Staying healthy is a lot like medieval warfare. Cells vs viruses. There are cells defending their castles and viruses trying to break through. If a sneaky virus manages to attack a cell, the cell fights it and notifies all the other castles about what to build to defend it. Man, learning about biology is so much easier when you have cute animations like this making it look like Game of Thrones.
Artist Alicia Watkins zooms in on microorganisms and viruses not with a microscope but with needle and thread. Her Etsy shop is filled with handmade cross-stitches of these tiny beings, from our buddies the red blood cell and the neuron to nasty folk like the anthrax bacterium and the ebola viruses.
Each cross-stitch is made with white or ivory Aida cloth and mounted on a 3″ wood hoop frame.
Who wouldn’t want a syphilis cross-stitch on their wall? You can order these and more from Alicia’s Etsy shop for $20 (USD) each. They’re also available in discounted bundles and as patterns.
[via Laughing Squid]
Emisoft has come forward with details on a newly discovered form of ransomware. This one is dubbed “Linkup” and while it will hold your computer hostage, it doesn’t lock your … Continue reading
In an article primarily about the potential folly of holding onto stockpiles of smallpox virus for research purposes—a now-eradicated plague that humans no longer have natural immunity to and that would very likely cause a worldwide catastrophe should it escape from the lab—the BBC includes one awesomely horrible detail. Could the frozen bodies of smallpox victims in Siberia, now thawing because of climate change, re-release the virus into the environment and thus start a global pandemic?
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AVG has been offering fee antivirus software for Windows PC users and smartphones for a long time. The antivirus software that the company offers users for free works well and protects 172 million active users today according to the company. AVG has announced the launch of a new software suite aimed at protecting Mac computers. […]
Symantec researcher Kaoru Hayashi has posted a report to the effect that a sizable portion of the “Internet of Things” is now vulnerable to a worm called Linux.Darlloz. The worm attacks CPUs running on devices like routers, set-top boxes, security cameras and industrial control systems, as well as PCs. The worm relies on a pre-May […]
Ad agency TDA_Boulder came up with Happy Hour Virus, a website that fakes computer problems. The idea is that you’ll be able to use the “problem” as an excuse to leave work. I don’t think it actually has a chance of getting you off of work, but you can use it to punk your non-techie colleagues for a few seconds.
As you can see in the screenshot above, Happy Hour Virus has three tricks. There’s the ol’ Windows nemesis, the Blue Screen of Death, complete with pseudo code cascading down the screen:
Then there’s the rare but dreaded kernel panic prompt from OS X:
Finally there’s the system agnostic broken screen glitch:
The hilarious thing about this fake malware is that it will disappear when you press the Escape button. Even the most clueless office worker is bound to stumble upon that “solution” and help you be productive again. But as I said, it can work as a harmless prank. Try out Happy Hour Virus here.
[via OhGizmo!]
We’re sure everyone has the Monday blues, and that everyone also looks forward to Fridays as well, after all TGIF, right? Well if you were thinking about clocking out a tad early and want a valid excuse for doing so, how about simulating a computer problem? Dubbed the Happy Hour Virus, this is basically a website which you can use to simulate a variety of problems, ranging from “Kernel Panic”, to “Broken Monitor”, and the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death”. The former might not be overly convincing, but the Broken Monitor and Blue Screen of Death are pretty realistic.
Of course all it takes is for your boss or IT admin to press the ESC key to figure out that it’s a hoax and for you to lose your job, so perhaps using it might not be the best move for your career. Pranking your friends, however, would be perfect, especially if you know they have spent the last 10 hours working on that report or final thesis that they have yet to save! That should teach them a thing or two, right? In any case if you’d like to check it out for yourselves, be sure to hit up its website for the details!
Happy Hour Virus Fakes Computer Problems To Let You Get Off Work Early original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Much news has broken about Stuxnet, a virus which was credited for sabotaging the Iranian uranium enrichment program, has found its way to the International Space Station, or the ISS for short. It was said that Stuxnet had gone rogue, especially when it has the ability to infect other machines via USB or optical media instead of the usual modus operandi of an Internet connection. Just in case you think that an apocalyptic scenario is about to unfold, fret not – the ISS has not been infected by Stuxnet, and all of the earlier reports have been blown out of proportion due to sensationalism.
Apparently, Kaspersky had never mentioned that Stuxnet had infected the International Space Station, but he did present a couple of separate and unrelated anecdotes. The first of the two was about non-specific malware being carried onboard the space station by astronauts, while the other had something to do with Stuxnet infecting a Russian nuclear-facility network. Kaspersky was cited to have said, “The space guys, from time to time, are coming with USBs, which are infected. I’m not kidding. I was talking to Russian space guys and they said, ‘Yeah, from time to time, there are [computer] viruses on the space station.’”
NASA was also quoted as saying, “Virus was never a threat to any of the computers used for cmd and cntl [command and control] and no adverse effect on ISS Ops [operations].” There you go, right from the horse’s mouth itself, the ISS is safe from any virus infection so you won’t find any rogue satellites causing havoc worldwide.
Stuxnet Did Not Infect The International Space Station (ISS) original content from Ubergizmo. 
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The international space station’s computer systems were infected by an unspecified virus this year, according to Kaspersky. The malware made its way into space on a removable device carried by Russian astronauts, and though the extent of the damage hasn’t been specified, it has been revealed that on occasion, the station has suffered “virus epidemics”. […]
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