Asher 🇨🇦🌿☮️🎗️Ⓥ

Debian Linux was officially founded by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. That's 32 years of stable, free, and opensource computing. From a single kernel, it has grown to parent some of the most popular OSes in the world. Happy 32nd birthday to the beloved mother of all distros! 🥰 🍰

You know you're an old school Linux user when... you still try to use `ifconfig` and get a "command not found" error, followed by a moment of silent grief 🤬

I'm at the CSPB 2025 conference in Halifax, NS, Canada. I'm presenting the BAR poster (P1-98). Please visit if you have any questions.

New Publication! PhD Student in Biological Sciences within the Wilkins Lab University of Manitoba Research Associate within the Provart Lab & Department of Cell and Systems Biology University of Toronto Read the article! Sean Robertson Asher Pasha Olivia Wilkins Associate Professor within the Department of Biological Sciences University of Manitoba Congratulations to C-SPIRIT Members Sean Robertson, Asher Pasha, Nicholas Provart, and Olivia Wilkins as well as their colleagues on the publication of their article Growth-limiting drought increases sensitivity of Asian rice (Oryza sativa) leaves to heat shock through physiological andspatially distinct transcriptomic responses! Nicholas Provart Professor and Chair within the Department of Cell & Systems Biology University of Toronto

Congrats to Sean Robertson, Asher Pasha, Nick Provart, & Olivia Wilkins on their article "Growth-limiting drought increases sensitivity of Asian rice (Oryza sativa) leaves to heat shock through physiological & spatially distinct transcriptomic responses"!

Read: doi.org/10.1111/tpj....
#PlantScience

You can see the pictures and videos on the Toronto Animal Rights March Instagram: torontoanimalrightsmarch.

#vegan #animalrights #toronto #govegan

Today, the humidex in Toronto was ~40°C (104°F), bright and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. That didn't stop us from marching ~3.6 km on the streets of Toronto. I attended the Toronto Animal Rights March 2025 (and yes, the full march).

BAR ThaleMine has been upgraded to version v5.1.0-20250704. So, we have InterMine software v5.1.0 and data as of 4th July 2025.

Cc: @bar-plantbio.bsky.social

#arabidopsis #plantbio #intermine

Happy Canada Day 🇨🇦

Congrats Nick 🎉

I am honoured to have received a "Dissemination of Arabidopsis Knowledge" award by NAASC at #icar2025, along with 3 others! Thanks to @asherpasha.bsky.social for tending the BAR and to the many students who have helped in this dissemination over the years, and to you for citing us!

Botnet hacks 9,000+ ASUS routers to add persistent SSH backdoor Over 9,000 ASUS routers are compromised by a novel botnet dubbed "AyySSHush" that was also observed targeting SOHO routers from Cisco, D-Link, and Linksys.

If you use Asus routers, check out:

#Asus

New Publication! Research Associate Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Michigan State University Research Technologist Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Michigan State University Read the full article! Maria Camalle Hannah Reish ALeksandra Skirycz Associate Professor Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Michigan State University Congratulations to C-SPIRIT Members Maria Camalle, Hannah Reish, Anthony Schilmiller, and Aleksandra Skirycz as well as their colleagues on the publication of their article Characterization of the cyclic dipeptide cyclo(His-Pro) in Arabidopsis! Anthony Schilmiller Associate Director of Mass Spectrometry & Metabolomics Core Michigan State University

🌿 Big congrats to C-SPIRIT researchers Maria Camalle, Hannah Reish, Anthony Schilmiller & Aleksandra Skirycz (MSU) + team for their new paper on cyclo(His-Pro) in Arabidopsis! 🧪

Turns out this stress-linked molecule isn't just in animals — it helps plants, too. 🌡️❄️🧂

📖 qrco.de/bg10cW

#PlantScience

Bookmarking / sharing:

I recently attended the IT@UofT conference in Toronto. It was awesome. Huge thanks to organizers, sponsors and speakers.

#UofT #Toronto #IT

Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you!

Institutional Feature: University of Toronto Aims: 2: Metabolite Annotation & Database Development 3: Gene & Pathway Discovery C-SPIRIT Members: Nick Provart Asher Pasha Vincent Lau

Second up in our Institutional Feature Series: University of Toronto!

We have three C-SPIRIT members affiliated with @uoft.bsky.social who work to advance our Aims 2 and 3.

🔗 Learn more about our Aims: c-spirit.org/research/

#PlantScience #PlantStress #PlantResilience #InstitutionalFeature

Looks like OpenBSD 7.7 is released. OpenBSD is awesome. Check it out:

#OpenBSD

Python's new t-strings: Template strings, also known as t-strings, have been officially accepted as a feature in Python 3.14, which will ship in late 2025. 🎉 I’m excited; t-strings open the door to safer more flexible string processing in Python. davepeck.org/2025/04/11/p...

Hertz says customers’ personal data and driver’s licenses stolen in data breach The car rental giant attributed the breach to Cleo, whose customers had data stolen by a ransomware gang in 2024.

Hertz says customers’ personal data and driver’s licenses stolen in data breach

Fortinet FortiSwitch has an "extremely critical" vulnerability (CVE-2024-48887) with a CVSS score of 9.3. An unauthenticated user could exploit it to change the password for an administrative account, gaining administrative privileges on the device. Fortinet has issued an advisory.

Unity Diner | Featured in Vogue Best Vegan Restaurants in London Featured in Vogue Best Vegan Restaurants in London. We’re proudly vegan, non-profit + sustainable. “The most amazing vegan burger I have ever tried! The desserts are mind-blowing. Best vegan food in L...

Good news: Earthling Ed's vegan restaurant is back. I had a 3D-printed vegan steak burger when I was there. It was awesome. Check out the new menu:

#Vegan #London

From May 5, 2025, Outlook will require high-volume email senders (over 5,000 emails daily) to implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Initially, non-compliant emails will go to the junk folder and may eventually be rejected if issues persist.

PSA to the devs out there, BYOD and Zero Trust are not the same and are neither is dependent on the other.

Story of my life 😭

Image shows Melanie Woodin

Melanie Woodin, an internationally recognized neuroscientist who studies the mechanisms underlying learning and memory in the brain, has been named #UofT’s 17th president. ➡️ uoft.me/uoftpres

With 23andMe filing for bankruptcy -- reach out to your family members who might have ordered these kits to get them to request deletion of their data. And if you signed-up yourself, you should absolutely do the same!

A lot of people in the Souls community have had their discord account hacked today due to the "Can you test this game me and my friends are working on?" social engineering attack. Some large content creators included. Please don't fall for it, too.

Get well soon. <Virtual hug from Canada>.

Facial Recognition Company Clearview Attempted to Buy Social Security Numbers and Mugshots for its Database Clearview AI spent nearly a million dollars in a bid to purchase “690 million arrest records and 390 million arrest photos” from all 50 states, court records reveal.

In the past, Clearview AI collected photos from social media for their facial recognition tool and sold access to law enforcement. And now this:

#Privacy

What are common things that people do on the internet that can actually be harmful for your security?