so where does that leave us? Does that basically nullify the red shift?
and if so what could we draw from that? Not necessarily that the universe is quite a steady state?

No, the universe is still expanding.
This has been established since Slipher/Hubble in the 1920s or so.

But, if Sarkar is right, then this expansion is NOT accelerating, which was what the 2011 Nobel Prize was awarded for.

And it may resolve the "crisis in cosmology" where the rate of expansion is different when measured using two different phenomena (Cosmic Microwave Background radiation vs. Supernova standard candles).

It also casts doubts on what some aspects of Dark Energy and such.

That is it in a nutshell ...
And it makes a lot of sense, if the observations are correct.

If his research pans out, then one Nobel Prize was awarded for an erroneous interpretation.

Adam Reiss, Nobel Laureate for that prize criticizes Sarkar's work, but he has a vested interested in the status quo. Other experts should chime in, and more observations and analysis are needed.

The lecture is based on published research done by him and his post doctoral student.

Again, it is an area to keep an eye on, and nothing is definitive yet.

If the topic of this story is of interest to you, then watch Subir Sarkar's lecture on Beyond The Cosmological Standard Model.

Sarkar is a professor at Oxford who has done some interesting work providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is NOT accelerating.

Instead, he is saying that there is a dipole effect because earth, and the galaxy cluster that we are in, are all moving in space, and that gives the effect of accelerating expansion!

He provides compelling evidence (for a non-specialist at least) for what he says and also casts doubts on the evidence for acceleration by analyzing their data (supernovae as standard candles, and their red shift), since a dipole effect is observed on that.

If his hypothesis is confirmed by other research and observations, then the Nobel Prize for Saul Perlmutter and Adam Reiss maybe for nothing ...

An area to watch for sure ...

TOTP seeds sometimes can't be viewed and backed up, which means that if you drop your phone in a puddle, you're going to have a real fun time recovering ALL of your accounts.

They can be backed up ...

See this comment for details.

Because those things can't be backed up

TOTP hashes can be backed up.
Just use an application that can do that ...

On Android, FreeOTP+ has an export/import feature.
This is the way most people can use it, without technical knowledge.

And from the command line, there is oathtool. I wrote a simple wrapper script that reads a file that contains the hashes, and returns the one time password.

To those who are curious how this exploit works, here are some resources:

The original write up by the guy who discovered the exploit.

The "Design" section in this gist briefly describes the components of the backdoor.

And this is a detailed breakdown of how shell obfuscation is used to hide the exploit.

There is still no detailed analysis of the binary (that I know of).

Why everyone has to insult and disparage Avi Loeb for making suggestions is beyond me.
If you don't believe him then fine - ignore him and move on with your life.
Maybe refrain from judging him and let him manage his life in the way he sees fit.

He is constantly disparaged, and rightly so, because he should know better ...

He is a Harvard professor and was a department chair for many years, yet, he jumps to extraordinary claims not supported by the data. Very unscientific ...

Check out what Dr. Angela Collier, who is an astrophysicist, and her analysis of Avi Loeb's alien research.

RNA is different from DNA in a few aspects.

One of them is that RNA is less stable, and therefore has a higher mutation rate than DNA.
That is one reason why the Influenza viruses keep changing from season to season, because the flu is an RNA virus.

Another aspect of RNA, is that in addition to carrying genetic information, it can also act as a catalyst (enzyme).

So it is a dual tool if you like ...

Life today still depends on that latter function of RNA: the ribosomes in every living cells depend on RNA's catalytic function for one of the most essential functions: protein synthesis.

Even after DNA took over, and after eukaryotes evolved (including multicellular life like us), RNA from the RNA World is still around.

There are also similarities between RNA and certain essential nutrients such as some B vitamins (niacinamide, ...), which suggest common biochemical origins.

Glad my post was of use ...

Cancer is terrifying!

Your body and mine have cancer cells all the time, but the immune system keeps them in check. They kill any cells that exhibit certain traits.

Trouble starts when cancer mutates to make itself invisible to the immune system.

But before that ... for cancer to develop there are multiple mutations that have to happen to a given cell (I heard that they are at least 3, but forgot the details). The first one is a checkpoint in mitosis that gets bypassed, and there is avoiding apoptosis (programmed cell death to prevent unchecked proliferation).

I've even seen a case of cancer where the patient had an organ removed, then the markers for that type of cancer were followed up, started to rise after some time, then they gave him a certain treatment, the markers dropped, then rose again, and they gave him another treatment, then the patient died in the end.

Histology and genetic experts went back to the removed organ (that was frozen for maybe 15 years), and were able to traced the various genetic mutations to the various lesions in the removed organ. What they found was really surprising: it turned out that what killed the person was a grade of cancer that is considered low grade and low risk (i.e. would not grow fast enough to be of concern). What probably happened is that this particular lesion had some cells that spread elsewhere and they accumulated mutations which went to the liver (or was it lung) and killed the poor guy.

And as someone who has a degree in pharmacy (i.e. lots of biology, and some medical courses on top, but from decades ago), but having worked all my career in technology, please don't compare programming to biological system. The latter is vastly more complex than any operating system or program running under it.

There are often long and complicated pathways for most biological processes. Lookup the complement system which is part of the immune system. Or the sheer number of white blood cells, and how they start from the same stem cells. Mind blowing really.

P.S. during the pandemic, I was able to get through a virology course by a professor at Columbia University. When I tried to do the same for an immunology course, I could not complete it. Then after several months, I tried with a different course, and still would not complete it. Extremely complex stuff.

Example, genes are not on/off switches. It is not like "I have this gene, I will definitely die from cancer". There is the whole gene expression thing. For cancer, there are other factors like lifestyle, health, pollutants, and so on. For example, the gene that is most associated with breast cancer increases the likelihood by 'only' 16% or so.

There is a lot to be discovered yet, and lots more to make remedies from that ...

Said with complete confidence, though completely wrong, and contrary to observed studies ...

Cancer is not a virus, that is true (although some viruses are known to cause cancer, but that is a different topic).

Complex organisms are just a collection of cells. Any cell can have a mutation, whether it is in a human, cow, algae or bacteria.

Cancer cells have DNA that has changed in some ways (ignore the normal checkpoints on proliferation, evade certain immune system mechanisms, increased vascularity, and so on ....).

Since cancer cells reproduce at a much faster rate than normal cells, it is more prone to having mutations, and therefore is subject to the same selection pressures that an organism faces.

Cancer evolves inside a patient just like any organism evolves. When subjected to selection pressures (e.g. reduced oxygen, therapeutics), mutations can be selected for that evade these pressures ...

In effect, just like bacteria evolve to develop antibiotic resistance, cancer can evolve to develop therapeutic resistance ... there is no difference to the underlying mechanisms.

There are studies exploring exactly that topic:

Differential selective pressure alters rate of drug resistance acquisition in heterogeneous tumor populations

Tumor Microenvironment - Selective Pressures Boosting Cancer Progression

The somatic molecular evolution of cancer: Mutation, selection, and epistasis

These remedies will work for a while, then selection pressure will cause mutations that avoid it to give a survival advantage to the cells that can evade this mechanism ...

For example, for prostate cancer, at a certain stage, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is given. These are basically drugs that inhibit testosterone production or block the receptors for it. After a while under treatment, the cancer can mutate and become "castrate resistant", and that treatment is no longer viable. Other treatments are sought, such as chemotherapy or radiation.

This is like all the monoclonal antibodies that came out about a year after COVID-19 emerged, and then became mostly useless.

And this is why HIV is treated with a cocktail of anti-retroviral drugs (combination therapy), so if mutations occur that evade one of them, the others can keep the virus in check.

This graph is the same as the first one in the linked article, but it is annotated.

Really scary.

One wonders if we have reached the stage of runaway warming, and/or a self enforcing feedback loop ...

As someone here pointed out a few weeks ago ...

There is also phind.com, which does not require that you create an account.

The references are provided on the right sidebar, and they are cited just like footnotes, with URLs so you can check them yourselves.

There is already a private sector company that does exactly that: put satellites up in space that monitor for methane. They first launched in 2016. Their primary markets are oil/gas and coal companies.

This is an overview, including the instruments, and this is their web site.