Leftovers

• Science / Mathematics / Computer Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Avocados Switch Sex on a Daily Basis, And Researchers Finally Know How

    This certainly complicates our ‘birds-and-bees’ narrative.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Watched Carbon Dioxide Being Pulled Out of The Air to Form Graphite

    This is some seriously high-tech upcycling.

  • Science Alert ☛ It's Not Just Mom's Diet: Father's Junk Food Habit May Shape His Unborn Baby

    You are what you eat.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Created a Brutal Puzzle Game That Tests Abstract Reasoning – And It's Free to Play

    "Our goal is to produce the largest and most diverse dataset on human problem-solving behavior recorded to date."

  • Science Alert ☛ Generative Hey Hi (AI) Could 'Invent' Biological Discoveries That Don't Exist

    An expert explains the risks.

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ China's memory-making champion smashes DDR5-8800 barrier on AMD platform — CXMT chips close the gap with SK hynix

    Colorful shows off the overclocking potential on new memory kits equipped with CXMT integrated circuits.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • JURIST ☛ Environmental groups sue New York regulators over loopholes weakening lead safety rules

    Three environmental advocacy groups, represented by Earthjustice, filed a lawsuit against the New York State Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday, accusing the DOH of failing to protect tenants, especially children, from lead poisoning due to inadequate enforcement of the state’s Proactive Lead Inspection Law (PLIL), which took effect in November 2025.

  • Science Alert ☛ A Simple Change to Sleep Directly Boosts Academic Performance, Study Reveals

    The first evidence of its kind.

    Sleep is the panacea of our time. A vast and growing body of research shows that when we get good sleep, good things happen inside our bodies.

    When we don't get good sleep, though, the opposite can occur, with poor sleep linked to all kinds of health problems.

  • Science Alert ☛ What if The Brain Doesn't Create Consciousness? Scientist Proposes It Might Be The Fabric of Reality Itself

    Our brains hurt....

• Proprietary / SaaS

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

    • Futurism ☛ Time Magazine Now Running Ads Meant Specifically to Influence Hey Hi (AI) Agents

      The internet is for Hey Hi (AI) bots now.

    • Futurism ☛ Reddit Finally Found a Way to Make Its Mods Even Worse: Replace Them With AI

      Reddit is looking to fight bots with bots.

    • Futurism ☛ Weird Town Begs for Hey Hi (AI) Data Center

      Careful what you wish for.

    • France24 ☛ From Tehran’s walls to the world: Iran’s visual propaganda as an art of war (2/2)

      Tehran at War (Part 2/2). In Iran, the war with the United States is also fought through enormous, state-sponsored posters. Murals transform walls into billboards advertising the official narrative, designed to carry the government's voice far beyond its borders. FRANCE 24 examines this visual strategy, shaped during the Islamic Revolution and supercharged by artificial intelligence.

  • Social Control Media

    • The Straits Times ☛ China’s White Rabbit milk candy wrapper a social control media star in the West

      The wrapper features a seated white rabbit against a red background and framed by blue-and-white rabbit motifs.

    • Futurism ☛ Meta Caught Paying Nazis to Post on Facebook

      We did see that coming.

    • Ruben Schade ☛ Spamming notifications is counterproductive

      One of the first things I evaluate when I’m working on a new system is how it manages notifications.

• Security

  • Security Week ☛ Critical One-Click Vulnerability in Atlassian’s Rovo Hey Hi (AI) Exposed Enterprise Data

    The RovoBlast attack method identified by Varonis researchers could have been exploited to steal Confluence, Jira and SharePoint data.

  • Hacker News ☛ New Interrupt Injection Attack Can Bypass Spectre v2 Defenses on Intel and AMD CPUs

    An unprivileged Linux program can time a hardware interrupt to land in the gap between a processor sanitizing its branch predictor and the kernel using it, re-poisoning the predictor after the defense has run.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ Former SK Hynix employee jailed in South Korea for leaking information to a Chinese firm

    The man admitted all of the charges and the company retrieved most of the information he took.

  • Futurism ☛ Robot Dogs Suddenly Taking Jobs From Human Security Guards

    Human guards are a "big burden" on big business.

  • France24 ☛ Cuba: No power, no fuel, no internet

    Cuba's energy crisis is colliding with economic collapse, as Washington ramps up sanctions on the island. Caught between American pressure and crisis at home, Cubans are struggling just to get through the day. A France24 report from Havana.

  • JURIST ☛ Human rights experts denounces recent US actions against Cuba

    UN human rights experts on Thursday condemned the recent actions of threats and coercion by the United States against Cuba, asking the Security Council and the General Assembly to discuss the matter urgently.

  • New York Times ☛ Iran Issues List of Demands, Dampening Hopes of Reopening Strait of Hormuz

    The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the United States met certain conditions.

  • New York Times ☛ How a Drone ‘Hellscape’ Might Stop a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

    Inspired by Ukraine’s battlefield gains, Taiwan is betting on drones to deter a potential Chinese invasion.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • New York Times ☛ As Ukraine Strikes Wildberries, Russia’s Richest Businesswoman Faces Her Biggest Test Yet

      As Ukraine repeatedly strikes warehouses of the e-commerce site Wildberries, Tatyana Kim, its billionaire co-founder, faces her biggest test yet.

    • New York Times ☛ The U.S. Is Burning Through Weapons in Iran. Russia and China Are Taking Note.

      The Iran war has depleted U.S. weapons stockpiles, resulting in a significant erosion of firepower. A more drawn-out Iran conflict benefits Moscow and Beijing, some analysts say.

    • New York Times ☛ Former Marine Is Unresponsive After Mistreatment in Russian Detention, Family Says

      Robert Gilman, 32, was being fed through a tube and in a “dissociative stupor,” an advocacy group said. He was arrested in Russia in 2022.

    • France24 ☛ Ukraine braces for winter power crisis after Russian strikes, Zelensky says

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Saturday that Ukraine faces a winter with virtually no working thermal power plants after overnight Russian strikes killed four people, including a three-year-old child. Speaking in Belgrade, he said the latest attacks and shelling of frontline communities had killed 13 people in 24 hours.

    • France24 ☛ Russian strikes kill four as Kyiv hits oil refinery

      At least four people, including a child, were killed in Russian attacks on Kyiv and surrounding regions early Saturday. Moscow has been exploiting Ukraine’s depleted air defences to launch waves of drone and missile strikes, while Kyiv has hit another oil refinery in Russia as part of its near-daily long-range attacks on Russian oil facilities, aiming to deepen pressure on Moscow’s fuel supplies.

    • France24 ☛ Russian attacks kill several in Ukraine

      At least four people, including a child, were killed in Russian drone and missile strikes on Kyiv and surrounding regions early Saturday. Moscow has been carrying out near-daily attacks, exploiting Ukraine’s strained air defences. Meanwhile, Ukraine struck another oil refinery in Russia, as Kyiv continues its campaign of long-range attacks on Russian energy facilities in an effort to fuel a growing fuel crisis. France 24 correspondent Emmanuelle Chaze tells us the latest.

    • France24 ☛ Serbia’s Vucic attempts diplomatic ‘balancing act’ with Zelensky’s visit

      Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is making his first official visit to Serbia, in a notable move given Belgrade’s close ties with Moscow and its refusal to impose sanctions on Russia. Zelensky is seeking to shore up international support as Russian strikes on Ukraine intensify. He met Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić for dinner on Friday, with the two leaders set to hold official talks on Saturday.

      Helena Ivanov, Associate Research Fellow at The Henry Jackson Society, shares further insights on the importance of this visit.

    • France24 ☛ Russian strikes kill four near Kyiv, Zelensky makes landmark visit to Serbia

      Russian missile strikes killed four people, including a child, ​in ‌the Kyiv region on Saturday, said local authorities. The attack came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Belgrade on a landmark visit to Serbia, a country with close ties to Moscow. FRANCE 24's Emmanuelle Chaze reports from Kharkiv.

    • RFERL ☛ Serbia Seeks To Maintain Balancing Act As Zelenskyy Visits Belgrade

      Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first visit to Belgrade since being elected in 2019 has produced few significant results while underlining Serbia’s ongoing efforts to maintain ties with both Moscow and the West.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Futurism ☛ Texas Avoids Blackout by the Grace of Solar Power

      "We hit an all time peak, and we had no issue hitting that peak."

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Amazon secretly circumvents community vote for massive Hey Hi (AI) data center using 45-year-old rules — Gilroy residents locked out of public comment window

      Residents of Gilroy, California, were caught by surprise when an Amazon data center started construction in their city. Negotiations for the project started in 2020, with public comments open until 2024, but it flew under the radar.

    • New York Times ☛ New Amazon Data Center Stokes Worry It Would Be the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

      The tech giant is investing in the natural-gas-burning power plant as part of a huge data center in Texas, even as it pledges to honor climate commitments.

    • Ruben Schade ☛ Stovetop covers are a thing

      Our flat has gas. I know, it should see a doctor about it. We want to admonish the natural gas connection and get proper induction hobs installed in place of the built-in counter-top carcinogen-generators (that was a lot of hyphens), but it’s down the list of expensive priorities right now.

    • Ruben Schade ☛ I’m a heat-pump dryer convert: they’re amazing

      There are many challenges that come with being a renter in Australia, and one of them concerns the quality and condition of the included appliances. Most rentals I had here prior to buying included a dishwasher and a dryer. This sounds great, until you actually use them and realise you’re dealing with what I referred to as rental specials. These appliances live hard lives, are generally in rough shape, and are almost always the budget model with limited capacity, slow speeds, noisy operation, high power consumption, and dodgy controls that sometimes even maybe work occasionally, sort of, possibly.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s dog meat restaurants face their final ‘dog days’

      The ban on breeding, slaughter and sale of dogs for meat takes effect in February 2027.

    • France24 ☛ US scientists turn to sharks for help with hurricane prediction

      Researchers at the University of Delaware are set to tag sharks off the US East Coast with small electronic devices for collecting data that could prove useful for hurricane prediction.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Winter melon cooling hack goes viral in China but experts warn to be careful

      Winter melons are made up of over 95 per cent water, making them similar to water-filled cooling pillows.

    • Science Alert ☛ Super Rare Humpback Whale Birth Filmed by Drone For The First Time Off The Coast of Australia

      Welcome to the world, little whale!

• Finance

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia is getting richer. Why are so many of its children still stunted?

    Malaysia has become richer, but too many children are falling behind in growth.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Tibet conference in Nepal pushed online

    An international academic conference on Tibet due to take place in Nepal this month has been pushed online, organisers said Saturday, calling it a “worrying development”. Nepal’s government denied that it had ordered the change, though the country is acutely aware of how sensitive the issue of Tibet is to its giant northern neighbour China.

• Civil Rights / Policing / Accessibility

  • The Straits Times ☛ More workers join strike at BHP’s Port Hedland iron ore operations in Western Australia

    Melbourne-based BHP ships some $80 million of iron ore daily through the port.

• Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Patents

    • Software Patents

      • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Rise of Hey Hi (AI) Patents and their Corresponding Eligibility Rejections

        AI applications draw §101 rejections at 42% against 7% for everything else, while §103 rates are identical. The 2019 guidance effect has eroded.