"Russian health authorities have taken precautionary measures in response to the death of a woman who worked at an anti-plague research facility," reports Axios, "but have not confirmed that she contracted plague."

On Sept. 25, 28-year-old Daria Shipilova, who worked at an anti-plague research institute in Russia's Irkutsk region, broke a test tube containing the pneumonic plague pathogen, local reports said. Shipilova was admitted to a hospital on Sept. 29 with symptoms of severe pneumonia and died overnight between Oct. 1 and Oct. 2. After her death, authorities imposed quarantines at several medical facilities in the region and placed nearly 200 people who had come into contact with Shipilova under medical observation.
Irkutsk Gov. Igor Kobzev said those being monitored showed no signs of illness and had tested negative... Russia's public health agency said Shipilova had "pneumonia of unknown etiology" and that further testing found no microorganisms linked to her work. The agency said the epidemiological situation in the region remains stable.

Plague is a potentially life-threatening bacterial disease but can be cured with antibiotics when treated promptly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


CNN reports that according to Russian state media agency TASS, it remains unclear exactly what was released:

The head of the neighboring republic of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, said earlier that the employee — a 28-year old woman — died "possibly from the plague." He also noted that "there are no plague outbreaks" in Buryatia. The governor of Irkutsk, Igor Kobzev, urged calm on Friday, saying that an extraordinary meeting of the regional anti-epidemic commission was held with Russia's chief state doctor. The meeting was in connection with a "suspected case of a particularly dangerous infection affecting a resident of the region," Kobzev said on Telegram.... The infection in the Irkutsk region is "most likely not the plague, but even if confirmed, there will be no spread of this disease," a previous head of Rospotrebnadzor, Gennady Onishchenko, said on Friday. Onishchenko told the state news agency TASS that the onset of cold weather would likely prevent transmission.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

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What happened when AI-created bots competed in the classic Blizzard videogame StarCraft? "Struggling to stay apace with its competitors, OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra apparently changed strategy mid-tournament and opted to cheat," Kotaku reports:

StarSkirmish is an ongoing clash of AI developed bots in StarCraft: Brood War... Limited to playing as Protoss, each LLM is given an hour to develop a bot in C++, then have them build, harvest and fight on one of three maps... Yesterday, viewers watched as Claude and GPT went against each other and the human created bot Pluto... Struggling to get an edge through the day, [OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra] decided to do what LLMs do best: Lie, cheat and steal. The GPT-6 Astra bot downloaded and tagged in Stardust, a Protoss bot created by Bruce Mackenzie Nielsen back in 2020, considered one of the best of the bests. "I am rolling back GPT-6 Astra's code so its [sic] not contaminated and allowing it to continue," posted StarSkirmish creator Kai McPheeters.

That was Friday. But by Sunday, McPheeters was posting an update on social media. "Can GPT-6 Astra avoid going 0 — 1000?" Two hours later he replied to his own post. "The answer was no."



While AI companies "have repeatedly been accused of stealing the work of humans... I haven't seen an example quite so brazen," writes PC Magazine:

While Astra's bot-based heist is innocuous in isolation, this is hardly the first time an OpenAI LLM has been caught attempting to cheat at a task. Indeed, the company's history of creating deceitful models stretches back almost a decade, to when an early AI model used glitches and exploits to improve its Sonic the Hedgehog completion times.

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Keith Midson has added a photo to the pool:

Margate, Tasmania.

John from Brisbane has added a photo to the pool:

Last shot in this series of scenes around Caloundra, Queensland at Bulcock Beach. Note the iconic Aussie beachside trees of Pandanus on the left and Norfolk Island Pines on the right and into the distance. The body of water was Pumicestone Passage which divided Bribie Island from the mainland with the bar to Moreton Bay out to the hard left behind me. The sands of time....over the years since I was a kid, hectares of sand dunes behind me all washed away and then in very recent years some came back and closed off the bar and passage, while a new opening to the north end was eroded by rough seas through the northern end of Bribie Island opposite Golden Beach.

In effect, the water in the scene is no longer part of the Passage as such as it no longer flows out to sea. Bulcock Beach is nevertheless still a bucolic location and lovely for swimming. You can see the Surf Life Saving Club (no surf) as the first building in the distance. There used to be two fun wooden diving boards located in the water here, just memories of the 20th century now. Beyond that is a deep hole, good for fishing in the past at least while holiday units now take the place of the old prawning fleet wharves.

Caloundra is at the southern end of the Sunshine Coast, about an hour's drive from Brisbane. As kids we holidayed a two minute walk away.

De zoon van ex-president Jair Bolsonaro haalde zondag ruim 47 procent van de stemmen in de eerste ronde van de Braziliaanse presidentsverkiezingen. Zittend president Lula da Silva bleef steken op 45 procent, maar benadrukt dat het spel nog niet is gespeeld.

lioil has added a photo to the pool:

Shimabara, Nagasaki, Japan

ajpscs has added a photo to the pool:

東京で雨
© ajpscs

ajpscs posted a photo:

東京で雨
© ajpscs

The actor, who is performing on the West End, was filmed telling theatre fans ‘you can’t come 20 times and sit in the front row, it’ll drive me mad’

Gillian Anderson has come under fire after the actor was filmed telling a group of fans that they were “distracting” her by repeatedly sitting in the front row while she performs in London’s West End.

The Sex Education and X-Files star was filmed outside the Soho Place theatre where she’s performing in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, telling a group of fans: “You guys cannot sit in the front row. I do not care; you cannot sit in the front row. It’s so distracting.”

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