Many people turn to companies like 23andMe to learn about ancestry and ethnicity, but the genetic connection is far more complicated than the industry lets on. It’s always a mess when Latinx folks take DNA tests. Things go alright, until we get to the “ancestry” portion, which some commercial genetic tests label as “ethnicity.” People who identify as Latinx claim ancestry from all over: indigenous Americans, Spanish colonists, enslaved Africans, Middle Eastern people, miscellaneous Europeans, and even Asians. This can lead to unexpected DNA results. My grandfather is Mexican, but fair-haired and blue-eyed (we sometimes call people who look like…

Researchers have developed the world's first 'uncrackable' security system to protect communications against cyber attacks, it has emerged. A team at the University of St Andrews along with international partners are believed to have achieved 'perfect secrecy' with the new technology, which stops the threat of quantum computers being used to hack into data. The proposed new system uses silicon chips that contain complex structures that are irreversibly changed to send information in a one-time key that can never be recreated nor intercepted by an attacker. The information is stored as light, then passed through the silicon chip containing complex…