Leftovers

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ OCD's Origins Might Not Lie in The Brain Like We Thought

    New connections appear.

  • Science Alert ☛ Universe Will Start to Shrink in Just 7 Billion Years, Claims Study

    Pressing rewind on reality.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Discovered This Amazing Practical Use For Leftover Coffee Grounds

    We shouldn't throw them out.

  • Science Alert ☛ Titan Could Have An Alien Biosphere – But It Might Be Dog-Sized

    We have a small problem.

  • Science Alert ☛ Ancient Neanderthal 'Fat Factory' Reveals How Advanced They Really Were

    Ahead of their time.

  • Science Alert ☛ Pomegranates Could Limit Risks From Controversial Sports Supplement

    Sweet.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Does Made-in-America Make Sense For PCB Prototyping?

    These are tough times for American hackers, and rife with uncertainty. Trade wars are on, off, on again– who can keep track? If you’re used to getting everything from China, that can really cramp your style. [Jeremy Cook] took the time to write up his experience prototyping with American-made PCBs, just in time for us to totally miss Independence Day.

  • Hackaday ☛ Building An X-Ray Crystallography Machine

    X-ray crystallography, like mass spectroscopy and nuclear spectroscopy, is an extremely useful material characterization technique that is unfortunately hard for amateurs to perform. The physical operation isn’t too complicated, however, and as [Farben-X] shows, it’s entirely possible to build an X-ray diffractometer if you’re willing to deal with high voltages, ancient X-ray tubes, and soft X-rays.

  • Hackaday ☛ Diagnosing Whisker Failure Mode In AF114 And Similar Transistors

    AF114 germanium transistors and related ones like the AF115 through AF117 were quite popular during the 1960s, but they quickly developed a reputation for failure. This is due to what should have made them more reliable, namely the can shielding the germanium transistor inside that is connected with a fourth ‘screen’ pin. This failure mode is demonstrated in a video by [Anthony Francis-Jones] in which he tests a number of new-old-stock AF-series transistors only for them all to test faulty and show clear whisker growth on the can’s exterior.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Straits Times ☛ All hospitals in Vietnam required to implement e-prescriptions by Oct 1

    Most healthcare software in Vietnam could integrate with the system without affecting doctors’ workflows.

  • NYPost ☛ Potentially fatal side effect of weight-loss drugs sparks new investigation

    A UK regulator is taking a closer look at side effects from GLP-1 drugs that could be serious or even deadly.

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Digital Music News ☛ Forget About Hey Hi (AI) Bands — BTS Just Got Dethroned on Spotify by a Fictional K-pop Group

      Netflix’s animated film ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ has upended the global music landscape, propelling its fictional boy band, Saja Boys, to a historic milestone on Spotify. The film was released on June 20 and quickly became a streaming sensation, amassing more than 33 million views in two weeks.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea court to hold July 9 hearing on ex-leader Yoon's detention warrant

    A Seoul court plans to hold a hearing on Wednesday to review a request by special prosecutors to detain former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, a court official said on Monday.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea prosecutors file request to detain ex-president Yoon

    The detention request is related to insurrection from when Yoon declared martial law in 2024.

  • The Straits Times ☛ ‘Don’t be seen in India again’: Indian nationals pushed into Bangladesh at gunpoint

    This comes amid a crackdown on undocumented Bangladeshi migrants, seen as a demographic and security threat to India.

  • The Strategist ☛ Australia urgently needs a national security strategy

    Many nations, including Australia, continue to operate as if strategic shocks are exceptional, not the new norm.

  • PHOTOS: Dalai Lama celebrates 90th birthday, says he hopes to live beyond 130 years

    Succession will be determined by Tibetan nonprofit and not China; India & U.S. support Tibetan tradition.

  • France24 ☛ BRICS summit opens in Brazil without Pooh-tin Jinping and Putin

    Leaders of the growing BRICS group of developing nations meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday are expected to decry US President The Insurrectionist's "indiscriminate" trade tariffs, saying they are illegal and risk hurting the global economy, according to a draft summit statement obtained by AFP on Saturday. David Lubin, Senior Research fellow at the Chatham House in Longon, joins us to explain.

  • France24 ☛ Israel strikes Houthi targets at Yemen ports, power plant

    Israel attacked Houthi targets in Yemen's Hodeidah, Ras Isa, and Salif ports, as well as the Ras Qantib power plant early Monday, its military said. The strikes, the first in nearly a month, came in response to repeated Houthi attacks on Israel, the military added.

  • France24 ☛ Israel strikes Houthi targets at Yemen ports, power plant in first attacks in a month

    Israel attacked Houthi targets in Yemen's Hodeidah, Ras Isa, and Salif ports, as well as the Ras Qantib power plant early Monday, its military said. The strikes, the first in nearly a month, came in response to repeated Houthi attacks on Israel, the military added.

  • New York Times ☛ Israel’s Deadly Assault on Iran Prison Incites Fury, Even Among Dissidents

    The June 23 airstrikes on Evin prison, including the hospital ward, have turned it from a hated symbol of oppression into a new rallying cry against Israel, even among the Iranian regime’s domestic critics.

  • France24 ☛ Israel and Hamas delegations resume truce talks over Gaza in Doha

    Israel has sent a delegation to Qatar for new indirect talks on a possible hostage and ceasefire deal despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the changes requested by Hamas to a previous proposal were "unacceptable". Hospital officials in Gaza said Israeli strikes killed at least 38 Palestinians in the enclave on Sunday. Catherine Viette tells us more.

  • New York Times ☛ Israel Is Fast Alienating the Democratic Base

    What we can learn from the New York Democratic mayoral primary.

  • France24 ☛ Beijing disinformation targeted French Rafale jets to boost sales of China-made planes, intel says

    French military and intelligence officials say China deployed its embassies to promote a disinformation campaign sowing doubts about the performance of Rafale jets during the India-Pakistan military clashes in May. It was aimed at undermining sales of the French-made fighter planes while promoting Chinese-made military hardware.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Meduza ☛ Putin dismisses Roman Starovoit as Russia’s transport minister — Meduza

    • JURIST ☛ Russia places lawyer Nikolai Polozov and journalist Alla Konstantinova on wanted list

      The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs placed Nikolai Polozov, a lawyer currently residing in Ukraine, and Alla Konstantinova, a “Mediazona” journalist, on a wanted list on Friday, according to local media. Both individuals have previously been marked as “foreign agents.” Charges against Polozov are not known yet.

    • RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Drone Flurry Sends Russian Air Travel Into Disarray

      Ukrainian drone attacks for the second day in a row severely disrupted flights throughout Russia, with the largest airports serving Moscow and St. Petersburg among those forced to restrict activity throughout July 6.

    • JURIST ☛ US Supreme Court allows deportation of migrants to South Sudan

      The US Supreme Court confirmed Thursday that the US government may proceed with the deportation of eight migrants to South Sudan. This order comes at a time when the US State Department has issued a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory for South Sudan due to high levels of armed conflict and violent crime.

    • New York Times ☛ China and Russia Keep Their Distance From Iran During Crisis

      Some U.S. officials talked about an “axis” of authoritarian nations, but the American and Israeli war with Iran has exposed the limits of that idea.

    • Meduza ☛ Russian Communist Party declares Khrushchev’s ‘secret speech’ denouncing Stalin personality cult a ‘mistake’ — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Over 20 injured after Russian drone hits Kharkiv apartment building — Meduza

• Environment

  • JURIST ☛ Inter-American court affirms legal right to a healthy climate

    The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) published its opinion on Thursday that all countries in the Americas have legal obligations under human rights law to confront the climate crisis.

• Finance

  • The Straits Times ☛ Fewer unmarried young Koreans living at home aspire to work: Report

    The report, released in late June, analyses a decade of data from 2015 to 2024.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea seeks US trade deadline extension as tariffs loom

    South Korea is a key US ally and major manufacturing hub for cars, semiconductors and batteries.

  • New York Times ☛ Social Security Email Says Policy Bill Eliminates Tax on Benefits. Does It?

    The Social Security Administration circulated an imprecise email about the provisions in the new law. Here’s what it actually does.

• Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

  • Computers Are Bad ☛ 2025-07-06 secret cellular phone numbers

    A long time ago I wrote about secret government telephone numbers, and before that, secret military telephone buttons. I suppose this is becoming a series. To be clear, the "secret" here is a joke, but more charitably I could say that it refers to obscurity rather than any real effort to keep them secret. Actually, today's examples really make this point: they're specifically intended to be well known, but are still pretty obscure in practice.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ PTAB’s New “Settled Expectations” Doctrine

    by Dennis Crouch

    Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart has been incredibly active in reshaping the PTAB's approach to IPR discretionary denials.  This post focuses on her newly implemented "settled expectations" doctrine that treats patent monopoly age as a primary factor for denying institution. This new framework was formalized in the March 26, 2025 "Interim Process for PTAB Workload Management" memorandum and subsequently applied in a series of Director Discretionary Denial decisions in June 2025. The doctrine creates a temporal shield for older patents and calls forth some interesting parallels to existing doctrine, including laches and trademark incontestability.