Cybersecurity training programs as implemented today by most large companies do little to reduce the risk that employees will fall for phishing scams–the practice of sending malicious emails posing as legitimate to get victims to share personal information, such as their social security numbers. 

That’s the conclusion of a study evaluating the effectiveness of two different types of cybersecurity training during an eight-month, randomized controlled experiment. The experiment involved 10 different phishing email campaigns developed by the research team and sent to more than 19,500 employees at UC San Diego Health.

Several genetic variants associated with social behavior in honey bees are located within genes that have previously been linked to social behavior in humans, Ian Traniello at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, and colleagues report on September 16^th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. The results hint at ancient roots to social behavior that have been conserved across species.

Researchers at Lehigh University have received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to explore how biological computation could make artificial intelligence (AI) more energy-efficient and powerful. The team, led by Yevgeny Berdichevsky, associate professor of bioengineering and electrical and computer engineering, will study neurons within engineered brain organoids—three-dimensional structures grown from adult stem cells that resemble developing brain tissue. By arranging and stimulating neurons in controlled ways, the researchers aim to replicate how the brain processes dynamic information, such as moving images. The interdisciplinary project combines neuroscience, bioengineering, electrical engineering, and computer science to create a proof of concept for biological computation and to inspire new AI algorithms. The researchers will also assess the ethical, social, and legal considerations of using brain organoids in computation.

As modern communication and sensing systems demand ever higher speeds and efficiencies, integrated photonics has emerged as a critical enabling technology.