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Portugal has signed the Artemis Accord, officially joining the growing list of countries committed to promoting responsible space exploration. The signing was led by Portugal’s Secretary of State for Science and Innovation, Helena Cañón, during a ceremony in Lisbon on the sidelines of the biannual U.S.-Portuguese Government Cooperation Conference. Portugal is the latest of 60 countries to approve the agreement, which strengthens its commitment to international cooperation on the Moon, Mars and broader space missions. Commenting on the signing, Hugo Costa, Director General of the Portuguese Space Agency, said: “2026 is the year humans will return to the moon. “This…
The use of voice AI in sales, marketing, customer support, and consumer applications has skyrocketed in recent years. As a result, business for model providers is increasing and investor interest is also increasing. Driven by this demand, DeepGram today announced that it has raised $130 million in an AVP-led Series C round at a valuation of $1.3 billion. Existing investors including Alkeon, In-Q-Tel, Madrona, Tiger, Wing, and Y Combinator also contributed additional capital to the round. Additionally, new investors joined the round including Alumni Ventures, Columbia University, Princeville Capital, Twilio, and SAP. The company has raised more than $215 million…
Slackbot, the automated assistant built into Slack, the Salesforce-owned enterprise messaging platform, is ushering in a new era of AI agents. And Salesforce CTO Parker Harris expects it to become as popular as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The cloud software giant rolled out a new version of Slackbot on Tuesday. The company says this new AI agent version of Slackbot is generally available to Business+ and Enterprise+ customers, allowing them to search for information, draft emails, schedule meetings, and more, all within the Slack platform. With your permission, you can also connect to, interact with, and find information in other enterprise products…
A new study has found that the 5,300-year-old iceman mummy Ötzi and a prehistoric man who lived in Siberia 45,000 years ago both carried cancer-causing strains of human papillomavirus (HPV).Scientists analyzed ancient genetic data previously collected from these people and found that both were likely infected with HPV16, a preprint paper posted on bioRxiv on Dec. 16 reported. In the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, the authors present what they claim is the “earliest molecular evidence” of HPV16 in modern humans.The very early evidence of HPV16 in modern humans challenges the idea that Neanderthals, who overlapped with us…
The U.S. federal government has just released a new version of the food pyramid, recommending that Americans eat more protein than previously recommended.Previously, the recommended daily protein intake was approximately 0.8g per kg of body weight. This recommendation was aimed at meeting the nutritional needs of the average sedentary adult. New dietary guidelines now suggest that you should consume between 1.2 and 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day.Therefore, to meet the new recommendations, a person weighing 154 pounds (70 kg) should consume approximately 84 to 112 grams (3 to 4 ounces) of protein per day.…
January 13, 2026Ravi LakshmananThreat Intelligence/Cyber Espionage Cybersecurity researchers have revealed details of a previously undocumented, feature-rich malware framework codenamed VoidLink that is specifically designed for long-term, stealthy access to Linux-based cloud environments. According to a new report from Check Point Research, cloud-native Linux malware frameworks consist of a set of custom loaders, implants, rootkits, and modular plugins that allow operators to extend or change their functionality over time or pivot if their purpose changes. It was first discovered in December 2025. “The framework includes multiple cloud-focused features and modules and is designed to work reliably in cloud and container environments…
The number of electric vehicles in Africa is expected to double between now and 2050, faster than on any other continent. A new study led by researchers at ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI shows that electric vehicles, combined with solar-powered off-grid charging systems, could become economically competitive in many African countries well before 2040. “Many models have assumed that internal combustion engine vehicles will remain dominant in Africa until mid-century,” said lead author Bessie Knoll, senior research fellow in the Energy and Technology Policy Group at ETH Zurich. “Our findings show that under certain conditions, e-mobility is…
January 13, 2026hacker newsThreat Intelligence/Identity Security Old strategy, new scale: While defenders chase trends, attackers optimize fundamentals. The security industry loves to talk about “new” threats. Attacks using AI. Quantum-resistant encryption. Zero Trust Architecture. But if you look around, it seems like the most effective attacks in 2025 will be pretty much the same as in 2015. Attackers are exploiting the same entry points that have worked before, only with improved methods. Supply chain: still cascading downstream As the Shai Huld NPM campaign has shown, supply chains remain a major issue. If a single package is compromised, it can cascade…
January 13, 2026Ravi LakshmananVulnerabilities / SaaS Security ServiceNow has revealed details of a critical security flaw affecting the ServiceNow AI platform that is currently being patched. This flaw could allow an unauthenticated user to impersonate another user and perform arbitrary actions as that user. This vulnerability was tracked as CVE-2025-12420 and had a CVSS score of 9.3 out of 10.0. “This problem is […] “An unauthenticated user could impersonate another user and perform actions that the impersonated user could perform,” the company said in an advisory published Monday. This shortcoming was addressed by ServiceNow on October 30, 2025, by deploying…
Artificial intelligence is rapidly moving into the drug discovery field as pharmaceutical and biotech companies look for ways to shave years off research and development timelines and increase the likelihood of success amid rising costs. More than 200 startups are currently competing to integrate AI directly into research workflows, and interest from investors is growing. Converge Bio is the latest company to secure fresh capital and capitalize on the change as competition intensifies in the AI-driven drug discovery space. The Boston and Tel Aviv-based startup, which uses generative AI trained on molecular data to help pharmaceutical and biotech companies develop…