Viruses are incompetent but smart little things. Unable to make proteins on their own, they hijack ours for their own nefarious purposes. But what if we gave the viruses broken proteins? An incredibly rare genetic disorder in a brother and sister pair does exactly that, making them immune to many classes of viruses—and suggesting new possibilities for antiviral treatments.
DARPA is investigating handheld UV laser devices to help soldiers detect biological and chemical weapons from a safe distance. But when they master that technology, it won’t just be used on the battlefield; it could also help public health workers detect and track outbreaks of communicable diseases. Fighting flu with lasers? This really is the future.
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Ian Lipkin, world-renowned virus hunter, is often jetting off to far-flung countries—countries in the middle of strange epidemics, that is. From SARS in China to MERS in Saudi Arabia, his lab has discovered or characterized over 500 viruses previously mysterious to humans. But what’s it like working on the frontlines of an epidemic? How do you identify a virus you can’t even see? Gizmodo got in touch with Lipkin to ask some questions about the life of a virus hunter.
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It’s sort of your worst nightmare: a computer virus as contagious as the common cold that avoids detection and infects every computer on a given wi-fi network. You just pop into your local coffee for a latte and a little internet surfing, and you leave with a virus. This is scary!
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If you’ve been looking for some truly original wrapping paper this year, swap snowflakes, stars, and stripes for pneumonia, influenza, and the common cold. It turns out that under a microscope those viruses are hard to distinguish from festive decor, and when blown up they make for some lovely gift wrap.
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The Internet’s been abuzz lately with news
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A team of computer scientists has developed a new breed of malware, which can leap between devices using inaudible audio signals—then covertly transmit passwords and other sensitive data without a network connection.
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Everybody hates malware. It’s scary—all your personal information could be exposed! It’s annoying—all your data could disappear! It’s confusing—none of your friends really know how it works! This is why fake malware is the best new way to play hooky.
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There’s a common misconception that you need to be connected to the internet to get infected with malware. Well, that’s not true and, according to renowned cybersecurity expert Eugene Kaspersky, the folks at a nuclear power plant in Russia learned this the hard way.
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It’s enough of a nightmare to have malware of any sort, but the more persistent the stuff is, the scarier it gets. That’s why the rumors of badBIOS, a bug so bad that it can affect Macs and PCs and communicate itself wirelessly while the infected computers are being taken apart is terrifying. But maybe not entirely true.
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