Month: September 2023

Enlarge / Malware Detected Warning Screen with abstract binary code 3d digital concept (credit: Getty Images)

Google has quietly resubmitted a disclosure of a critical code-execution vulnerability affecting thousands of individual apps and software frameworks after its previous submission left readers with the mistaken impression that the threat affected only the Chrome browser.

The vulnerability originates in the libwebp code library, which Google created in 2010 for rendering images in webp, a then new format that resulted in files that were up to 26 percent smaller as compared to PNG images. Libwebp is incorporated into just about every app, operating system, or other code library that renders webp images, most notably the Electron framework used in Chrome and many other apps that run on both desktop and mobile devices.

Two weeks ago, Google issued a security advisory for what it said was a heap buffer overflow in WebP in Chrome. Google’s formal description, tracked as CVE-2023-4863, scoped the affected vendor as “Google” and the software affected as “Chrome,” even though any code that used libwebp was vulnerable. Critics warned that Google’s failure to note that thousands of other pieces of code were also vulnerable would result in unnecessary delays in patching the vulnerability, which allows attackers to execute malicious code when users do nothing more than view a booby-trapped webp image.

Enlarge / The lid is open on the OSIRIS-REx sample return canister, revealing a tantalizing ring of dust outside the main sample collection chamber. (credit: Dante Lauretta)

Dante Lauretta has waited nearly 20 years to get his hands on pristine specimens from an asteroid, which he says is a key to unlocking answers to mysteries about the origin of life on Earth. On Tuesday, he got his first look at dust grains returned by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission.

Because they want to be sure, members of the OSIRIS-REx science team will wipe some of the dust from the asteroid sample canister and send it to a laboratory for analysis. But there's little question the dust grains visible immediately after scientists opened the lid to the canister are from asteroid Bennu, where the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft captured rocks during a touch-and-go landing in 2020.

The spacecraft completed its round-trip journey to asteroid Bennu with a near-bullseye landing of its sample return capsule Sunday morning in Utah. The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) mothership released the capsule to plunge into the atmosphere while it fired its thrusters to maneuver on a trajectory to head back into the Solar System for an extended mission to visit another asteroid.

Enlarge / Archaeologists excavating a Roman legionary fortress found a ceramic "wine fridge." (credit: Rjdeadly/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Roman soldiers occupying what is now northern Bulgaria along the Danube River had to deal with all manner of uprisings against the empire, but at least they could keep their wine reasonably cool. Archaeologists have discovered a 2,000-year-old built-in ceramic structure they believe was used to store wine and perishable foods.

It's a rare find and the second such "refrigerator" to be discovered at a former fortress at the archaeological site of Novae. The first was found last year: a container made of ceramic plates beneath the floor of a military barracks room. It was most likely used to store food, based on the ceramic vessels and small baked bone fragments found along with it, as well as charcoal and a bowl that may have been used to burn incense to ward off insects.

This latest find is noteworthy because it has an additional cooling element in the form of a lead pipe (connected to a system of aqueducts) running along one side. The fragments of wine-drinking vessels, bowls, and animal bones should help the team re-create the soldiers' last meal, according to team leader Piotr Dyczek, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw in Poland.

Enlarge / Archaeologists excavating a Roman legionary fortress found a ceramic "wine fridge." (credit: Rjdeadly/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Roman soldiers occupying what is now northern Bulgaria along the Danube River had to deal with all manner of uprisings against the empire, but at least they could keep their wine reasonably cool. Archaeologists have discovered a 2,000-year-old built-in ceramic structure they believe was used to store wine and perishable foods.

It's a rare find and the second such "refrigerator" to be discovered at a former fortress at the archaeological site of Novae. The first was found last year: a container made of ceramic plates beneath the floor of a military barracks room. It was most likely used to store food, based on the ceramic vessels and small baked bone fragments found along with it, as well as charcoal and a bowl that may have been used to burn incense to ward off insects.

This latest find is noteworthy because it has an additional cooling element in the form of a lead pipe (connected to a system of aqueducts) running along one side. The fragments of wine-drinking vessels, bowls, and animal bones should help the team re-create the soldiers' last meal, according to team leader Piotr Dyczek, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw in Poland.

Enlarge / A worker handles a bottle of Merck & Co. and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LPs molnupiravir antiviral medication in a warehouse in Shoham, Israel, on January 18, 2022. (credit: Getty | Kobi Wolf)

With every new infection, the pandemic coronavirus gets new chances to mutate and adapt, creating opportunities for the virus to evolve new variants that are better at dodging our immune systems and making us sicker.

Anti-viral drugs, such as Paxlovid and remdesivir, aim to halt this incessant evolution in individual patients—shortening illnesses, snuffing out opportunities for mutation, and reducing transmission. But one antiviral appears to be backfiring—allowing SARS-CoV-2 more opportunities to mutate.

According to a new peer-reviewed study in the journal Nature, the anti-viral drug dubbed molnupiravir is linked to specific SARS-CoV-2 mutation signatures that happened to spring up in 2022 when the drug was introduced.

Enlarge / A worker handles a bottle of Merck & Co. and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LPs molnupiravir antiviral medication in a warehouse in Shoham, Israel, on January 18, 2022. (credit: Getty | Kobi Wolf)

With every new infection, the pandemic coronavirus gets new chances to mutate and adapt, creating opportunities for the virus to evolve new variants that are better at dodging our immune systems and making us sicker.

Anti-viral drugs, such as Paxlovid and remdesivir, aim to halt this incessant evolution in individual patients—shortening illnesses, snuffing out opportunities for mutation, and reducing transmission. But one antiviral appears to be backfiring—allowing SARS-CoV-2 more opportunities to mutate.

According to a new peer-reviewed study in the journal Nature, the anti-viral drug dubbed molnupiravir is linked to specific SARS-CoV-2 mutation signatures that happened to spring up in 2022 when the drug was introduced.