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New research from a multidisciplinary team helps to illuminate the mechanisms behind circadian rhythms, offering new hope for dealing with jet lag, insomnia and other sleep disorders.

Using innovative cryo-electron microscopy techniques, the researchers have identified the structure of the circadian rhythm photosensor and its target in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), one of the major organisms used to study circadian rhythms. The research,Cryptochrome-Timeless Structure Reveals Circadian Clock Timing Mechanismspublished April 26 in Nature.

The research focused on fruit fly cryptochromes, key components of the circadian clocks of plants and animals, including humans. In flies and other insects, cryptochromes, activated by blue light, serve as the primary light sensors for setting circadian rhythms. The target of the cryptochrome photosensor, known as Timeless (TIM), is a large, complex protein that could not previously be imaged and thus its interactions with the cryptochrome are not well understood.

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Circadian rhythms work via what are basically genetic feedback loops. The researchers found that the TIM protein, along with its partner, the Period (PER) protein, act together to inhibit the genes that are responsible for their own production. With suitable delays between the events of gene expression and repression, an oscillation in protein levels is established.

This oscillation represents the the ticking of the clock and seems to be fairly unique to the circadian rhythm, said senior authorBrian Crane, the George W. and Grace L. Todd Professor and chair of chemistry and chemical biology in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Blue light, Crane said, changes the chemistry and structure of cryptochromes flavin cofactor, which allows the protein to bind the TIM protein and inhibit TIMs ability to repress gene expression and thereby reset the oscillation.

Much of the hard work of the study went into figuring out how to produce the complex of cryptochrome-TIM so it could be studied, because TIM is such a large, unwieldy protein, Crane said. To achieve their results, first author Changfan Lin, M.S. 17, Ph.D. 21, modified the cryptochrome protein to improve the stability of the cryptochrome-TIM complex and used innovative techniques to purify the samples, making them suitable for high-resolution imaging.

These new methods allowed us to obtain detailed images of the protein structures and gain valuable insights into their function, said Lin, a Friedrich's Ataxia Research Alliance Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. This research not only deepens our understanding of circadian rhythm regulation but also opens up new possibilities for developing therapies targeting related processes.

Co-author Shi Feng, a doctoral student in the field of biophysics, did much of the cryo-electron microscopy work. Cristina C. DeOliveira, a doctoral student in the field of biochemistry and molecular and cell biology, was also a co-author.

One unexpected result from the study sheds light on how DNA damage is repaired in a cell. Cryptochromes are closely related to a family of enzymes involved in repairing damage to DNA, called photolyases. Crane said the research explains why these families of proteins are closely related to each other, even though they're doing quite different things theyre making use of the same molecular recognition in different contexts.

The study also offers an explanation for the genetic variation of flies that allows them to adapt to higher latitudes, where days are shorter in the winter and it's cooler. These flies have more of a certain genetic variant that involves a change in the TIM protein, and it wasnt clear why the variation could help them. The researchers found that because of how the cryptochrome binds TIM, the variation reduces the affinity of TIM for the cryptochrome. The interaction between the proteins is then modulated and the ability of light to reset the oscillation is changed, thus altering the circadian clock and extending the period of the flys dormancy, which helps it survive the winter.

Some of the interactions that we see here in the fruit fly can be mapped onto human proteins, Crane said. This study may help us understand key interactions between components that regulate sleep behavior in people, such as how the critical delays in the basic timing mechanism get built into the system.

Another exciting finding, said Lin, was the discovery of an important structural area in TIM, called the groove, which helps explain how TIM enters the cell nucleus. Previous studies had identified some factors involved in this process, but the exact mechanism remained unclear. Our research provided a clearer understanding of this phenomenon, Lin said.

Reference:Lin C, Feng S, DeOliveira CC, Crane BR. CryptochromeTimeless structure reveals circadian clock timing mechanisms. Nature. 2023:1-6. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06009-4

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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Circadian Rhythm Mechanism Revealed by Fly Study - Technology Networks

Preliminary Examination:Indian Polity and Governance-Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.

Main Examination:General Studies II: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the JudiciaryMinistries and Departments of the Government; pressure groups and formal/informal associations and their role in the Polity.

This came on a day a stream of leaders of political parties and farmers organisations, including former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, reached Jantar Mantar to express solidarity with top wrestlers, who have been holding a sit-in protest for the past three days to demand action against Brij Bhushan.

What is POSCO Act?

How does the issue connects to Sports Ethics and Acccountability?

From Explained:

What are the protesting wrestlers demanding?

The wrestlers are demanding that anFIR be registered against Brij Bhushan on the basis of their police complaint, and that he be arrested under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act as one of the complainants is a minor. They have also demanded that he should be removed as the WFI president, and that the federation should be dissolved

How has the WFI responded to the protests?

Brij Bhushan has rubbished the allegations of sexual harassment. In January, he said he was willing to be hanged if proven guilty. He has not been responding to calls seeking his comments on the ongoing protests. The WFI has denied claims of financial mismanagement and arbitrariness in its functioning.

What steps has the government taken?

In January, the government persuaded the wrestlers to call off their protest by forming an Oversight Committee, which was tasked with looking into the allegations against Brij Bhushan as well as managing the day-to-day affairs of the WFI.

The six-member committee, headed by boxing legend MCMary Kom, was given four weeks to come up with its findings. However, it submitted its report only in the first week of April. The committee has since been disbanded.

Following the fresh protests, the government declared the ongoing process for the WFI elections, which were scheduled for May 7, null and void. It also instructed the IOA to form an ad hoc panel that would conduct the elections within 45 days, and manage the WFIs everyday affairs until the new members take charge.

What are the findings of the Oversight Committee?

The report is still being examined, and has not been made public. However, the Sports Ministry on Monday shared the major findings following preliminary scrutiny of the report. The key points stated by the government were:Absence of a duly constituted Internal Complaints Committee under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act, 2013, and lack of an adequate mechanism for awareness building among sportspersons, for grievance redressal, etc;

Need for more transparency and consultation between the Federation and the stakeholders, including the sportspersons;

Need for effective communication between the Federation and sportspersons.

Though women have converted challenges into opportunities in the sports sector, certain hurdles still remain. Do you agree?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

What the law says about filing of FIR in sexual harassment cases

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination:Indian Polity and Governance-Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.

Mains Examination:General Studies II: Indian Constitutionhistorical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions andbasic structure.

Key Points to Ponder:

Whats the ongoing story On the 50th year of the basic structure doctrine that restricts the power of Parliament to alter the fundamental features of the Constitution, veteran senior advocate Fali S Nariman expressed confidence that the doctrine is here to stay. In an interview toThe Indian Express, Nariman said that even if tested again, the Supreme Court will defend the basic structure doctrine, which is now cemented in the Constitution.

What is 99th Constitution Amendment Act?

Who was the Kesavananda Bharati?

What is Doctrine of the basic structure?

Basic structure doctrine has mostly invoked the test to strike down an amendment when the Parliament has tinkered with judicial review and independence of the judiciary. Comment.

What are the features of the Basic Structure of Constitution?

What power is granted by Article 368 of the Indian Constitution?

Why is the doctrine criticised?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

SHIELD AGAINST AUTOCRATS

Democracys sentinel

Kesavananda: case and its legacy

SC has used doctrine sparingly, pushed back against attempts to shackle judicial review

Previous year UPSC Mains Question Covering Basic Structure Theme:

Starting from inventing the basic structure doctrine, the judiciary has played a highly proactive role in ensuring that India develops into a thriving democracy. In light of the statement, evaluate the role played by judicial activism in achieving the ideals of democracy.(GS-2, 2014)

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination:Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination:General Studies II: Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate.

Key Points to Ponder:

Whats the ongoing story The visit ofChinese and Russian defence ministersto attend a ministerial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation this week in Delhi is drawing much attention. India, which is chairing the Eurasian regional forum this year, will have a range of bilateral problems to discuss with its fellow SCO members. These include the disengagement andde-escalation of the border confrontation with Chinaand Moscows supply of spares to the large inventory of Russian arms amidst the war in Ukraine.

What is SCO? Who are its members and possible future members?

Main objective of the SCO: to promote peace in Eurasia, its ability to cope with the intra-state and inter-state conflicts among the member states is now under scrutiny.

What are the issues which India has to face while chairing SCO?

SCOs paradox: Even as the Eurasian forum looks attractive to a growing number of regional states, its internal contradictions are casting a shadow over its strategic coherence.

Why is Russia both protector and predator?

If Russia is a protector of the Central Asian regimes, it could also be a potential predator. Russian leaders have often dismissed Central Asian states as artificial nations. President Vladimir Putins vision of a Russkiy Mir or the Russian world underlines Moscows special responsibility to protect Russian minorities beyond its formal borders. Unsurprisingly, no Central Asian neighbour has endorsed the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

To be sure, Russia is deeply entrenched within the Central Asian state system with strong ties to local elites and security establishments. Many Central Asians work in Russia and send valuable remittances home. Yet after Ukraine, the Central Asian states are looking to intensify their diversification strategies to reduce their reliance on Russia.

What about Chinas growing interest?

1. Some observers argue that Chinas growing regional influence will come at Russias expense, as Beijing becomes the senior partner in the bilateral relationship with Moscow after Ukraine.

2. Others point to the fact that Russia and China have drawn closer than ever before and that they have little reason to quarrel over Central Asia. Moscows muscle and Beijings money provide a sensible basis for their strategic division of labour in Central Asia to keep the Western powers out of the region.

3. A third argument agrees that China has no reason to replace Moscow as the main power in Central Asia in the near term, but it warns against underestimating Beijings long-term ambitions in the region. One straw in the wind is Beijings explicit support of the sovereignty of the Central Asian states.

For Your Information- Delhis engagement with the SCO all these decades was premised on Russian primacy in the region and Moscows support of Indias regional interests. For India, a strong and independent Russia is critical for maintaining the inner Asian balance. But Delhi is in no position to ensure Moscows strategic autonomy from Beijing; that depends on Russian strategic choices. Delhis burden in SCO must now be to protect its own interests amidst a rapidly changing regional power distribution in Chinas favour. That India does not have direct geographic access to the landlocked region makes that challenge a demanding one.

What is Indias regional interest?

What is the way forward for India?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

SCO meet: India must not miss an opportunity to improve relations with Pakistan

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination:Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination:General Studies III: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination:Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination:General Studies III: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Key Points to Ponder:

Whats the ongoing story Aditya Nath Jha writes: Technology will change the way we look at labour, capital and skills.Employees will question the companys impact on the environment, gender parity, wealth sharing and other social issues. The business of business will no longer be limited to business.

Catchy Intro: If Marx were alive today and playing with GPT4, he would have been the first to notice that the nature of labour has morphed drastically since the mid-19th century from body to skill to brain.

What is a brain economy? How is it brain labour different from physical labour?

What has been the impact of technology in our lives?

Trade offs in the brain economy-

To facilitate a meaningful dialogue around the trade-offs in the brain economy, we need to first abandon outdated stereotypes of evil corporations, sinful profits and inhuman technology. The accompanying myth of man vs machine, created when labour meant the human body, needs to be laid to rest. Technology doesnt destroy jobs it creates jobs, liberates people and drives social progress. Whether we like it or not, advances in technology in the brain economy will always be a couple of steps ahead of politicians, bureaucrats, policies and laws. We will have to learn to deal with it.

What are the issues that need to be addressed?- Greedy corporations, ethical dilemmas, technology illiteracy (elaborate).

How can the obstacles be converted to opportunities?

What will give rise to societal brain?

For your information:

The relationship between capital and labour will change. Capital exploited physical labour and invested in skills. It will now chase and partner with the brains. The balance of power between capital and labour will become more symmetric. But markets will create inequality by assigning exponentially differential values to body, skill and brain.

In a country the size of India, its impossible to transition everyone to the brain economy overnight. The biggest component of the body economy in India is agriculture. We need our agriculture to be technology-enabled, not body driven. Inequality will remain, but its better to be unequally well off than to be equally poor.

But the bigger issue of inequality is the inequality between nations. In the brain economy, the alternative to technology and innovation is total irrelevance. To be a globally relevant player, India needs to embrace the concept of this new world of the brain economy, adapt its mindset and appropriate its resources accordingly.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

The brilliance and weirdness of ChatGPT

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination:Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination:General Studies III: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Key Points to Ponder:

Why in news? Last week, India decided to join in this global effort in a big way, by setting up a Rs 6,000 crore National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications. Development of homegrown quantum computers is one of the major objectives of the mission.

Historical Tidbit: Nature isnt classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, youd better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly its a wonderful problem because it doesnt look so easy, remarked Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist with a cult status, at a lecture at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1982. This lecture later published as a paper under the title Simulating Physics with Computers in which Feynman proposed the development of different, more powerful computers by utilising the quantum mechanical properties of matter, is often considered the original idea behind quantum computers.

Quantum computers Versus Conventional computers: What is qubit?

Why are Quantum computers not perfect?

Why is the scientific community excited by this mission?

The excitement in the scientific community about the Quantum Mission is because it allows India to join a global technology development race when it is still in the nascent stages. We are in the game. We have rarely been in the game (with regard to other technologies). Work on quantum technologies has been going on in India for the past 10 years, more vigorously in the last four-five years, whereas groups in some other countries have been working for close to three decades. We have some catching up to do, but this mission will help us do that. We have a fairly large pool of people with the right skills, said Rajamani Vijayaraghavan of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) who will play an important role in the computing node of the mission.

Knowledge nuggets:

The mission involves a cost of Rs 6,003.65 crore from 2023-24 to 2030-31, and aims to put India among the top six leading nations involved in the research and development in quantum technologies.

NQM will mainly work towards strengthening Indias research and development in the quantum arena alongside indigenously building quantum-based (physical qubit) computers which are far more powerful and are able to perform the most complex problems in a highly secure manner.

It will target developing intermediate scale quantum computers with 50-1000 physical qubits in eight years in various platforms like superconducting and photonic technology.

Satellite based secure quantum communications between ground stations over a range of 2000 kilometres within India, long distance secure quantum communications with other countries, inter-city quantum key distribution over 2000 km as well as multi-node Quantum network with quantum memories are among the other objectives of the mission.

The mission will help develop magnetometers with high sensitivity in atomic systems and Atomic Clocks for precision timing, communications and navigation.

It will also support design and synthesis of quantum materials such as superconductors, novel semiconductor structures and topological materials for fabrication of quantum devices. Single photon sources/detectors, entangled photon sources will also be developed for quantum communications, sensing and metrological applications.

See the article here:
UPSC Key- April 26, 2023: Know about SCO paradox, Quantum computers, Brain economy, and Water metro - The Indian Express

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One of the outstanding challenges in the field of condensed matter physics is finding computationally efficient and simultaneously accurate methods to describe interacting electron systems for crystalline materials.

In a new study, researchers have discovered an efficient but highly accurate method of doing so. The work, led by Zheting Jin (a graduate student in Yale Applied Physics) and his thesis supervisor, Sohrab Ismail-Beigi, is published in Physical Review B.

Developing methods to accurately describe interacting quantum electrons has long been of interest to researchers in the fields because it can provide valuable insights about many important aspects of materials. Describing the electrons at this level is tricky for a few reasons, though. One is that, because they're quantum mechanical, they move in a wavy manner and tracking them is more complicated. The other is that they interact with each other.

Each component of this problem is "OK to deal with separately," said Ismail-Beigi, Strathcona Professor of Applied Physics, Physics, and Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science. But when you have waviness and interactions, the problem is so complex that nobody knows how to solve it efficiently.

Like many difficult problems in physics and mathematics, one can in principle take a giant computer and numerically solve the problem with brute force, but the amount of computation and storage needed would be exponential in the number of electrons. For example, every time one adds a new electron to the system, the size of the computer needed increases by a factor of two (typically, even a larger factor). This means studying a system with about 50 electrons is infeasible even with today's largest supercomputers. For context, a single iodine atom has 53 electrons, while a small nanoparticle has more than 1,000 electrons.

"On the one hand, the electrons want to move aroundthat's to take advantage of the kinetic energy," Ismail-Beigi said. "On the other, they repel each other'don't come next to me if I'm here already.' Both effects are captured in the well-known Hubbard model for interacting electrons. Basically, it has these two key ingredients, and it's a very hard problem to solve. No one knows how to solve it exactly, and high-quality approximate and efficient solutions are not easy to come by."

The Ismail-Beigi team has developed a method related to a class of approaches that use what's known as an auxiliary or subsidiary boson. Typically, these approaches require much less computational resources but are only moderately accurate as they treat one atom at a time. Ismail-Beigi's team tried a different tack. Rather than examining one atom at a time, the researchers treat two or three bonded atoms at a time (called a cluster).

"Electrons can hop between the atoms in the cluster: we solve the cluster problem directly, and then we connect the clusters together in a novel way to describe the entire system," Ismail-Beigi said. "In principle, the larger the cluster, the more accurate the approach, so the question is how large a cluster does one need to get a desired accuracy?"

Researchers have previously tried cluster approaches, but the computational costs have been prohibitively high and the accuracy has been wanting, given the added computational cost.

"Zheting and I found a clever way of matching different clusters together so that the quantities calculated between the different clusters agree across their boundaries," he said. "The good news is that this method then gives a very highly accurate description with even a relatively small cluster of three atoms. Because of the smooth way one glues the clusters together, one describes the long-range motion of the electrons well in addition to the localized interactions with each other. Going into this project, we didn't expect it to be this accurate."

Compared to literature benchmark calculations, the new method is three to four orders of magnitude faster.

"All the calculations in the paper were run on Zheting's student laptop, and each one completes within a few minutes," Ismail-Beigi said. "Whereas for the corresponding benchmark calculations, we have to run them on a computer cluster, and that takes a few days."

The researchers said they look forward to applying this method to more complex and realistic materials problems in the near future.

More information: Zheting Jin et al, Bond-dependent slave-particle cluster theory based on density matrix expansion, Physical Review B (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.107.115153

Journal information: Physical Review B

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No need for a super computer: Describing electron interactions efficiently and accurately - Phys.org

ROSELAND, N.J., April 24, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sectigo, a global leader in automated Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM), and digital certificates, today announced it is sponsoring and speaking at the RSA Conference (RSAC) 2023 in San Francisco, California. Sectigo executives will discuss the importance of establishing digital trust against the backdrop of shortening digital certificate lifespans and quantum computing.

RSAC, which takes place April 24-27, features the most influential thinkers in cybersecurity today, discussing current and future trends to empower organizations around the world to stand against cyber threats. Sectigo, a Silver Sponsor of RSAC (booth #1327), will demo the CA Agnostic automation capabilities of Sectigo Certificate Manager, the industrys most robust Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) Platform. In the wake of recent news of the upcoming reduction in maximum term for SSL certificates to 90 days, IT professionals worldwide are seeking to understand the consequences of this change on their operations. CLM is an indispensable part of that response.

The trend of shrinking certificate lifespans, or short life certificates, is one Sectigo predicted as far back as 2019. In recent years the maximum term for a public TLS certificate has dropped from three years, to two, to one. Recently, Google announced in its Moving Forward, Togetherroadmap the intention to reduce the maximum possible validity for public TLS certificates from 398 days to just 90. As we enter a new era of shorter certificate lifespans and quantum computing, the need for automation of certificate handling is sky high, said Tim Callan, Chief Experience Officer at Sectigo.

Callan continued: Sectigo recognizes that organizations of all sizes are struggling to reconcile growing numbers of digital certificates within their ecosystems. Many still take a manual approach to certificate lifecycle management. Our latest research found that 47%1 of organizations cited using spreadsheets, scripts, or CA-provided tools to manage digital certificate lifecycles. As the security perimeter continues to widen, and certificate lifespans to reduce, this manual approach to digital certificate management will compound IT team workloads and hamper visibility into all digital identities. Ultimately, this creates risk of outage or exploit.

The Sectigo team will be conducting hourly demos at RSAC 2023 to show the power of automated certificate management to solve issues arising from the manual management of increasing numbers of short-life certificates, as well as:

In addition, Sectigo experts will look ahead at an exclusive session at RSAC, designed to help IT leaders future-proof their cryptography against the upcoming threat of quantum computing, which will require switching all encryption to quantum-resistant post-quantum cryptography (PQC).

Are You Ready for the Quantum Apocalypse? 4:20pm April 25, presented by Sectigos Tim Callan, Chief Experience Officer: Quantum computing is a very real threat, and now is the time to start planning for fast, efficient, and error-free deployment to new cryptographic standards soon to be available. The immense processing power of a quantum computer is capable of breaking encryption at great speed, leaving important data vulnerable. Both government and private industry alike should be preparing today, or they risk being late. Find out more here.

Sectigo also won two Global InfoSec Awards 2023 from Cyber Defense Magazine, announced today at RSAC: Next Gen Enterprise Security and Cutting Edge Security Company of the Year. These accolades closely follow recognition for Sectigo executives popular industry podcast, Root Causes, which was designated Webby Honoree at the recent Webby Awards 2023.

Visit http://www.sectigo.com/rsac23 to schedule a meeting or book a demo at RSAC.

About SectigoSectigo is a leading provider of automated Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions and digital certificates- trusted by the worlds largest brands. Its cloud-based universal CLM platform issues and manages the lifecycles of digital certificates issued by Sectigo and other Certificate Authorities (CAs) to secure every human and machine identity across the enterprise. With over 20 years establishing digital trust, Sectigo is one of the longest-standing and largest CAs with more than 700,000 customers. For more information, visitwww.sectigo.com.

1 Managing Digital Identities: Tools & Tactics, Priorities & Threats, Sectigo Research, Conducted by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), 2021.

Contact:

Elliot Harrison, Director of Global Communications Sectigo elliot.harrison@sectigo.com

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Sectigo Attends RSAC 2023 to Prepare IT Community for 90-Day TLS - GlobeNewswire

US intelligence agents are after scores of Russians in connection with dastardly global plots and outright criminality.

More than 60 Russian nationals are wanted by the FBI, America's security services.

The fugitives are sought for their alleged involvement in an eclectic mix of crimes and schemes, ranging from manipulating US elections to smuggling quantum computers.

Here are some of Russia's most wanted:

Burlinova is accused by the FBI of gathering intelligence for Moscow in the US.

With the support of the Russian Security Service (FSB), she allegedly recruited Europeans and Americans into a 'Meeting Russia' programme run by the NGO she led, Creative Diplomacy.

Here she is believed to have assessed their views towards Russia and gathered their personal and professional information, which was then passed on to the FSB in exchange for funding and other support for her NGO.

While in the US,Burlinova toured universities and research institutions, allegedly supplying more detailed info on those with sympathies towards Russia.

She was last known to be in Moscow.

Creative Diplomacy denies the charges against Burlinova.

Writing on Twitter in April, it said there is no proof to the allegations against her, decrying "acts of provocation and speculation in [the] mass media".

No surprises here, for some.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia's notorious Wagner mercenary group, is wanted by the US secret services for allegedly interfering in the 2016 US election that saw firebrand Donald Trump enter the White House.

Described as a "deeply disreputable character", the former hot dog seller rose up the ranks doing the Kremlins bidding, be it using his private militia for shady business on the African content or waging war in Ukraine.

Some have alleged Prigozhin has political ambitions of his own, possibly eyeing up the top spot as Russian president.

The FBI claim Prigozhin "oversaw" an electoral interference operation by the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA), widely seen as a "troll farm" which he funded.

He is accused of a conspiracy to defraud the US by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions" of the Federal Election Commission, the United States Department of Justice, and the United States Department of State, they said.

His plot involved creating hundreds of fake online accounts, which spread content that reached significant numbers of Americans.

The FBI is offering $250,000 for any information that might lead to his arrest.

Hailing from Leningrad, Livshits is accused of unlawfully sourcing and shipping sensitive US military technologies to Russia.

The FBI says he managed to get his hands on advanced equipment used in quantum computing, hypersonic missiles, nuclear weapons development, and other military and space-based applications.

His clients included the Russian intelligence agencies Ministry of Defence, besides some of the countrys universities.

Livshits, operating under the aliases Boris Levitan, Boris Livshitc and David Wetzky, allegedly helped finance and smuggle tens of thousands of American-manufactured, military-grade sniper bullets.

He has ties to Russia, Estonia, Finland, Kazakhstan, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, and the United States.

A warrant has been issued for this arrest.

Gavrilov, an FSB officer, is wanted in connection with a Russian hacking campaign in the global energy sector.

Along with fellow officers Pavel Aleksandrovich Akulov and Marat Valeryevich Tyukov also wanted by FBI agents the 44-year-old allegedly hacked computer systems at oil, gas and renewable energy firms, electricity grids, nuclear power plants and technology companies.

This then enabled the Kremlin to target and disrupt them.

Operating in an FSB military unit, the trio were codenamed Dragonfly" "Energetic Bear," and "Crouching Yeti.

More than 380 foreign companies based in 135 countries were hit, including Albania, France, Germany, Hungary, China, Pakistan, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

Pliskins last whereabouts were in the Russian capital.

In October 2020, a jury in Pennsylvania returned an indictment against him and five other of the Kremlins intelligence officers for his alleged involvement in a spate of politically-charged cyber crimes.

The FBI claims Pliskin helped target critical infrastructure in Ukraine, a political campaign in France, international victims associated with the 2018 Winter Olympic Games and investigations of nerve agent attacks that have been publicly attributed to the Russian government.

All of these destructive and disruptive actions [were] for the strategic benefit of Russia, writes the FBI.

Born in 1998, Dekhtyarchuk was previously a student at Ural State University in Yekaterinburg Russia.

The FBI accuse the 25-year-old of a long list of cyber crimes

He is suspected of operating a criminal marketplace that sold thousands of login credentials, personal information and other useful tools for other crooks to access the online accounts of people around the world.

Any tip-offs can be given to the FBI online, over the phone or at an American Embassy.

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Who are the fugitive Russians on FBI's 'Most Wanted' list? - Euronews