Nick @internic@qoto.org

New CDC study: 75% of US adults support wastewater monitoring, and 95% say they would take steps to protect themselves if wastewater data showed disease spread was high.

We need to fund wastewater monitoring and include the data in daily weather reports, so everyone is aware.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7337a2.htm

Physicists at the #LHC have measured the quantum entanglement of the spin of top quarks produced in proton collisions, reports @dangaristo. It's cool because the energies are so high - a world away from the sedate conditions of a typical quantum entanglement experiment. In their paper, the researchers suggest the collider is a good place to study entanglement-related phenomena such as quantum discord. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02973-7

It's not like we (society) talked about this and decided we'd sacrifice ground-based astronomy in exchange for internet access in remote areas.

Musk and a few others did this unilaterally. It wasn't to help anyone. They did it to make a profit and consolidate control over critical infrastructure.

If you thought the problems for astronomy due to Starlink had gone away because you don’t see them much anymore*, think again.

They’re causing major issues for radio astronomy with poor electronics leaking unintended noise across the spectrum & the new V2 Starlink satellites are 32 x worse than the original ones.

Excellent if chilling work from @cgbassa et al.: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4dnr8zemgo

* I saw a train of 20+ pass overhead Heidelberg in 10 minutes a fortnight ago, so …

We received feedback from a grant application that included "While your impact metrics & thoughtful approach to addressing systemic issues in AI are impressive, some reviewers noted the inherent risks of navigating this space without alignment with larger corporate players,"

AKA you can't do tech without BigTech's pervasive influence, as your mission statement states, in spite of your track record and in spite of their track record of harm.

Make. It. Make. Sense.

Just heard the very sad news that John Hutchings passed away suddenly today.

Among his many other achievements in astronomy, John led the Canadian participation in NGST/JWST, resulting in their contributing the crucial Fine Guidance Sensor & NIRISS instrument.

As a fellow member of the JWST Science Working Group, he was insightful & no nonsense, & always great company.

I took this picture at his last SWG meeting at STScI in Baltimore in March 2012 to mark his retirement.

As astra, John ✨

Day 1 of the Grand Opening Symposium ahead of the ceremonial launch of the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin is in the books. ✅

A big thank you to all the wonderful speakers for the fantastic insights into their scientific fields!📸

Looking forward to Day 2!

#MPZPM

Per @ZachXBT on the bird site, there's a new wave of mass X account hijackings to promote a crypto meme coin scam.

Reminds me of the then-Twitter hack of 2020, which saw a since-convicted hacker break in and use an internal Twitter admin tool to take over high-profile accounts (including Elon Musk, lol) to spread a crypto scam.

Unclear what's causing the mass account hijacks in this case. Time is a flat circle.

This is glorious.The best time to burn a bridge is when you never, ever want to cross it again. #genai (Edit: This is a notice explaining why somebody is shutting down a long-running project to measure word frequencies.) https://github.com/rspeer/wordfreq/blob/master/SUNSET.md

A lot of people have asked about @mollyim so figured it was time to do a proper review of the hardened Signal client. Really impressive showcase of what the open source community can do 🔥 Check out the review:
https://youtu.be/P-2z2c3XBkQ

Noticed today that google is returning AI results on my work computer, including when I'm searching for hazardous chemicals. This is a big no-no for me, AI results should never be used for anything safety-critical (unless the model is built by the user for a specialist purpose). They're worse than useless. I'll be reporting each search as unsafe (an option, so google clearly recognise it's an issue) and recommend others do the same.

@darkuncle I left my tech career in 1999, went back to school for an advanced degree in natural resources, and spent much of the last 20 years of my career out in nature, unplugged from tech, and often in solitude. It was a good decision.

Get out in nature while you can. At 61, I’m now disabled and spend much of my outdoor time on the porch looking at the woods I used to walk in. Don’t leave it until later. Get out there now, even if it means changing careers.

More than 100 former national security and foreign policy officials who served in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and/or Donald Trump, or as Republican Members of Congress endorse VP Kamala Harris.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rbmralumni4harris/p/over-100-republican-national-security?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

My son just got his first data breach letter. He’s 2.5 years old.

hey professor friends!
In your departments, do current graduate students ever help with graduate admissions? Does this raise concerns about applicant privacy?

This is something twitter never really took seriously. Or more fair to say they only took it seriously for celebrity or "noteworthy" accounts. Once you get to a certain follower count, your needs as a user change quite a bit. You need more tools to manage who gets access to your attention.

The reason: Router malware has grown increasingly sophisticated as nation states like China and Russia have jumped all in over the past 5 or 10 years. Actors working on behalf of these governments regularly build large IoT botnets for use in attacks against targets they want to hack. These bots are ideal because they have US-based IP addresses, which generally have good reputations.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/05/hacker-free-for-all-fights-for-control-of-home-and-office-routers-everywhere/

Despite the sophistication, the vast majority of router malware lacks persistence, meaning the device is disinfected each time is rebooted. Security firms have regularly advised the period rebooting of routers. So has CISA:

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2016/10/14/heightened-ddos-threat-posed-mirai-and-other-botnets

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2018/05/25/cyber-actors-target-home-and-office-routers-and-networked-devices