The European Space Agency has acknowledged yet another security incident after a cybercriminal posted an offer on BreachForums the day after Christmas claiming to have stolen over 20GB of data including source code, confidential documents, API tokens and credentials.

The attacker claims they gained access to ESA-linked external servers on December 18 and remained connected for about a week, during which they allegedly exfiltrated private Bitbucket repositories, CI/CD pipelines, Terraform files and hardcoded credentials. ESA said that the breach may have affected only "a very small number of external servers" used for unclassified engineering and scientific collaboration, and that it has initiated a forensic security analysis.

Mark Thomson, a professor of experimental particle physics at the University of Cambridge, takes over as CERN's director general this week, and one of his first major decisions during his five-year tenure will be shutting down the Large Hadron Collider for an extended upgrade. The shutdown starts in June to make way for the high-luminosity LHC -- a major overhaul involving powerful new superconducting magnets that will squeeze the collider's proton beams and increase their brightness. The upgrade will raise collisions tenfold and strengthen the detectors to better capture subtle signs of new physics. The machine won't restart until Thomson's term is nearly over.

Thomson is far from disconsolate about the downtime. "The machine is running brilliantly and we're recording huge amounts of data," he told The Guardian. "There's going to be plenty to analyse over the period." Beyond the upgrade, Thomson must shepherd CERN's plans for the Future Circular Collider, a proposed 91km machine more than three times the size of the current collider. Member states vote on the project in 2028; the first phase carries an estimated price tag of 15 billion Swiss francs (nearly $19 billion).

Instagram head Adam Mosseri closed out 2025 by acknowledging what many have long suspected: the era of trusting photographs as accurate records of reality is over, and the platform he runs will need to fundamentally adapt to an age of "infinite synthetic content."

In a slideshow posted to Instagram, Mosseri wrote that for most of his life he could safely assume photographs or videos were largely accurate captures of moments that happened, adding that this is clearly no longer the case. He predicted a shift from assuming what we see is real by default to starting with skepticism and paying attention to who is sharing something and why.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the San Francisco Chronicle: A long stretch of curb in San Francisco's Mission District might contain a whole menagerie of parked vehicles: hatchbacks, SUVs, dusty pick-ups, chic Teslas. And recently, Waymo robotaxis. That's what Kyle Grochmal saw walking through the northeast Mission District on Monday afternoon. Cutting down York Street, he glimpsed a tell-tale white electric Jaguar in one of the coveted one-hour spots, its sensors spinning. The Waymo sat there for at least 20 minutes, Grochmal said. He whipped out his cell phone and started recording. After the Waymo drove off, another one showed up within an hour and took the same spot.

"This is something I started to notice about six months ago," Grochmal said, recalling how disorienting it was to be strolling down a largely deserted sidewalk, and suddenly hear the purring motor and soft click of autonomous vehicle cameras. He'd look up to see a Waymo "just sitting there, not loading anyone." But Waymo's use of public curb space raised questions for Grochmal, who wonders whether San Franciscans are prepared to have their infrastructure dominated by autonomous vehicles. "Say Tesla gets to self-driving, so people have personal AVs," he said. "So then do people from Palo Alto get dropped off in San Francisco and let their cars drive around all day searching for free parking?"

Such a future seems particularly unsettling in the northeast Mission, where snug streets couldn't handle much traffic, and competition for parking is already fierce. A recent influx of Artificial Intelligence companies brought many more workers and cars, as well as robotaxis that trawl the blocks, waiting for fares. It makes sense, to Grochmal, that some of them wind up squatting in one-hour spaces. [...] Still, it's conceivable that residents will lose patience with Waymo, and other AV companies, as the fleets scale up and the vehicles compete more aggressively with humans for parking.

A UK-based company has successfully powered up a microwave-sized space factory in orbit, proving it can run a 1,000C furnace to manufacture ultra-pure semiconductor materials in microgravity. "The work that we're doing now is allowing us to create semiconductors up to 4,000 times purer in space than we can currently make here today," says Josh Western, CEO of Space Forge. "This sort of semiconductor would go on to be in the 5G tower in which you get your mobile phone signal, it's going to be in the car charger you plug an EV into, it's going to be in the latest planes." The BBC reports: Conditions in space are ideal for making semiconductors, which have the atoms they're made of arranged in a highly ordered 3D structure. When they are being manufactured in a weightless environment, those atoms line up absolutely perfectly. The vacuum of space also means that contaminants can't sneak in. The purer and more ordered a semiconductor is, the better it works.

[...] The company's mini-factory launched on a SpaceX rocket in the summer. Since then the team has been testing its systems from their mission control in Cardiff. Veronica Viera, the company's payload operations lead, shows us an image that the satellite beamed back from space. It's taken from the inside of the furnace, and shows plasma - gas heated to about 1,000C -- glowing brightly. [...]

The team is now planning to build a bigger space factory -- one that could make semiconductor material for 10,000 chips. They also need to test the technology to bring the material back to Earth. On a future mission, a heat shield named Pridwen after the legendary shield of King Arthur will be deployed to protect the spacecraft from the intense temperatures it will experience as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere.

NASA is closing its largest research library at the Goddard Space Flight Center amid budget cuts and campus consolidation, putting tens of thousands of largely non-digitized historical and scientific documents at risk of being warehoused or discarded. The New York Times reports: Jacob Richmond, a NASA spokesman, said the agency would review the library holdings over the next 60 days and some material would be stored in a government warehouse while the rest would be tossed away. "This process is an established method that is used by federal agencies to properly dispose of federally owned property," Mr. Richmond said.

The shutdown of the library at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is part of a larger reorganization under the Trump administration that includes the closure of 13 buildings and more than 100 science and engineering laboratories on the 1,270-acre campus by March 2026. "This is a consolidation not a closure," said NASA spokeswoman Bethany Stevens. The changes were part of a long-planned reorganization that began before the Trump administration took office, she said. She said that shutting down the facilities would save $10 million a year and avoid another $63.8 million in deferred maintenance.

Goddard is the nation's premiere spaceflight complex. Its website calls it "the largest organization of scientists, engineers, and technologists who build spacecraft, instruments, and new technology to study Earth, the Sun, our solar system, and the universe." [...] The library closure on Friday follows the shutdown of seven other NASA libraries around the country since 2022, and included three libraries this year. As of next week, only three -- at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. -- will remain open.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: For a while, it seemed the notion that light drinking was good for the heart had gone by the wayside, debunked by new studies and overshadowed by warnings that alcohol causes cancer. Now the American Heart Association has revived the idea in a scientific review that is drawing intense criticism, setting off a new round of debate about alcohol consumption. The paper, which sought to summarize the latest research and was aimed at practicing cardiologists, concluded that light drinking -- one to two drinks a day -- posed no risk for coronary disease, stroke, sudden death and possibly heart failure, and may even reduce the risk of developing these conditions.

Controversy over the influential organization's review has been simmering since it was published in the association's journal Circulation in July. Public health groups and many doctors have warned on the basis of recent studies that alcohol can be harmful even in small amounts. Groups like the European Heart Network and the World Heart Federation have stressed that even modest drinking increases the odds of cardiovascular disease. "It says in all our guidelines right now, 'If you don't drink, don't start.' There's not enough evidence to suggest conclusively that it prevents heart disease," said Dr. Mariell Jessup, the chief science and medical officer at the heart association, adding that the review was not meant to serve as a guideline and that the group's advice to patients has not changed.

Critics argue that suggesting any heart-health benefits from alcohol is dangerous given its well-documented risks, and they accuse the heart association of selectively weighing studies. They also say a past tie to the alcohol industry by one author should have disqualified him from participating.

"The cardiovascular benefits of moderate drinking are questionable at best," said Dr. Elizabeth Farkouh, an internist and alcohol researcher. "But even if there was a benefit, there are so many other ways to reduce cardiovascular risk that don't come with an associated cancer risk."

The new review's conclusion is also at odds with the CDC's guidance on alcohol, which notes that "even moderate drinking may increase your risk of death and other alcohol-related harms, compared to not drinking." It also seems to diverge from the heart association's diet and lifestyle recommendation to consume "limited or preferably no alcohol," along with its 2023 statement that recent research suggests there is "no safe level of alcohol use."

Warren Buffett is retiring as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at age 95, ending a 55-year run that reshaped how generations of Americans think about investing. "The 95-year-old, often referred to as the 'Oracle of Omaha' and the 'billionaire next door,' will relinquish the title after a career that saw him turn a failing textile firm into one of the most successful asset managers in the world," reports NBC News. From the report: Greg Abel, the 63-year-old lesser-known CEO of Berkshire's energy business, will take the helm of the conglomerate on Thursday. Buffett will remain its chairman.

Under Buffett's leadership, Nebraska-based Berkshire has thrived at the intersection of Wall Street and Main Street, with investments in industries ranging from railroads and insurance to candy and ice cream.

Along the way, while living in the same house he bought for just over $30,000 in the late 1950s, he redefined investing for the American public with his folksy and practical advice, became one of the wealthiest people on Earth and dedicated much of that fortune to philanthropy. Berkshire's most significant tech bet was initiated in 2016 when it invested $1 billion. Apple has since become Berkshire Hathaway's largest single holding, representing over 20% of the portfolio and valued at more than $65 billion.

While Buffett largely avoided pure tech for decades, Buffett long considered technology a blind spot, famously saying "I wish I had" bought Apple earlier.

Throughout the years, Buffett expressed his disinterest in cryptocurrency and said he would "never own bitcoin," referring to it as "probably rat poison squared" and a "gambling token."

The Wall Street Journal reports that a growing number of tech startups are stocking offices with free nicotine pouches as founders and employees chase sharper focus and stamina in hyper-competitive AI-era work environments. The Wall Street Journal reports: Earlier this year, two nicotine startups -- Lucy Nicotine and Sesh -- made branded vending machines filled with flavored products for analytics company Palantir Technologies. Both machines are in the company's Washington, D.C., offices. The pouches are free for employees and guests over the age of 21, a spokeswoman for Palantir said. Palantir pays to stock the nicotine products.

Alex Cohen, a startup founder based in Austin, Texas, said he was first exposed to nicotine pouches in the workplace after seeing tins of Zyns on the desks of his software engineers. His company, Hello Patient, makes AI-powered healthcare-communication software. "They were very productive, so I thought maybe there's something here," he said. Those engineers soon asked him if he could buy it for the office.

Cohen said he initially bought the nicotine pouches as a joke for social media. He posted a picture of a drawer in his startup's office filled with nicotine pouches made by different brands with the caption, "We're hiring." "Then, I accidentally got addicted," said Cohen. He said he uses around two to three pouches a day. His go-to flavors are mango or minty. Cohen said he has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and he has found that the pouches can provide a quick productivity boost. "It helps with reining in my focus because it is a stimulant," he said. Today, Hello Patient has a nicotine-pouch fridge in its office kitchen.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Cyber Press: A newly uncovered Chinese threat group, DarkSpectre, has been linked to one of the most widespread browser-extension malware operations to date, compromising more than 8.8 million users of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Opera over the past seven years. According to research by Koi.ai, the group operates three interconnected campaigns: ShadyPanda, GhostPoster, and a newly identified one named The Zoom Stealer, forming a single, strategically organized operation.

DarkSpectre's structure differs from that of ordinary cybercrime operations. The group runs separate but interconnected malware clusters, each with distinct goals. The ShadyPanda campaign, responsible for 5.6 million infections, focuses on long-term user surveillance and e-commerce affiliate fraud. Its extensions have appeared legitimate for years, offering new tab pages and translation utilities, before secretly downloading malicious configurations from command-and-control servers such as jt2x.com and infinitynewtab.com. Once activated, they inject remote scripts, hijack search results, and track browsing activity.

The second campaign, GhostPoster, spreads via Firefox and Opera extensions that conceal malicious payloads in PNG images via steganography. After lying dormant for several days, the extensions extract and execute JavaScript hidden within images, enabling stealthy remote code execution. This campaign has affected over one million users and relies on domains like gmzdaily.com and mitarchive.info for payload delivery.

The most recent discovery, The Zoom Stealer, exposes around 2.2 million users to corporate espionage. These extensions masquerade as productivity tools or video downloaders while secretly harvesting corporate meeting links, credentials, and speaker profiles from more than 28 video conferencing platforms, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. The extensions use real-time WebSocket connections to exfiltrate data to Firebase databases, such as zoocorder.firebaseio.com, and to Google Cloud functions, such as webinarstvus.cloudfunctions.net.

OpenAI is paying employees more than any major tech startup in history, with average stock-based compensation hitting roughly $1.5 million per worker in 2025. "That is more than seven times higher than the stock-based pay Google disclosed in 2003, before it filed for an initial public offering in 2004," reports the Wall Street Journal. "The $1.5 million is about 34 times the average employee compensation of 18 other large tech companies in the year before they went public." From the report: To keep its lead in the AI race, OpenAI is doling out massive stock compensation packages to top researchers and engineers, making them some of the richest employees in Silicon Valley. The equity awards are inflating the company's heavy operating losses and diluting existing shareholders at a rapid clip. As an AI arms race intensified this summer, frontier labs such as OpenAI faced pressure to increase employee pay after Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg began offering pay packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- and in some rare cases $1 billion -- to top executives and researchers at rival companies.

Zuckerberg's recruiting blitz swept up 20-plus OpenAI personnel, including ChatGPT co-creator Shengjia Zhao. In August, OpenAI gave some of its research and engineering staff a one-time bonus, with some employees receiving millions of dollars, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. The financial data, shared with investors over the summer, shows that OpenAI's stock-based compensation was expected to increase by about $3 billion annually through 2030. The company recently told staff it would discontinue a policy that required employees to work at OpenAI for at least six months before their equity vests. That development could lead to further compensation increases.

OpenAI's compensation as a percentage of revenue was set to reach 46% in 2025, the highest of any of the 18 companies except for Rivian, which didn't generate revenue the year before its IPO. Palantir's stock-based compensation equaled 33% of its revenue the year before its IPO in 2020, Google's was 15% and Facebook's was 6%, the analysis shows. On average, each company's stock-based compensation made up about 6% of revenue among tech companies the Journal analyzed in the year before their IPOs, according to the Equilar data.

Reuters reports that the United States Department of the Treasury under the Donald Trump administration has lifted sanctions on three executives linked to the spyware firm Intellexa. Reuters reports: The move partially reverses the imposition of sanctions last year by then-President Joe Biden's administration on seven people tied to Intellexa. The Treasury Department at the time described the consortium, opens new tab, launched by former Israeli intelligence official Tal Dilian, as "a complex international web of decentralized companies that built and commercialized a comprehensive suite of highly invasive spyware products."

Treasury said in an email that the removal "was done as part of the normal administrative process in response to a petition request for reconsideration." It added that each of the individuals had "demonstrated measures to separate themselves from the Intellexa Consortium."

The notice said sanctions were lifted on Sara Hamou, whom the U.S. government accused of providing managerial services to Intellexa, Andrea Gambazzi, whose company was alleged by the U.S. government to have held the distribution rights to the Predator spyware, and Merom Harpaz, described by U.S. officials as a top executive in the consortium.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: France intends to follow Australia and ban social media platforms for children from the start of the 2026 academic year. A draft bill preventing under-15s from using social media will be submitted for legal checks and is expected to be debated in parliament early in the new year. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has made it clear in recent weeks that he wants France to swiftly follow Australia's world-first ban on social media platforms for under-16s, which came into force in December. It includes Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.

Le Monde and France Info reported on Wednesday that a draft bill was now complete and contained two measures: a ban on social media for under-15s and a ban on mobile phones in high schools, where 15- to 18-year-olds study. Phones have already been banned in primary and middle schools. The bill will be submitted to France's Conseil d'Etat for legal review in the coming days. Education unions will also look at the proposed high-school ban on phones. The government wants the social media ban to come into force from September 2026.

Le Monde reported the text of the draft bill cited "the risks of excessive screen use by teenagers," including the dangers of being exposed to inappropriate social media content, online bullying, and altered sleep patterns. The bill states the need to "protect future generations" from dangers that threaten their ability to thrive and live together in a society with shared values. Earlier this month, Macron confirmed at a public debate in Saint Malo that he wanted a social media ban for young teenagers. He said there was "consensus being shaped" on the issue after Australia introduced its ban.

"The more screen time there is, the more school achievement drops the more screen time there is, the more mental health problems go up," he said. He used the analogy of a teenager getting into a Formula One racing car before they had learned to drive. "If a child is in a Formula One car and they turn on the engine, I don't want them to win the race, I just want them to get out of the car. I want them to learn the highway code first, and to ensure the car works, and to teach them to drive in a different car."

New Jersey has found its answer to the relentless flooding that has plagued the state's coastal and inland communities for decades: buy the homes, demolish them and turn the land back into open space permanently. The state's Blue Acres program has acquired some 1,200 properties since 1995, spending more than $234 million in federal and state funds to pay fair market value to homeowners exhausted by repeated floods from tropical storms, nor'easters, and heavy rain.

A Georgetown Climate Center report this month called the program a national model, crediting its success to faster processing than federal buyout programs, stable state funding and case managers who guide each homeowner through the process. The demolished homes become grass lots that absorb rainwater far better than concrete and asphalt.

Manville, a borough of 11,000 at the confluence of two rivers about 25 miles southwest of Newark, has sold 120 homes to the state for roughly $22 million between 2015 and 2024. Another 53 buyouts are underway there. The need for such programs is only growing. Sea levels along the New Jersey coast rose about 1.5 feet over the past century -- more than double the global rate -- and a Rutgers study predicts a further increase of 2.2 to 3.8 feet by 2100.

A November report from the Natural Resources Defense Council noted that billions in previously approved FEMA resilience grants have already been cancelled, making state-run initiatives like Blue Acres increasingly essential.