Disappointing, but unsurprising.

"YOU KNEW THIS DAY WAS COMING. ALIEN MEGASTRUCTURES RULED OUT FOR TABBY’S STAR. DUST IS THE CULPRIT"

https://www.universetoday.com/138187/knew-day-coming-alien-megastructures-ruled-tabbys-star-dust-culprit/

#CoSoScience

Technical details from Google's Project Zero, which discovered the CPU bugs and continues to do bleeding edge work finding and fixing this stuff. Amazing.

https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2018/01/reading-privileged-memory-with-side.html

Backstory on the CPU bugs being widely reported today...

https://security.googleblog.com/2018/01/todays-cpu-vulnerability-what-you-need.html

#IntelBug

And 2018 will be even moreso.

"2017 Was the Year of Gene-Therapy Breakthroughs"

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609643/2017-was-the-year-of-gene-therapy-breakthroughs/

#CoSoScience

This will get a reaction :)

Sabine Hossenfelder: "Sometimes I believe in string theory. Then I wake up."

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/01/sometimes-i-believe-in-string-theory.html

#CoSoScience

"Satellites Predict a Cholera Outbreak Weeks in Advance"

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/satellites-predict-a-cholera-outbreak-weeks-in-advance/

#CoSoScience

Update on rumored Intel CPU flaw. It seems at least one proof of concept has been developed, and data has been read from privileged memory.

This is, indeed, worth the concern.

https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/intel-kernel-vulnerability.html

#IntelBug

As a follow-on to yesterday's post about an as-yet undisclosed serious bug, possibly in Intel processor hardware:

https://twitter.com/ErrataRob/status/948322431340564480

"Americans' attitudes about science in 2017: High confidence, low visibility" -- Phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2018-01-americans-attitudes-science-high-confidence.html

#CoSoScience

"Six Cyber Threats in 2018" -- MIT Technology Review

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609641/six-cyber-threats-to-really-worry-about-in-2018/

https://spectrum.ieee.org/static/top-tech-2018

https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-sofia-set-to-explore-magnetic-universe-and-beyond-in-2018/

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/01/shenzhen-completes-switch-fully-electric-bus-fleet-electric-taxis-next

This promises to be newsworthy once the embargo is lifted...

http://pythonsweetness.tumblr.com/post/169166980422/the-mysterious-case-of-the-linux-page-table

https://counter.social/media/rfwZz-GxHdES6Ox-P3g

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/01/01/0222234/congo-shuts-down-internet-services-indefinitely

https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/bulletins/SB18-001

Happy New Year, central timers!