Plus: How Iran picks its supreme leader; shootings at houses of worship
| | | | Top headlines Lead story Commercial ships in the Persian Gulf region have been attacked with missiles and drones in the current U.S. and Israeli war against Iran. They also face an unseen threat: cyberattacks in the form of GPS spoofing. These attacks cause a ship's crew – and the crews of other ships in the area – to believe that the ship is somewhere it isn't. This raises the risk of ships colliding, running aground or sailing into combat zones. GPS spoofing has led to ships running aground and is a growing problem, especially in conflict zones such as the Black Sea, where Russian and Ukrainian forces use the tactic to thwart each other. But while navies have the training, experience and resources to deal with GPS spoofing, commercial fleets don't. Georgia Tech Ph.D. candidate Anna Raymaker explains how GPS spoofing works and describes research that she and her colleagues conducted on an underappreciated aspect of the problem: cybersecurity training for commercial mariners. To see the latest from our ongoing coverage of the Iran war, click here. [How faith and religion drive the world. Sign up for our weekly newsletter, This Week in Religion.] |  | Eric Smalley Science + Technology Editor | |  Cyberattacks like GPS spoofing threaten oil supertankers and cargo ships at sea. Ping Shu/Moment via Getty Images Anna Raymaker, Georgia Institute of Technology In addition to watching out for missile and drone attacks, mariners in conflict zones need to be on guard for GPS spoofing and other cyberattacks. The stakes are high and mariners are ill-prepared. | International | -
Eric Lob, Florida International University Although the supreme leader assumes the majority of power, Iran's regime consists of a network of governing bodies. | | Ethics + Religion | -
James Densley, Metropolitan State University ; Jillian Peterson, Hamline University Tragedies like the Sept. 28, 2025, shooting at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Michigan are part of a longer pattern. -
Hosffman Ospino, Boston College; Timothy Matovina, University of Notre Dame Young Latinos' activism for immigrant rights ove the past few months has put a spotlight on their importance for the future of the Catholic Church. | | Politics + Society | -
Itay Ravid, Villanova University Black children who go missing are often labeled as runaways, which excludes them from the Amber Alert system. | | Environment + Energy | -
Coalter G Lathrop, Duke University There's a growing interest in mining the ocean seabed for minerals essential to technology. But whose minerals are they? A Law of the Sea scholar explains. -
Ahmed Ibrahim Yunus, Georgia Institute of Technology; Joe Frank Bozeman III, Georgia Institute of Technology Rather than generating climate-warming emissions and wasting nutrients and energy, food waste can become a resource if processed in sewage treatment plants. | | Science + Technology | -
Darrell Evans, Purdue University Surveys have found that researchers studying UAPs can face pushback from mentors and colleagues, even from people who think it's an important line of research. -
Jose Abisambra, University of Florida People typically die from progressive supranuclear palsy within 7 to 10 years. There is currently no specialized treatment or effective screening for this neurodegenerative disease. | | Education | -
Amaarah DeCuir, American University The war on terror is among the Middle East conflicts that sparked a rise of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discriminatory incidents in the US. | | Arts + Culture | -
Holly Willis, University of Southern California AI tools can now generate movie scenes, resurrect lost footage and replace entry-level jobs – forcing Hollywood to rethink creativity, labor and authorship. -
Katherine Moses, University of Mississippi While rationalizing deception is easy to do, developing the virtue of truthfulness is not. | | Podcast 🎙️ | -
Gemma Ware, The Conversation Climate scientist Philippe Ciais speaks to The Conversation Weekly podcast about new research explaining why global levels of methane spiked during the pandemic. | | | | The Conversation News Quiz 🧠 | -
Fritz Holznagel, The Conversation Here's the first question of this week's edition: The wartime closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent fuel prices soaring. A lengthy closure of the strait could also create global shortages of what unexpected item? - A. Lipstick
- B. Bananas
- C. Ladders
- D. Silkworms
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