A vulnerability in a widely used logging library has become a full-blown security meltdown, affecting digital systems across the internet. Hackers are already attempting to exploit it, but even as fixes emerge, researchers warn that the flaw could have serious repercussions worldwide.

In his 1879 account of wanderings in the Orient, the travel writer James Hingston describes how, in West Java, he was treated to a bizarre experience: I am taken by my kind host around his garden, and shown, among other things, a flower, a red orchid, that catches and feeds upon live flies.

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