China’s Ministry of State Security has accused foreign intelligence agencies of using fish, turtles, and other large sea animals for maritime surveillance. The ministry claimed unnamed countries have attached sensors to living marine creatures and trained them to swim into targeted waters, where they collect information on temperature, salinity, and currents. Chinese officials also said they have found buoys and a wave glider designed to monitor vessel movements. The government has urged fishermen to watch for suspicious devices and has previously offered rewards of up to $73,000 for turning in alleged maritime spy equipment.
True Spies
Celebrity Spies
How does a famous writer work as a secret courier?
By the early 1950s, Graham Greene was already known for novels, journalism, and a taste for dangerous places. He had officially left MI6 in 1944, but his ties to British intelligence did not disappear. Between writing assignments and foreign reporting, Greene continued to move through the world of covert work.
His path to intelligence ran through family connections, wartime service, and his own appetite for risk. During World War II, MI6 sent him to Sierra Leone, where he monitored shipping and watched for spies. Back in London, he worked on intelligence material linked to Spain and Portugal, while his circle included figures later implicated in the Cambridge spy scandal.
Vietnam became one of Greene’s most dangerous postings. Under cover as a journalist, he traveled through a region where French control was collapsing, and communist forces under Ho Chi Minh were gaining strength. British intelligence wanted to know whether an alternative leadership could emerge, and Greene was sent into that uncertainty.
His mission eventually took him north for a mysterious meeting with Ho Chi Minh. Greene delivered a letter, drank tea, and later refused to reveal what was said.
Join biographer Richard Greene in this week’s podcast selection, ‘Celebrity Spies’, as he follows Graham into Cold War Vietnam and the blurred world of fame, fiction, and espionage.
Take on immersive games and challenges at SPYGAMES! Test your team's skills and strategy, compete to climb the leaderboards, and recharge with food and drink in your own private space hosted by a dedicated staff member.
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Take on immersive games and challenges at SPYGAMES! Test your team's skills and strategy, compete to climb the leaderboards, and recharge with food and drink in your own private space hosted by a dedicated staff member.
Can the brain get some sleep benefits while awake?
Researchers have found a way to give sleep-deprived mice some of the memory benefits usually linked to rest, without letting them fully fall asleep. The study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, suggests that, for certain kinds of memory maintenance, the brain’s activity pattern may matter more than whether the animal is conscious.
The work focused on non-REM sleep, the stage that helps the brain refine memories by reinforcing important connections and dialing down weaker ones. To imitate part of that process, researchers used pulses of light to control selected neurons in tired mice for 30-minute sessions, recreating a rhythm normally seen during sleep.
The treated mice then performed on memory tasks about as well as mice that had been allowed to rest. That result points to a specific neural pattern as a key part of the brain’s overnight repair work.
Quirky
Rewinding Cells
Can aging cells be nudged back in time?
Biotechnology company Life Biosciences announced that a human patient has received a cellular reprogramming injection for the first time. The experimental treatment is being tested in people with glaucoma or non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, two conditions that can damage vision.
The therapy aims to make cells behave more like their younger selves. Instead of turning them all the way back into stem cells, the process is designed to partly reset them, potentially making tissue more resistant to disease.
Life Biosciences has used the method in monkeys and mice, including experiments involving age-related blindness. But the first human trial comes with careful monitoring. Two of the four proteins involved in the process have raised safety concerns because of their potential to divide too aggressively.
Host your birthday at SPYSCAPE or SPYGAMES.
Give your party guests an unforgettable experience designed to engage, entertain, and inspire. Our dedicated staff will be on hand to help, and you'll even get your own private space to celebrate.
Host your birthday at SPYSCAPE or SPYGAMES.
Give your party guests an unforgettable experience designed to engage, entertain, and inspire. Our dedicated staff will be on hand to help, and you'll even get your own private space to celebrate.
Bumblebees may be capable of more flexible thinking than their brain size suggests. A recent study, published in the journal Science, found that the insects can solve a problem without being shown each step, making them the first non-vertebrates to pass a test compared to a classic chimpanzee experiment.
That earlier test dates back to the 1910s, when German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler placed a banana out of reach of a chimpanzee and left boxes nearby. The chimp eventually worked out that stacking the boxes could bring the fruit within reach. Since then, other animals, including elephants and birds, have shown similar signs of insight learning.
In the new experiment, researchers first taught bumblebees that a blue flower meant a reward and that a Styrofoam ball posed no threat. The bees then faced a setup where moving the ball helped them reach the treat. Several bumblebees managed the task, suggesting they could connect what they had learned and apply it to a new problem. The bee is now the smallest-brained animal to have passed this test.
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