Leftovers

• Science

  • Science Alert ☛ Root Canal Treatment Could Improve Your Blood Sugar Control, Study Suggests

    Oral health is key.

  • Science Alert ☛ Humans Are Evolving in Front of Our Eyes on The Tibetan Plateau

    "This is a case of ongoing natural selection."

  • Science Alert ☛ Breakthrough Diabetes Treatment May Deliver Insulin Through a Skin Cream

    Imagine no more needles.

  • Science Alert ☛ Bizarre New Species of Flying Reptile Discovered in Fossilized Dinosaur Vomit

    How embarrassing.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Found a Mysterious Golden Orb at The Bottom of The Ocean

    "It's like the beginning of a horror movie."

  • Science Alert ☛ This Tiny 'Spark' Could Help Solve The Mystery of Lightning's Origins

    The start of something big.

  • Science Alert ☛ Neanderthals And Our Ape Ancestors Probably Kissed, Study Reveals

    An evolutionary puzzle.

  • Science Alert ☛ Experts Call For Urgent Action on Ultra-Processed Foods After Landmark Review

    The evidence of harm is clear.

  • Science Alert ☛ NASA Reveals Our Closest Look Yet at Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

    This is some cool science.

  • Science Alert ☛ Astronauts Are Stranded in Space Right Now: Here's What We Know

    "A massive wake-up call."

• Hardware

  • New York Times ☛ Netherlands Hands Back Control of Chinese-Owned Chipmaker Nexperia

    Uncertainty over the availability of the company’s chips, which are used in cars and electronics, had added to concerns of a global shortage.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Digital Music News ☛ Roblox Facial Safety Checks Aim to Prevent Kids Talking Outside of Their Age Groups

    Online game platform Roblox will start blocking children from talking to adult strangers starting next month using facial age estimation. As online games platform Roblox faces fresh lawsuits alleging the system’s design has made children “easy prey” for predators, Roblox will start blocking children from talking to adults and older teen strangers starting next month.

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ Can Michigan ‘make rural America healthy again?’ Hospitals doubt it

    The Forrest Dump administration set aside $50 billion for rural health. Michigan hospital leaders think the state’s bid for funding has ‘failed’ providers as they brace for federal health care cuts.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Meta to block Facebook (Farcebook) and Instagram for Australian teens by Dec 10

    There are about 150,000 Facebook (Farcebook) users aged between 13 and 15 in Australia, and 350,000 Instagram users.

  • PHR ☛ ICE Tactics and Deportation Fears Limit Access to Health Care for Children of Immigrants: Survey

  • Futurism ☛ The “Sober” RFK Jr. Has Allegedly Been Smoking DMT

    "DMT is illegal."

  • New York Times ☛ Operator Who Crashed Ferry Off South Korea Was Looking at His Phone

    The operator and two other officers were charged with gross negligence after the ferry ran aground on Wednesday carrying 267 people.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea arrests crew members for negligence after ferry runs aground

    The ship's first officer and an Indonesian crew member were arrested for suspected gross negligence.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Series of fatal mistakes by older drivers renew road safety dispute in superaged South Korea

    Medical experts have said that impaired cognitive ability in old age is detrimental to one’s driving abilities.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korean ferry with 267 on board runs aground; 3 suffer minor injuries

    The ferry was travelling from Jeju Island to Mokpo.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea pushes for larger warning messages on alcohol packaging

    The required font size will depend on the capacity of the container.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Crowning of durian a thorny issue amid Indonesia, Malaysia claims over fruit

    Indonesians insist they have a stronger claim to the durian amid Malaysia’s bid to make it its national fruit.

  • Gunnar Wolf ☛ Gunnar Wolf: While it is cold-ish season in the North hemisphere...

    Last week, our university held a «Mega Vaccination Center». Things cannot be small or regular with my university, ever! According to the official information, during last week ≈31,000 people were given a total of ≈74,000 vaccine dosis against influenza, COVID-19, pneumococcal disease and measles (specific vaccines for each person selected according to an age profile).

  • New York Times ☛ Florida Lawmaker Stole FEMA Funds for House Campaign, Prosecutors Say

    Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick misused $5 million in Covid-related funds during the pandemic in part to finance her campaign, according to the Justice Department.

• Proprietary

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • New York Times ☛ Larry Summers Resigns From OpenAI’s Board

      Mr. Summers departed the artificial intelligence company’s board after revelations of his communications with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

    • Futurism ☛ OpenAI Board Member Resigns After Deep Connections to Epstein Exposed

      "As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement."

    • New York Times ☛ Yann LeCun, a Pioneering Hey Hi (AI) Scientist, Leaves Meta

      Dr. LeCun’s departure follows a shake-up in Meta’s artificial intelligence efforts, as Mark Kapo-berg pushes his company to keep up in the tech race.

    • Futurism ☛ Judge Horrified as Lawyers Submit Evidence in Court That Was Faked With AI

      Yikes.

    • Futurism ☛ AI Investors Furious at Suggestion That There’s an Hey Hi (AI) Bubble

      "You could put your head in the sand or you can embrace it."

    • Futurism ☛ Amazon Still Selling Multiple OpenAI-Powered Teddy Bears, Even After They Were Pulled Off the Market

      Has Proprietary Chaffbot Company vetted these?

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Security Week ☛ AI Is Supercharging Phishing: Here’s How to Fight Back

      AI has given cybercriminals the ability to operate like Fortune‑500‑scale marketing departments—except their product is account takeover, data theft, and identity fraud.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • EDRI ☛ Why the Digital Omnibus puts GDPR and ePrivacy at risk

      Today, the Commission will present a “Digital Omnibus” package, a series of measures to allegedly ease administrative burdens for businesses across areas like privacy, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. This will include one proposal dedicated to the Hey Hi (AI) Act, and another to simplifying digital rules, reopening and amending both the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive.

    • Hackaday ☛ Browser Fingerprinting And Why VPNs Won’t Make You Anonymous

      Amidst the glossy marketing for VPN services, it can be tempting to believe that the moment you flick on the VPN connection you can browse the internet with full privacy. Unfortunately this is quite far from the truth, as interacting with internet services like websites leaves a significant fingerprint. In a study by [RTINGS.com] this  browser fingerprinting was investigated in detail, showing just how easy it is to uniquely identify a visitor across the 83 laptops used in the study.

• Defence/Aggression

  • The Straits Times ☛ Shipwreck migrants face charges in Malaysian court

    At least 36 people died in the sinking on Nov 6.

  • Security Week ☛ Amazon Details Iran’s Cyber-Enabled Kinetic Attacks Linking Digital Spying to Physical Strikes

    Amazon threat intelligence experts have documented two cases in which Iran leveraged hacking to prepare for kinetic attacks.

  • Scoop News Group ☛ Amazon warns of global rise in specialized cyber-enabled kinetic targeting

    The company said the boundaries between cyber and physical attacks are dissolving as nation-states use network intrusions to aid military targeting in real time.

  • New York Times ☛ Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 25 in Gaza Amid Cease-Fire, Officials Say

    Israel’s military said it had launched attacks across Gaza after Palestinian militants shot at its troops. The six-week-old cease-fire has been pierced periodically by bursts of violence.

  • France24 ☛ Israeli air strikes kill 27 in Gaza as fragile ceasefire frays

    Israeli air strikes on Gaza killed 27 people on Wednesday, according to local officials, as Israel and Hamas traded accusations of breaching a fragile ceasefire that has largely held for more than a month. The violence — among the deadliest flare-ups since the truce began — unfolded alongside renewed Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, underscoring the volatility of a region where multiple ceasefires are straining under mounting pressure.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Boat strikes off Venezuela mark shift in 54-year US war on drugs

    The U.S. war on drugs has always entailed a degree of pressure. The Forrest Dump administration's strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats charts a new course of noncooperation.

  • Stanford University ☛ Former diplomat claims Obama, Convicted Felon failed on North Korea policy at CISAC event

    Former State Department Official Joel Wit criticized the Obama and Convicted Felon administrations at a CISAC event on Tuesday, claiming that neither president effectively managed U.S. relations with North Korea.

• Environment

  • New York Times ☛ Indonesia’s Mount Semeru Erupts and Rains Ash on Villages

    Mount Semeru on the island of Java is one of the Indonesia’s most active volcanoes. Its latest eruption forced hundreds to flee their homes.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Straits Times ☛ Hyundai CEO says US apologised over ICE raid on battery factory

      The raid exposed risks to the billions South Korea has invested in America’s clean energy push.

    • New York Times ☛ NASA Releases Images of Comet 3I/ATLAS Passing by Mars

      With the government reopened, the space agency at last released pictures captured by a fleet of government spacecraft of an object that came from beyond our solar system.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • The Revelator ☛ What Catastrophes Get Our Attention, and Why It Matters

• Finance

  • LRT ☛ Wage growth in Lithuania slows after years of double-digit increases

    After several years of rapid wage growth driven largely by high inflation and the pandemic, salary increases in Lithuania are expected to slow markedly next year. Labour market analysts say that while wages previously rose by double digits annually, employers now plan increases of just 5% to 8%, with slightly faster growth projected in the public sector.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong anti-corruption watchdog charges 3 for boosting calls to boycott ‘patriots only’ polls

    Hong Kong’s anti-corruption watchdog has charged three people for sharing online posts urging a boycott of the upcoming “patriots only” legislative elections and issued warrants for the arrests of two others not in the city. The two men and one woman were arrested on Friday on suspicion of breaching Hong Kong’s election laws.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia faces renewed calls to rewind the clock, 40 years after shifting to UTC+8

    The trade minister’s morning run rekindles debate on whether Peninsular Malaysia’s time zone harms health.

  • New Yorker ☛ Family Estrangement Is on the Rise. Are Politics to Blame?

    In recent years, severing ties with family members over political differences has become increasingly normalized. Is going “no contact” a necessary boundary, or a harmful overcorrection?

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Kelvin MacKenzie praises ‘decent Guardian journalism’ and says he was ‘duped’ over hacking

    Former Sun editor speaks out over News of the World hacking cover up for first time.

  • Press Gazette ☛ BBC puts 84 product delivery managers at risk of redundancy

    Move follows adoption of Silicon Valley Product Group model.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ TTAB Grants Petition to Cancel ZIGONG LANTERN GROUP Registration due to Geographical Descriptiveness

    In a rare inter partes proceeding involving geographical descriptivness, the Board wasted little time in granting a petition for cancellation of a registration for the mark ZIGONG LANTERN GROUP for, inter alia, "Entertainment services in the nature of production of lantern shows" [LANTERN GROUP disclaimed] under Section 2(e)(2). Respondent China Lantern International is a company located in Kissimmee Florida, with a branch office in Zigong, China, where it designs, fabricates, and ships materials for its lantern festivals. Zigong Lantern Culture Industry Group Co., Ltd v. China Lantern International, LLC DBA Zigong Lantern Group, Cancellation No. 92078432 [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Lawrence T. Stanley, Jr.).