Chinese researchers clone an Arctic wolf in 'landmark' conservation ...

Hong Kong CNN —

Researchers in China have cloned a wild Arctic wolf – and they’re hoping the controversial genetic technology can now be used to help save other species under threat as the world edges toward an extinction crisis.

On Monday, the Beijing-based company Sinogene Biotechnology unveiled the female wolf clone, named Maya by scientists, marking 100 days since she was born on June 10.

Maya, a grey-brown pup with a bushy tail, is in healthy condition, said the company. During a news conference, it showed videos of Maya playing and resting.

“After two years of painstaking efforts, the arctic wolf was cloned successfully. It is the first case of its kind in the world,” said Mi Jidong, the company’s general manager, at the news conference, according to Chinese state media.

The Arctic wolf, also known as the white wolf or polar wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to the High Arctic tundra, in Canada’s northern Arctic Archipelago. Its conservation status – the metric used to determine how close a species is to extinction – is considered low risk, since its Arctic habitat is remote enough to evade hunters, according to the World Wildlife Fund. But climate change is increasingly threatening its food supply, while human development like roads and pipelines are encroaching on its territory.

Sinogene launched its Arctic wolf cloning project in 2020, in collaboration with the polar theme park Harbin Polarland, it said in a statement posted on the Twitter-like platform Weibo.

To create Maya, the company used a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer – the same technique that was used to create the first-ever mammal clone, Dolly the sheep, in 1996.

First, they used a skin sample from the original Arctic wolf – also called Maya, introduced from Canada to Harbin Polarland – to retrieve “donor cells,” which are then injected into a female dog’s egg and carried by a surrogate mother.

The scientists were able to create 85 such embryos, which were transferred into the uteri of seven beagles – resulting in the birth of one healthy Arctic wolf, the newly cloned Maya, according to state media.

The company said in its Weibo post that a second cloned arctic wolf is expected to be born soon.

“Cloning technology provides a good entry point for the protection of endangered wild animals, which is a great contribution to the protection of biodiversity,” said He Zhenming, director of the Institute for Laboratory Animal Resources of China’s National Institute for Food and Drug Control, in the Weibo post.

He added that the successful cloning of Maya was a “landmark event, which is of great significance to the world’s wildlife protection and the restoration of endangered species,” according to the post.

Sinogene said it will also begin working with the Beijing Wildlife Park to research more cloning technology and applications, as well as conducting research on the conservation and breeding of rare and endangered animals in China.

The original Maya died of old age in 2021, according to Global Times. The cloned Maya is now living with her beagle surrogate mother, and will later be housed in Harbin Polarland, open to the public.

Extinction crisis

It’s not the first time cloning technology has been used by conservation scientists.

In Malaysia, where every Sumatran rhino has died, scientists are hoping to use frozen tissues and cells to give birth to new rhinos using surrogate mothers. And in late 2020, American scientists successfully cloned an endangered wild black-footed ferret, once thought to be globally extinct.

Other scientists are betting on gene editing technology instead – with one team in Australia trying to edit cells from a marsupial to recreate its close relative, the extinct Tasmanian tiger.

These efforts are growing as scientists around the world race to save endangered species, as the Earth nears what is widely considered to be its sixth mass extinction.

There have been five mass extinction events in history, each wiping out between 70% and 95% of the species of plants, animals and microorganisms. The most recent, 66 million years ago, saw dinosaurs disappear.

This sixth mass extinction would be unique, in that it’s being driven by humans – who have already wiped out hundreds of species through wildlife trade, pollution, habitat loss and the use of toxic substances.

A 2020 study found that about a third of all plants and animals could face extinction by 2070 – and things could get even worse if greenhouse gas emissions continue rising rapidly.

But many of these new conservation efforts have also courted controversy, with questions raised about the ethics and health implications of cloning and gene editing.

In Maya’s case, one scientist told the Global Times, more research is needed on whether cloning can cause potential health risks. There also needs to be more guidelines set to determine appropriate use of the technology, he added – such as only cloning extinct or highly endangered species.

Scientists successfully clone monkeys; could humans be next?

Malcolm Ritter

AP SCIENCE WRITER

NEW YORK – For the first time, researchers have used the cloning method that produced Dolly the sheep to create healthy monkeys, bringing science an important step closer to being able to do the same with humans.

Since Dolly’s birth in 1996, scientists have cloned nearly two dozen kinds of mammals, including dogs, cats, pigs, cows and polo ponies, and have also created human embryos with this method. But until now, they have been unable to make babies this way in primates, the category that includes monkeys, apes and people.

“The barrier of cloning primate species is now overcome,” declared Muming Poo of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai.

In a paper released Wednesday by the journal Cell, he and his colleagues announced that they successfully created two macaques. The female baby monkeys, about 7 and 8 weeks old, are named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua.

“It’s been a long road,” said one scientist who tried and failed to make monkeys and was not involved in the new research, Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health & Science University. “Finally, they did it.”

In principle, Poo said, the feat means humans can be cloned. But he said his team has no intention of doing that. Mainstream scientists generally oppose making human babies by cloning, and Poo said society would ban it for ethical reasons.

Instead, he said, the goal is to create lots of genetically identical monkeys for use in medical research, where they would be particularly valuable because they are more like humans than other lab animals such as mice or rats.

The process is still very inefficient – it took 127 eggs to get the two babies – and so far it has succeeded only by starting with a monkey fetus. The scientists failed to produce healthy babies from an adult monkey, though they are still trying and are awaiting the outcome of some pregnancies. Dolly caused a sensation because she was the first mammal cloned from an adult.

The procedure was technically challenging. Essentially, the Chinese scientists removed the DNA-containing nucleus from monkey eggs and replaced it with DNA from the monkey fetus. These reconstituted eggs grew and divided, finally becoming an early embryo, which was then placed into female monkeys to grow to birth.

The scientists implanted 79 embryos to produce the two babies. Still, the approach succeeded where others had failed. Poo said that was because of improvements in lab techniques and because researchers added two substances that helped reprogram the DNA from the fetus. That let the DNA abandon its job in the fetus, which involves things like helping to make collagen, and take on the new task of creating an entire monkey.

The Chinese researchers said cloning of fetal cells could be combined with gene editing techniques to produce large numbers of monkeys with certain genetic defects that cause disease in people. The animals could then be used to study such diseases and test treatments. The researchers said their initial targets will be Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Mitalipov, noting the Chinese failed to produce healthy babies from adult cells, said he suspects attempts to clone babies from a human adult would also fail. “I don’t think it would be advisable to anyone to even think about it,” he said.

Jose Cibelli, a scientist at Michigan State University, said it might be technically possible someday, but “criminal” to try now because of the suffering caused by the many lost pregnancies the process entails.

If the procedure became efficient enough in monkeys, he said, society could face “a big ethical dilemma” over whether to adapt it for humans. The key step of transferring DNA might be combined with gene editing to correct genetic disorders in embryos, allowing healthy babies to be born, he said.

Of course, the familiar image of human cloning involves making a copy of someone already born. That might be possible someday, but “I don’t think it should be pursued,” said researcher Dieter Egli of Columbia University. “I can’t think of a strong benefit.”

Henry Greely, a Stanford University law professor who specializes in the implications of biomedical technologies, said the strongest argument he can think of would be the desire of grieving parents to produce a genetic duplicate of a dead child. But he doubts that’s a compelling enough reason to undertake the extensive and costly effort needed to get such a procedure approved, at least for “decades and decades.”

Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, California, called it unethical to subject that new child to “the psychological and emotional risks of living under the shadow of its genetic predecessor.” Human cloning could also require many women to donate eggs and to serve as surrogates, she said.

At the moment, because of safety concerns, federal regulators in the U.S. would not allow making a human baby by cloning, and international scientific groups also oppose it, said biomedical ethics expert Insoo Hyun of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals condemned the monkey-cloning experiments.

“Cloning is a horror show: a waste of lives, time and money – and the suffering that such experiments cause is unimaginable,” PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo said in a statement.

How 'frozen zoos' could save dying species | CNN

CNN —

When Kurt Benirschke started collecting skin samples from rare and endangered animals in 1972, he didn’t have a firm plan on what to do with them. As a researcher at the University of California San Diego, he believed that one day the tools would be developed to use them to save those animals. A few years later, he moved his collection to San Diego Zoo, and called it the Frozen Zoo.

“Famously, there was a poster that hung above the Frozen Zoo with a quote that said, ‘You must collect things for reasons you don’t yet understand,’” says Oliver Ryder, a geneticist at San Diego Zoo and an early collaborator with Benirschke. “We felt that we were stewards of this growing collection that was going to have value to the future in ways we weren’t able to appreciate then.”

Benirschke passed away in 2018, but his efforts are very much alive. Today, the Frozen Zoo is the world’s largest animal cryobank, with samples from over 10,500 individual animals from 1,220 species.

For a long time, it was the only project of its kind; in recent years, however, similar conservation efforts have sprouted around the world, and the tools that Benirschke didn’t yet have are now available. At the same time, the clock is ticking for many species at risk.

Oliver Ryder is director of conservation genetics at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and a geneticist at the Frozen Zoo. Ken Bohn

‘An irreplaceable repository of very rare animals’

Since 1970, populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish have fallen by 68% on average, according to the WWF Living Planet Report 2020. The report also states that as a result of loss of habitat due to human activities, one million species – animals and plants – are threatened with extinction over the coming decades and centuries.

With the current rate of biodiversity loss, some scientists believe preserving samples from species that might not be here tomorrow is no longer a visionary endeavor, but a scientific must-do.

Related story: How honey is helping to save the spectacled bear

“As the effort built up, we realized that we were collecting an irreplaceable repository of very rare animals,” says Ryder. “Because we have cells in the Frozen Zoo, we can now apply new techniques and new technologies to extend our understanding, and learn more information that’s of direct relevance to preventing extinction in endangered species.”

Since the Frozen Zoo was founded, Ryder says, many milestones have been reached in the field of genetics, starting with the cloning of the first animal – a sheep named Dolly – in 1996. Starting in 2001, four endangered species have been cloned using genetic material from the Frozen Zoo: the Indian Gaur, a humpbacked Asian wild ox; the Banteng, a Southeast-Asian species of cattle; Przewalski’s horse, once found throughout Mongolia and extinct in the wild until recently; and the Black-footed ferret, which was believed to be extinct in the wild until it resurfaced in 1981, but was then almost wiped out by an epidemic.

In 2001, an Indian gaur was born, cloned using genetic material from the Frozen Zoo and gestated in a domestic cow. Adobe Stock

Genetic rescue

Although cloning isn’t perfect – the cloned Indian Gaur only survived for 48 hours – it’s a useful tool to help save endangered species, because it can increase genetic diversity. When the population of a species dwindles, the remaining animals are forced to inbreed and the genetic pool shrinks, further threatening survival. But the cloned Black-footed ferrets, for example, were born in 2020 from samples collected in 1988, which meant that their genetic profile was much more varied than the current population.

“In a species of animals, the genetic diversity is what gives it its resilience, its ability to bounce back from natural catastrophes, virus attacks, disease attacks. That’s because if there are more different types of genetics in a species, there is a higher chance that some will survive,” explains Brendon Noble, a professor of regenerative medicine at the University of Westminster in London and chair of the board at The Frozen Ark, a UK-based animal cryobank.

The Frozen Ark was founded in 2004, with a similar intent to the Frozen Zoo but with a different structure: rather than a single collection tied to one institution, it is a distributed network of over two dozen institutions such as zoos, museums and universities spread all over the world, each sharing its own collection and knowledge.

While the Frozen Ark has more samples than the Frozen Zoo – 48,000 from 5,500 species – about 90% of them are made up of DNA rather than live cells, which are used differently and must be stored at much lower temperatures.

DNA samples can’t be used to clone an animal but are essential to capture the genetic blueprint of species that might disappear. “That information can be used for a whole range of different scientific studies, from cancer research to understanding recovery processes such as limb regrowth,” says Lisa Yon, an associate professor of zoo and wildlife medicine at the University of Nottingham and a scientific advisor at the Frozen Ark. “By saving these resources we will allow not only current scientists, but future generations of scientists to make all kinds of new discoveries.”

At San Diego Frozen Zoo, samples are kept in cryotanks. "The collection is duplicated; periodically we take samples out and move them to another facility, so that all of the cells are not in one place," says Oliver Ryder. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

A cell by any other name

Freezing cells involves a more delicate process than with DNA, to avoid the formation of ice crystals when cells are frozen to -320 degrees Fahrenheit (-196 Celsius). Different cells require different freezing procedures, too; for example, amphibian cells are difficult to freeze properly and therefore are severely underrepresented in cryobanks. And some of the technologies that would make the best use of cell lines still need to be perfected.

Related story: ‘If we can make a space station fly, we can save the planet’

“A lot of stuff that we want to do we can’t do yet,” says Tullis Matson of Nature’s Safe, a UK-based cryobank that collects live cells and gametes (sperm and eggs). He predicts that in the next 10 to 30 years it will be possible to turn these cells into pluripotent stem cells, which can be reprogrammed to produce sperm and eggs.

Once that’s possible, an embryo could be created from the sperm and egg, and then implanted in a surrogate individual from an endangered species, once again providing much needed genetic diversity.

Tullis Matson founded Nature's Safe in November 2020. "It's a safety net," he says. Eva-Maira Broomer. ©Horse Power Creative and Nature's SAFE, 2020.

The technique also opens up the prospect of reviving fully extinct species – by using surrogates from the most genetically similar surviving animals. “We do have cells preserved from extinct species, but that’s not really the reason we do this,” says Ryder. “We’ve been asked to preserve cells from some of the last individuals in a species – or literally the last individual – and we do that, but we don’t really expect that we’re going to be able to bring species back from extinction from a single animal.”

The challenges ahead

The accelerating climate crisis will put ecosystems under further pressure, making the work of cryobanks even more important. “I see cryopreservation as the absolute cornerstone of conservation. We’re facing the sixth mass extinction as we speak, and we need to be able to give future generations a way of bringing these species back to life,” says Matson.

Many of the problems facing these projects are of a practical nature. “Safeguarding the Frozen Zoo far into the future is one of the biggest challenges,” says Frozen Zoo curator Marlys Houck. “We want to continue to collect more samples while ensuring that the ones we already have will be there beyond our lifetime. This includes making sure there is dedicated funding for liquid nitrogen [for freezing DNA] and replacement of the cryotanks as they age.”

Marlys Houck, curator of the Frozen Zoo, has been working to save the northern white rhino from extinction, and is planning to use southern white rhinos as surrogates for northern white rhino embryos. "There are many challenges ahead, but researchers are optimistic that a northern white rhino calf could be born from these processes within 10 to 20 years," she says. Ken Bohn

One of the main challenges will be convincing conservation agencies that cryobanking is a valid strategy and worth funding. “Many of us are doing this without any tangible support beyond donations or grants, with no national or government support,” says Yon. “Cryobanking is increasingly being recognized as a vital resource, so it’s a bit mystifying that there isn’t more funding support.”

Read: Meet the women racing to save the northern white rhino from extinction

Finally, all researchers agree that a tighter collaboration between all cryobanks is necessary to succeed. “The task is enormous, nobody can do this on their own,” says Matson. “There’s a million species at risk. We need 50 different genetic samples from each, so that means 50 million samples; for each of those, we need five vials for each sample, so that’s hundreds of millions of samples that need to be stored.”

Ryder says he’s working to develop a global network to bank the material that’s already been collected.

“If we had a conversation with the future, they would say, please save as much biodiversity as you can, now. Period,” he adds. “And they would say, do that by all means available.”

Forrest Gump, 'Lean On Me' top history this week

Jazzy Quick

pnj.com

July 5 - 11

%23ThrowbackThursday%3A This week in history

This week in history, from July 5 - 11, has had pivotal moments that influenced more than just Pensacola and Florida, but America and our current way of life.

Here is a brief snapshot of important U.S. historical events, from a Red Sox scandal to Elvis Presley's big break to the crash of Skylab to the first woman executed in America to the historic 1999 Women's World Cup win by the American team.

Information collected and reproduced from Pensapedia, History.com, smithsonianmag.com, and This Day in U.S. Military History.

JULY 5

1921 – The Red Sox are accused of throwing World Series, and after Judge Hugo Friend denies a motion to quash the indictments against the major league baseball players, a trial begins with jury selection. The Chicago White Sox players, including stars Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, and Eddie Cicotte, subsequently became known as the "Black Sox" after the scandal was revealed.

1954 – Elvis Presley records "That's All Right (Mama)."

1975 – Arthur Ashe defeats the heavily favored Jimmy Connors to become the first black man ever to win Wimbledon, the most coveted championship in tennis.

1996 – Dolly the sheep – the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell – is born at the Roslin Institute in Scotland.

JULY 6

1942 – In Nazi-occupied Holland, 13-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family are forced to take refuge in a secret sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse. The day before, Anne's older sister, Margot, had received a call-up notice to be deported to a Nazi "work camp."

1976 – In Annapolis, Maryland, the United States Naval Academy admits women for the first time in its history with the induction of 81 female midshipmen. In May 1980, Elizabeth Anne Rowe became the first woman member of the class to graduate. Four years later, Kristine Holderied became the first female midshipman to graduate at the top of her class.

1988– An explosion rips through an oil rig in the North Sea, killing 167 workers. It was the worst offshore oil rig disaster in history to that date.

1994 – The movie Forrest Gump opens in U.S. theaters. A huge box-office success, the film starred Tom Hanks in the title role of Forrest, a good-hearted man with a low I.Q. who winds up at the center of key cultural and historical events of the second half of the 20th century.

JULY 7

1865 – Mary Surratt is first woman executed by the U.S. federal government for her role as a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

1930 – Construction of the Hoover Dam begins. Over the next five years, a total of 21,000 men would work ceaselessly to produce what would be the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest man-made structures in the world.

1981 – President Ronald Reagan nominates Sandra Day O'Connor, an Arizona court of appeals judge, to be the first woman Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. On September 21, the Senate unanimously approved her appointment to the nation's highest court, and on September 25 she was sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger.

1995 – The space shuttle "Atlantis" landed at Cape Canaveral, Florida, bringing back American astronaut Norman Thagard, who'd spent three and a-half months aboard the Russian space station "Mir."

2000 – Eight weeks to the day after the fourth-generation NASCAR driver Adam Petty was killed during practice at the New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon, New Hampshire, the driver Kenny Irwin Jr. dies at the same speedway, near the exact same spot, after his car slams into the wall at 150 mph during a practice run.

2006 – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, an adventure film starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, opens in theaters across America. The movie, the second in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, was part of a multi-billion dollar Disney franchise that included theme park rides, video games and books.

JULY 8

1959 – Maj. Dale R. Ruis and Master Sgt. Chester M. Ovnand become the first Americans killed in the U.S. phase of the Vietnam War when guerrillas strike a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) compound in Bien Hoa, 20 miles northeast of Saigon.

1972 – Bill Withers stepped into a recording studio for the very first time at the age of 32, and two years later, he'd written and recorded one of the most beloved pop songs of the modern era: "Lean On Me," which began its first stay at #1 on the pop charts on this day in 1972.

JULY 9

1777 – New York elects Brigadier General George Clinton as the first governor of the independent state of New York. Clinton would go on to become New York's longest-serving governor, as well as the longest-serving governor in the United States, holding the post until 1795, and again from 1801 to 1804. In 1805, he was elected vice president of the United States, a position he held under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, until his death in 1812.

1918 – Two trains collide outside Nashville, Tennessee, killing 101 people. Despite the high death toll, the story was mainly ignored by the national press.

1992 – The space shuttle Columbia landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ending a two-week mission.

2006 – The Fiat 500 Club Italia, an organization formed in appreciation of the iconic car produced by the automaker Fiat, holds what the Guinness Book of World Records will call the world's largest parade of Fiat cars, between Villanova d'Albenga and Garlenda, Italy.

JULY 10

1763 – Colonel Augustine Prevost sails from Havana, Cuba with four ships and 350 men on their way to accept the transfer of Florida from Spain to Great Britain.

1925 – In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" begins with John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science teacher, is accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.

1962 – The communications satellite Telstar was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, beaming live television from Europe to the United States.

1999 – The U.S. women's soccer team defeats China to win their second Women's World Cup. The game ended in a 5-4 shootout after 120 scoreless minutes: 90 tightly played minutes of regulation dictated by the United States and 30 tense minutes of overtime largely controlled by the Chinese. The title game was played at the Rose Bowl in southern California in front of 90,185 fans, the largest crowd ever to attend a women's sporting event to that date.

JULY 11

1864 – A landing party from U.S.S. James L. Davis, Acting Master Griswold, destroyed Confederate salt works near Tampa, Florida. The works were capable of producing some 150 bushels of salt per day. On the 16th of July a similar raid near Tampa was carried out in which a salt work consisting of four boilers was destroyed.

1914 – In his major league debut, George Herman "Babe" Ruth pitches seven strong innings to lead the Boston Red Sox over the Cleveland Indians, 4-3.

1916 – In a ceremony at the White House, President Woodrow Wilson signs the Federal Aid Road Act. The law established a national policy of federal aid for highways.

1979 – Parts of Skylab, America's first space station, come crashing down on Australia and into the Indian Ocean five years after the last manned Skylab mission ended. No one was injured.

2010 – After a two-year manhunt, 19-year-old Colton Harris-Moore of Washington state is arrested following a high-speed boat chase in the Bahamas. Harris-Moore was suspected of stealing an airplane in Indiana and crash-landing it in the Bahamas the week before. Nicknamed the "Barefoot Bandit" for going shoeless during some of his alleged crimes, the teen was a suspect in scores of other burglaries in the United States and Canada, where he was accused of swiping everything from potato chips to credit cards, small planes, boats and cars. During his time as a fugitive, Harris-Moore gained a cult-like following online, with fans viewing him as a folk hero and praising his brazenness and his uncanny ability to elude law-enforcement officials.

Historic Photo Galleries:

Classic Blue Angels

Pre-1920s aerials

Palafox Street

Stem cell research fuels more debate on cloning

Karen Weintraub

Special for USA TODAY

A study published this week has reawakened debate over the government's need to regulate human cloning.

In a paper in the journal Cell Stem Cell, researchers took the nucleus of skin cells from 35 and 75 year old men, and produced cloned human embryos. From those they were able to generate embryonic stem cells, valued because they can then be teased into becoming any tissues the body might need.

The researchers are quick to point out that they would never try to implant that embryo in a woman. Instead, the cells will be used for research purposes with an eye toward developing medical therapies. The promise of stem cells has long been that they could be used to grow tissues the body needs to treat ailments ranging from Parkinson's to spinal cord injuries. Creating stem cells from a cloned embryo presumably would create tissues that wouldn't be rejected by the person who donated skin cells initially.

But advocacy groups on opposite ends of the political spectrum said Friday that the study is a reminder of the need for government to step in before someone tries to extend this technique to engineer a human clone.

Animal cloning has been possible since Dolly the sheep was born in 1996, but human cloning has long been considered nearly as impossible as it is unethical. The new paper, which builds on and confirms a study published last year using a similar technique, resolves technical hurdles along the path to human cloning.

"The science is no longer theoretical," said Jeremy Gruber, president of the Council for Responsible Genetics, a New York City-based bioethics organization. "We need to start putting laws into place to identify where the line should be drawn in terms of governance of these techniques."

Gruber's organization, along with the Berkeley, Calif.-based Center for Genetics and Society, both oppose the use of cloning for human reproduction, but support cloning for the purpose of creating embryonic stem cells to be used in research.

The Washington-based Family Research Council, a conservative think tank and lobbying group, opposes all cloning regardless of its purpose. A bill to that effect has been proposed by the current House, but not the Senate, said David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council.

The new study though not aimed at human cloning, makes it more likely that someone else will try to clone a baby, Prentice said. Allowing any cloning, even for research, "allows people to perfect that method so they have good embryonic clones that can be gestated to birth."

Several scientists dismissed that argument, saying that it remains impossible to clone a baby.

"That's just nonsense," said stem cell scientist Rudolf Jaenisch, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Whitehead Institute. Even in animals, cloning remains challenging, with most clones showing abnormalities and dying early; and human cloning would be far more difficult, he said.

The new paper is more important scientifically than practically, Jaenisch said. The study showed that scientists could reproduce work published last year by researchers in Oregon who used skin cells from a patient to create a cloned embryo and from the cloned embryos derived embryonic stem cells. The fact that cells can be turned into embryonic ones and then made into embryos has been published, Jaenisch said, but it's always useful in science to show that results can be repeated.

Embryonic stem cells created from clones are mainly useful for research purposes, said Robert Lanza, a co-author on the new paper and chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, a Massachusetts-based biotech company involved in stem cell research and regenerative medicine.

Creating stem cells in this way is too cumbersome to treat vast numbers of patients, he said. Instead, his company and other clinical researchers are looking to help patients through a non-cloning technique that derives stem cells from adult cells. That approach does not involve embryos, has not raised ethical questions and is expected to be far more practical, he said.

Lanza said he believes cloning should be allowed only for creating cells in a dish, not a person.

"The key is not to prevent millions of people from benefiting, but to put in appropriate safeguards so they are not abused," he said.

NASA mission to reveal first look at asteroid, then slam into it | CNN

A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

CNN —

Get ready to see an asteroid’s tiny moon for the first time. Then, watch as a spacecraft deliberately crashes into it.

This scenario sounds like a sci-fi plot, but the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test, happening Monday, is a real-life mission. It aims to be humanity’s first attempt at deflecting an asteroid – without blowing it up, “Armageddon” style.

The spacecraft won’t obliterate Dimorphos, the moon orbiting the asteroid Didymos, but it’s large enough to leave an impact crater. If all goes well, DART will slightly change the motion of a celestial body in space in a stunning first.

The mission results could shape the way humans respond to any future space rocks with the potential to collide with the planet. Despite this extraordinary event taking place 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) away from Earth, we’ll get to see it play out in real time.

Defying gravity

An illustration shows the DART spacecraft and LICIACube prior to impact at the Didymos system. Steve Gribben/Johns Hopkins APL/NASA

Monday’s encounter will reveal Dimorphos in striking detail.

In the last hour before impact, expected to occur at 7:14 p.m. ET, DART’s camera will send back images at a rate of one per second, providing a live stream of its approach. Pinpricks of light will slowly come into focus as Didymos and Dimorphos take shape.

The surface of Dimorphos will get sharper and sharper. And when DART slams into the moon at 13,421 miles per hour (21,600 kilometers per hour), our view will disappear.

Wish you could see the collision from another perspective? The Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube will act as DART’s photojournalist, following behind the spacecraft and capturing images and video that will show the whole story.

Dino-mite!

Fossil eggs are providing insight into what life was like for dinosaurs before a massive asteroid strike wiped them out.

Researchers studied more than 1,000 fossilized dinosaur eggs recovered from the Shanyang basin in central China. The eggs came from only two groups, the toothless oviraptors and duck-billed hadrosaurs, suggesting low biodiversity.

It’s possible that dinosaur species were already struggling to survive about 66 million years ago as their diversity waned.

Other researchers still think the asteroid strike was the true driver of dinosaur extinction, not to mention a series of massive volcanic eruptions – and they suggest that if those cataclysmic events hadn’t happened, dinosaurs might still rule the planet.

Curiosities

Arctic wolves at Harbin Polarland are shown in Harbin, China, on November 22, 2017. Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

Researchers in China have cloned a wild Arctic wolf. Sinogene Biotechnology unveiled the female wolf pup, named Maya, on Monday – and the Beijing-based company is hoping this method could save other species.

Wildlife conservationists consider the Arctic wolf, like the ones at Harbin Polarland in Harbin, China, pictured above, at low risk of extinction, but the climate crisis and human encroachment could change that.

To create Maya, scientists applied the same technique used in 1996 that led to Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. The wolf pup was born from a surrogate beagle mother.

But some experts warn about the health and ethical concerns of controversial conservation efforts like cloning.

Across the universe

The James Webb Space Telescope’s new image of Neptune has showcased the most distant planet in our solar system and its hard-to-detect rings in a fresh light.

Webb also focused its instruments on the blinding light of Mars, one of the brightest objects in our night sky.

And don’t count out NASA’s InSight mission just yet. Despite gloomy predictions that the stationary lander would already have fallen silent on Mars, InSight is still operating. Listen to the sounds of space rocks crashing into Mars, as recorded by the lander.

Wild kingdom

Our senses create order out of the world, help us survive and reveal some of the natural beauty that surrounds us. kev303/iStockphoto/Getty Images

Ever wondered what it might be like to experience the world as an animal?

Dogs socialize via scent, and eels discern their environment through electricity. Bats use echolocation to navigate.

All creatures live in their own “sensory bubble” called the umwelt, a species-specific reality that is crucial to their survival, according to award-winning science journalist Ed Yong.

You won’t want to miss this week’s episode of Chasing Life, a podcast hosted by CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He and Yong take you on a journey through the mysterious senses that exist in the animal kingdom.

And can you guess how many ants live on Earth? Scientists shared a new estimate this week, and it boggles the mind.

Take note

Don’t miss these highlights:

– The Artemis I mega moon rocket met all of its objectives during a crucial fueling test despite some leaks. But the rocket won’t launch Tuesday as planned due to concerns over Tropical Storm Ian.

– Cue the pumpkin spice and everything nice: Fall is finally here for those who live in the Northern Hemisphere. Drought might have an impact on the foliage colors, depending on where you live.

– Astronomers have uncovered more about the origin of a fast radio burst in space, along with new mysteries.

And keep an eye on the night sky because Jupiter will make its closest approach to Earth in 59 years on Monday, appearing bigger and brighter.


US officials prep big banks for potential Russian hacking as ...

Washington CNN —

Officials from multiple US agencies met Thursday with executives from big US banks to discuss how they might respond to Russian hacking threats as US officials warn that Russia could invade Ukraine at any time, five people briefed on the meeting told CNN.

The meeting — which covered how to defend against potential Russia-backed hacking attempts against US financial institutions should the Biden administration sanction Russian entities — shows how US officials continue to see cyberspace as a domain of risk so long as the Ukraine crisis drags on. It comes as other critical infrastructure sectors, such as electric utilities, are on alert for any Russian activity.

The meeting came as President Joe Biden and his top officials spent the day laying out dire warnings about the potential for a Russian invasion. With an estimated 150,000 Russian troops positioned around the Ukrainian border, it was a day that underscored palpable concern that the pathway to a diplomatic off-ramp was growing exceedingly narrow.

Biden said Friday that he was convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine, but emphasized that room for diplomacy remains.

The administration’s warnings have coincided with efforts to lay the groundwork for an array of sanctions the US and allies have promised would be deployed in the event of Russian military action.

Officials from the White House, Treasury Department, FBI and US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) attended the cybersecurity meeting Thursday, the people familiar with the meeting said. Executives from JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, which is the only US bank currently operating in Ukraine, were invited.

“We have good insight into Russian capabilities, or those of aligned actors, based on past actions, so we’ve approached this [process] with those in mind,” one US official told CNN.

US officials such as CISA Director Jen Easterly continue to say there are “no specific credible threats to the US homeland’ stemming from the Russian military’s surrounding Ukraine. But officials are also preaching vigilance and, as CNN reported Monday, asking private executives to lower their thresholds for reporting suspicious digital activity to the government.

As US officials keep a close eye for any Russian hacking activity on US networks, they moved quickly on Friday to blame Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency for a cyberattack that temporarily blocked access to the websites of Ukrainian banks this week.

The banking sector got a lesson in the cyber risks that can come with geopolitics in 2012 and 2013, when, following Western sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program, Iranian hackers overwhelmed the websites of dozens of US banks with phony traffic, costing tens of millions of dollars in lost business.

The experience has loomed large in the minds of cybersecurity executives at US financial institutions, which have strengthened their defenses in recent years. Experts consider the financial and electric sectors two of the more mature in its cyber defenses.

A Treasury spokesperson declined to comment on Thursday’s meeting. JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup declined to comment.

A senior administration official told CNN that the White House and federal agencies have been preparing since November for “any potential disruptions to our critical infrastructure and possible impacts to individuals and communities.”

‘Tabletop exercises’

The potential cyber threat has also featured in so-called “tabletop” exercises that have taken place inside the administration in recent months, as officials across the government have met to game out response possibilities that come with Russian escalation and potential invasion.

“We have created a process for agencies to quickly assess the impact of cyber [and] physical incidents and to inform the White House of the same,” the official added.

One tipping point that could trigger Russia-backed hacking against US organizations is if the Biden administration imposes the “swift and severe” sanctions that officials have been promising if Russia further invades Ukraine.

US officials have sought input on potential market effects of any new sanctions, which officials have suggested would go further than any package prior, with potential targets ranging from financial institutions and networks to export controls designed to impair critical Russian economic sectors reliant on American software and equipment.

As tensions in the last several days have ratcheted up to their highest level yet, the tempo of the work to plan for what may occur in the wake of sanctions being put into place, already at a high level, has also increased, one official said.

Grid regulator tells utilities to be at ‘highest possible level’ of preparedness

Federal officials and executives from key sectors like banking and energy have been keeping a close eye on any potential spillover effects from US-Russia tensions over Ukraine. Those preparations included an Energy Department briefing on the history of Russian cyber capabilities in December for America’s largest utilities, and a previous classified briefing from Treasury for big banks, CNN previously reported.

North American electric utilities should be at their “highest possible level” of preparedness for “potential Russia-linked cyber and disinformation activity” in light of US-Russia tensions over Ukraine, the North American grid regulator said in an advisory to the power sector this week obtained by CNN.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) – a not-for-profit regulatory authority backed by the US and Canadian governments – said it was unaware of a “specific, credible threat to the North American electricity industry from Russia [or associated threat actors].”

But the regulator said it was making a “proactive recommendation” for the electric industry to be vigilant for any anomalous cyber activity.

“During these heightened tensions, NERC recommends that entities adopt the highest possible security posture for their most critical system assets and have response, mitigation, and staffing plans in place for this escalating conflict,” NERC said.

NERC regularly tracks various cyber threats and communicates with utilities about them.

The electric sector has also in the last year deployed additional threat-detection tools on the more sensitive industrial control systems that help deliver power as part of a US government-backed initiative.

“If one of us gets punched in the face, all of us know about it,” said Robert M. Lee, CEO of industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos, of the greater visibility of threats in the sector.

US electric utilities and officials have also carefully studied cyberattacks in 2015 and 2016 that cut power in parts of Ukraine, and which the Justice Department later blamed on Russia’s GRU.

The Department of Energy and the Pentagon’s research arm have in recent years hosted a series of drills for US grid operators to drill for mock cyberattacks modeled after the Ukrainian incident.

Patrick C. Miller, the CEO and owner of Oregon-based Ampere Industrial Security, said the NERC alert was in that spirit of preparing for advanced cyberattacks.

The Ukraine cyberattacks in 2015 and 2016 “established the fact that power systems” are now fair game for adversaries, Miller told CNN.

Sean Lyngaas Phil Mattingly
Sean Lyngaas
Phil Mattingly

FBI investigates JPMorgan hack attack

Jon Swartz, Elizabeth Weise and Kevin Johnson

USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO – JPMorgan Chase and at least four other financial institutions were hacked recently in a series of coordinated attacks, a federal law enforcement official told USA TODAY.

The source, who was not authorized to comment publicly, said investigators believe Russian hackers were the source of the attacks. What is less clear is whether the attacks were prompted by U.S. sanctions against the Russian government.

The sophisticated cyberattack resulted in the loss of sensitive data, Bloomberg.com said, citing security experts.

Companies "of our size unfortunately experience cyberattacks nearly every day," JPMorgan spokeswoman Trish Wexler said in a statement without confirming the reports. "We have multiple layers of defense to counteract any threats and constantly monitor fraud levels."

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said the agency is "working with the United States Secret Service to determine the scope of recently reported cyber attacks against several American financial institutions."

Hackers broke into the networks of the banks, where they siphoned data, including account information. Several security firms are conducting digital forensics of the breached computer networks, The New York Times reported.

It remains unknown whether the digital intruders were financially motivated or part of an espionage campaign.

"The ability to overcome the typical financial defense-in-depth strategy outlined by JPMorgan points to capabilities that go beyond criminal activity and are in the realm of nation state capabilities," said security expert Phil Lieberman, CEO of Lieberman Software.

A report on The Wall Street Journal's website said particulars about the incident — when it began, whom it impacted and its potential costs — were unclear.

Though there's no indication the two are linked, computer security firm Proofpoint on Aug. 21 reported a large-scale computer attack campaign targeting JP Morgan Chase customers.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company reported multiple examples of a credential phishing campaign in which authentic-looking e-mails encouraged users to click a link to see a secure message from JP Morgan.

When they did, they were asked to enter their credentials. The Web page was hosted on a server in Moscow and installed a so-called Trojan-program onto their computer, allowing the attackers to compromise the user's computer

Proofpoint identified several other active campaigns that appeared to be run by the same attackers, each of which attempted to install the same Trojan software.

Contributing: Jessica Guynn

Officials warn 500 million financial records hacked

Erin Kelly

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Federal officials warned companies Monday that hackers have stolen more than 500 million financial records over the past 12 months, essentially breaking into banks without ever entering a building.

"We're in a day when a person can commit about 15,000 bank robberies sitting in their basement," said Robert Anderson, executive assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Cyber Response and Services Branch.

The U.S. financial sector is one of the most targeted in the world, FBI and Secret Service officials told business leaders at a cybersecurity event organized by the Financial Services Roundtable. The event came in the wake of mass hacking attacks against Target, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase and other financial institutions.

"You're going to be hacked," Joseph Demarest, assistant director of the FBI's cyberdivision, told the business leaders. "Have a plan."

Nearly 439 million records were stolen in the past six months, said Supervisory Special Agent Jason Truppi of the FBI. Nearly 519 million records were stolen in the past 12 months, he said.

About 35% of the thefts were from website breaches, 22% were from cyberespionage, 14% occurred at the point of sale when someone bought something at a retail store, and 9% came when someone swiped a credit or debit card, the FBI said.

About 110 million Americans — equivalent to about 50% of U.S. adults — have had their personal data exposed in some form in the past year, said Tim Pawlenty, president of the Financial Services Roundtable and the former governor of Minnesota.

About 80% of hacking victims in the business community didn't even realize they'd been hacked until they were told by government investigators, vendors or customers, according to a recent study by Verizon cited by Pawlenty.

Businesses need to reach out to the FBI and Secret Service for tips on how to protect their data before something happens, agents said. If a business is hacked, company officials need to contact government agents rather than trying to keep the attack quiet and deal with it internally, the FBI said. "No one is going to solve this problem on their own," said Supervisory Special Agent Thomas Grasso of the FBI. "This is something we all need to work together on."

FBI and Secret Service officials say they have taken down international hackers with the help of U.S. companies and international law enforcement allies overseas. Agents said many of the attacks against U.S. companies are done by cybercriminals in other nations.

One Romanian hacker was lured to Boston by Secret Service Special Agent Matt O'Neill, who used the Internet to pose as a woman and invite the cybercriminal on a trip to the USA to enjoy gambling and romance. "He was quite surprised that I was the one meeting him when he arrived," said O'Neill, who worked on the case for months.

The man was arrested and is serving seven years in a U.S. prison. Romanian authorities extradited one of his co-conspirators to the USA, reflecting stronger partnerships between U.S. law enforcement authorities and U.S. allies to catch hackers.

"Five years ago, we would have focused on whether the (hacker) was in the United States where we could get our hands on them," Grasso said. "Today, we're going to team up with our overseas law enforcement partners and go after them."

Congress could help by passing cybersecurity legislation to update surveillance laws and give federal agents greater authority to go after cybercriminals, Pawlenty said. The House has passed a bill that the Senate has not taken up. The Senate has taken a piecemeal approach, approving one bill that would make it easier for the Department of Homeland Security to hire cybersecurity experts.

"Our government and our businesses are in a daily fight against hackers," Pawlenty said. "It's getting increasingly concerning, and it needs to be met with action by Congress."

Phishing attempts look real, but there's always a giveaway.

When Chase bank e-mails you to warn of a fraud alert to your account, you pay attention.

But when your work e-mail is associated with a card you don't have, and when the return address isn't from Chase, it's so obvious a fraudulent e-mail that we laugh it off.

But it looked and felt real. So much so, I wanted to just quickly show it to you and flag it, to make sure you don't fall victim to this phishing attempt.

Remember, one click on the e-mail, and the hackers can take control of our digital lives. That's what happened to Hillary Clinton's campaign manager for the 2016 election that led to the hack of her e-mails. He got a bogus e-mail that looked like it was from Google, asking John Podesta to update his credentials in what's called a "spear-phishing" attack." One click, and Wikileaks got access to the campaign e-mails.

What to look for? Let us spell out the ways.

Learn more: Best credit cards of 2023

Bogus e-mail address

Admin@vagaro is not how Chase bank would sign an e-mail. That's your first giveaway. (Vagaro is actually a reservation type search engine for businesses, to help customers book appointments.)

Dear Customer

Banks address us by our name.

Your Card

The e-mail doesn't spell out the four last digits of your credit card number, because it doesn't have it. It would like to, though.

Phony charges

That you wouldn't recognize. Have you shopped at Top Up B.V. lately? Of course not. The hacker wants you to click the "No" button badly.

Yes and No

This is where the phishing attempt lives. Click No or Yes, and it's goodbye digital identity.

Safety!:Your 2020 checklist: 6 steps to a safer digital life

Kender:2020 is a great time to make these 5 easy New Year's tech resolutions

Below, take a look at an actual fraud alert from Chase (yup, I've gotten them, but not from successful phishing, just fraud at retail.)

Notice how I'm addressed by name, the bank uses the last four digits of my card (long since canceled.) and what you can't see in the e-mail is a long paragraph vouching for the validity of the e-mail.

"If you have concerns about the authenticity of this message, please visit chase.com/CustomerService for options on how to contact us, or call the phone number on the back of your credit card and reference the Chase Library Code."

Chase also offers a link to read more about suspicious e-mails, https://www.chase.com/digital/fraud-security. One big tip from Chase is to activate alerts, so can get texts as well as e-mails and double the odds that these are legit.

But before you click on anything, check the return address, please. And for double precaution, calling the bank with a response is surely your safest way of communicating.

Have questions about online safety? We're here to help. Reach out to me on Twitter, where I'm @jeffersongraham

Q and A: Get the lowest airfare

Kim Komando

Special for USA TODAY

Q. I want to use up some vacation time soon, but I don't want to spend a bundle on plane tickets. Do you have any advice?

A. Buy on the right day. Late Monday night and early Tuesday morning are often the time you'll see the best deals. You can also save big if you fly in the middle of the week, early in the morning or later at night. Of course, it helps to find tickets and buy only through the right sites. Click here for the sites I recommend along with more money-saving advice.

• Safe online banking

Q. After hearing about the JPMorgan Chase hack, I'm kind of paranoid about banking online. Am I just being silly?

A. No, a healthy dose of caution about doing anything online is a good thing. You just need to channel it into productive security measures. When you bank online, do it at home on a computer, network, and gadget you know is secure. In situations where you have to bank on the go, be to use your bank's app on a smartphone or tablet over a cellular connection.

• Amazon shopping tricks

Q. I went on Amazon to buy gift but it was out of stock. I don't want to keep checking back every day. Is there an easier way to know when it's available again?

A. Go back to the item page and next to the product's title click the "Email me" button. When it is back in stock, you'll get an email. Simple!

• Speed up an old PC

Q. My PC is beyond major league slow. Is there a trick to speeding it up or should I get a new one?

A. If your computer is more than four years old, consider getting a new one. But first, you can try speeding up the one you have. Use a program like Autoruns to weed out unneeded startup programs. This will help your system boot faster and run a bit smoother. See if your hard drive is full and what is filling it up with a program like WinDirStat. You can move large files to an external drive or delete them.

• Lock down Facebook

Q. I'm getting back on Facebook after being away for a year. I'm getting used to the new look, but I'm not sure what to make of the changes to the privacy settings. I don't want to change the wrong thing. What do I need to do?

A. Start with the most important setting. Log in to Facebook and in the upper-right corner click the padlock icon. Click "Who can see my stuff?" and then set "Who can see my future posts?" to "Friends." That will cover everything you post in the future. You can also use the "View As" link two items down to see what your profile looks like to the public. That way you can see what isn't private and change it. Of course, Facebook has plenty more privacy settings you'll want to tweak as well.

On the Kim Komando Show, the nation's largest weekend radio talk show, Kim takes calls and dispenses advice on today's digital lifestyle, from smartphones and tablets to online privacy and data hacks. For her daily tips, newsletters and more, visitwww.komando.com. E-mail her at techcomments@usatoday.com.

New cyberattack on banks 'very sophisticated'

Mike Snider and Kevin Johnson

USA TODAY

The cyberattacks on JPMorgan Chase and at least four other institutions were "very sophisticated" and were likely state-sponsored, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday.

The nation's largest bank said earlier in the day that it was working with the FBI and other authorities to determine the scope of a hacking attack that hit financial institutions. It said it is not seeing unusual fraud activity.

The other firms involved have not been identified.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the Intelligence Committee chairman who has been briefed on the attacks, described the intrusions on "multiple" financial institutions as "very sophisticated.''

The level of sophistication "takes a very special skill set," he said, and indicates that "clearly, either they were aided by or conducted by a state sponsor.''

While Rogers described Russia operators as among the "most capable,'' he declined to comment on the source of the attacks nor did he identify how many institutions were involved.

However, a federal law enforcement official, not authorized to comment publicly, told USA TODAY that at least four banks were hacked recently in a series of coordinated attacks that law enforcement officials believe were carried out by Russian hackers. It's unknown whether the Russian government played a role..

"This is a very real and dangerous threat and it's only going to get worse,'' Rogers said. "We've been admiring the advanced sophistication of these actions long enough. Now, it's time to do something about it."

The Financial Times reported on its website Thursday that it interviewed people familiar with the matter who say the attacks were focused on commercial banks. Wall Street investment banks including Goldman Sachs, which have been the targets of previous attempts to steal data or disrupt services, were unaffected, the FT's story said.

Although serious, those informed sources told the Financial Times that there was nothing to suggest that this new attack achieved anything of the magnitude of last year's data breach at Target, the retailer, which saw the theft of millions of cardholders' information.

However, some sensitive data was lost in the attack, Bloomberg.com said, citing unnamed security experts.

Sophisticated cyberattacks against financial institutions have become "an everyday occurrence" and are just another part of the cost of doing business today, said Alexander Southwell, a former computer crime prosecutor who is now co-chair of the information technology group at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, a Los Angeles-based law firm.

As a result, most banks are well-prepared. "The work of cybersecurity is often like 'Whac-A-Mole,' with new threats regularly emerging, followed by efforts to stop those threats, which then leads to threats emerging in different ways," Southwell said. "This attack may simply be another round in that 'game.' "

JPMorgan suggests that customers contact the bank if they detect any suspicious activity on their accounts. All of the bank's cards have full liability protection for consumers against fraud. "As we learn more, we will contact anyone we determine may have been impacted by this," bank spokesman Michael Fusco said.

It remains unknown whether the digital intruders were financially motivated or part of an espionage campaign.

"The ability to overcome the typical financial defense-in-depth strategy outlined by JPMorgan points to capabilities that go beyond criminal activity and are in the realm of nation-state capabilities," said security expert Phil Lieberman, CEO of Lieberman Software.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in the firm's 2013 annual report to shareholders that it has bolstered its cyberdefenses. This year, JPMorgan Chase will spend more than $250 million and devote about 1,000 people to cybersecurity, he said. The company is also building three regional state-of-the-art cybersecurity operations centers.

"We're making good progress on these and other efforts, but cyberattacks are growing every day in strength and velocity across the globe," Dimon said. "It is going to be a continual and likely never-ending battle to stay ahead of it — and, unfortunately, not every battle will be won."

JPMorgan Chase customers were targeted in a large-scale computer attack Aug. 21 reported by computer security firm Proofpoint, but there's no indication that this and the most recent attack are linked.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based data security firm reported multiple examples of a credential phishing campaign in which authentic-looking e-mails encouraged users to click a link to see a secure message from JPMorgan.

When they did, they were asked to enter their credentials. The Web page was hosted on a server in Moscow and installed a so-called Trojan-program onto their computer, allowing the attackers to compromise the user's computer.

Proofpoint identified several other active campaigns that appeared to be run by the same attackers, each of which attempted to install the same Trojan software.

Contributing: Jon Swartz, Elizabeth Weise and Jessica Guynn

Beware the 'pig butchering' crypto scam sweeping across America ...

New York CNN —

The FBI says America has a “pig butchering” problem. And it’s costing victims millions of dollars.

“We’re not talking about what’s going on at farms,” said Frank Fisher, public affairs specialist at the bureau’s Albuquerque division. “We’re talking about a cryptocurrency investment scam that is sweeping the country.”

The term pig butchering refers to an unsuspecting victim — the “pig” — being tricked by scammers into forking over money for a promised high rate of return.

Scammers “fatten up the pig by getting the victim to think that they’re investing in something and get them to move money into cryptocurrency,” says Santa Clara County, California, district attorney Jeff Rosen, whose office manages a multi-agency task force combating technology-related crimes.

Once criminals “fatten up” their victims’ digital wallets, they steal the money, Rosen says.

A simple and dangerous approach

Pig butchering operations typically begin with a rudimentary approach, Rosen tells CNN: Scammers blast out millions of unsolicited messages each day to unsuspecting victims via text message and social media, often with an innocuous note like, “Hi, how are you?”

The scammer operating under a false identity builds a relationship with the victim, sometimes over just a few weeks, before suggesting the victim “invest” in cryptocurrency.

One technique involves assuring a victim that the scammer has made significant profits in cryptocurrency, persuading the victim they shouldn’t miss out on the benefits of cryptocurrency investments.

Those who fall for the scam are coaxed into sending more and more money, and even provided with fictitious financial statements that make it appear their investments have made a substantial return.

“This is where the ‘fattening up of the pig’ comes in,” Rosen says. Eventually, “you become a little suspicious. You try contacting the person that contacted you online and ask for your money back. [But] that person has ghosted you.”

Beware the holidays

Rosen says the holiday season is an especially lucrative time for scammers as they often prey on people who may be feeling lonely.

And while the initial approach is uncomplicated, Rosen says the actual scamming operations his team has investigated — which typically operate overseas including in Cambodia and China — involve highly sophisticated methods.

“They’ve been trained by psychologists to try to figure out the best way to manipulate people,” he says. “You’re dealing with people that are going to use different psychological techniques to make you vulnerable and to get you interested in parting with your money.”

Experts say basic awareness and diligence are key to guarding against online predators.

“Be very careful when you go on social media and dating apps and somebody starts developing a relationship with you, and wants you to start investing,” says the FBI’s Fisher. “Don’t get butchered.”

‘Another dead ringer’

As shoppers spend billions online this holiday season, the FBI says it has also seen a rise in scams involving the mega-retailer Amazon. “Online criminals’ scams are only limited by their imagination, and they have an impeccable sense of timing,” says Fisher.

In one type of scam, “somebody calls you and purports to be from Amazon or another wholesaler distributor, and they say there’s a problem with your credit card,” Fisher adds. The scammer then asks for a new credit card number.

Another variation of the Amazon scam involves a criminal calling a potential victim and indicating a suspicious purchase has been flagged on the user’s account, which has resulted in the suspension of purchasing privileges. The victim is asked to make a payment via credit card right then to reinstate the account.

“Sometimes, they’ll even threaten to report you to law enforcement regarding your purchase,” Fisher says. “Another dead ringer. Do not fall for this scam.”

Amazon’s security team advises consumers that the company will never ask a customer for personal information, and users should not respond to emails requesting account data or personally identifiable details.

The company said in a statement that it has worked to remove thousands of online phishing websites and phone numbers associated with impersonation scams, and has referred suspected scammers to law enforcement agencies worldwide.

“Scammers who attempt to impersonate Amazon put consumers at risk,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of Selling Partner Services. “Although these scams take place outside our store, we will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on how to avoid scams.”

Targeting the elderly

The FBI says other types of scams on the rise this holiday season are largely aimed at defrauding senior citizens. “Scammers tend to focus on the elderly because they know they’re trusting, and they know older Americans usually have more money,” says Fisher.

In so-called sweepstakes scams, victims are contacted and congratulated for winning a sweepstakes prize, but they are told that they must first send money to cover taxes and processing fees that can be exorbitant.

Legitimate “sweepstakes will not do that,” says Fisher. “They will not make you pay in advance to collect your money.”

There were approximately 60 fake sweepstakes victims in New Mexico alone last year whose collective losses totaled $1 million, he says.

The FBI suggests people check in with elderly relatives and friends about their online habits and whether they may have been targeted by cyber criminals.

“If somebody has approached them and wants to be their friend and develop a relationship,” Fisher says, “ask questions.”

Lessons lead to high-paying city jobs

KEN MAMMARELLA

Special to The News Journal

WILMINGTON For the 20 students in Zip Code Wilmington’s first boot camp, the future looks something like this: for(int i =0; i < answer.length; i++){system.out.print ln (answer[i]);}.

It also looks like this: Start school at 6:30 a.m. Stay after 10 p.m. Show up on weekends, too.

And it looks like this: Wilmington is a place to learn, live, work and prosper.

“We want to bring energy downtown,” said head of school Anthony Pisapia. “Get an education, get work, get entertained. Part of the reason for the name is about the revitalization of the city.”

Zip Code Wilmington is a nonprofit, started in 2014 by school president Jim Stewart, and cousins Ben duPont and Porter Schutt. It trains software developers in Java, Javascript, .Net and AngularJS. The resultant skills can generate six-figure salaries – and apps to support businesses and improve life.

Or, in a lesson one random school day, software to identify the people you want around you when zombies attack. The topic sounds fictional, but the idea behind it is functional: Learn how to rank the properties and attributes of items in a list. Thinking about zombie fodder makes the project come alive.

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“It’s fun, and the coding is keeping my interest,” said student Wayne T. Hansen II, a former banker who had earlier blogged that “homework hurts the soul.”

Or as student Marzuwq Muhammad, a band manager who ran a freelance computer repair service for many years, put it, “Frustration is part of this. It’s all part of learning.”

They’re “so driven, so hungry,” Pisapia said of the inaugural class, selected from 132 applicants.

The founders tried but failed to lure a similar school to Wilmington. So they started their own, with Barclays, Capital One, Chatham Financial, Corporation Service Co., Hacker Rank, JPMorgan Chase among its partners, according to zipcodewilmington.com. It also has state funding and support. Another nonprofit, called Tech Impact, manages and operates the school.

The partners helped develop the curriculum so graduates would have the skills that these and other local businesses need. “We’re looking for their passion,” said Matt Ritz, of Chatham Financial.

“We wanted to do something to help Wilmington,” said Stewart. “We live in Wilmington. We care.” And they knew local firms needed coding experts.”

The DuPont Co. “had difficulty filling jobs. We were founded in the 1800s and discovered in the last 10 years that we’re a technology company,” DuPont said.

These jobs, according to figures on the school’s website, start at $55,000, and the school’s target is for $100,000 salaries for its graduates. “We’re going to find you a kick-ass job,” duPont told the students at a welcome reception. “And show the rest of Wilmington, Delaware, what’s possible.”

The first class includes students with computer-laden résumés. It also includes Joel Guevara, who learned about it because he was working as a carpenter in its Market Street building. Seth Young earned a living as an online poker player. Samantha Kraft was a Manayunk tobacconist when she met Tariq Hook, the school’s Java director. But dig deeper, and you’ll find tech skills for them, too.

Zip Code is a 12-week boot camp, as contrasted to a lengthy college curriculum.

“In three months here, you can get what might take six years in college,” said Young, a Newark resident.

Student Sean Strauss of Pike Creek is familiar with the intensity of boot camp, from one where he lost 60 pounds. “You buckle down and make things happen,” he said. “You jump in.”

The classroom is an open space, with six sets of tables in two rows, although the students will often wheel their chairs into different configurations – in arcs around the instructor or in small, informal groups to help each other. Or maybe they’ll work from the floor, with their MacBooks on their laps.

Offices, meeting rooms (with only one bean bag so far), a room with cubbies for all their backpacks and a lunchroom providing at least nine pots of coffee a day flank the classroom space.

Mastering these programming languages is not intuitive. “I’m passionate about things that are not widely understood,” said Luke Bonilla, a Pike Creek resident who was a preservation and operations specialist at Apple for three years. “And coding is like that. It’s like poetry, too.”

“You need to have your “aha” moment before it makes sense,” said Strauss, a magazine editor. “Like when Neo starting seeing the Matrix.” That sci-fi observation aside, he offered this real-world assessment: The school is “an amazing initiative. It will change my life.”

They help each other , too. So when Kelsey Murphy, a sales and settlement coordinator for Schell Brothers, said that she understands how a program works but not how to create it on her own, a classmate explained. Such camaraderie is why they come in early, stay late and ask for “side project Saturdays.” In the first, they worked on a currency converter for dollars, gold and bitcoins.

“They’re more engaged with ownership,” Hook said. “They build what they find useful.”

Murphy, who plans on returning to a Rehoboth Beach homebuilder in an enhanced role, is one of four female students. “We don’t have a lot of mentors. You have to take it on yourself,” she said of the tech industry’s male domination. “It’s intimidating and exciting. You’re creating your own path.”

The boot camp costs $12,000, payable in cash or as $2,000, plus a 26-week paid apprenticeship, for those who qualify.

“Coding boot camps didn’t even exist four years ago,” Bloomberg BusinessWeek wrote in May, but there are now more than 80, and they graduated more than 6,000 students in 2014. Six months after graduation, “59 percent report a salary increase, averaging $23,000.”

Stewart said Zip Code Wilmington’s goal is to graduate 100 students a year, and it is considering a summer camp and customized training for local companies.

Students in the first class range in age from Evan Thomas Maron, a 22-year-old Delaware College of Art and Design graduate who has just moved back to Wilmington, to Middletown business consultant Paul Watson, 47. They’re approaching it from differing life experiences. Maron hopes he can figure out how make more efficient the thousands of drawings needed for quality animation. Watson, recognizing how his business has evolved, hopes to make a good living in a new career.

“Coding is the wave of the future,” said student James Eyre of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, who has two college degrees and a background in bioinformatics. “Computers are everywhere. And we need people to process information that’s coming at us every day and get what want.”

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A social media storm kicked up this month as Chase banking customers panicked when it seemed as if money vanished from their bank accounts.

Some consumers who expected to be paid via direct deposit claimed during the weekend Twitterstorm that they still had not seen the money yet.

Oddly enough, some other consumers reported on social media that they were spotting an extra $2,500 or so in their Chase bank accounts – money that didn't belong to them.

Chase's response on Twitter was: "We know some customers (are) reporting seeing incorrect balances in their checking account overnight. This was caused by a technical issue that delayed updates on what displayed on Chase Mobile & Chase Online. We resolved this issue as of 9AM ET and accounts now show current balances."

Carlene Lule, a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase, said the technical problem delayed the bank for several hours from posting updated information that consumers could see online or via their mobile app.

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"There’s nothing consumers need to do," Lule said Monday. "As always, customers can email or call us if they see transactions on their accounts they don’t recognize."

Chase, the country's largest bank, did not give any specific details relating the the glitch, leaving many wondering just what did happen.

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Though the incident may be a short-lived snag, consumers cannot afford to be too complacent these days when it comes to bank security.

The coronavirus pandemic has made Americans increasingly reliant on handling their bank accounts online and via mobile apps. We're using mobile apps for everything from cashing checks to transferring money to someone else to splitting a check at dinner or paying a bill.

Amid stay-at-home orders nationwide, many bank branches didn't allow walk-up traffic and were available to customers only by appointment. So mobile banking is a welcome alternative and may continue to be one for some time.

Mobile banking is attracting many novice customers now, too, and they might not be familiar with some scams.

"Studies of U.S. financial data indicate a 50% surge in mobile banking since the beginning of 2020," according to an FBI alert about cybercrime.

Yet the FBI is warning that we've got to watch out for:

Fake banking apps

Bad actors are designing apps that impersonate the real apps of real banks. The goal is to trick you into entering your login credentials.

"These apps provide an error message after the attempted login," the FBI warned.

The fake app later will use smartphone permission requests to obtain and bypass security codes texted to users.

"U.S. security research organizations report that in 2018, nearly 65,000 fake apps were detected on major app stores, making this one of the fastest growing sectors of smartphone-based fraud," the FBI said.

Phishing attacks

Not surprisingly, hackers are out to steal your banking credentials through sophisticated phishing attacks as more people work from home amid the pandemic.

And frankly, there may be more money to steal as Economic Impact Payments began steadily arriving in bank accounts since April. Even jobless benefits can become a target because they have provided a flow of cash when state benefits are combined with a $600 extra weekly payment from the federal government.

"We're seeing fraudsters trying to take advantage of the fear and uncertainty surrounding the pandemic," said Paul Benda, senior vice president of risk and cybersecurity policy at the American Bankers Association.

Benda would expect phishing attempts designed to harvest bank account information to heat up further if Congress approves a second round of stimulus checks.

"Any time there's a lot of money flowing from one place to another, the fraudsters try to intercept it," he said.

In general, con artists might attempt to send you an email claiming that a bank rejected depositing your stimulus payment, and the email could suggest you need to click on a link to fix the problem.

If you click on the link, of course, you're possibly downloading malware or being directed to a malicious website.

If you go to one of these fake sites and input your account number and password, the criminal has it now and can log in on the legitimate site.

Phishing campaigns in the past have even spoofed the login pages of some Canadian banks. Phony sites could trick customers into entering a username and password to help a criminal access a bank account and steal money from it.

Banks and others are trying to detect fraud early on, as well.

In 2018, banks stopped $22.3 billion in fraud attempts, according to the American Bankers Association’s 2019 Deposit Account Fraud Survey report. The industry group said banks’ prevention measures stopped nearly $9 out of every $10 of attempted fraud.

Even so, it's up to the consumer to be skeptical and try to spot any trouble, too. Sometimes, you need to pay extra attention to your bank statements, especially when fraudulent activity is seeing an increase.

Consumers need to use a two-factor authentication when they access banking via an app to secure accounts against compromise, the FBI said.

What you don't want to do is act in haste if you get an email that seems to be alerting you to trouble. The con artists will always engineer a way to make you act quickly before you might suspect fraud.

So a phishing email might suggest that it's urgent that you act now if you want to avoid being locked out of your bank account. Again, don't click on any links or call any phone numbers listed in that email. Call your bank directly to see if there is a problem.

And review your bank statements regularly.

Bank of America, for example, has sent notices in the past month to some of its customers that stressed that it's the customer's responsibility to examine their statements "carefully and promptly." Customers need to raise questions when necessary about any errors with electronic transactions or withdrawals.

"You are in the best position to discover errors and unauthorized transactions on your account."

According to federal regulations, customers must notify banks in writing of suspected problems or unauthorized transactions within specific timeframes in order to be fully protected against losses. You'd need to check your deposit agreement for a specific time to report problems.

When it comes to errors involving your debit card or other electronic transactions such as a direct deposit, under the law you must dispute an error within 60 days of the first bank statement that shows the error.

"You may raise the dispute either in writing or orally, but the bank can ask that you send a written confirmation of the dispute within 10 days of an oral dispute. It may be a good idea to submit a dispute in writing so that you have a record of it," according to the National Consumer Law Center.

Scams, no doubt, will keep spreading in light of all the stress that consumers face in the COVID-19 era. Increasingly, you've got to keep an eye on your bank account too.

ContactSusan Tompor atstompor@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter@tompor. Read more on business and sign up for our business newsletter.