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  • After LA wildfire scare, Guillermo del Toro auctions part of horror collection – Reuters

    1. After LA wildfire scare, Guillermo del Toro auctions part of horror collection  Reuters
    2. Filmmaker Josh David Jordan Helped Guillermo Del Toro Save Prized Possessions  Dallas Observer
    3. Guillermo del Toro’s Auction: A Gothic Legacy On The Block  Devdiscourse
    4. Welcome to Bleak House: Inside Guillermo del Toro’s Storied Collection  Intelligent Collector
    5. Guillermo del Toro Sells His Gothic Collection  ArtDog Istanbul

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  • Apple’s latest iPhone security feature just made life more difficult for spyware makers

    Apple’s latest iPhone security feature just made life more difficult for spyware makers

    Buried in an ocean of flashy novelties announced by Apple this week, the tech giant also revealed new security technology for its latest iPhone 17 and iPhone Air devices. This new security technology was made specifically to fight against surveillance vendors and the types of vulnerabilities they rely on the most, according to Apple.

    The feature is called Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) and is designed to help stop memory corruption bugs, which are some of the most common vulnerabilities exploited by spyware developers and makers of phone forensic devices used by law enforcement. 

    “Known mercenary spyware chains used against iOS share a common denominator with those targeting Windows and Android: they exploit memory safety vulnerabilities, which are interchangeable, powerful, and exist throughout the industry,” Apple wrote in its blog post. 

    Cybersecurity experts, including people who make hacking tools and exploits for iPhones, tell TechCrunch that this new security technology could make Apple’s newest iPhones some of the most secure devices on the planet. The result is likely to make life harder for the companies that make spyware and zero-day exploits for planting spyware on a target’s phone or extracting data from them. 

    “The iPhone 17 is probably now the most secure computing environment on the planet that is still connected to the internet,” a security researcher, who has worked on developing and selling zero-days and other cyber capabilities to the U.S. government for years, told TechCrunch.

    The researcher told TechCrunch that MIE will raise the cost and time to develop their exploits for the latest iPhones, and consequently up their prices for paying customers.

    “This is a huge deal,” said the researcher, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive matters. “It’s not hack proof. But it’s the closest thing we have to hack proof. None of this will ever be 100% perfect. But it raises the stakes the most.”

    Contact Us

    Do you develop spyware or zero-day exploits and are studying studying the potential effects of Apple’s MIE? We would love to learn how this affects you. From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email. You also can contact TechCrunch via SecureDrop.

    Jiska Classen, a professor and researcher who studies iOS at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany, agreed that MIE will raise the cost of developing surveillance technologies.

    Classen said this is because some of the bugs and exploits that spyware companies and researchers have that currently work will stop working once the new iPhones are out and MIE is implemented. 

    “I could also imagine that for a certain time window some mercenary spyware vendors don’t have working exploits for the iPhone 17,” said Classen. 

    “This will make their life arguably infinitely more difficult,” said Patrick Wardle, a researcher who runs a startup that makes cybersecurity products specifically for Apple devices. “Of course that is said with the caveat that it’s always a cat-and-mouse game.”

    Wardle said people who are worried about getting hacked with spyware should upgrade to the new iPhones. 

    The experts TechCrunch spoke to said MIE will reduce the efficacy of both remote hacks, such as those launched with spyware like NSO Group’s Pegasus and Paragon’s Graphite. It will also help to protect against physical device hacks, such as those performed with phone unlocking hardware like Cellebrite or Graykey. 

    Taking on the “majority of exploits”

    Most modern devices, including the majority of iPhones today, run software written in programming languages that are prone to memory-related bugs, often called memory overflow or corruption bugs. When triggered, a memory bug can cause the contents of memory from one app to spill into other areas of a user’s device where it shouldn’t go.

    Memory-related bugs can allow malicious hackers to access and control parts of a device’s memory that they shouldn’t be permitted to. The access can be used to plant malicious code that’s capable of gaining broader access to a person’s data stored in the phone’s memory, and exfiltrating it over the phone’s internet connection.

    MIE aims to defend against these kinds of broad memory attacks by vastly reducing the attack surface in which memory vulnerabilities can be exploited.

    According to Halvar Flake, an expert in offensive cybersecurity, memory corruptions “are the vast majority of exploits.” 

    MIE is built on a technology called Memory Tagging Extension (MTE), originally developed by chipmaker Arm. In its blog post, Apple said over the past five years it worked with Arm to expand and improve the memory safety features into a product called Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension (EMTE).  

    MIE is Apple’s implementation of this new security technology, which takes advantage of Apple having complete control of its technology stack, from software to hardware, unlike many of its phone-making competitors.

    Google offers MTE for some Android devices; the security-focused GrapheneOS, a custom version of Android, also offers MTE. 

    But other experts say Apple’s MIE goes a step further. Flake said the Pixel 8 and GrapheneOS are “almost comparable,” but the new iPhones will be “the most secure mainstream” devices.

    MIE works by allocating each piece of a newer iPhone’s memory with a secret tag, effectively its own unique password. This means only apps with that secret tag can access the physical memory in the future. If the secret doesn’t match, the security protections kick in and block the request, the app will crash, and the event is logged.

    That crash and log is particularly significant since it’s more likely for spyware and zero-days to trigger a crash, making it easier for Apple and security researchers investigating attacks to spot them. 

    “A wrong step would lead to a crash and a potentially recoverable artifact for a defender,” said Matthias Frielingsdorf, the vice president of research at iVerify, a company that makes an app to protect smartphones from spyware. “Attackers already had an incentive to avoid memory corruption.”

    Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

    MIE will be on by default system wide, which means it will protect apps like Safari and iMessage, which can be entry points for spyware. But third-party apps will have to implement MIE on their own to improve protections for their users. Apple released a version of EMTE for developers to do that. 

    In other words, MIE is a huge step in the right direction, but it will take some time to see its impact, depending on how many developers implement it and how many people buy new iPhones. 

    Some attackers will inevitably still find a way.

    “MIE is a good thing and it might even be a big deal. It could significantly raise the cost for attackers and even force some of them out of the market,” said Frielingsdorf. “But there are going to be plenty of bad actors that can still find success and sustain their business.”

    “As long as there are buyers there will be sellers,” said Frielingsdorf.

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  • Astronomers finally find elusive, dust-shrouded supermassive black holes at ‘Cosmic Dawn’

    Astronomers finally find elusive, dust-shrouded supermassive black holes at ‘Cosmic Dawn’

    Using a powerful combination of the Subaru Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered seven supermassive black hole-powered quasars surrounded by veils of dust that existed when the universe was less than a billion years old.

    Supermassive black holes consuming vast amounts of matter and shining as bright quasars while being hidden in thick clouds of dust have long been suspected to exist at an early period in the 13.8 billion-year-old cosmos called “Cosmic Dawn,” but have proved frustratingly elusive.

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  • Scientists celebrate a decade of listening to black holes : NPR

    Scientists celebrate a decade of listening to black holes : NPR

    Researchers have spent 10 years improving the massive detectors they use to catch shockwaves from colliding black holes. Now the science is precise enough to test one of Stephen Hawking’s key ideas.



    JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

    Black holes are some of the most extreme mysterious objects in the universe. And when two black holes collide, shockwaves get sent out through the very fabric of space. This weekend, scientists are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first time they ever detected these waves. And as NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce reports, they’ve gotten so good at measuring them, they’ve just been able to test a key idea about black holes first proposed by physicist Stephen Hawking.

    NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: These waves are called gravitational waves. They’re like the ripples in a pond when you throw in a pebble. Max Isi is an astrophysicist at Columbia University. He says the waves move through everything – the Earth, even our own bodies – stretching and squeezing distances.

    MAX ISI: At one moment it makes me taller and thinner. The next moment it makes me shorter and fatter.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: This is imperceptible to us, of course. Isi says that Albert Einstein, who proposed the existence of these waves, thought they’d never be detected.

    ISI: Just because it sounded ludicrous. So I’m sure that if we told him that we are detecting gravitational waves from colliding black holes every two or three days or so, it would have been mind-blowing to him.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: Yet that is just what researchers have been doing in recent years, with two enormous detectors known as LIGO. One is in Washington state. The other is in Louisiana. These facilities send lasers down 2 1/2-mile tubes to detect the tiny squeeze and stretch that occurs when a gravitational wave rolls through. Their first detection was back on September 14, 2015. The waves came from two black holes that circled each other and then merged.

    Gabriela Gonzalez is a gravitational wave researcher with Louisiana State University. She says they initially expected LIGO would sense a bunch of extreme cosmic events other than black hole collisions.

    GABRIELA GONZALEZ: But since then, it’s almost the only thing we have seen.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: Hundreds of pairs of colliding black holes have been registered by the LIGO detectors. Katerina Chatziioannou is a physicist at Caltech. She says earlier this year, they logged the strongest signal to date – two black holes, each about 30 times the mass of the sun, merging together about 1.3 billion light-years from Earth.

    KATERINA CHATZIIOANNOU: It looks very similar to the black holes that created the first signal 10 years ago.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: What’s different now is that over the years, LIGO’s equipment has been upgraded and improved.

    CHATZIIOANNOU: Because the detectors are so much better today, we can record the signal so much more clearly.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: That let them test some major theories about black holes, like a famous prediction that Stephen Hawking made in 1971 about the area of a black hole.

    CHATZIIOANNOU: Which says that the event horizon of a black hole – the region beyond which nothing can escape from the black hole – only grows with time.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: This is exactly what they saw when they analyzed this particular burst of gravitational waves. Max Isi says, to him, it’s really striking.

    ISI: All of these ideas that people had thought up in the ’70s, thinking it was just idle speculation, now they are manifested in actual way that we see these things happening.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: Gravitational wave researchers have plans for the next 10 years. They want bigger and more powerful detectors, assuming they can get the money to build them. Funding for the existing detectors is currently under threat, with the Trump administration proposing steep cuts for 2026.

    Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

    Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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  • Scientists celebrate a decade of listening to black holes

    JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

    Black holes are some of the most extreme mysterious objects in the universe. And when two black holes collide, shockwaves get sent out through the very fabric of space. This weekend, scientists are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first time they ever detected these waves. And as NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce reports, they’ve gotten so good at measuring them, they’ve just been able to test a key idea about black holes first proposed by physicist Stephen Hawking.

    NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: These waves are called gravitational waves. They’re like the ripples in a pond when you throw in a pebble. Max Isi is an astrophysicist at Columbia University. He says the waves move through everything – the Earth, even our own bodies – stretching and squeezing distances.

    MAX ISI: At one moment it makes me taller and thinner. The next moment it makes me shorter and fatter.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: This is imperceptible to us, of course. Isi says that Albert Einstein, who proposed the existence of these waves, thought they’d never be detected.

    ISI: Just because it sounded ludicrous. So I’m sure that if we told him that we are detecting gravitational waves from colliding black holes every two or three days or so, it would have been mind-blowing to him.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: Yet that is just what researchers have been doing in recent years, with two enormous detectors known as LIGO. One is in Washington state. The other is in Louisiana. These facilities send lasers down 2 1/2-mile tubes to detect the tiny squeeze and stretch that occurs when a gravitational wave rolls through. Their first detection was back on September 14, 2015. The waves came from two black holes that circled each other and then merged.

    Gabriela Gonzalez is a gravitational wave researcher with Louisiana State University. She says they initially expected LIGO would sense a bunch of extreme cosmic events other than black hole collisions.

    GABRIELA GONZALEZ: But since then, it’s almost the only thing we have seen.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: Hundreds of pairs of colliding black holes have been registered by the LIGO detectors. Katerina Chatziioannou is a physicist at Caltech. She says earlier this year, they logged the strongest signal to date – two black holes, each about 30 times the mass of the sun, merging together about 1.3 billion light-years from Earth.

    KATERINA CHATZIIOANNOU: It looks very similar to the black holes that created the first signal 10 years ago.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: What’s different now is that over the years, LIGO’s equipment has been upgraded and improved.

    CHATZIIOANNOU: Because the detectors are so much better today, we can record the signal so much more clearly.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: That let them test some major theories about black holes, like a famous prediction that Stephen Hawking made in 1971 about the area of a black hole.

    CHATZIIOANNOU: Which says that the event horizon of a black hole – the region beyond which nothing can escape from the black hole – only grows with time.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: This is exactly what they saw when they analyzed this particular burst of gravitational waves. Max Isi says, to him, it’s really striking.

    ISI: All of these ideas that people had thought up in the ’70s, thinking it was just idle speculation, now they are manifested in actual way that we see these things happening.

    GREENFIELDBOYCE: Gravitational wave researchers have plans for the next 10 years. They want bigger and more powerful detectors, assuming they can get the money to build them. Funding for the existing detectors is currently under threat, with the Trump administration proposing steep cuts for 2026.

    Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

    NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.


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  • Child dies from complication of measles contracted years earlier

    Child dies from complication of measles contracted years earlier

    A school-age child has died from a rare complication of measles contracted in infancy, Los Angeles County health officials said Thursday.

    The child, who had been too young to be vaccinated when they were infected by the virus, died of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, according to the county health department. The incurable disorder causes progressive brain damage and is nearly universally fatal.

    About 1 in 10,000 people who get measles develops the disorder, but the risk is 1 in 600 for infants.

    “This case is a painful reminder of how dangerous measles can be, especially for our most vulnerable community members,” said Dr. Muntu Davis, Los Angeles County health officer. “Infants too young to be vaccinated rely on all of us to help protect them through community immunity.”

    This has been the worst year for measles in the U.S. in more than three decades, as childhood vaccination rates decline and domestic and international outbreaks have spread. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 1,454 cases as of Tuesday. Three people have died.

    The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is safe and is 97% effective at preventing measles after two doses. Doctors recommend kids get a shot at 12-15 months old and a second one at age 4-6 years.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


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  • Child dies of horrifying measles complication in Los Angeles

    Child dies of horrifying measles complication in Los Angeles

    A child in Los Angeles has died of a measles-related brain disorder stemming from an infection in infancy, the Los Angeles County health department reported Thursday.

    Specifically, the child died of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a rare, but always fatal complication that strikes years after an initial measles infection. The health department’s announcement offered few details about the child, including the child’s age, but said that the child had contracted the virus before they were old enough to be vaccinated against measles. The first of two recommended doses of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is given between 12 and 15 months.

    “This case is a painful reminder of how dangerous measles can be, especially for our most vulnerable community members,” Muntu Davis, a Los Angeles County health officer, said in a statement. “Infants too young to be vaccinated rely on all of us to help protect them through community immunity. Vaccination is not just about protecting yourself—it’s about protecting your family, your neighbors, and especially children who are too young to be vaccinated.”

    SSPE is caused by a persistent measles infection in the central nervous system. Children infected with the virus may go through the standard disease progression—flu-like symptoms, high fever, the telltale rash—and then appear to fully recover. But, for a small few, the virus remains and SSPE emerges years later, often seven to 10 years after the initial infection.

    The Los Angeles health department noted that SSPE generally affects about 1 in 10,000 people with measles, but the risk may be much higher—about 1 in 600—for those who get measles as infants, such as the child who recently died.

    With widespread vaccination, which led to measles being declared eliminated from the US in 2000, SSPE has virtually disappeared in the US. However, with vaccination rates slipping and anti-vaccine misinformation and views gripping the country, health experts fear seeing more of these devastating cases. Already, the US measles case count for the year is at a 33-year high, and two other children, as well as an adult, died from the acute infection this year.

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  • Passenger car sales surge 57pc in August

    Passenger car sales surge 57pc in August



    A representational image of cars parked in a queue. — Reuters/File

    KARACHI: Passenger car sales (PAMA members) in the country surged by 57 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in August 2025 compared to August 2024, according to data released on Thursday. Sales in August also showed a month-on-month (MoM) increase compared to July 2025.

    According to the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA), passenger car sales (PAMA member cars) rose by 57 per cent to 10,057 units in August 2025 compared to 6,417 units sold during the same month last year.

    For the cumulative two months of FY26, passenger car sales increased by 40 per cent, reaching 17,192 units compared to 12,274 units during the same period last year. Mashood Ali Khan, former chairperson of PAAPAM, said that after the budget, July and August sales were better than last year due to a decline in interest rates. “If the interest rate is further reduced to single digit, there would be a further increase in sales,” he said.

    According to PAMA data, August 2025 sales were 41 per cent higher than July 2025, when 7,135 units were sold. Sales of cars with engines 1,300cc and above were recorded at 4,928 units, a 48 per cent increase compared to 3,330 units last year. Sales of 1,000cc cars rose to 519 units compared to 321 units in the same month last year, while sales of cars below 1,000cc rose by 65 per cent to 4,569 units, up from 2,766 units last year. Dewan’s electric vehicle Honri-Ve recorded sales of 41 units in August.

    Sales of jeeps and pick-ups increased to 3,993 units from 2,282 units during the same period last year. Trucks and buses witnessed sales of 666 units, up from 300 units sold during the same month of the previous year. Meanwhile, tractor sales plunged to 996 units, compared to 2,670 units in August 2024.

    Sales of motorcycles and rickshaws increased by 42 per cent YoY and 19 per cent MoM totalling to 148,063 units in Aug 2025. This takes 2MFY26 sales to 273k units, a 44 per cent YoY rise.

    Khan said there was a challenge for the automotive part makers. “If used car import is opened, local models of Toyota, Suzuki and Honda will suffer, and pressure will mount on part manufacturers. They are puzzled in new investment,” he said. “As the government says used cars tenure will increase to five years from three years, it will take share from the local industry.”

    He said performance of Chinese players; Haval and Changan was good, but they do not have localisation. He said that Pakistan forex reserves were not sustainable for CBU imports while CKD imports were low. “We are taking loans from the IMF, and used cars imports are not in favour of forex reserves,” he said.

    He said there was an increase in motorcycles, which showed that lower middle class was focusing on buying motorcycles because of car affordability issues. He said that it was not guaranteed if the positive trend would continue for the next quarter or throughout the year.

    According to Myesha Sohail, an auto sector analyst at Topline Securities, despite floods the industry has recorded MoM growth, driven primarily by higher sales of Pak Suzuki Motor Company (PSMC).

    YoY growth is supported by a more stable macroeconomic environment, introduction of more variants, lower interest rates, easing inflation, and improving consumer sentiment. Company wise: PSMC posted the highest growth, with sales rising 96 per cent YoY and 94 per cent MoM. Alto volumes surged 2.1x YoY and 80 per cent MoM, with the MoM rise largely reflecting a low base as June sales were pulled forward ahead of the GST hike effective July 1, 2025. Suzuki Swift also recorded strong growth, up 2.7x YoY and 2.8x MoM to 1,473 units.

    Hyundai Nishat recorded 83 per cent YoY growth but a 1 per cent MoM decline to 1,212 units in Aug 2025, driven mainly by strong Tucson and Elantra sales.Indus Motor Company (INDU) posted 60 per cent YoY and 2 per cent MoM growth to 3,400 units. Honda Atlas Cars (HCAR) saw a decline, down 7 per cent YoY and 28 per cent MoM to 1,073 units.

    Sazgar Engineering (SAZEW) reported a 10 per cent YoY increase but a 3.0 per cent MoM fall to 1,049 units, which included sales of the newly launched HAVAL H6 PHEV variant in August.“We expect positive momentum to continue in auto sales in FY26 due to lower interest rates and pipeline of new models to be launched by companies across different engines ie hybrid, plugin hybrid etc,” she said.

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  • Paleontologists Identify New Species of Triassic Dinosaur

    Paleontologists Identify New Species of Triassic Dinosaur

    A large jaw of a predatory archosaur species from the latest Triassic of South Wales, named Zanclodon cambrensis, has long intrigued paleontologists. Could it be the oldest large theropod dinosaur? In a new study, paleontologists from the University of Bristol and the National Museum Cardiff reanalyzed the specimen based on a new 3D digital reconstruction. They confirmed first that it is indeed latest Triassic in age, most likely extracted from sandstones of the Cotham Member of the Lilstock Formation; anatomically the specimen shows features of theropod dinosaurs and likely represents a species of early neotheropod dinosaur, named Newtonsaurus cambrensis.

    The two separate blocks containing the jaw impression of Newtonsaurus cambrensis. Image credit: Evans et al., doi: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2025.101142.

    “This specimen has been referred to many times in scientific papers, but had yet to be successfully identified — we were not even sure whether it was dinosaur,” said Dr. Owain Evans, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol.

    “It was named Zanclodon cambrensis by Edwin Tully Newton in 1899, but we knew the name Zanclodon had been abandoned as referring to a broad variety of early reptiles.”

    “Therefore, we name it after Newton, calling it Newtonsaurus. It is different from all other dinosaurs from around that time, and requires a distinctive name.”

    Newtonsaurus cambrensis roamed our planet around 202 million years ago (latest Triassic period).

    The fossil was found at the locality of Stormy Down near Bridgend, Wales, the United Kingdom.

    The specimen is the natural mould of a left jaw, showing both the interior (housed at the National Museum of Wales) and exterior surfaces (housed at the British Geological Survey)

    “The natural moulds of the inner and outer faces of the jawbone show amazing detail — every groove, ridge, tooth, and even the serrations along the edges of the teeth,” said University of Bristol’s Professor Michael Benton.

    “We decided to use digital photography to make a 3D model.”

    “We began by surface scanning the fossil using photogrammetry.”

    “Once we had our digital scan, we then inverted it — essentially giving us a digital negative of the mould.”

    “It was then a simple case of fusing the two sides together and analyzing the anatomy from there.”

    “The digital reconstruction we have extracted from the specimen gives a much better idea of what the original structure of the bone would have looked like.”

    Now that the fossil could be studied, the team was able to use its anatomy to piece together its position in the reptile family tree — and most crucially — whether it was a dinosaur or not.

    “We can now confirm that this specimen very likely belonged to a large predatory theropod dinosaur, that roamed the shores of South Wales during the latest Triassic,” Dr. Evans said.

    “It has some definite unique dinosaur features in the emplacement of the teeth, and it is a theropod — a predatory, flesh-eating dinosaur.”

    “Otherwise, it sits near the origins of both major divisions of Theropoda, the Coelophysoidea and the Averostra.”

    “Most unexpected is the size of the animal. The preserved jawbone is 28 cm long, and that is just the front half, so originally the jawbone was 60 cm long, corresponding to a dinosaur with a body length of 5-7 m.”

    “This is unusually large for a Triassic theropod, most of which were half the size or smaller.”

    “These historical specimens are vitally important in paleontology and often yield new and exciting results — even if they have been sitting in collections for years,” said Dr. Cindy Howells, a paleontologist at the National Museum Cardiff.

    “The Victorians were fascinated by the fossil record and prospected all across the UK for fossils.”

    “On top of this, the re-description of Newtonsaurus cambrensis once again highlights the significance of Wales in paleontological research.”

    “These Triassic beds are rare worldwide, and yet there are several across Wales.”

    “There might very well be another dinosaur waiting to be discovered.”

    The findings were published online today in the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association.

    _____

    Owain Evans et al. Re-assessment of a large archosaur dentary from the Late Triassic of South Wales, United Kingdom. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, published online September 11, 2025; doi: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2025.101142

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  • Nasdaq Proposes to Raise the Bar for New and Existing Listings, Particularly Impacting Small Chinese IPOs | HUB

    Nasdaq Proposes to Raise the Bar for New and Existing Listings, Particularly Impacting Small Chinese IPOs | HUB

    On 3 September 2025, The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (Nasdaq) announced a series of proposed amendments to its listing initial and continued standards aimed at strengthening market integrity. These proposals are a response to increasing regulatory concerns, especially regarding thinly traded companies, as part of a broader effort to curb potential market manipulation and address risks associated with companies operating primarily in China.

    Key Proposed Amendments

    Increased Public Float Threshold

    Companies listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market (the lowest of the three Nasdaq tiers) under the net income standard must maintain a minimum Market Value of Unrestricted Publicly Held Shares (MVUPHS) of at least US$15 million compared to the current US$5 million threshold.

    Expedited Delisting Framework

    Companies whose listed securities fall below a US$5 million market value and fail to meet additional compliance requirements may face an accelerated suspension and delisting process.

    Heightened Standard for China-Based Companies

    Companies with principal operations in China would be required, regardless of the listing standard utilized, to raise at least US$25 million in initial public offering (IPO) proceeds to qualify for a new Nasdaq listing. 

    Regulatory Context

    Nasdaq has steadily tightened its listing standards in recent years. Since 2019, it has revised its liquidity criteria by excluding restricted securities from public float calculations and introducing minimum requirements for round-lot holders and trading volume. Most recently, in April 2025, Nasdaq updated its rules to require that market value thresholds be met solely through shares sold in a bona fide public offering, rather than through insider holdings, aiming to ensure sufficient liquidity at the time of listing.

    In addition, these latest proposals build on Nasdaq’s ongoing efforts to address risks associated with certain China-based companies. Recent episodes of extreme price volatility and suspected manipulative trading, which frequently involves microcap companies with operations primarily in China, have underscored Nasdaq’s growing concerns. According to Nasdaq, nearly 70% of its regulatory referrals since August 2022 have involved China-based companies, despite these companies accounting for less than 10% of Nasdaq’s total listings.

    Implications for Special-Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) and De-SPAC Transactions 

    To combat similar concerns regarding the US$25 million minimum raise for China-based companies, Nasdaq has proposed parallel requirements for companies listing through de-SPAC transactions. Post-combination entities would be required to have a minimum MVUPHS of no less than US$25 million, with such calculation expressly excluding any shares subject to resale restrictions, in order to ensure sufficient public float and market liquidity.

    Review and Approval Timing

    Nasdaq has submitted its proposed rule change to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission) for review and, if approved, is proposing to implement the changes to the initial listing requirements promptly. 

    If the new rules are adopted, companies in the process of applying for an initial Nasdaq listing would be granted a 30-day transition period to complete their applications under the current requirements. The new standards also will not apply retroactively. Accordingly, the roughly 95 Chinese companies listed on Nasdaq as of March 2025 that had IPO values below US$25 million at the time of effectiveness, according to data published by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, will not have their listing status voided or otherwise adversely affected. 

    For the accelerated suspension and delisting procedures, Nasdaq has proposed a 60-day transition period following Commission approval. According to data published by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, as of March 2025, there were approximately 20 Chinese companies with market capitalizations below US$5 million. These companies would be required to take substantial remedial actions to avoid suspension or delisting once the 60-day period lapses.

    Next Steps

    Companies contemplating an initial listing on Nasdaq, as well as SPAC sponsors and de-SPAC targets, should closely monitor the Commission’s review process and prepare for an accelerated implementation schedule if such amendments are approved.

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