EURISCO documents crop diversity including different varieties of barley, pictured. Credit: Nora Capozio
The European Search Catalogue for Plant Genetic Resources (EURISCO) is an international aggregated database that provides a central entry point for information on the large crop genetic diversity preserved in more than 400 institutes in 43 European and neighboring countries.
An update on EURISCO greatly improving access has recently been published in the Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) special issue on biological databases.
Currently, more than 2 million plant genetic resources accessions are documented in EURISCO comprising 6,737 genera and 45,175 species. These include major cereal grains such as wheat and maize, pulses such as beans, peas and vetches, edible oilseed crops such as sunflower and linseed, tuber crops such as potatoes, and Brassica crops.
More than 400,000 accessions are part of the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit Sharing (MLS) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), which means that they have been confirmed by the respective countries to be promptly available under standard and internationally agreed benefit-sharing conditions. In addition, there are 2.6 million records of phenotypic data from more than 3,800 experiments conducted on genebank material.
Since the first publication in the NAR Database Issue in 2017, the volume of data in EURISCO has been expanding continuously: the number of data provider institutions rose from 376 to 402, the number of documented accessions increased by more than 200,000, and the number of phenotypic data points increased by 2.2 million (500%).
“This shows that EURISCO is steadily gaining acceptance as a repository of such data,” says Stephan Weise, EURISCO coordinator. “In addition, the data on plant genetic resources are continuously maintained and expanded by the data providers. Each year, between 30 and 40 National Inventory datasets are updated in EURISCO, for an average of 350,000–400,000 accessions per year. With the European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR), we organize training workshops to support data providers, and ultimately improve data quality.”
I apologize for the simple formatting, will try to go back to my former formatting which resulted from my formatting for the Highway Shopper newspaper.
The new phone you bought may send your private information to criminals.
SIM-swapping is the practice of tricking or bribing mobile phone store employees into diverting a target’s phone number, text messages and calls to a device the attackers control.
SIM-swapping attacks might sound like one of the identity theft horror stories that only happens to people who are too careless or cavalier with their personal information, but more of us are at risk than it seems.
A recent study from Princeton found that several U.S. carriers are vulnerable to SIM-swapping attacks, and prepaid accounts are the most susceptible. Researchers signed up for ten prepaid accounts on AT&T, T-Mobile, Tracfone, US Mobile, and Verizon each. They were then able to successfully “trick” customer service reps and circumvent account security protocols to gain control of activated devices. They then remotely disabled these devices’ network access, which is how most SIM-swap attacks begin. You can read the entire paper here (via Engadget).
SIM-swap attacks normally begin with an old-fashioned phishing scam. Email phishing is still surprisingly common, but hackers also use fake login pages, apps loaded with spyware or keyloggers, fake ads, and malicious message attachments to gain access to your accounts. Once they have that, all it takes is knowledge of your phone number and some personal data to execute a SIM-swap attack.
Phishing isn’t the only way to start a SIM-swap attack; hackers can get your info from leaked personal data, or even physically lift it from your devices. You should always take proper care to respond to leaks and avoid losing your device (or letting the wrong people use it). Some early SIM-swapping attack warning signs
When you’ve been hit with a SIM-swap attack, your device will start acting up. Here are some clues that you might be the victim of these specific type of hack:
Sudden changes in service. The first sign of a SIM-swap attack is receiving notifications from your provider that your phone number or SIM card has been activated elsewhere. However, many providers have security measures in place to reduce the likelihood of a successful takeover, and they may try to confirm account changes with you before they take affect. Or at least they say they do.
Unauthorized security alerts. Similarly, if you have the proper settings enabled, you may receive notifications or email alerts that important profile data—such as passwords, pin numbers, security questions, contact info—for your service provider and other accounts has been changed or that logins were made (or attempted) from unrecognized locations or devices.
You need to respond to these alerts immediately, regardless of if anything was successfully changed. Someone is trying to hack into your accounts and steal your identity—whether by a SIM-swap attack or some other means. The faster you catch and react to these attempted changes, the better your chances are of mitigating the hack’s severity. Signs of a successful or ongoing SIM-swapping attack
What you’ll experience after a successful SIM-swap attack is even scarier. Once someone gains access to your phone number, they now have access to any apps, accounts, or personal data tied to it (including two-step authentication requests). From there, it’s only a matter of minutes before they’ve locked you out of everything and assumed your identity.
Here are some additional warning signs to look out for:
SIM-swap attacks normally begin with an old-fashioned phishing scam. Email phishing is still surprisingly common, but hackers also use fake login pages, apps loaded with spyware or keyloggers, fake ads, and malicious message attachments to gain access to your accounts. Once they have that, all it takes is knowledge of your phone number and some personal data to execute a SIM-swap attack.
Phishing isn’t the only way to start a SIM-swap attack; hackers can get your info from leaked personal data, or even physically lift it from your devices. You should always take proper care to respond to leaks and avoid losing your device (or letting the wrong people use it). Some early SIM-swapping attack warning signs
When you’ve been hit with a SIM-swap attack, your device will start acting up. Here are some clues that you might be the victim of these specific type of hack:
Sudden changes in service. The first sign of a SIM-swap attack is receiving notifications from your provider that your phone number or SIM card has been activated elsewhere. However, many providers have security measures in place to reduce the likelihood of a successful takeover, and they may try to confirm account changes with you before they take affect. Or at least they say they do.
Unauthorized security alerts. Similarly, if you have the proper settings enabled, you may receive notifications or email alerts that important profile data—such as passwords, pin numbers, security questions, contact info—for your service provider and other accounts has been changed or that logins were made (or attempted) from unrecognized locations or devices.
You need to respond to these alerts immediately, regardless of if anything was successfully changed. Someone is trying to hack into your accounts and steal your identity—whether by a SIM-swap attack or some other means. The faster you catch and react to these attempted changes, the better your chances are of mitigating the hack’s severity.
Signs of a successful or ongoing SIM-swapping attack
What you’ll experience after a successful SIM-swap attack is even scarier. Once someone gains access to your phone number, they now have access to any apps, accounts, or personal data tied to it (including two-step authentication requests). From there, it’s only a matter of minutes before they’ve locked you out of everything and assumed your identity.
Here are some additional warning signs to look out for:
You cannot send or receive texts and phone calls.Someone says your social media or email has been hacked. A hacked Twitter account can be a sign of more than just poor password strength—it’s one of the easiest ways to catch a SIM-swap attack.
Being unable to use any apps on your phone. If you’ve suddenly been signed out of all your apps and various other accounts and can’t log back in, that’s an obvious sign of some kind of identity theft.
Unauthorized bank activity.
From Krebs on Security and Lifehacker.
Plastic waste on the banks of the polluted Las Vacas River, in Chinautla, Guatemala.
Oct. 4, 2022
Enzymes found in the saliva of wax worms can degrade one of the most common forms of plastic waste, according to research published Tuesday that could open up new ways of dealing with plastic pollution.
Humans produce some 400 million metric tons of plastic waste each year despite international drives to reduce single-use plastics and to increase recycling.
Around a third is polyethylene, a tough plastic thanks to its structure, which traditionally requires heating or radiation before it starts to break down.
But those contained in the saliva the wax worm moth (Galleria mellonella) can act in only a few hours, Tuesday’s research showed.
Researcher Federica Bertocchini, an avid beekeeper, said she originally stumbled on the idea that this small caterpillar had unusual powers when storing honeycombs a few years ago.
“At the end of the season, usually beekeepers put some empty beehives in a storage room, to put them back in the field in the spring,” she told AFP.
“One year I did that, and I found my stored honeycombs plagued with wax worms. In fact, that is their habitat.”
Bertocchini cleaned the honeycombs and put the worms in a plastic bag.
When she returned a short time later she found the bag “riddled with holes”.
“That raised the question: is it the result of munching or there is a chemical modification? We checked that, doing proper lab experiments, and we found that the polyethylene had been oxidized in a chemical reaction, not by munching,” she told AFP.
“We can imagine a scenario where these enzymes are used in an aqueous solution, and liters of this solution is poured over piles of collected plastic in a waste management facility,” said Bertocchini.
