Australia’s first XE infection detected in NSW as virologists keep eye on sub-variants
XE and why we may want Omicron to mutateYour Local Epidemiologist
EVERYBODY IS GOING TO GET COVID: ‘Frankenstein’ Omicron subvariant XE detected in UK, India and Thailand.“It’s unclear whether XE causes more severe illness or evades vaccines, though early data suggests that it may be more transmissible than erlier forms of the Omicron virus.
Good but scary interview on Russia, Ukraine, and the new world order.
HMM: U.S. says it secretly removed malware worldwide, preempting Russian cyberattacks.
The move, made public by Attorney General Merrick Garland, comes as U.S. officials warn that Russia could try to strike American critical infrastructure — including financial firms, pipelines and the electric grid — in response to the crushing sanctions that the United States has imposed on Moscow over the war in Ukraine.
The malware enabled the Russians to create “botnets” — networks of private computers that are infected with malicious software and controlled by the GRU, the intelligence arm of the Russian military. But it is unclear what the malware was intended to do, since it could be used for everything from surveillance to destructive attacks.
A U.S. official said Wednesday that the United States did not want to wait to find out. Armed with secret court orders in the United States and the help of governments around the world, the Justice Department and the FBI disconnected the networks from the GRU’s own controllers.
“Fortunately, we were able to disrupt this botnet before it could be used,” Garland said.
IT DOES INDEED SOUND LIKE SOMEONE HAS BEEN DOING MUSHROOMS: Mushrooms can talk to — and protect — each other with ‘up to 50 words’.
You know what else is interesting? Your hand. I mean, have you ever looked at your hand? I mean, really looked?