ICYMI: California Exempts Linux, Open Source OS's From Age Verification Law

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says a lot of silly things. For example, he said that Tesla's steel-plated, but not fully steel-ball-resistant Cybertruck is "apocalypse-level safe." He also said that "Cybertruck will be waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat, so it can cross rivers, lakes & even seas that aren’t too choppy," according to an article from Mashable. Well, one guy apparently took that seriously, and tested it out with his Cybertruck in Grapevine Lake, an 8,000-acre lake northwest of Dallas, Texas. Now, he's in jail. According to Grapevine Police's official account on Facebook, "The driver stated he intentionally drove into the lake to use the Cybertruck’s “Wade Mode” feature. The vehicle became disabled and took on water. The driver and passengers abandoned the vehicle and the Grapevine Fire Department Water Rescue Team assisted in removing it from the lake. The driver was arrested on charges of Operation of Vehicle in Closed Section of Park/Lake and numerous water safety equipment violations."

University of Arizona graduates booed former Google CEO Eric Schmidt after he urged them to embrace an AI-shaped future, according to an article from eWeek. Schmidt’s commencement address Friday quickly turned tense as his speech turned to AI, job fears, and the pressure facing students entering a changing labor market. According to The Verge, Schmidt acknowledged the anxieties in the room, including fears that “the machines are coming,” jobs are disappearing, the climate is breaking, and politics are fractured. He called those fears rational, then pushed graduates toward optimism: “When someone offers you a seat on the rocketship, you do not ask which seat, you just get on.” That landed badly. For graduates entering a labor market already being reshaped by AI, the advice sounded less like reassurance than pressure to accept disruption on someone else’s terms.

Researchers at Loma Linda University Health report that eating eggs may be linked to a lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in adults age 65 and older, according to an article from ScienceDaily. Their findings suggest that regular egg consumption could play a role in supporting long-term brain health. The study found that people who ate at least one egg per day for five or more days each week had up to a 27% lower risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. "Compared to never eating eggs, eating at least five eggs per week can decrease risk of Alzheimer's," said Joan Sabaté, MD, DrPH, a professor at Loma Linda University School of Public Health and the study's principal investigator. Even smaller amounts of egg consumption were associated with benefits. Eating eggs just 1 to 3 times per month was linked to a 17% reduction in risk, while those who ate eggs 2 to 4 times per week saw about a 20% lower risk, Sabaté said. The research, titled Egg intake and the incidence of Alzheimer's disease in the Adventist Health Study-2 cohort linked with Medicare data, was published in the Journal of Nutrition. Scientists conducted the study to better understand how diet, a factor people can change, might influence the likelihood of developing Alzheimer's disease.

California plans to exclude Linux and most other open-source operating systems from its new age verification law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2027, according to an article from Extreme Tech. The change follows massive pushback from the open-source software community. In October 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1043, a new law for OS providers in California. This law requires an OS to collect users' ages or birth dates when they set up their accounts. OS providers then must share this information with app developers through a real-time API. The law divides users into four age groups: under 13, 13-16, 16-18, and 18 and over. Currently, it defines “"operating system provider” as anyone who develops, licenses, or maintains operating system software. This includes companies that make Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux distributions, and Valve's SteamOS. But the Linux community is overwhelmingly against applying the law to open-source operating systems. Critics have said it would be very hard to enforce rules for community-run distributions such as Ubuntu and Debian. These systems don't have a central account system and let users download ISO files from various mirrors around the world. Something similar has also happened in Colorado, where Colorado's path here involved some direct community legwork. Carl Richell, the founder of System76, spent some considerable time working with Senator Matt Ball, one of SB26-051's co-authors, to get open source exclusions written into the bill, according to another article from It’s Foss.

Linus Torvalds made a post to the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) on May 24, regarding Linux Kernel 7.1-rc5: To the surprise of absolutely nobody by now, rc5 is pretty big. Quite a bit bigger than rc5's have traditionally been. I'm not entirely happy about it - most of this is totally trivial stuff to random drivers, which obviously makes it all less scary, but at the same time I'm really not convinced the churn is worth it at rc5 time. These things are "fixes", sure, but at the same time a lot of them are simply so irrelevant that I think they'd be better off in a linux-next tree and get merged during the merge window. So I think I'll start being a bit more hardnosed about this kind of unnecessary churn this late in the game. We are supposed to look for *regressions*. Non-critical fixes to long-standing issues are simply not appropriate for this late in the release cycle. End result: this is too big, and this is the heads-up that I'll be pushing back on pointless pull requests with fixes that just aren't that important. And yes, several of these series were triggered by AI code review. Because fixes or not - and trivial or not - these kinds of large rc weeks are *not* conducive to long-term stability. Trivial fixes may be trivial, and have a pretty low chance of causing problems, but "low chance" is still not "zero chance". So people: start looking closer at your pull requests, and ask yourself: "Is this really a regression or serious enough that it shouldn't just go into the development pile?".

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a vulnerability in the Linux kernel that remained undetected for nine years, according to an article from The Hacker News. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-46333 (CVSS score: 5.5), is a case of improper privilege management that could permit an unprivileged local user to disclose sensitive files and execute arbitrary commands as root on default installations of several major distributions like Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu. It's also codenamed ssh-keysign-pwn. According to Qualys, which discovered the flaw, the problem is rooted in the kernel's __ptrace_may_access() function and was introduced in November 2016. "The primitive is reliable and turns any local shell into a path to root or to sensitive credential material," Saeed Abbasi, senior manager of Threat Research Unit at Qualys, said. Successful exploitation of the flaw could permit a local attacker to disclose /etc/shadow and host private keys under /etc/ssh/*_key, as well as execute arbitrary commands as root through four different exploits targeting chage, ssh-keysign, pkexec, and accounts-daemon.

A Chinese cyber-espionage campaign has been targeting telecommunications providers with newly discovered Linux and Windows malware dubbed Showboat and JFMBackdoor, respectively, according to an article from BleepingComputer. The operation has been active since at least mid-2022 and targeted organizations across the Asia Pacific and parts of the Middle East. It was attributed to the Calypso threat group, also tracked as Red Lamassu. According to researchers at Lumen's Black Lotus Labs and PwC Threat Intelligence, the threat actor set up and used multiple telecom-themed domains to impersonate their targets. The Linux implant Calypso uses in these attacks, dubbed Showboat/kworker, is a modular post-exploitation framework built for long-term persistence after initial compromise. The initial infection vector is unknown. According to a report today from Black Lotus Labs, once Showboat is deployed on a target system, it starts collecting information about the host and sends it to a command-and-control (C2) server. The malware can also upload or download files, hide its own process, and establish persistence via a new service. “One notable feature is the 'hide' command, which enables a process to conceal itself on a host machine by retrieving code stored on external websites such as Pastebin or online forums for use as a ‘dead drop’, Lumen's Black Lotus Labs researchers explain.

In a small, preliminary study, an experimental gene-editing treatment dramatically lowered cholesterol levels, perhaps permanently, after just one infusion, scientists reported, according to an article from the New York Times. If confirmed in larger studies, researchers hope the findings may lead to a one-and-done way to prevent heart disease in large numbers of people. Most gene therapies target rare diseases, but cardiovascular disease kills nearly 800,000 Americans a year. “We have these debates and new guidelines that we should be treating people earlier,” said Dr. John H. P. Alexander, a cardiologist at Duke University who was not involved with the study. “A curative therapy would change the game.” The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, was an interim analysis of 35 patients in a trial that will involve as many as 85 participants. All have genetically high levels of LDL cholesterol — the bad kind — or heart disease. In the 35 patients, a single infusion of the highest dose of the treatment reduced LDL cholesterol levels by as much as 62 percent. The change has been sustained in a subgroup whose members were treated 18 months ago. It will be followed by a larger study of 200 patients.

If you're concerned that you act too aggressively at times, you might be able to regain your calm. According to research, there's one supplement that can help reduce your aggression, and by a significant amount, according to an article from ScienceAlert. The solution, evidence suggests, is to add some omega-3 to your diet. The fatty acids, available as dietary supplements via fish oil capsules and thought to help with mental and physical well-being, could help cut down on aggression, according to a 2024 study.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have uncovered new details about how GLP-1 weight loss drugs such as semaglutide affect brain cells, revealing internal signaling processes that scientists have only begun to understand, according to an article from Science Daily. The findings, based on experiments in mice, shed light on why these medications work differently from person to person and why their effects often slow down over time. GLP-1 receptor agonists, including drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, are already known to help reduce appetite and promote weight loss. Scientists have also identified the brain regions involved in those effects. Until now, however, much less was known about what happens inside the neurons targeted by these drugs. Their experiments showed that semaglutide's impact depended heavily on increased levels of cyclic adenosine monophosphate, or cAMP, in the area postrema, a part of the brain involved in appetite regulation. However, the response was not the same in every neuron.

An unusual collection of stars may represent the remnants of a dwarf galaxy that the Milky Way devoured about 10 billion years ago, according to an article from CNN. Astronomers have dubbed the ancient galaxy Loki, after the Norse god of mischief. The finding could change the current understanding of how the Milky Way evolved in the distant past. The vast Milky Way spans about 100,000 light-years and contains anywhere between 100 billion and 400 billion stars, according to NASA. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, which is 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers). Our home galaxy wasn’t always such a cosmic giant. It grew over time starting about 12 billion years ago by merging with a multitude of dwarf galaxies. But the original size and mass of the Milky Way remain an open question — driving scientists to search for evidence of the galaxies it consumed to determine its history and evolution.

One of Android’s most relied-upon apps is suddenly struggling to do its most fundamental job: displaying emails, according to an article from TechRepublic. Several reports have now emerged of Gmail users on some Android devices experiencing flickering screens, disappearing messages, or buggy rendering of their email apps. Complaints appear concentrated on tablets and foldables, particularly Samsung models, though some reports suggest the issue is broader than a single product line. Analysis so far points to a display or rendering issue likely related to Android System WebView, particularly since temporary fixes such as screen rotation appear to force the interface to render correctly. That pattern suggests the issue is affecting content displays rather than content delivery. And while the issue has reportedly been escalated to Google, no permanent fix has been made available.

The first builders of NASA’s future Moon base may not need spacesuits, according to an article from eWeek. NASA put its lunar ambitions on full display in Houston this week, using a major student robotics competition to spotlight how machines will help build its future Moon Base. At the 2026 FIRST Robotics World Championship, the agency highlighted its long-term plan for a permanent presence on the Moon while engaging tens of thousands of students, mentors, and parents through exhibits and live demonstrations. NASA’s Moon Base concept is designed as a permanent lunar outpost to support science, exploration, and future missions deeper into the solar system, including to Mars. Before astronauts arrive, a first phase of robotic and uncrewed missions will prepare the surface. This includes a rapid series of CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) flights, with up to 30 robotic lunar landings targeted for 2027 to deliver rovers, hoppers, and drones.

We’ve all heard the advice: eat your fruit and vegetables, get your vitamins, and stay healthy. For the most part, that guidance holds up. But some nutrients have a more complicated story, and vitamin B12 is a fascinating example, according to an article from Science Daily. Also known as cobalamin, B12 is essential for life. It helps the body produce red blood cells, keeps the nervous system functioning, and plays a central role in how cells copy and repair DNA. A 2025 case-control study from Vietnam found what researchers described as a U-shaped relationship between B12 intake and cancer risk, with both lower and higher intakes associated with increased risk. Because this kind of study can show an association but cannot prove cause and effect, the takeaway is not that B12 is dangerous. It is that balance matters. The broader message is simple: more is not always better. Cancer cannot be prevented by loading up on any single vitamin. Long-term habits matter more: eating a balanced diet, exercising regularly, avoiding smoking, protecting your skin and attending routine health screenings. So what about vitamin B12? Get enough through food or supplementation if you need it, especially if you are vegan, older or have a condition that affects absorption. But leave the megadoses on the shelf unless a doctor advises them. With B12, as with many nutrients, the goal is not as much as possible. It is the right amount.

Over the past decade, researchers studying language, cognition, and verbal processing have identified several behaviors that correlate with higher cognitive ability but that are routinely mistaken for their opposite, according to an article from Psychology Today. Two of the most compelling involve habits that many intelligent people might have been quietly apologizing for their whole lives. Although neither will win you friends at a formal dinner, both are supported by a growing and credible body of peer-reviewed research. There is a long-standing cultural assumption that people who talk to themselves are, at best, eccentric and, at worst, showing signs of something more concerning. It’s the kind of behavior that invites sideways glances in supermarket aisles and prompts well-meaning family members to ask if you are OK. The research, however, tells a different story. The assumption with swearing is so embedded that it has become a kind of folk wisdom: People who swear frequently do so because they lack the vocabulary to express themselves any other way. It is, in this view, portrayed as a sign of laziness: a linguistic shortcut taken by people who cannot be bothered to find the right word. But this is almost precisely backwards.

A photography student sent a 5×4 color negative into space on April 19 and exposed it to cosmic radiation, capturing a beautiful, abstract portrait of space unlike anything done before, according to an article from PetaPixel. Tom Liggett is a third-year BA (Hons) photography student at the Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) in the U.K. His groundbreaking project, HELIOS, saw him travel to New York state where he sent a series of weather balloons with negatives attached to them to altitudes of over 121,000 feet — about three times higher than commercial aircraft and far above the protective layers of Earth’s atmosphere.

Have you ever pressed a crosswalk button and wondered if it actually does anything? You might be onto something. Called placebo buttons, controls that don’t do anything exist everywhere, according to an article from Popular Science. Sometimes it’s because of accidents of history; sometimes they’re installed specifically to trick people into feeling an illusion of control. Either way, they’re hard to notice. Here are a few buttons you press every day that might not actually work. They are crosswalk buttons, the “close door” button on elevators, and that thermostat at your office.

The Silent Ransom Group (SRG), also known as Luna Moth, Chatty Spider, and UNC3753, is targeting law firms using social engineering techniques, according to a bulletin released by the U.S. DHS/CISA/FBI (PDF). Through phone calls and phishing emails, SRG actors pose as IT support to establish access to victim computers and exfiltrate data, usually through legitimate remote access tools or by sending an individual in-person to the victim company’s location to gain physical access to computers. While SRG has victimized companies in many sectors including those in the insurance, finance, and healthcare industries, the group has consistently targeted US-based law firms since Spring 2023.

2FA isn't foolproof: Hackers still have tools to bypass your security measures and worm their way into your online spaces, through zero fault of your own. Luckily, Google is now rolling out a new security measure that should reduce these vulnerabilities, according to an bulletin from Lifehacker. As long as you're running the latest version of Chrome, people looking to break into your accounts should now face a steeper uphill battle. Google officially rolled out "Device Bound Session Credentials" (DBSC) for Chrome. DBSC works by ensuring that your session cookies are stored somewhere challenging for hackers to access. Going forward, all session cookies generated in Chrome (and on other Chromium-based browsers) will be stored to your PC's Trusted Platform Module, or your Mac's Secure Enclave. These chips are designed to hold sensitive data and protect it with encryption. Only the security chip has the keys to decrypt the information there. That means even if hackers successfully infect your Mac or PC with malware, they'll have an exceedingly difficult time breaking into the security chip and stealing your session cookies.

Proton announced a new integration with Gmail that lets users send and receive Gmail messages while retaining their privacy, according to an article from Lifehacker. When users connect their Gmail to Proton Mail, Proton strips away ads, spam, and trackers from messages. The move also blocks Google from spying on how users engage with their Gmail messages. If two Gmail users are communicating via Proton Mail, their messages will be end-to-end encrypted.

A system intrusion at 7-Eleven has escalated into a major data breach, according to an article from TechRepublic. The retailer says an unauthorized third party gained access to its internal systems on April 8, exposing personal information associated with franchise applications. In breach notification letters dated May 1, the company said the attackers accessed “certain 7-Eleven systems used to store franchisee documents.” 7-Eleven added that the affected files contained personal details submitted during the franchise application process, such as names, addresses, and other identifying information.

Some of you may know there’s a version of UNIX for the Commodore Amiga, aptly called Amiga Unix or AMIX, starts an article from HackADay. There is an almost complete record of versions from 1.0 to 2.03, but 2.02 was lost media – until [Forgotten Computer] found it on an old Amiga. It starts with an auction held for the 40 year anniversary of the Free Software Foundation where, by just one second, the highest bidder was too late. What do you do first with an artifact as valuable as an old FSF computer? You image the hard drive. Then you make several copies, including on different computers–after all, you wouldn’t want to lose the data on it. Preservation secured, the natural next thing is to boot it–and that’s when we see the magic 2.02c version number. According to thorough digging by [Forgotten Computer], this version was – until now – lost.

You've used Google Search the same way for 25 years. Type something, get a list of links, click one. That era just ended. At Google I/O last month, the company announced it's replacing its traditional search box with an AI-powered conversational engine. Instead of a list of links, Google now serves up AI-generated answers first, with built-in follow-up questions, according to an article from eWeek. It's calling it "the biggest upgrade to Search in over 25 years." Not everyone is thrilled. DuckDuckGo saw US app installs jump an average of 18% week-over-week after Google's announcement, peaking at 30% growth on Memorial Day. iPhone installs were even wilder, averaging 33% growth with a single-day peak of nearly 70%. Traffic to DuckDuckGo's AI-free search page (noai.duckduckgo.com) grew 22.7% in the same window. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg put it plainly: "Google is force-feeding AI with no way to opt out. Their results are getting worse, not better."

Brave just crossed 117.56 million monthly active users in May 2026 and DuckDuckGo says its US installs jumped 76% after Google’s big AI search overhaul, according to an article from PuinikaWeb. Both privacy-focused products are basically saying the same thing in different ways. Users are moving when they feel Google is pushing too much AI into their everyday browsing and search. Brendan Eich shared fresh Brave numbers on X. Brave hit 117.56 million monthly active users in May and daily active users grew 3.1%. He called it the second-best browser growth month of 2026 and said new browser user volume hit an all-time high. This is quite a bump for a browser that already cleared 100 million MAU a little while back.

Google is rolling out a new Android security feature designed to help users spot AI-powered impersonation calls, according to an article from eWeek. The feature, called fake call detection, aims to identify situations where scammers spoof the phone number of someone in a user’s contacts and use AI-generated voices to impersonate a family member, friend, employer, or other trusted person. According to Google, the feature is intended to address a growing problem as criminals increasingly combine caller ID spoofing with realistic voice-cloning technology. “Fake call detection helps protect you, your family and friends by identifying when a caller isn’t who they claim to be, giving you an extra layer of defense against sophisticated AI-voice cloning scams, also called deepfake attacks, of your contacts,” Google researchers wrote. Google describes fake call detection as a digital verification process that runs automatically in the background. When two people are using Phone by Google, the caller’s device sends a silent verification signal to confirm that the call is genuinely originating from that device. The process relies on end-to-end encrypted Rich Communication Services (RCS) technology. “If a scammer tries to impersonate your contact, that initial confirmation signal will be missing,” Google explained. “Your device will instantly notice this and ping your contact’s actual device to double-check. If their real device says, ‘I’m not making a call right now,’ you’ll get a warning on your screen advising you to hang up immediately.”

The costs of meeting a federal mandate to make research papers freely and immediately available to the public are exorbitant, and most agencies don't have adequate plans in place to cover it, a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found, according to an article from MedPageToday. The U.S. government is a huge funder of scientific research globally. In 2022, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a federal mandate to make research freely accessible to the public as soon as it's published. For this report, the GAO examined agencies' efforts to implement that mandate. Seven of nine federal agencies that the GAO reviewed issued updated plans or policies on how to meet the public access mandate, and five of those agencies' plans fully met the OSTP's guidance. The Department of Transportation and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were still working on their plans. Making research publicly accessible comes with costs, and the GAO noted that publishers are changing their business models to adapt to a loss of subscription revenue, including by requiring authors to pay open-access fees.

If you have (or had) a device equipped with Google Assistant, you may be eligible for some cash as part of a recent $68 million settlement, according to an article from Lifehacker. However, settlement notices are seemingly being filtered into spam folders, so users who are eligible to submit claims are likely to miss them. It isn't clear at this time how much individual claimants will receive, but the settlement does use a "points" system depending on your situation. Claims must be filed by Aug. 27, and a final approval hearing is scheduled for Oct. 1.

According to multiple polling services, approximately 70% of Americans are opposed to having AI data centers in their communities. From a news release by Gallup, seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed. Barely a quarter favor these projects, with 7% strongly in favor. A study done by Embold Research reveals that opposition to local data center construction has risen significantly just over the past six months. In December 2025, just over half of voters (52%) opposed building a data center in their local area, with 36% supportive. By May 2026, total opposition had climbed to 70%, with support falling to just 21%. Perhaps most striking, the share of voters who strongly oppose local construction grew by more than 20 percentage points, rising from 36% to 58%.

Research suggests that equal servings of animal protein may pack a much bigger muscle-building punch than their plant-based counterparts, according to an article from SciTechDaily. When it comes to protein, the same serving size on paper may not mean the same nutritional payoff in the body. A 2023 Purdue University study found that two ounce equivalents (oz-eq) of animal-based protein foods supplied more bioavailable essential amino acids (EAA) than the same two oz-eq amount of plant-based protein foods. Essential amino acids are especially important because the body cannot make them on its own. They must come from food, and they help support muscle and whole-body protein building. The findings add a sharper edge to a familiar nutrition question: are all protein foods truly comparable when they are measured by the same serving system?

The use of dietary supplements has increased sharply in recent years. Vitamins, minerals and other nutritional products are often marketed as simple ways to boost energy, support immunity, protect brain health or even promote longevity, according to an article from ScienceDaily. For many people, taking supplements can feel like a sensible, proactive health habit. But this perception can be misleading. For people who already have adequate nutrition, many supplements offer little or no measurable benefit. Some are simply an unnecessary expense. Others are not risk-free: high doses of certain vitamins and minerals can cause toxicity, interfere with medications or produce unintended health effects. For older adults, however, the picture is more complicated. The most useful question is not simply whether supplements are “good” or “bad”, but whether someone is actually deficient, what might be causing that deficiency and whether a supplement is the safest way to address it.

If someone turns up with crumbs on their chin, it's natural to wonder where the cookies went. Astronomers have found themselves asking that same question about a handful of very strange stars. Among thousands of stars studied by astronomers, six red dwarfs stood out for carrying traces of a strange element in their atmospheres, according to an article from ScienceAlert. In normal circumstances, this element should long ago have been annihilated deep within the stars' interiors. Its presence here suggests that these six stars have been raiding the cookie jar – if the cookie jar were full of Earth-like planets.

We usually think of our Solar System as a calm, well-organized family of planets, but a new study suggests its early days may have been far more chaotic. Instead of the four giant planets we know today, scientists think there may have once been six, meaning two massive worlds could have been kicked out of the Solar System entirely, drifting off into deep space, according to an article from GeekSpin. Even more surprising, researchers say clues to what happened may be hidden in the moons of Uranus, hinting at a story that doesn’t quite fit existing theories. The findings are challenging what we know about how our cosmic neighborhood formed—and raising new questions about where those lost planets might have gone.

New evidence suggests calcium and vitamin D supplements may do far less to prevent fractures and falls than widely believed, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Calcium and vitamin D supplements, whether taken separately or together, provide little to no meaningful benefit in preventing fractures or falls in most older adults, according to a major review published in The BMJ. Nearly one in three adults age 65 and older experiences a fall each year. Many of these falls lead to fractures, which can cause pain, lower quality of life, and increase the need for assisted living or residential care. As a result, reducing falls and fractures remains a major public health goal worldwide. Earlier reviews have also found little evidence that calcium or vitamin D supplements reduce fracture risk, and findings on combined supplementation have been inconsistent. The role of vitamin D in preventing falls has also remained uncertain. Even so, many doctors, health guidelines, and regulatory agencies continue to recommend vitamin D supplements, with or without calcium, to support bone health. Prescriptions for these supplements have also risen significantly in recent years.

So, how do you scan a QR code when it's already on your phone's screen? That’s the question that an article from BGR answers. It's surprisingly easy using iPhone and Android devices. The first step is to take a screenshot of the QR code and then open the image in your gallery. On a typical Android, to take a screenshot, press and hold the power and volume down button simultaneously. The screen will flash white to indicate the capture. On most iPhones, press and hold the wake and volume up button until the screen flashes. Then, open the screenshot of the code in your phone's gallery. To see the code's message on an iPhone, tap and hold on the QR code to open a menu with viewing options. With Android, tap the image of the QR code and then the Lens icon. In either case, you should see the QR code's message or the URL it's directing you to visit.

A surprising gut-brain discovery suggests that anxiety could one day be treated with specially designed probiotics, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Could anxiety be shaped, at least in part, by tiny organisms living in the gut? Research from Duke-NUS Medical School and the National Neuroscience Institute of Singapore points to a striking connection between gut microbes and anxiety-related behavior. The findings suggest that certain compounds made by gut bacteria, especially molecules called indoles, can influence brain activity involved in fear, stress, and emotional balance. The study, published in EMBO Molecular Medicine, adds to a growing body of research showing that mental health is not controlled by the brain alone. Instead, the gut and brain appear to be in constant communication, with microbes helping to shape some of the chemical signals that affect mood and stress responses.

A vitamin D-based therapy may help remodel the protective barrier surrounding pancreatic tumors, offering a potential new treatment strategy, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to treat in part because tumors surround themselves with a dense, protective barrier that blocks drugs and suppresses immune activity. Now, a small clinical trial led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute suggests that an FDA-approved vitamin D analog may help dismantle some of those defenses, potentially making tumors more vulnerable to treatment. The study, published in Nature Cancer, enrolled patients with previously untreated metastatic pancreatic cancer who received standard chemotherapy either with or without paricalcitol, a vitamin D analog already approved by the FDA for other conditions. Researchers found that adding paricalcitol, given either orally or intravenously, was safe and reduced fibroblast activity within the tumor microenvironment, confirming earlier findings from Salk laboratory studies.

A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel’s nftables subsystem has been disclosed, enabling unprivileged local attackers to escalate privileges to root on widely deployed distributions including Debian Bookworm, Debian Trixie, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, according to an article from CyberSecurityNews. Tracked as CVE-2026-23111, the flaw was discovered in early 2025 and patched upstream on February 5, 2026, via a kernel commit. Security researcher Oliver Sieber of Exodus Intelligence published a detailed technical write-up alongside a working exploit demonstrating >99% reliability on idle systems. The bug originates in the nft_map_catchall_activate() function within the nftables subsystem — a packet filtering framework built on top of Linux’s Netfilter hooks. Specifically, a single inverted conditional check (a misplaced ! operator) causes the function to incorrectly skip inactive catchall elements during the abort process, instead of reactivating them.

Another month, another set of vulnerabilities for Google Chrome. Whodathunkit? According to a report by Malwarebytes Labs, Google's latest update for Chrome (version 149.0.7827.102/.103 for Windows and Mac and 149.0.7827.102 for Linux) includes patches for 74 security vulnerabilities, says an article from Lifehacker. 17 of these vulnerabilities are rated as "Critical," while all but two of the others are rated "High." That alone would indicate this update is rather important, but there's more: One of these vulnerabilities is currently actively exploited. Google confirmed in its update that there is an exploit in the wild for the flaw tracked as CVE-2026-11645. This flaw is an "out of bounds memory access" vulnerability affecting V8, Chrome's JavaScript engine. Hackers can exploit the flaw to have their own program read or write data outside of the memory spaces it's supposed to access. In other words, a hacker could run their own code in Chrome, as if it were something legitimate Google placed in the browser. All a hacker would need to do is trick you into clicking a link to a malicious website, and they could effectively take over your browser. Because this flaw was exploited before Google issued the patch, it's considered a "zero-day." That's dangerous, because hackers could potentially abuse the flaw en masse before most users have a chance to update their browsers. If there is a silver lining here—besides there being an update available to patch the flaw—it's that the zero-day is limited to Chrome

A dedicated cross-platform password manager like Bitwarden can really help, according to an article from Lifehacker. It's open-source, encrypted by default, and most of its features are free on all platforms. And you can even use it to sync passkeys and two-factor authentication codes between all your platforms. But just using the Bitwarden apps to store passwords and autofill them won't get you very far. Because you're dealing with extremely sensitive passwords and secure notes, you should take some extra steps to secure your data, and make the password management process a bit easier (without compromising your security). Bitwarden is hiding powerful features that work across all platforms.