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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=showheadline&story=20005

The Linux Mint team is testing a new application for providing fingerprint authentication.

"Linux Mint 22.2 will feature a brand new app called Fingwit. Fingwit is a fingerprint configuration tool. It detects if your computer has a fingerprint reader and lets you record your fingerprints. It then configures your system to use fingerprint authentication for: The login screen, the screensaver; sudo commands, admin apps (pkexec)."

Fingwit will work across desktop environments and should function on any systems that have a fingerprint reader and PAM authentication support.

The Linux Mint May newsletter also reminds people that Linux Mint 20.x is reaching the end of its five years of support. People running version 20.x are advised to either perform a fresh install of Linux Mint 22 or upgrade in place to version 21. Tips for upgrading are provided in the newsletter.

Original Submission

quietus writes:

""After almost 100 years on the planet, I now understand the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea.""

(Sir David Attenborough, at the presentation of Oceans.)

The world's oceans hold between 50 and 60 times more carbon dioxide than there's present in the atmosphere; each year they absorb about 30% of the CO2 being released into the atmosphere. Annually, between 86 and 94 million tonnes of fish are caught in the wild from oceans and seas, while aquaculture yielded 92.4 million tonnes in 2022.

In short, the oceans are pretty important for humanity.

Not everybody is convinced about that though. Bottom trawling is still a dominant fishing "tactic", there's so much plastic pollution you can use it as orientation points from space -- with an expectation that the amount of plastic reaching the oceans will double each year until 2040 -- and now, more recently, there's the push to start mining the ocean floor with robots in search of precious metals.

Let's try to manage our oceans responsibly for future generations, argued the United Nations in 2023 in New York -- and drafted a first version of the High Seas Treaty. That draft is now being worked out further during a conference at Nice, France, running from June 9 until June 30.

While the main highlight being reported in the media is about declaring 30 percent of the oceans to be off-limits for human industrial activity (including fishing) by 2030, the treaty is ostensibly going to be about much more than that, if you look at the inputs to the draft treaty by different countries.

The European Union wants more financial assistance and market access for small-scale fisheries, combined with strategies to minimize bycatch and discard rates; the United States also wants more attention to small-scale fishing, along with better monitoring and collaboration and focus on the impact of climate change; China is worried about ecosystem restoration and protection of deep-sea ecosystems, Indonesia wants restrictions on fisheries subsidies as these promote overcapacity and overfishing, ... and so on; even Interpol wants to have a say about marine pollution.

About a hundred countries put their signatures under the original draft proposal in New York, formally called the Treaty on Biological Diversity Beyond National Jurisdiction. If 60 of these original 100 put their signatures under the finalised treaty during this conference, the oceans will have their first (global) legal protection.

According to Greenpeace, less than 2 percent of the world's oceans is currently protected against human industrial activity.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

As if the regular detainment of children isn’t bad enough, documents show that U.S. immigration authorities are adding their DNA to a criminal database. In less than five years, the U.S. has collected DNA samples from over 130,000 minors, including children as young as four.

Since 2020, the US Customs and Border Patrol has ramped up its contributions to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. CODIS stores DNA profiles from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scenes, and missing persons cases for local, state, and federal law enforcement use. The actual, physical DNA samples are stored indefinitely by the federal government. Excluding forensic ones, CODIS currently has 23 million DNA profiles, and as many as 133,539 of them belong to detained children and teenagers, according to documents reviewed by Wired.

According to Wired’s report, CBP collected samples of between 829,000 and 2.8 million people from October 2020 to the end of 2024. This came after 2020 updated regulations surrounding DNA collection from the Department of Justice that removed the Department of Homeland Security’s exemptions. The California Law Review critiqued the DOJ’s decision as one that “may be the first to result in the government’s widespread, permanent retention of genetic materials based solely on a status other than a criminal arrest or conviction.”

To comply with the DOJ’s orders, CBP launched a pilot program that same year to begin collecting more samples from detained immigrants. At the time, CBP said it would collect samples from people between the ages of 14 to 19. However, CBP’s policy gives officers some discretion when it comes to younger children and they have taken advantage of that. Per Wired, CBP obtained samples from as many as 227 children under the age of 13. In one case, CBP officers in El Paso, Texas sent samples from a 4-year old child to the FBI for processing.

“In order to secure our borders, CBP is devoting every resource available to identify who is entering our country. We are not letting human smugglers, child sex traffickers, and other criminals enter American communities,” Hilton Beckham, assistant commissioner of public affairs at CBP, told Wired. “Toward this end, CBP collects DNA samples for submission to [CODIS] from person in CBP custody who are arrested on federal criminal charges, and from aliens detained under CBP’s authority who are subject to fingerprinting and not otherwise exempt from the collection requirement.”

However, Stephanie Glaberson, the director of research and advocacy at Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology, told Gizmodo via email, “The revelation that CBP collected DNA from a 4-year-old and added it to CODIS brings the absurdity of the government’s DNA program into sharp relief.”

upstart writes:

An agency-wide LLM called Elsa was released weeks ahead of schedule:

Under the Trump administration, the Food and Drug Administration is eagerly embracing artificial intelligence tools that staff members are reportedly calling rushed, buggy, overhyped, and inaccurate.

On Monday, the FDA publicly announced the agency-wide rollout of a large language model (LLM) called Elsa, which is intended to help FDA employees—"from scientific reviewers to investigators." The FDA said the generative AI is already being used to "accelerate clinical protocol reviews, shorten the time needed for scientific evaluations, and identify high-priority inspection targets."

"It can summarize adverse events to support safety profile assessments, perform faster label comparisons, and generate code to help develop databases for nonclinical applications," the announcement promised.

In a statement, FDA Chief AI Officer Jeremy Walsh trumpeted the rollout, saying: "Today marks the dawn of the AI era at the FDA[. W]ith the release of Elsa, AI is no longer a distant promise but a dynamic force enhancing and optimizing the performance and potential of every employee."

Meanwhile, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary highlighted the speed with which the tool was rolled out. "I set an aggressive timeline to scale AI agency-wide by June 30," Makary said. "Today's rollout of Elsa is ahead of schedule and under budget, thanks to the collaboration of our in-house experts across the centers."

However, according to a report from NBC News, Elsa could have used some more time in development. FDA staff tested Elsa on Monday with questions about FDA-approved products or other public information, only to find that it provided summaries that were either completely or partially wrong.

FDA staffers who spoke with Stat news, meanwhile, called the tool "rushed" and said its capabilities were overinflated by officials, including Makary and those at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was headed by controversial billionaire Elon Musk. In its current form, it should only be used for administrative tasks, not scientific ones, the staffers said.

upstart writes:

Part science outlet, part Radio Shack, part curio cabinet—American Science & Surplus is unique:

It was shortly after moving into Chicago's Jefferson Park neighborhood that I saw the sign for the first time: American Science & Surplus. My curiosity piqued, I pulled into the strip mall and walked into a store filled with an unimaginable variety of lab equipment, military surplus, tools, electronics, toys, and so much more.

Now, nearly 90 years after its launch selling "reject lenses" as American Lens & Photo, American Science & Surplus is facing an existential threat. The COVID-19 pandemic and increased costs hit the business hard, so the store has launched a GoFundMe campaign looking to raise $200,000 from customers and fans alike. What's happening in suburban Chicago is a microcosm of the challenges facing local retail, with big-box retailers and online behemoths overwhelming beloved local institutions. It's a story that has played out countless times in the last two-plus decades, and owner Pat Meyer is hoping this tale has a different ending.

Launching a fundraiser was a tough choice for Meyer. "I don't like asking people for money," he said.

With his voice catching, he continued: "It's hard for me to talk about sometimes, because the more I'm in the store, the more I see how much people care about it and don't want it to go away."

And the current environment is tough for small business owners. "Banks... are real hesitant [about lending] money," Meyer told Ars. "Interest rates are high, too. So we decided that we were going to try and reach out to the community that we built over the last 88 years."

[...] Over time, the store has moved far beyond lenses and lab equipment. There's a science toy section and an aisle devoted to Etsy-style craft supplies. But other, once-thriving areas of the business have suffered. When I first discovered American Science & Surplus in the early 2000s, I would always linger at the massive telescope section. The store staff was always more than happy to answer my questions and explain the differences between the scopes. Now, telescopes are just a small corner of the store, and sales are infrequent. "People come in to ask questions and then buy the telescopes online," Meyer explained.

In many ways, American Science & Surplus is a physical manifestation of the maker ethos. There is an endless array of motors, switches, cables, tools, and connectors. "Sometimes our customers will send us photos of their creations," said Meyer. "It's always cool to see how people are inspired by shopping here."

janrinok writes:

New technologies help wood-burning stoves burn more efficiently, produce less smoke

Oregon State University researchers are gaining a more detailed understanding of emissions from wood-burning stoves and developing technologies that allow stoves to operate much more cleanly and safely, potentially limiting particulate matter pollution by 95%.

The work has key implications for human health as wood-burning stoves are a leading source of PM2.5 emissions in the United States. PM2.5 refers to fine particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller that can be inhaled deeply into the lungs and even enter the bloodstream. Exposure to PM2.5 is a known cause of cardiovascular disease and is linked to the onset and worsening of respiratory illness.

Even though a relatively small number of households use wood stoves, they are the U.S.'s third-largest source of particulate matter pollution, after wildfire smoke and agricultural dust, said Nordica MacCarty of the OSU College of Engineering.

Residential wood combustion, especially the use of inefficient stoves, is also a significant source of other harmful emissions including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, methane, benzene and formaldehyde.

"Wood is an affordable, local, renewable, low-carbon fuel that should be an important part of the U.S. energy mix, but it must be burned cleanly to effectively protect health," MacCarty said.

"Folks typically think of pollution as coming from vehicles and industry, but household wood stoves are a larger source—just a few smoky stoves can create a harmful effect on air quality in an entire community."

MacCarty published a paper in the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association showing that 70% of the pollution emitted from wood stove flues happens at two points in time: when a stove is first lit, and when it's reloaded. MacCarty's team gained that knowledge by developing a new monitoring technique and deploying equipment at a collection of wood stove users' homes in rural Oregon.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there are an estimated 6.5 million inefficient stoves in the U.S., most of them models that predate EPA clean-burning standards. In all, there are roughly 10 million wood-burning stoves in the country, or one for every 35 people.

"A lot of the older stoves are essentially just metal boxes with chimneys and they don't incorporate modern engineering principles to optimize heat transfer and combustion," said MacCarty, the Richard & Gretchen Evans Professor of Humanitarian Engineering and an associate professor of mechanical engineering.

"They have no catalysts or secondary combustion to reduce emissions and lower the risk of creosote buildup that can cause chimney fires."

canopic jug writes:

Several sites are reporting that the legendary programmer Bill Atkinson has died. He contributed QuickDraw to the early Macintosh and was even responsible for MacPaint and Hypercard. The former, MacPaint, inspired Photoshop. The latter, Hypercard, can be considered an important milestone in computing even though it lacked the networking which the WWW is built upon.

He designed a program where information—text, video, audio—would be stored on virtual cards. These would link to each other. It was a vision that harkened back to a 1940s idea by scientist Vannevar Bush which had been sharpened by a technologist named Ted Nelson, who called the linking technique "hypertext." But it was Atkinson who made the software work for a popular computer. When he showed the program, called HyperCard, to Apple CEO John Sculley, the executive was blown away, and asked Atkinson what he wanted for it. "I want it to ship," Atkinson said. Sculley agreed to put it on every computer. HyperCard would become a forerunner of the World Wide Web, proof of the viability of the hyperlinking concept.

— Bill Atkinson, Macintosh Pioneer and Inventor of Hypercard, Dies at 74, Wired.

The Internet Archive has a digitized edition of a two part interview with him, recorded in 1985 and originally aired on KFOX.

• The Famous Computer Cafe 1985-01-08 Bill Atkinson : The Famous Computer Cafe
• The Famous Computer Cafe 1985-01-09 Bill Atkinson : The Famous Computer Cafe

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In a significant advance for brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, a University of Michigan research team has achieved the first in-human recording using Paradromics' Connexus device – a wireless, fully implantable BCI designed to restore communication and movement for people living with severe neurological conditions.

The procedure took place on May 14, 2025, during epilepsy surgery, where the device was temporarily placed on the patient's temporal lobe, an area essential for processing sound and memory. This opportunity allowed the team to safely test the device's ability to capture neural signals without adding risk to the patient, as the surgery already required access to the brain.

The Connexus stands out for its compact size – smaller than a dime – and its high-density array of 421 microelectrodes, each thinner than a human hair. Unlike many earlier BCIs, which often relied on fewer electrodes and required external wires, Connexus is engineered to be fully implantable.

The device collects electrical signals from individual neurons, transmitting them via a thin lead to a transceiver implanted in the chest. From there, the data is sent wirelessly to an external computer, where artificial intelligence algorithms interpret the patterns and translate them into actions, such as moving a cursor or generating synthesized speech.

[...] The potential applications of Connexus extend beyond restoring speech and movement. By decoding neural signals at the level of individual neurons, the technology could one day help address mental health conditions or chronic pain by interpreting mood or discomfort directly from brain activity.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

What happened to all the megafauna? From moas to mammoths, many large animals went extinct between 50 and 10,000 years ago. Learning why could provide crucial evidence about prehistoric ecosystems and help us understand future potential extinctions. But surviving fossils are often too fragmented to determine the original species, and DNA is not always recoverable, especially in hot or damp environments.

Now scientists have isolated collagen peptide markers which allow them to identify three key megafauna that were once present across Australia: a hippo-sized wombat, a giant kangaroo, and a marsupial with enormous claws.

"The geographic range and extinction date of megafauna in Australia, and potential interaction with early modern humans, is a hotly debated topic," said Professor Katerina Douka of the University of Vienna, senior author of the article in Frontiers in Mammal Science.

"The low number of fossils that have been found at paleontological sites across the country means that it is difficult to test hypotheses about why these animals became extinct," explained first author Dr. Carli Peters of the University of Algarve.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Are Dead Sea Scrolls older than we thought?:

Over the years, scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls have analyzed the ancient parchments with various methods: for example, X-rays, multispectral imaging, "virtual unfolding," and paleography, i.e., studying elements in their writing styles. The scrolls are believed to date back to between the third century BCE and the first century CE, but those dates rely largely on paleography, since only a handful of the scrolls have calendar dates written on them.

However, the traditional paleographic method is inherently subjective and based on a given scholar's experience. A team of scientists has combined radiocarbon dating from 24 scroll samples and machine-learning-based handwriting analysis to create their own AI program—dubbed Enoch. The objective was to achieve more accurate date estimates, according to a new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE. Among the findings: Many of the scrolls are older than previously thought.

[...] The development of Enoch grew out of the team's earlier deep neural network for ferreting out handwritten ink-trace patterns in digitized manuscripts, involving micro-level geometric shape analysis. "Enoch emphasizes shared characteristics and similarity matching between trained and test manuscripts, where traditional paleography focuses on subtle differences that are assumed to be indicative for style development," the authors wrote. "Combining dissimilarity matching and adaptive reinforcement learning can uncover hidden patterns."

They tested Enoch by having paleographic experts evaluate the AI program's age estimate for several scrolls. The results: About 79 percent of Enoch's estimates were deemed "realistic," while its age estimates for the remaining 21 percent were either too young, too old, or just indecisive.

This new model revealed that many of the Dead Sea Scrolls are older than previous estimates based solely on paleography. That should be relevant for the question of when two ancient Jewish script styles—"Hasmonean" and "Herodian"—developed, for example. The former script was thought to have emerged between 150–50 BCE, but the authors believe Hasmonean could have emerged much earlier; ditto for the Herodian script. So both scripts may have coexisted since the late second century, challenging the prevailing view that they preexisted by the mid-first century BCE.

Journal Reference:
Mladen Popović, Maruf A. Dhali, Lambert Schomaker, et al. Dating ancient manuscripts using radiocarbon and AI-based writing style analysis, PLOS ONE (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0323185)

Original Submission

_-iNT13- writes:

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/04/europe/france-crypto-kidnappings-detained-intl

Badiss Mohamed Amide Bajjou, a 24-year-old French-Moroccan, suspected of being behind a string of violent kidnappings in France of people linked to cryptocurrency was detained Tuesday in Morocco. He was wanted by France for armed extortion and kidnapping as part of a criminal gang, according to the "red notice" for him published by Interpol.

French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin thanked Morocco on X for detaining the man, citing the "excellent judicial cooperation" between the two countries.

Bajjou had "multiple bladed weapons of different sizes" in his possession when he was taken into custody, as well as "dozens of mobile phones and communication devices" and a sum of money allegedly related to criminal activities, Moroccan state media reported.

The man was apprehended, weeks after the latest kidnapping attempt in Paris, near Tangier in northern Morocco, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV. He is allegedly linked to a string of violent crimes related to crypto funds dating back to at least January 21 of this year.

According to the media he had "multiple bladed weapons of different sizes", "dozens of mobile phones and communication devices", and money alleged to be from criminal activities.

Reported widely, including:

• https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250604-suspected-mastermind-of-french-crypto-kidnappings-held-in-morocco
• https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/06/04/suspect-in-french-crypto-kidnappings-arrested-in-morocco

See also: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=25/05/07/2330241

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The system can take a passenger's profile into account to better protect them during crashes:

Volvo has introduced a new seatbelt technology that can customize the protection it provides in real time. The "multi-adaptive safety belt" system, as the automaker is calling it, uses data input from both interior and exterior sensors to change protection settings based on various factors. It can take a person's height, weight, body shape and seating position into account, as well as the direction and speed of the vehicle. The system can communicate all those information to the seatbelt "in the blink of an eye" so that it can optimize protection for the passenger.

If the passenger is on the larger side, for instance, they will receive a higher belt load setting to reduce the risk of a head injury in the event of a serious crash. For milder crashes, someone with a smaller frame will receive a lower belt load setting to prevent rib injuries. Volvo didn't specifically say if the system also takes the position of a seatbelt on women into account, since it doesn't always fit right over a woman's chest. However, the automaker explained that the system expands the number of load-limiting profiles to 11. Load limiters control how much force a seatbelt applies on the body during a crash. Typically, seatbelts only have three load-limiting profiles, but Volvo expanding them to 11 means the system can better optimize the protection a passenger gets.

Volvo used information from five decades of safety research and from a database of over 80,000 people involved in real-life accidents to design the new safety belt. The system was also created to incorporate improvements rolled out via over the-air software updates, which the company expects to release as it gets more data and insights.

"The world first multi-adaptive safety belt is another milestone for automotive safety and a great example of how we leverage real-time data with the ambition to help save millions of more lives," said Åsa Haglund, head of Volvo Cars Safety Centre. "This marks a major upgrade to the modern three-point safety belt, a Volvo invention introduced in 1959, estimated to have saved over a million lives."

Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin designed the modern three-point seatbelt and made its patent available for use by other automakers. The company didn't say whether it'll be as generous with the multi-adaptive safety belt, but the new system will debut in the all-electric Volvo EX60 midsize SUV sometime next year.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Mac fan paid $900 to color-match iconic Apple beige-gray "Platinum" plastic for everyone:

On Tuesday [03 JUN 2025], classic computer collector Joe Strosnider announced the availability of a new 3D-printer filament that replicates the iconic "Platinum" color scheme used in classic Macintosh computers from the late 1980s through the 1990s. The PLA filament (PLA is short for polylactic acid) allows hobbyists to 3D-print nostalgic novelties, replacement parts, and accessories that match the original color of vintage Apple computers.

[...] The Platinum color, which Apple used in its desktop and portable computer lines starting with the Apple IIgs in 1986, has become synonymous with a distinctive era of classic Macintosh aesthetic. Over time, original Macintosh plastics have become brittle and discolored with age, so matching the "original" color can be a somewhat challenging and subjective experience.

Strosnider, who runs a website about his extensive vintage computer collection in Ohio, worked for years to color-match the distinctive beige-gray hue of the Macintosh Platinum scheme, resulting in a spool of hobby-ready plastic by Polar Filament and priced at $21.99 per kilogram.

According to a forum post, Strosnider paid approximately $900 to develop the color and purchase an initial 25-kilogram supply of the filament. Rather than keeping the formulation proprietary, he arranged for Polar Filament to make the color publicly available.

"I paid them a fee to color match the speaker box from inside my Mac Color Classic," Strosnider wrote in a Tinkerdifferent forum post on Tuesday. "In exchange, I asked them to release the color to the public so anyone can use it."

[...] The timing of the filament's release coincides with growing interest in 3D-printed cases and accessories for vintage computer hardware. One example is the SE Mini desktop case, a project by "GutBomb" that transforms Macintosh SE and SE/30 logic boards into compact desktop computers that can connect to modern displays. The case, designed to be 3D-printed in multiple pieces and assembled, represents the type of project that benefits from color-accurate filament.

The SE Mini case requires approximately half a spool of filament and takes a couple of days to print on consumer 3D printers. Users can outfit the case with modern components, such as Pico PSUs and BlueSCSI storage devices, while maintaining the classic Macintosh appearance.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The United Kingdom's Government Digital Service (GDS) has found that giving civil service employees access to Microsoft 365 Copilot saved them an average 26 minutes per day on office tasks.

Microsoft 365 Copilot provides generative AI assistance with various Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. It allows workers to accomplish some tasks through a natural language chat interface instead of mouse movements and menu clicks.

UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle discussed the results of the study in a presentation at SWSX London.

"Whether it’s helping draft documents, preparing lesson plans, or cutting down on routine admin, AI tools are saving civil servants time every day. That means we can focus more on delivering faster, more personalised support where it really counts," said Kyle in a statement

The GDS ran a trial of Microsoft M365 Copilot with 20,000 government employees from September 30, 2024, through December 31, 2024.

Based on self-reported data, the resulting study [PDF] showed fairly consistent time savings across professions and organizational ranks, though precise tool use and benefits varied.

"Over 70 percent of users agreed that M365 Copilot reduced time spent searching for information, performing mundane tasks, and increased time spent on more strategic activities," the report says.

"Perceived concerns with security and the handling of sensitive data led to reduced benefits in a minority of cases. Limitations were observed when dealing with complex, nuanced, or data-heavy aspects of work."

The report claims if the reported time savings were replicated across a full working year, "users could save 13 days."

[...] The study didn't investigate whether the workers used this extra time to do more work, take extra time for lunch, or head off to the pub early. "Due to experimental constraints it was not possible to identify how time saved was spent," the report says.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Researchers have developed a self-healing artificial muscle for use in soft robotics and wearable systems. It mimics the ability of animals and plants to detect and self-heal injuries. This transformative development by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln engineering team is claimed to address a longstanding problem with synthetic systems.

Injury sensing and self-repair are obviously important features of organic life forms, but present a complex challenge for robotics makers. Thus, the researchers have gone down the tried and trusted path of biomimicry here.

It is explained that the key development presented is a system that can identify damage from a puncture or extreme pressure, pinpoint its location, and autonomously initiate self-repair. For this purpose, a multi-layer architecture was presented at the recent IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Atlanta, Georgia.

The muscle, or actuator, has three layers. At the bottom is a damage detection layer, which is a soft electronic skin composed of liquid metal microdroplets embedded in a silicone elastomer in this case. Next, a stiff thermoplastic elastomer is used as the middle layer, and this material acts as the self-healing component. On top, there us the actuation layer, the layer which contracts and expands with the variation in water pressure.

To create a self-repair mechanism that functions without external intervention also requires a variety of monitoring currents which flow in a network across the ‘skin’ of this design. Damage can thus be sensed as disruptions to the electrical network. Ingeniously, this triggers the same network to deliver heat to areas of damage, melting the thermoplastic layer to seal ruptures. This is “effectively self-healing the wound,” says the researchers.