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Category: electronics

Opening the door to more efficient orbitronic devices

Electrons have three intrinsic properties: spin, charge and orbital angular momentum. Researchers have long studied how to use spin to more efficiently create an electrical current. But the field of orbitronics—which is based upon using an electron’s orbital angular momentum, rather than its spin, to create a current flow—remains relatively new.

“Traditionally, it has been technically challenging to generate orbital current,” says Dali Sun, a professor of physics and member of the Organic and Carbon Electronics Lab (ORaCEL) at NC State University.

In a recent study, however, Sun and an international team of researchers demonstrated a groundbreaking new method to generate orbital current.

Backdoored Telnyx PyPI package pushes malware hidden in WAV audio

TeamPCP hackers compromised the Telnyx package on the Python Package Index today, uploading malicious versions that deliver credential-stealing malware hidden inside a WAV file.

The supply-chain attack was observed by application security firms Aikido, Socket, and Endor Labs, and was attributed to TeamPCP based on the same exfiltration pattern and RSA key seen in previous incidents caused by the same actor.

TeamPCP is responsible for multiple recent supply-chain (e.g., Aqua Security’s Trivy vulnerability scanner, the open-source Python library LiteLLM) and wiper attacks targeting Iranian systems.

Fiber-optic sensors reveal how farming destroys soil’s natural structure

Soil is often perceived simply as “dirt,” but in reality, it is a dynamic, living system that acts as Earth’s natural sponge. Unfortunately, common agricultural practices—including deep plowing and the use of heavy machinery—can severely disrupt this natural system, according to a new study led by Dr. Shi Qibin from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with international partners.

The study, published in Science, shows that healthy soil contains a natural internal “plumbing” network of microscopic pores and channels that allow water to infiltrate deeply into the ground, where it becomes available to plant roots.

Frequent plowing or heavy tractor traffic not only disrupts soil structure but also reduces its ability to help crops withstand both flooding and drought.

Ultra-thin MoSe₂ grating traps infrared light in a 40-nanometer layer

Controlling light at the micro- and nanoscale opens up opportunities for a better understanding of the world and the development of technology. As modern electronics approaches the limits of its capabilities, photonics comes into play. Instead of manipulating relatively heavy and slow electrons, we can use light and fast photons to encode information. This will make it possible to create devices that are not only faster but also even smaller than those currently in use.

Bioinspired event camera tracks full vibration trajectory using geometry

Researchers at University of Tsukuba have developed a noncontact vibration measurement method using an event camera, a sensing technology inspired by biological vision. By applying geometric analysis to event-stream data, the team succeeded in reconstructing vibrations—an achievement that had posed substantial challenges using an event camera.

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