Leftovers

• MJ Fransen ☛ Books of February 2026

  Books of February 2026

  Below are the two books that I finished this month. I started a third one, but didn't like and decided not to finish it.

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Semaglutide May Reverse Damage Caused by Osteoarthritis, Study Suggests

    Spoiler alert: it’s not just due to weight loss.

  • Science Alert ☛ Discovery of Colossal 'Super-Jupiters' Puzzles Scientists

    “It’s a conundrum.”

  • Science Alert ☛ Bacteria Play Previously Unknown Role in Kidney Stones, Study Finds

    Offering hope for new treatment strategies.

  • Science Alert ☛ The Microbes in Your Dog's Gut May Predict Their Cancer Prognosis

    Good news for dog-lovers.

  • Science Alert ☛ World's Smallest QR Code Is So Tiny It's Invisible to The Human Eye

    "It cannot be seen with optical microscopes at all."

  • Science Alert ☛ New Ozempic-Style Pill Outperformed Oral Semaglutide in Major Trial

    There is one drawback, however.

  • Science Alert ☛ Don't Miss This Week's Blood Moon. It Will Be The Last You'll See For a While.

    Next full lunar eclipse: Late 2028.

  • Futurism ☛ NASA Spots Sun-like Star Inflating Massive Bubble

    This blows.

  • WhichUK ☛ You might not be watering your plants properly – here’s what to do

    Our gardening experts have uncovered the best watering methods to ensure large, healthy plants

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • New York Times ☛ How the Psychedelic Drug Ibogaine Changed Me Forever

    Veterans and others who have suffered trauma and injuries are flocking to clinics around the world to take ibogaine. My own reason was deeply personal.

  • WhichUK ☛ Healthy life expectancy in decline: 5 ways to protect your pension

    We're living longer but spending less time in good health, which poses a challenge for retirement planning

  • LRT ☛ Dating apps as emotional rollercoasters: what risks do they pose to mental health?

    For many, dating apps can feel more like a gambling trip than a path to romance. Disappearing mid-conversation can lead to low self-esteem and automatic reaching for your phone to check messages can signal dependency. Together with psychologist Edvardas Šidlauskas, LRT.lt explored the psychological risks these apps can pose to mental health.

  • Futurism ☛ Bacteria Engineered to Eat Tumors From the Inside

    "So, we are now colonizing that central space, and the bacterium is essentially ridding the body of the tumor."

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Futurism ☛ ChatGPT Health Is Staggeringly Bad at Recognizing Life-Threatening Medical Emergencies

      "Unbelievably dangerous."

    • Futurism ☛ AI-Generated Film Pulled From AMC Cinemas

      Sayonara, slop!

    • Benjamin Mako Hill ☛ Benjamin Mako Hill: Pronunciation

      Had a discussion about how to pronounce the name of Google’s chatbot. Turns out, we were all wrong.

    • Futurism ☛ A Staggering Proportion of High School Kids Are Using Hey Hi (AI) to Do Their Homework, Which Is Probably Not Going to End Well [Ed: Slop helps cheating, so that's a net loss]

      The numbers are stupefying.

• Security

  • Security Week ☛ Hackers Weaponize Claude Code in Mexican Government Cyberattack

    The Hey Hi (AI) was abused to write exploits, create tools, and automatically exfiltrate over 150GB of data.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Futurism ☛ Data Centers in Space Are Even More Cursed Than Previously Believed

      "Orbital data centers are many years, perhaps decades, away."

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ Banks Are Becoming Bulwarks for Vulnerable Seniors

    Older Americans are losing billions of dollars annually to financial exploitation. Banks and investment firms are training employees to spot red flags and stop the transactions.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • JURIST ☛ US Justice Department sues five additional states over voter roll production

    The US Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it has filed lawsuits against Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia and New Jersey for not providing voter registration records. The Department had previously sued 24 states and the District of Columbia for allegedly refusing to cooperate with such record production.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Futurism ☛ Meta Reels Is Filling Up With Hey Hi (AI) Slop of Faith Healers Performing Miraculous Cures

      "Be healed in the name of Jesus!"

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong retiree jailed for 8 months over seditious Facebook (Farcebook) posts

    A Hong Kong court has sentenced a 68-year-old retiree to eight months in jail for sedition under the city’s homegrown security law, after the man published more than 100 Facebook (Farcebook) posts criticising authorities and calling for a boycott of last year’s legislative polls.

  • JURIST ☛ Pakistan urged to quash conviction of Junaid Hafeez under blasphemy laws

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Pakistan authorities on Thursday to quash the conviction of Junaid Hafeez, who was sentenced to death in 2019 under the country’s blasphemy provisions after being arrested in March 2013.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • The UK Law Firm Vanishing Act: Over 1,100 Law Firms Gone in Five Years

    Norma Harris, LawFuel contributing editor Well, if the UK legal scene were a magic show, the disappearing firms would be the star trick. By the end of 2025, SRA-regulated firms in England and Wales dipped below 9,000—the first time in recent history—down from over 10,000 in 2020, a net loss of more than 1,100.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • APNIC ☛ APRICOT 2026 keynotes: Agency, memory, and getting IPv6 done

    The APRICOT 2026 keynotes set three complementary challenges for the Internet community — use automation without losing agency, preserve the operational record that explains how we got here, and finish the work of IPv6 where it still lags.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • WhichUK ☛ London Repair Week: Find out how to repair your household items

    From loose seams and stuck zips to a cracked phone screen or broken bike chain – find free repair services to get them fixed

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ The Real-Time View: USPTO Allowance Rate “Dips” to 75%

    A complementary metric to the filing-cohort allowance rate reveals what the USPTO is doing right now, and shows a recent decline in patent monopoly disposals from 80% to 75% as abandonments rise.