Leftovers

• Science / Mathematics / Computer Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Sugar-Free Diets May Have a Hidden Side Effect, Study in Mice Suggests

    But there's a lot we don't know.

  • Science Alert ☛ This Week in Science: A Voice-Restoring Brain Implant, Nuclear Clocks, And More!

    Our weekly science news roundup.

  • Science Alert ☛ New Immune System Discovery Could Help Beat a Sneaky Cancer Cell Trick

    Spotting and killing off cancer.

  • Science Alert ☛ Women With ADHD May Be Losing Years of Treatment, Experts Warn

    We need to fix this.

  • Science Alert ☛ It's Official: Third Galaxy Found With No Dark Matter May Solve an Epic Mystery

    We've never seen anything like this.

  • Science Alert ☛ Human Evolution May Be Undergoing a Major Shift Right in Front of Our Eyes

    Don't blink.

  • Science Alert ☛ 3 Common Men's Health Drugs Have Surprising Origins

    Researchers later discovered what they could do.

  • Science Alert ☛ Yellowstone Wolves' Forest Revival Was Overstated, Scientists Say

    Back to the drawing board?

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Rare ASML Special Edition Monopoly board unearthed in social control media trade — enthusiast swaps 2007 employee gift for High-NA EUV Lego kit

    We just witnessed a significant semiconductor industry related non-cash trade deal take place on Twitter/X.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • France24 ☛ EU welcomes back gene-edited crops, worrying small-scale farmers

    Gene-edited crops are making a comeback in the EU. Earlier this week, Brussels lawmakers gave the final go-ahead to an easing of restrictions, allowing a broader use of plants obtained by what's known as new genomic techniques, or NGTs. The promise is that they will make crops more resistant to drought and disease, increasingly important given climate change. But small-scale farmers are worried about the move entrenching inequality, as the new seeds will be expensive and big biotech firms will control the patents and distribution. For more, Peter O’Brien spoke to Agnès Ricroch, lecturer and researcher at AgroParisTech and Adjunct Professor at Pennsylvania State University.

  • JURIST ☛ US federal appeals court restores Ohio social control media restrictions for minors under 16

    The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in a 2-1 decision on Thursday restored Ohio’s limits on the use of social control media by youths under 16. The restrictions are part of the state’s Social Media Parental Notification Act (SMPNA).

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China says to impose 55% levy on Australian beef after quota hit

    China said on Friday it will impose a tariff of 55 percent on beef imports from Australia after shipments from the country hit Beijing’s annual limit. The price of beef in China has trended downwards in recent years, with analysts blaming oversupply and a lack of demand as the world’s second-largest economy has slowed.

  • New York Times ☛ Cities and Schools Are Testing Wastewater for Illicit Drugs

    The White House recently endorsed monitoring sewage for evidence of drug use. Critics fear such efforts could violate privacy and stigmatize neighborhoods.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Pakistan’s mango exports shrink as Middle East war impacts linger

    Locals struggling with a spike in inflation from the Iran war are holding off on buying the fruit.

• Proprietary / SaaS

  • So-Called 'Artificial Intelligence' ('AI') / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Age of Empires II’s goats used as Hey Hi (AI) building blocks to build a neural network — goaty experiment mocks the idea of chatbot consciousness, Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Hey Hi (AI) researcher’s project makes an absurdist point about Hey Hi (AI) consciousness

      People seem all-too-ready to anthropomorphize LLMs and Hey Hi (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, reckons a Abusive Monopolist Microsoft Hey Hi (AI) researcher.

    • Futurism ☛ New Law Would Give Artists Sweeping Protections Against Hey Hi (AI) Stealing Their Work

      If it passes, this law could be a seismic shock to the Hey Hi (AI) industry.

• Linux Foundation

  • CNCF and Linux Foundation Education Partner with Udemy to Provide a Unified Cloud Native Training & Certification Opportunity

• Security

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Anti-virus scams are enabled by the vendors themselves

    Shane Hickey wrote in the Guardian back in May, quote marks added:

    Criminals use a variety of tactics to convince people that they are from McAfee and are becoming more sophisticated with advances in “artificial intelligence”, according to the company.

    There’s a broader discussion about the necessity of such AV tools, and McAfee’s own… shall we say, history! If you have a spare half an hour on your Sunday, do check out the history of the company and its eccentric former CEO; they read more like caricatures. But I digress.

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • The Straits Times ☛ Tight security as India holds exam retest after leak scandal

      The examination is scheduled to begin at 2.00pm local time

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Futurism ☛ Microsoft Announces New Feature That Narcs on You to Your Boss

      "Why is Teams designed to tattle on employees at every turn?"

• Defence/Aggression

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ China unveils man-portable anti-drone laser that can burn through a drone 1,600 feet away in four seconds — backpack-sized 2-kilowatt weapon uses Hey Hi (AI) for targeting, weighs 55 pounds, and can be carried by a single soldier

    Chinese defense supplier Harbin Xinguang Optic-Electronics Technology demo’d two man-portable anti-drone lasers at a Beijing arms expo this week.

  • New York Times ☛ Father and Uncle of Slain New York Girl Given Life Sentences in Pakistan

    The killing of the victim, a 14-year-old girl from Yonkers who was known for posting videos on TikTok, was premeditated, a court ruled.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Acoustic mapping app uses thousands of networked old Android phones to hunt Shahed drones — crowd-sourced microphone network spots small, low-RCS military targets

    This app would crowdsource drone detection and help map their location and direction long before they reach their targets.

  • JURIST ☛ UK dispatch: Court of Appeal upholds ban on Palestine Action advocacy group

    On June 15, the Court of Appeal held that the UK government’s proscription of advocacy group, Palestine Action, was upheld, overturning the High Court’s decision in February that the terror ban was unlawful. 

  • NYPost ☛ IDF kills Hamas moneymen who funneled $170M to ‘military wing’ in Gaza airstrike

    The funds were used in recent months to pay terrorists and finance attacks against Israeli troops and civilians, the IDF said.

  • France24 ☛ Israel and Hezbollah trade fire, as US-Iran talks begin in Switzerland

    The Iranian Revolutionary Guards declared the Strait of Hormuz shut again on Saturday. Meanwhile Iranian state media says high level officials have arrived in Switzerland for peace talks starting this Sunday. And after initially cancelling his trip, US Vice President JD Vance has landed to take part. Tehran's nuclear programme and other points in the agreement are conditional on a halt in fighting in Lebanon. But the Lebanese civil defence said 20 people were killed by Israeli strikes on Saturday. Details from the ground by FRANCE 24 correspondent in Tehran and Beirut, Reza Sayah and Renée Davis.

  • France24 ☛ Israeli drone strike kills Al Jazeera journalist in Gaza

    Qatar-based Al Jazeera said on Saturday that an Israeli drone strike targetting a house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed its journalist Ahmed Wishah. An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the strike on Wishah and alleged he was a "Hamas terrorist", but did not provide any evidence to support the accusation.

  • New York Times ☛ Mona Khalil, Defender of Sea Turtles, Killed in an Israeli Strike in Lebanon

    For a quarter century, Ms. Khalil ran a guesthouse and worked to protect endangered sea turtles who every summer lay their eggs on a stretch of beach near Tyre, Lebanon.

  • JURIST ☛ UN upholds freedom of movement for peacekeepers in Lebanon amidst ongoing regional hostilities

    The United Nations on Thursday renewed its call for full freedom of movement for peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, warning that restrictions on the operations of UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) could undermine efforts to monitor one of the region’s most fragile security zones.

  • JURIST ☛ Luigi Mangione plans to withdraw mental health crisis claims

    Luigi Mangione’s attorneys have withdrawn their plan to allege at trial that he was undergoing a mental health crisis, court filings revealed on Friday. Mangione pleaded not guilty in 2024 to the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

  • France24 ☛ Russia pauses fuel sales as Ukrainian strikes kill four in Crimea

    A massive Ukrainian barrage in Russian-occupied Crimea killed four people, Moscow-backed authorities there said on Sunday, adding that fuel sales at Crimean petrol stations were subsequently suspended. Ukraine said it targeted military and energy facilities in Crimea – Moscow's key logistics base for its four-year military offensive – in one of the biggest attacks on the peninsula in recent months.

  • France24 ☛ Zelensky stripped of Poland's top award amid diplomatic spat

    Ukraine's president has returned a state decoration he received from Poland amid a diplomatic spat. Poland stripped Volodymyr Zelensky of the award after Zelensky renamed a ⁠military unit in honour of the World War Two-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The insurgents were involved in massacres which Poland considers a genocide. Two former Ukrainian presidents and other senior officials also returned awards received from Poland in protest. Our correspondent in Kiev, Emmanuelle Chaze, reports.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Why a speech by Pursuit Of Jade’s Zhang Linghe has divided Taiwan

    Fans were delighted but critics labelled the speech as political propaganda.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • LRT ☛ Putin's 'war trap' and the potential price of peace

      An economy fueled by fighting. From TV screens to classrooms, an all-pervading narrative of civilizational confrontation with the West. Thousands of war-scarred soldiers, some of them violent convicts sprung from prison to fight in the bloodiest battles in Ukraine, returning to cities and towns across Russia.

• Environment

  • Futurism ☛ Weather So Brutal That Dean Passes Out at College Graduation

    Outdoor surface temperatures reached 155 degrees Fahrenheit.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • New York Times ☛ A Humble 3-Wheel Electric Vehicle Lands Toyota in Federal Court

      A lawsuit filed in California claims the automaker’s philanthropic arm stole technology intended to help poor farmers, but it is not clear to what end.

    • New York Times ☛ While the World Scrambles for Oil, China Sits on Full Tanks

      The possible reopening of the Strait of Hormuz may not prompt China to return quickly to prewar levels of oil purchases from the Persian Gulf.

• Finance

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Samsung and SK hynix bonuses for chip workers flagged as a national inflation risk — Bank of Korea projects full-year inflation significantly above its 2% target

    The Bank of Korea has named performance bonuses at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix as a risk to the country's inflationary stability.

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Copyrights

    • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ ‘There’s no soul’: Hong Kong actor Tony Leung weighs in on Hey Hi (AI) in filmmaking

      One of the things Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung Chiu-wai likes about acting is the novelty — “you will never repeat the same role”. When it comes to the changes wrought on his beloved cinema by technology like AI, though, there are some things it seems he would rather keep constant.