DALLAS (SMU)–The coronavirus pandemic isn’t just a serious threat to people’s health. It’s also giving cybercriminals the perfect opportunity to access your computer and potentially steal sensitive information, warns an SMU cybersecurity expert.
Mitch Thornton, executive director of the Deason Institute for Cyber Security in SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering, said there are a number of factors that make cybersecurity especially important during this virus pandemic.
“People are going to be spending more time on the Internet because many of us have been asked to do work from home to keep the virus from spreading,” he said.
That means more opportunities for people to download dangerous software that was created by hackers, whether by fake emails that look like they came from work or by bogus ads for online shopping, Thornton said. Employees may also be less familiar with the online software that allow them to communicate with their co-workers from home, increasing the chances they may be tricked by a hacker.
“People are also going to be interested in reading about the virus, learning about new advances and monitoring where the new cases are happening,” Thornton said. “So the adversaries are likely going to be targeting web pages and emails that offer that kind of content.”
For instance, he said, sending very sensational and possibly untrue new stories can be used to get people’s attention, distract them and prompt them to click on malicious links more quickly. “Imposter emails from authorities and medical personnel will likely also be more prevalent,” Thornton said.
Additionally, several coronavirus-related schemes have emerged to trick the public into downloading software they shouldn’t. But Thornton said there are ways you can keep your computer safe:
When you look for information online about the coronavirus, be sure that the sources are trusted. And be on the lookout for websites and emails that are designed to look like legitimate sources but are actually malicious. For example, a website may use a name, look or feel of a legitimate government agency, but have one letter off or a different color from the real website.
Avoid giving personal information online unless you are very familiar with the website. Hackers may try to get your information by creating fake charities asking for donations for COVID-19.
If you’re doing video conferencing for work, take a look at the background that will be appearing behind you. There may be private information that your webcam can pick out, and you can’t be sure who may be watching.
About SMU
SMU is the nationally ranked global research university in the dynamic city of Dallas. SMU’s alumni, faculty and nearly 12,000 students in eight degree-granting schools demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit as they lead change in their professions, communities and the world.
DALLAS (SMU) – “Even if she doesn’t say it, I know it’s my fault that my mother gets sad.”
Kids who believe comments like this – assuming blame for their mom’s sadness or depression – are more likely to face depression and anxiety themselves, a new study led by SMU has found.
“Although mothers with higher levels of depressive symptoms face increased risk that their children will also experience symptoms of depression and anxiety, our study showed that this was not the case for all children,” said SMU family psychologist and lead author Chrystyna Kouros. “Rather, it was those children who felt they were to blame for their mother’s sadness or depression…that had higher levels of internalizing symptoms.”
In light of the findings, Kouros said it’s critical that parents and others who regularly interact with children pay close attention to the kinds of comments that kids make about their mom’s symptoms and to intervene if children incorrectly think that it’s their fault that their mom is depressed. Children who take on this blame can benefit from therapies and interventions that target negative thoughts, said Kouros, SMU associate professor of psychology.
Sharyl E. Wee and Chelsea N. Carson, graduate students at SMU, and Naomi Ekas, an associate professor of psychology at Texas Christian University, also contributed to the study, which was published in the Journal of Family Psychology.
The study is based on surveys taken by 129 mothers and their children, who were recruited from the Dallas-Fort Worth community through schools, flyers and online advertisements. On average, children included in the study were 13 years old.
Moms were asked to agree or disagree to 20 statements like “I could not shake off the blues” and “I lost interest in my usual activities” to assess if they had depressive symptoms, even if they had not actually been diagnosed with depression. Nearly 12 percent of the women surveyed were found to have potential clinical levels of depressive symptoms.
The moms were also asked to assess whether they felt their children had symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Kids, meanwhile, were asked to complete a total of four surveys to see if they were dealing with any anxiety or depression and whether they blamed themselves for any signs of depression in their mothers.
Kouros said there are two likely explanations for the linkage between mothers’ depressive symptoms and kids’ own mental health issues:
“If children blame themselves for their mothers’ depressive symptoms, then they may be more likely to brood about their mother’s symptoms. And we know from an extensive body of research that rumination over stressors – especially ones that are uncontrollable – is linked with depression and anxiety,” Kouros said. “Also, if children feel personally responsible for their mothers’ symptoms, they may try to ‘make it better’ and use ineffective coping strategies. This could lead to a sense of helplessness, failure, and low self-worth in the child, since ultimately the child was misattributing the cause of their mothers’ depressive symptoms.”
More studies are needed to see if depressed dads have the same effect on their children, Kouros said.
SMU is the nationally ranked global research university in the dynamic city of Dallas. SMU’s alumni, faculty and nearly 12,000 students in eight degree-granting schools demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit as they lead change in their professions, communities and the world.
A new understanding of Mars is beginning to emerge, thanks to the first year of NASA’s InSight lander mission. Findings described in a set of six papers published today reveal a planet alive with quakes, dust devils and strange magnetic pulses.
Five of the papers were published in Nature. An additional paper in Nature Communications details the InSight spacecraft’s landing site, a shallow crater nicknamed “Homestead hollow” in a region called Elysium Planitia.
InSight is the first mission dedicated to looking deep beneath the Martian surface. Among its science tools are a seismometer for detecting quakes, sensors for gauging wind and air pressure, a magnetometer, and a heat flow probe designed to take the planet’s temperature.
While the team continues to work on getting the probe into the Martian surface as intended, SMU planetary scientist and research assistant professor Matt Siegler is one of the scientists who will ultimately help determine what the measurements of the heat flow probe mean for the composition of the interior of Mars.
A cutaway view of Mars showing the Insight lander studying seismic activity. Credit: J.T. Keane/Nature Geoscience
Meanwhile, the ultra-sensitive seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), has enabled scientists to “hear” multiple trembling events from hundreds to thousands of miles away.
Seismic waves are affected by the materials they move through, giving scientists a way to study the composition of the planet’s inner structure. Mars can help the team better understand how all rocky planets, including Earth, first formed.
Underground
Mars trembles more often – but also more mildly – than expected. SEIS has found more than 450 seismic signals to date, the vast majority of which are probably quakes (as opposed to data noise created by environmental factors, like wind). The largest quake was about magnitude 4.0 in size – not quite large enough to travel down below the crust into the planet’s lower mantle and core. Those are “the juiciest parts of the apple” when it comes to studying the planet’s inner structure, said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at JPL.
Scientists are ready for more: It took months after InSight’s landing in November 2018 before they recorded the first seismic event. By the end of 2019, SEIS was detecting about two seismic signals a day, suggesting that InSight just happened to touch down at a particularly quiet time. Scientists still have their fingers crossed for “the Big One.”
Mars doesn’t have tectonic plates like Earth, but it does have volcanically active regions that can cause rumbles. A pair of quakes was strongly linked to one such region, Cerberus Fossae, where scientists see boulders that may have been shaken down cliffsides. Ancient floods there carved channels nearly 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) long. Lava flows then seeped into those channels within the past 10 million years – the blink of an eye in geologic time.
Some of these young lava flows show signs of having been fractured by quakes less than 2 million years ago. “It’s just about the youngest tectonic feature on the planet,” said planetary geologist Matt Golombek of JPL. “The fact that we’re seeing evidence of shaking in this region isn’t a surprise, but it’s very cool.”
At the Surface
Billions of years ago, Mars had a magnetic field. It is no longer present, but it left ghosts behind, magnetizing ancient rocks that are now between 200 feet (61 meters) to several miles below ground. InSight is equipped with a magnetometer – the first on the surface of Mars to detect magnetic signals.
The magnetometer has found that the signals at Homestead hollow are 10 times stronger than what was predicted based on data from orbiting spacecraft that study the area. The measurements of these orbiters are averaged over a couple of hundred miles, whereas InSight’s measurements are more local.
Because most surface rocks at InSight’s location are too young to have been magnetized by the planet’s former field, “this magnetism must be coming from ancient rocks underground,” said Catherine Johnson, a planetary scientist at the University of British Columbia and the Planetary Science Institute. “We’re combining these data with what we know from seismology and geology to understand the magnetized layers below InSight. How strong or deep would they have to be for us to detect this field?”
In addition, scientists are intrigued by how these signals change over time. The measurements vary by day and night; they also tend to pulse around midnight. Theories are still being formed as to what causes such changes, but one possibility is that they’re related to the solar wind interacting with the Martian atmosphere.
In the Wind
InSight measures wind speed, direction and air pressure nearly continuously, offering more data than previous landed missions. The spacecraft’s weather sensors have detected thousands of passing whirlwinds, which are called dust devils when they pick up grit and become visible. “This site has more whirlwinds than any other place we’ve landed on Mars while carrying weather sensors,” said Aymeric Spiga, an atmospheric scientist at Sorbonne University in Paris.
Despite all that activity and frequent imaging, InSight’s cameras have yet to see dust devils. But SEIS can feel these whirlwinds pulling on the surface like a giant vacuum cleaner. “Whirlwinds are perfect for subsurface seismic exploration,” said Philippe Lognonné of Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), principal investigator of SEIS.
Still to Come: The Core
InSight has two radios: one for regularly sending and receiving data, and a more powerful radio designed to measure the “wobble” of Mars as it spins. This X-band radio, also known as the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE), can eventually reveal whether the planet’s core is solid or liquid. A solid core would cause Mars to wobble less than a liquid one would.
This first year of data is just a start. Watching over a full Martian year (two Earth years) will give scientists a much better idea of the size and speed of the planet’s wobble. – Jet Propulsion Laboratory
DALLAS (SMU) – Bonnie Jacobs is a world-renowned paleobotanist at SMU (Southern Methodist University) who specializes in the plant fossil record and what it reveals about past communities, ecosystems and climate. Her work in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia has helped document the origins and evolution of Africa’s modern biomes, as well as shed light on the environmental context of human family origins.
But she felt she needed to don a mustache and a beard to make a point.
Dr. Alisa Winkler, Vertebrate paleontologist, Southern Methodist University. Above: Dr. Bonnie Jacobs, Paleobotanist, Southern Methodist University. Credit for both photographs: 2015 Kelsey Vance
So did Alisa Winkler, an anatomy professor at UT Southwestern who also conducts research on fossil rodents, rabbits and other ancient mammals at SMU.
A new exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History called the “The Bearded Lady Project,” is drawing attention to the sexism that female paleontologists still face in the pursuit of their careers. The exhibit features portraits of women engaged in paleontology research – many in difficult and remote locations – while wearing false beards or mustaches. The tongue-in-cheek question being asked through the exhibit is, “Would they have been granted more respect and credibility had they been men?”
You can read more about this exhibit in The Dallas Morning News here.
About SMU
SMU is the nationally ranked global research university in the dynamic city of Dallas. SMU’s alumni, faculty and nearly 12,000 students in eight degree-granting schools demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit as they lead change in their professions, communities and the world.
Distinguished geoscientist James Quick will open the doors to a new era of research and interdisciplinary collaboration.
DALLAS (SMU) – Distinguished geoscientist James Quick will open the doors to a new era of research and interdisciplinary collaboration as the inaugural dean of SMU’s newly created Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies.
SMU announced the creation of the Moody School in November 2019, made possible by a landmark $100 million gift from the Moody Foundation. The investment in graduate-level education is fueling SMU’s move to join the finest universities in the country in its development of research with impact, delivered by top-notch faculty and graduate students.
Quick, a volcanologist of international stature, joined SMU in 2007 as the University’s first Associate Vice President for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies, with the responsibilities of supporting increases in research activity and the number of students graduating with a Ph.D. Since his arrival, research funding has increased from $14 million a year to $42 million a year, and annual graduation of Ph.D.s has increased from 45 to more than 70.
These increases contributed to SMU’s leap in 2011 past 55 sister institutions in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to earn recognition for “high research activity.” The creation of the Moody School positions SMU to compete for coveted “R1” status, which is reserved for those institutions with the highest research activity.
“The new Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies is going to expand research efforts of SMU, the impact of which will benefit the universities, laboratories and businesses that employ our doctoral graduates,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “Dean Quick is a passionate advocate for research and the cultivation of scholars, and is well placed to deliver on the promise of the Moody School to deliver research with even greater impact.”
The Moody School will begin formal operations during the 2020-21 academic year. The broad endowment funding provided by the Moody Foundation will guarantee the strength of the school in perpetuity, while the operational funds included in the gift provide for immediate impact. In addition to becoming the inaugural dean of the Moody School, Quick also retains the title of associate provost for research.
“Jim Quick was the chair of the faculty task force that spelled out the need for and ultimate creation of the new Moody School,” said Peter Moore, SMU provost and vice president for academic affairs ad interim. “He’s a natural for this position.”
About 45 percent of students at SMU are graduate students pursuing a master’s degree, doctorate or Ph.D., but the creation of the Moody School will create opportunities for all SMU students by extending to undergraduates more opportunities to participate in significant research and learn from prestigious faculty.
“The gift establishing the Moody School is an unprecedented investment in SMU, providing essential tools to dramatically elevate the University’s reputation in graduate education and powering its advance among research universities,” Quick said. “The opportunity to help guide SMU on this path as the Inaugural Dean is simultaneously exciting and humbling, and I look forward to working with SMU’s faculty to elevate graduate education, scholarship and research across the University.”
Eventually, all graduate degrees through Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Lyle School of Engineering, Meadows School of the Arts and Simmons School of Education and Human Development will be administered jointly through the Moody School. Students will receive diplomas to both their individual schools of study and the Moody School.
The Cox School of Business, Dedman School of Law and Perkins School of Theology do not offer Ph.D. studies and will continue to manage their own terminal degrees. But the Moody School will link interdisciplinary research and professional development from all SMU schools.
Quick joined SMU after a 25-year scientific career with the United States Geological Survey, including as program coordinator for the Volcano Hazards Program, where he supervised monitoring of the nation’s 169 volcanoes to provide critical early warning of eruptions. He has remained an active researcher during his tenure at SMU.
In 2009 Quick led scientists from the University of Trieste to discover an enormous, 280-million-year-old supervolcano fossil in the Sesia Valley in northern Italy, revealing the never-seen-before “plumbing” of a supervolcano all the way through the Earth’s crust. Italian geologists awarded Quick the Capellini Medal in September 2010 for the discovery, and the area encompassing the supervolcano later won UNESCO designation as the Sesia-Val Grande Geopark. Quick was named an honorary citizen of the city of Borgosesia, Italy, in recognition of the significance of the Sesia Valley discovery.
Quick became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in November 2013. He was honored for his distinguished contributions to geologic science and volcanic risk assessment, particularly for the study of magmatic systems and for service to governments in assessing geologic risk.
About SMU
SMU is the nationally ranked global research university in the dynamic city of Dallas. SMU’s alumni, faculty and nearly 12,000 students in eight degree-granting schools demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit as they lead change in their professions, communities and the world.
