Nick @internic@qoto.org

New evidence points to Wuhan market as source of COVID-19 outbreak.

From New Scientist: "A new study by an international team concludes it is more likely that the virus emerged from wild animals sold at the market and not from a lab escape. The researchers re-analysed data from 800 samples collected at the Huanan market by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention beginning on 1 January 2020, and also studied viral genomes from the earliest COVID-19 cases."

https://flip.it/gkExJQ

#COVID #COVID19 #Wuhan #China #Epidemiology #PublicHealth #Science

Nächste Woche: Highlights der Physik #hdp24 in #Hannover mit und an der @unihannover ; alle Vorträge live im Stream (und die meisten später auch als Konserve) hier: https://www.youtube.com/@HighlightsderPhysik/streams Vor Ort noch viel mehr Programm: https://www.highlights-physik.de

Today on the arXiv:

Jackson & Rozitis 2024, "Thermophysical Modelling of Eclipse and Occultation Events in Binary Asteroid Systems" - https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.12703

This paper reminds me that there is an asteroid named Doppler. Which makes perfect sense, but is also confusing.

I can't believe voters in the US look at all the stuff people in Europe are protected from with GDPR and they're just like, "nah, we don't want that legislation that has zero negative impact on us, and protects us from our data and art being perpetually stolen for techbro AI space data centers."

It's not even like EU employment protections, where insane Reaganomics BS insists companies will fall to socialism as a result.

It's talk like a pirate day! Here I go:

"I just want to access the media I already own in a portable format that I can watch or listen to in high quality on all my devices without DRM or adverts."

Did I do it right?

My main problem with the Copenhagen interpretation of #QuantumMechanics is that, if you ask 10 Physicists what the interpretation actually is, you are going to get 11 different (and largely mutually exclusive) answers. #Physics

Sooooo…

Once upon a time, Earth may have had rings. Like Saturn's.

Yes, really.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/earth-may-rings

My latest: Texas is about to execute a man because doctors said his infant daughter died of "shaken baby syndrome." The only problem is that shaken baby syndrome isn't real. https://skepchick.org/2024/09/innocent-man-to-be-executed-over-junk-science/

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.