Meet the team that investigates when journalists and activists are hacked with government spyware
For more than a decade, dozens of journalists and human rights activists have been targeted and hacked by governments around the world. Police and spies in Ethiopia, Greece, Hungary, India, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere use sophisticated spyware to compromise victims’ mobile phones, sometimes facing real-world threats, harassment and even […]
AI is getting better at generating faces, but it can be trained to spot fakes
Facial images generated by artificial intelligence (AI) are so realistic that it is only by chance that even an elite group of “super-recognizers” with extremely powerful facial processing abilities can detect fake faces. People with typical cognitive abilities are worse than chance, most of the time assuming that AI-generated faces are real. This is according […]
6 ‘lost’ cities that archaeologists have yet to discover
Archaeologists are busy unearthing lost civilizations, but they haven’t found everything. There are still prominent ancient cities, such as capitals of great kingdoms and empires, that have not yet been excavated by scholars. We know about these cities because they are described in ancient texts, but their locations can be lost over time. In some […]
New York Governor Hochul signs bill requiring warning labels on ‘addictive’ social media
New York Governor Cathy Hochul signed a bill this week that requires social media platforms to display warning labels to young users before exposing them to features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling. The state Legislature passed a bill (S4505/A5346) in June that includes language calling for mental health warnings against “addictive social media platforms,” […]
Top 7 Space and Defense Technology Startups in Disrupt Startup Battlefield
TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield pitch contest attracts thousands of applicants each year. These entries will be narrowed down to the top 200, and the top 20 will compete on the big stage to win the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000 in prize money. However, the remaining 180 startups all surprised us in their respective categories and […]
Eye denture surgery, ‘blood chimerism’ and pregnancy from oral sex: 12 bad medical cases we covered in 2025
Each week, Live Science features interesting case reports from the medical literature, exploring unusual symptoms, rarely seen diagnoses, and ready-to-use treatments. This Diagnostic Dilemma series describes how doctors work to finally discover the cause of a patient’s illness. In complex cases, this diagnostic process can be very difficult. One reason doctors share case reports is […]
New flaw in MongoDB allows unauthenticated attacker to read uninitialized memory
December 27, 2025Ravi LakshmananDatabase security/vulnerabilities A high-severity security flaw has been identified in MongoDB that could allow an unauthenticated user to read uninitialized heap memory. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-14847 (CVSS score: 8.7), is described as a case of improper handling of length parameter mismatch. Length parameter mismatch occurs when a program fails to adequately […]
How reality crushed Ÿnsect, a French startup that raised more than $600 million for insect farming
French startup Ÿnsect was thrust into the spotlight during Super Bowl weekend 2021 when “Iron Man” star Robert Downey Jr. touted the company’s benefits on The Late Show. Now, almost four years later, the insect farming company is in judicial liquidation due to insolvent debts, meaning it is effectively bankrupt. Ÿnsect had been struggling for […]
As people look for ways to make new friends, here are some apps that may come in handy.
With loneliness and social isolation becoming more prevalent in recent years, people are increasingly seeking new ways to form platonic connections. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General even designated this issue as a public health crisis. Remote workers who miss the daily interactions of an office and young people who want to create adult social […]
Nawea’s chemical-free weeding technology could change the way we treat lawns
Naware founder Mark Boysen first tried to kill weeds using a drone and a 200-watt laser. While he and some friends were toying with the idea for a startup, he was thinking about how a family in North Dakota had lost three members to cancer, which the family suspected had something to do with chemicals […]