for transgender males and one in four (28.6%) among patients who preferred not to say their gender identity.

Dr Luke Munford, senior lecturer in health economics, at the University of Manchester, noted that gender dysphoria – described by the NHS as a sense of unease a person might have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity – can increase the risk of poor mental health “especially when combined with very long waiting times for NHS gender identity clinics”.

“Poor communication from healthcare professionals and inadequate staff-patient relationships may explain why trans, non-binary, and gender diverse patients were more likely to report their mental health needs were not met at recent general practice appointments,” said Dr Ruth Watkinson, also from the University of Manchester.

“Changes are urgently needed for the NHS to become a more supportive service to transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse patients, including improved recording of gender across healthcare records systems and staff training to ensure healthcare professionals meet the mental health needs of all patients, whatever their gender.”

The researchers noted limitations to their study including that pooling data from two survey years could mean some participants were re-sampled “leading to biased estimates”, and that the clinical language in the survey and a reliance on self-reporting might have influenced which patients reported a mental health condition.

Nikki Haley generously offers not to execute women who have abortions

David Edwards
February 5, 2024

Fox News/screen grab

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley called on Republicans to stop short of giving women the "death penalty" for abortions.

At a campaign stop in South Carolina on Monday, Haley was asked if she made a mistake by calling for a federal ban on abortions without specifics.

"In South Carolina and elsewhere, people on both sides of the aisle, they, they deal with weeks, they want hard, firm weeks," a moderator told Haley. "Was that a misfire on your part?"

Haley insisted she had not made a mistake.

"I mean, no offense, but the fellas don't know how to talk about this, and they just don't," the candidate opined. "The issue of abortion is incredibly personal to every woman and every man, and it requires respect."

"I am unapologetically pro-life, not because the Republican Party tells me to be, but because my husband was adopted, and I had trouble having both of my children," she continued. "And I think that there is a place for a federal law, but they need to tell the American people the truth on how you get there."

Haley acknowledged that Republicans could not get 60 votes in the Senate to pass a strict federal abortion ban.

"So what should we do? I think we find consensus. Can't we agree to ban late-term abortions?" she asked. "And can't we agree that no state law should say to a woman that if she has an abortion, she's going to jail or get the death penalty."


"I will not be a part of demonizing this issue," she added. "I think that I've watched Democrats, they have put fear in women. And I've watched Republicans use judgment. There's no place for fear or judgment when you're talking about something this personal and this sensitive."

Haley has said she would have signed a six-week abortion ban as governor of South Carolina.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Space Coast’s new general spearheads more cooperation with private space companies

2024/01/31

Kristin Panzenhagen gives the keynote speech at the Space Mobility Conference at the Orange County Convention Center on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024.

 - Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel/TNS

ORLANDO, Fla. — Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen wants commercial companies to solve Space Force problems, but if the U.S. Space Force can help them, that’s OK with her, too.

That’s part of the message she delivered at the Space Mobility Conference at the Orange County Convention Center on Tuesday, bringing together a combination of military, civil and commercial players in the space game.

“We’re really trying to focus in on what the warfighters need and take it one step farther,” said Panzenhagen, who wears four hats for the Space Force, including commander of Space Launch Delta 45 based at Patrick Space Force Base in Brevard County.

Taking over the role last summer from Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, she’s also director of the Eastern Range in charge of every launch out of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center and the director of launch and range operations for Space Systems Command, meaning she has a say in the launches from the Western Range out of Vandenberg Space Force Station as well.

The final, and debatably the biggest hat she wears, though, is as program executive officer for the Assured Access to Space organization within Space Systems Command. That job entails overseeing 22,000 government and contractor personnel and leading national security and other military launch programs with an annual budget of $13.5 billion.

The Space Mobility Conference, now in its second year, is an outreach effort of Assured Access to Space.

“In 2020 the Space Force announced space mobility and logistics as one of its core competencies,” she said. “That’s where the focal point is right now for the Space Force — for developing these capabilities.”

With a record 72 launches from the Space Coast in 2023 and close to 100 expected in 2024, she says launches remain an important focus of that mobility, but this week’s conference focused on other aspects of the military needs and just how commercial companies could help.

The day featured panels covering things such as refueling older satellites, partnering with other countries to share spaceports, and point-to-point rapid rocket delivery of supplies. Representatives for companies including SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, Sierra Space dressed in business casual fare mixed with military personnel in camouflage uniforms.

“We tried to bring together all the players for a very open conversation,” she said. “We really want to hear unconstrained ideas … We also really want to understand the realm of the possible not just technologically, but what makes a feasible business case for industry with some of these technologies.”

Commercial companies already routinely work the military, but with competition from the likes of China, for instance, the need to keep up with innovation requires more reliance on commercial help than ever before, she said.

Panzenhagen said the U.S. is in a “Great Power competition” and the Space Force considers “China the pacing challenge. …. And because of that … we know our number one priority is deterring a potential conflict. But then should conflict arise, we need to make sure that we’re ready for it.”

Space Force needs responsiveness built into its systems and hardware, tactically relevant timelines and supporting infrastructure “because those things are good for warfighting capabilities, which means they’re good for deterrence,” she said.

But the good news is American commercial endeavors are up to the task, she said.

“This is a fantastic era of innovation that we’re seeing in the space industry. One of America’s strengths has always been its ability to innovate. And the DoD [Department of Defense] as much as possible tries to capitalize on that innovation,” she said.

That includes technology such as reusable rockets, but also things such as 3D printing and even processes that can cut down on response time. Rewarding commercial endeavors helps the country as well, she said.

“From a government standpoint, encouraging competition, bringing on more vendors is good for us. It improves resiliency, which again, good for space order of battle, good for deterrence,” she said.

Panzenhagen said the day’s discussion was invaluable.

“This was a lot today. That was an incredible amount of expertise. It was literally centuries of expertise that we had sitting up on stage so we could pick their brains,” she said.

“I took probably about two pages of notes today, and it’s split roughly 50-50. Half of it is things that I was like ‘Oh shoot, I need to go do this’ and the other half was things I was like, ‘Oh shoot, I need to get smarter on this, so i can go do something.'”

______

© Orlando Sentinel

Plan for Europe's huge new particle collider takes shape

Agence France-Presse
February 5, 2024

The FCC would form a new circular tunnel under France and Switzerland © HANDOUT / European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)/AFP/File

Europe's CERN laboratory revealed more details Monday about its plans for a huge new particle accelerator that would dwarf the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), ramping up efforts to uncover the underlying secrets of the universe.

If approved, the Future Circular Collider (FCC) would start smashing its first particles together around the middle of this century -- and start its highest-energy collisions around 2070.

Running under France and Switzerland, it would be more than triple the length of CERN's LHC, currently the largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

The idea behind both is to send particles spinning around a ring to smash into each at nearly the speed of light, so that the collisions reveal their true nature.

Among other discoveries, the LHC made history in 2012 when it allowed scientists to observe the Higgs boson for the first time.

But the LHC, which cost $5.6 billion and began operating in 2010, is expected to have run its course by around 2040.

The faster and more powerful FCC would allow scientists to continue pushing the envelope. They hope it could confirm the existence of more particles -- the building blocks of matter -- which so far have only been theorised.

Another unfinished job for science is working out exactly what 95 percent of the universe is made of. About 68 percent of the universe is believed to be dark energy while 27 percent is dark matter -- both remain a complete mystery.

Another unknown is why there is so little antimatter in the universe, compared to matter.

CERN hopes that a massive upgrade of humanity's ability to smash particles could shed light on these enigmas and more.

"Our aim is to study the properties of matter at the smallest scale and highest energy," CERN director-general Fabiola Gianotti said as she presented an interim report in Geneva.

The report laid out the first findings of a FCC feasibility study that will be finalised by 2025.

$17 billion first stage

In 2028, CERN's member states, which include the UK and Israel, will decide whether or not to go through with the plan.

If given the green light, construction on the collider would start in 2033.

The project is split into parts.

In 2048, the "electron-positron" collider would start smashing light particles, with the aim of further investigating the Higgs boson and what is called the weak force, one of the four fundamental forces.

The cost of the tunnel, infrastructure and the first stage of the collider would be about 15 billion Swiss Francs ($17 billion), Gianotti said.

The heavy duty hadron collider, which would smash protons together, would only come online in 2070.

Its energy target would be 100 trillion electronvolts -- smashing the LHC's record of 13.6 trillion.

Gianotti said this later collider is the "only machine" that would allow humanity "to make a big jump in studying matter".

After eight years of study, the configuration chosen for the FCC was a new circular tunnel 90.7 kilometres (56.5 miles) long and 5.5 metres (feet) in diameter.

The tunnel, which would connect to the LHC, would pass under the Geneva region and its namesake lake in Switzerland, and loop round to the south near the picturesque French town of Annecy.

Eight technical and scientific sites would be built on the surface.

CERN said it is consulting with the regions along the route and plans to carry out impact studies on how the tunnel would affect the area.

© 2024 AFP

Congressman off-base in ad claiming Fauci shipped COVID to Montana before the pandemic

Katheryn Houghton,

 KFF Health News
February 5, 2024 

Dr. Anthony Fauci (MANDEL NGAN AFP:File)

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. This article was produced in partnership with PolitiFact.

“IT’S BEEN REVEALED THAT FAUCI BROUGHT COVID TO THE MONTANA ONE YEAR BEFORE COVID BROKE OUT IN THE U.S!” — ad from the Matt Rosendale for Montana campaign

A fundraising ad for U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) shows a photo of Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, behind bars, swarmed by flying bats.

Rosendale, who is eyeing a challenge to incumbent Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, maintains that a Montana biomedical research facility, Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, has a dangerous link to the pandemic. This claim is echoed in the ad:

“It’s been revealed that Fauci brought COVID to the Montana one year before COVID broke out in the U.S!,” it charges in all-caps before asking readers to “Donate today and hold the D.C. bureaucracy accountable!”

The ad, paid for by Matt Rosendale for Montana, seeks contributions through WinRed, a platform that processes donations for Republican candidates. Rosendale also shared the fundraising pitch on his X account Nov. 1, and it remained live as of early February.

Rosendale made similar accusations on social media, during a November speech on the U.S. House floor, and through his congressional office. Sometimes his comments, like those on the House floor, are milder, saying the researchers experimented on “a coronavirus” leading up to the pandemic. Other times, as in an interview with One America News Network, he linked the lab’s work to covid-19’s spread.

In that interview clip, Rosendale recounted pandemic-era shutdowns before saying, “And now we’re finding out that the National Institute of Health, Rocky Mountain Lab, down in Hamilton, Montana, had also played a role in this.”

Rosendale’s statements echo broader efforts to scrutinize how research into viruses happens in the United States and is part of a continued wave of backlash against scientists who have studied coronaviruses. Rosendale is considering seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Tester, in a toss-up race that could help determine which party controls the Senate in 2025. Political newcomer Tim Sheehy is also seeking the Republican nomination for the Senate.

Rosendale proposed amendments to a health spending bill that would ban pandemic-related pathogen research funding for Rocky Mountain Laboratories and cut the salary of one of its top researchers, virologist Vincent Munster, to $1. The House has included both amendments in the Health and Human Services budget bill that the Republican majority hopes to pass. A temporary spending bill is funding the health department until March.

We contacted Rosendale’s congressional office multiple times — with emails, a phone call, and an online request — asking what proof he had to back up his statements that the Montana lab infected bats with covid from China before the outbreak. We got no reply.

Kathy Donbeck, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Office of Communications and Government Relations, said in an email that the ad’s claims are false. Interviews with virologists and a review of the research paper published shortly before Rosendale’s assertions support that position.

Where this is coming from

Rosendale’s statements seem to stem from a Rocky Mountain Laboratories study from 2016 that looked into how a coronavirus, WIV1-CoV, acted in Egyptian fruit bats. The work, published by the journal Viruses in 2018, showed that the specific strain didn’t cause a robust infection in the bats.

The study did not receive widespread attention at the time. But on Oct. 30, 2023, the study was highlighted by a blog called White Coat Waste Project, which says its mission is to stop taxpayer-funded experiments on animals. Some right-wing media outlets began to connect the Montana lab with the coronavirus that causes covid.

Rosendale’s office issued an Oct. 31 news release saying the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China “shipped a strain of coronavirus” to the Hamilton lab. “Our government helped create the Wuhan flu, then shut the country down when it escaped from the lab,” Rosendale said.

It’s a different virus

Rocky Mountain Laboratories is a federally funded facility as part of NIAID, the nation’s top infectious disease research agency, which Fauci led for nearly 40 years.

According to the study and Donbeck’s email, the Montana researchers focused on a coronavirus called WIV1-CoV, not the covid-causing SARS-CoV-2. They’re different viruses.

“The genetics of the viruses are very different, and their behavior biologically is very different,” said Troy Sutton, a virologist with Pennsylvania State University who has studied the evolution of pandemic influenza viruses.

In a review of media reports on the Montana study, Health Feedback, a network of scientists that fact-checks health and medical media coverage, showed the virus’s lineage indicated that WIV1 “is not a direct ancestor or even a close relative of SARS-CoV-2.”

Additionally, the description of the coronavirus strain as being “shipped” suggests that it physically traveled across the world. That’s not what happened.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology provided the WIV1 virus’s sequence that allowed researchers to make a lab-grown copy. A separate study, published in 2013 by the journal Nature, outlines the origins of the lab-created virus.

According to the study’s methodology, the researchers used a clone of WIV1. An NIAID statement to Lee Enterprises, a media company, said the virus “was generated using common laboratory techniques, based on genetic information that was publicly shared by Chinese scientists.”

Stanley Perlman, a University of Iowa professor who studies coronaviruses and serves on the federal advisory committee that reviews vaccines, said Rosendale’s claim is off-base.

He said Rosendale’s focus on where the lab got its materials is irrelevant and serves “only to make people wary and scared.”

Rosendale’s efforts to prohibit particular research at Rocky Mountain Laboratories appear ill-informed, too. Rosendale targeted banning gain-of-function research, which involves altering a pathogen to study its spread. In her email, NIAID’s Donbeck said the Rocky Mountain Laboratories study didn’t involve gain-of-function research.

This type of research has long been controversial, and people who study viruses have said the definition of “gain of function” is problematic and insufficient to show when research, or even work to create vaccines, could cross into that type of research.

But both Sutton and Perlman said that, any way you look at it, the Rocky Mountain Laboratories study published in 2018 didn’t change the virus. It put a virus in bats and showed it didn’t grow.

And it had no effect on the covid outbreak a year later, first detected in Washington state.

Our ruling

Rosendale’s ad said, “It’s been revealed that Fauci brought COVID to the Montana one year before COVID broke out in the U.S!” The campaign ad and Rosendale’s similar statements refer to research at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories involving WIV1, a coronavirus that researchers say is not even distantly close in genetic structure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused covid-19.

Rosendale’s claim is wrong about when the scientists began their work, what they were studying, and where they got the materials. The researchers began their work in 2016 and, although they were studying a coronavirus, it wasn’t the virus that causes covid. The Montana scientists used a lab-grown clone of WIV1 for their research. The first laboratory-confirmed case of covid was not detected in the U.S. until Jan. 20, 2020. Rosendale’s ad is inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire!
Sources:

Viruses, “SARS-Like Coronavirus WIV1-CoV Does Not Replicate in Egyptian Fruit Bats (Rousettusaegyptiacus),” Dec. 19, 2018

White Coat Waste Project, “Horror Show: Shady Zoo Sent Bats to NIH to Be Infected With a Wuhan Lab Coronavirus,” Oct. 30, 2023

MattForMontana X post, Nov. 1, 2023

Campaign ad, accessed Dec. 14, 2023

Rep. Matt Rosendale, House floor speech, Nov. 14, 2023

One America News Network, interview, accessed Dec. 14, 2023

Rosendale congressional office, “Rep. Rosendale Reacts to Reports That Wuhan Lab Shipped Coronavirus to Fauci-Run Lab in Hamilton Prior to Pandemic,” Oct. 31, 2023

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “History of Rocky Mountain Labs (RML),” accessed Dec. 14, 2023

Email exchange with NIAID, beginning Dec. 14, 2023

Statement from NIAID provided to Lee Enterprises, accessed Jan. 2, 2024

Nature, “Isolation and Characterization of a Bat SARS-Like Coronavirus That Uses the ACE2 Receptor,” Oct. 30, 2013

Ravalli Republic, “Rosendale Moves to Strip Rocky Mountain Lab Research Funding,” Nov. 17, 2023

Interview, Troy Sutton, assistant professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences at Pennsylvania State University, Jan. 5, 2024

Interview, Stanley Perlman, professor of microbiology and immunology and professor of pediatrics at the University of Iowa, Jan. 13, 2024

FDA, “Roster of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee,” accessed Jan. 16, 2024

Health Feedback, “2018 Coronavirus Research in NIAID Montana Lab Is Unrelated to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Contrary to Claim by Fox News’s Jesse Watters,” last accessed Jan. 17, 2024

Email exchange with OpenSecrets, an independent research group tracking money in politics, beginning Jan. 30, 2024

CDC Museum COVID-19 Timeline, accessed Feb. 2, 2024

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