Cobb Courier: At a Tennessee Hospital, a Nurse Stole Fentanyl and AI Missed It, State Records Say. “The hospital uses the newest line of defense against drug diversion: Sentri7, medication-monitoring software powered by artificial intelligence and designed to detect missing drugs faster than any human can. But for months at Erlanger, Sentri7 failed to raise alarms, overlooking missing drugs and other ‘inconsistencies’ that ‘should have been flagged,’ the nursing board’s order states.”

TechSpot: Spammers are flooding Reddit with fake posts designed to show up in AI search results. “Moderators of the /biohackers subreddit say they are dealing with spam that isn’t just about pushing sales, but about shaping how AI systems answer questions. They say companies are seeding discussions with posts intended to appear in AI-generated answers, effectively turning the subreddit into a battleground over which information large language models surface.”

Gizmodo: Should You Hijack a Corporate AI Chatbot for Free Tokens?. “A developer went viral for reconfiguring Chipotle’s customer support bot into a coding assistant, and providing the playbook for others to do the same to other chatbots.”

Reuters: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests. “Several ​large data centers and crypto facilities planning to connect to the Texas power grid ahead of ‌peak summer demand have failed key reliability tests, raising the risk of power outages just as electricity use hits its seasonal high, according to the state grid operator.”

DATA CENTERS

Ohio Capital Journal: Data center opponents give Ohio lawmakers an earful. “More than a hundred Ohioans submitted testimony ahead of state lawmakers’ Select Committee on Data Centers’ single hearing for public comment. Lawmakers heard an array of concerns about the proliferation of data centers around the state — the environmental impact, the cost of tax breaks, and the use of nondisclosure agreements to avoid public scrutiny.”

Ars Technica: How some data center operators are tackling their water use problems. “Water use is emerging as one of the most contentious data center issues. A recent Gallup poll found that seven out of 10 Americans are opposed to data center development, with water scarcity ranking as the top resource concern. Facing increasingly fierce resistance, some tech companies are scrambling to assure the public that they’re facing the issue head-on.”

NBC News: Leopards, tigers and AI data, oh my! Nashville Zoo tries to halt proposed data center. “The zoo, a popular destination in Tennessee’s capital city, is trying to block a proposed 69,000-square-foot data center from being built next door. The zoo says that the facility would be about 50 yards from some of its animals and that the noise could disturb its residents, including a leap of leopards that hail originally from Southeast Asia.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

CNBC: Google to pay SpaceX $920 million a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers . “Days before a planned IPO that’s expected to raise record sums of cash, SpaceX has inked a deal with Google that will bring in $920 million a month by providing AI compute capacity to the search giant.”

Engadget: Google pledges to replenish more water than it uses at data centers by 2030 . “The company now has 165 stewardship projects across 97 watersheds, which are expected to replenish 19 billion gallons a year by 2030. Google says that’s more than double its consumption for 2024 and would allow the company to use more water over the coming years and still achieve its goal.”

ZDNet: I paid Microsoft’s premium Copilot agents to do my work – they were confidently bad at it. “Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to use the AI features in Microsoft 365 and Windows for a variety of everyday work tasks. Copilot shows occasional flashes of competence, but more often, the results I’m seeing are a mishmash of misinformation, hallucinations, and time-wasting dead ends. Allow me to share my recent experiences with you.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

PBS: Authorities struggle to stop AI tools generating nude images without consent. “There has been a sharp rise in so-called ‘nudification’ technology. These AI-powered tools can generate realistic fake images and videos that depict people as undressed, often without their knowledge or consent. William Brangham reports on the growing concern over the technology and the efforts underway to rein it in.”

University of Toronto: U of T researchers demonstrate AI worm could target any online device. “The researchers, who released their work June 2, are believed to be the first to show that publicly accessible AI models can be used to power a worm that adapts its strategy as it spreads from one device to the next. It can seize control of an entire network and hijack computing power to allow hackers to launch sophisticated attacks at virtually no cost.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT News: MIT researchers teach AI models to interpret charts. “…researchers from MIT and the MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab developed a multifaceted resource for AI users that is specifically designed to teach vision-language models (VLMs) how to effectively interpret charts. They used a novel data generation method to build a state-of-the-art dataset that includes more than a million varied charts. The dataset also encodes many visual, linguistic, and numerical components of each chart image, which enable models to robustly reason about the information in a chart.”

Ars Technica: These LLMs are the best at resisting Russian propaganda. “As more people rely on large language models to provide pat answers to complex questions, state governments are understandably worried about those LLMs spouting what they see as dangerous propaganda promoted by foreign adversaries. To help combat this problem, the government-sponsored Estonian Language Institute (ELI) has released a new ‘Propaganda Resistance’ benchmark ranking dozens of LLMs on their ability to avoid ‘tak[ing] positions on topics that the Russian Federation uses in its strategic narratives.'”

University of North Carolina: Carolina launches study on libraries and generative AI in local communities . “UNC-Chapel Hill has launched a statewide two-year collaborative planning and pilot study aimed at understanding how North Carolina communities are encountering generative artificial intelligence and how local libraries can support AI literacy in meaningful, locally relevant and sustainable ways.” Good morning, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health: Public Health Launches First Countywide Interactive Map of Hazardous Sites. “The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health today launched its first countywide interactive environmental mapping tool for Los Angeles County, giving residents, community organizations, researchers, and policymakers more transparency into the location of oil and gas facilities and industrial and waste sites across Los Angeles County, including in and around neighborhoods, schools, and other community areas.”

PR Newswire: Money Announces Financial Advisors Database; 389,000 Advisors Listed Spanning All 50 States (PRESS RELEASE). “Today Money announces the launch of Money’s Financial Advisors, a comprehensive financial database that spans all 50 states and includes more than 389,000 advisors.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Press Gazette: European publishers seek £552m+ from Google claiming ad market abuse. “The European Commission said that any people or company affected by anti-competitive behaviour outlined by this case could seek damages, which would be considered separately to the fine imposed on Google. The publishers involved in the case argue they should collectively be awarded damages of more than €640m (£552m) due to the impact Google’s actions had on them.”

9to5 Google: Google shuts down Pixel Studio with the latest app update. “Google is shutting down its AI-powered Pixel Studio app less than two years after its debut and instead pushing users over to Gemini and Nano Banana for image generation.”

MakeUseOf: Brave Origin might be the one browser people don’t mind paying for. “There are two versions of Brave Origin available: a standalone browser that functions as a separate product, and an upgrade for the regular Brave browser that adds toggles for the various features. A single purchase gives you access to both options. This is a flexible approach, if a little confusing.” The Linux version is free, to my mild surprise.

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Reuters: Starmer calls for Elon Musk to stop interfering in UK politics. “Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday ​said Elon Musk should stop interfering in British politics, after the billionaire X owner posted ‌on his platform about a murder that has triggered a public outcry and protests.”

PBS: This chef will teach you how to make healthy $5 family dinners. “With rising grocery prices, many Americans are struggling to provide healthy, complete meals for their families. One chef is teaching his TikTok followers how to eat well on a budget, one $5 meal at a time. Deema Zein reports.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Mashable: Google patches more than 100 Android security vulnerabilities. “Android users, update your devices. Google has just released new security updates for Android that fix a slew of vulnerabilities. Just how many things did Google fix? A whopping 124 vulnerabilities, according to Bleeping Computer, have now been addressed in Google’s June 2026 Android security patches.”

Investing.com: UK lawmaker Jess Asato sues Elon Musk’s xAI over deepfakes. “British lawmaker Jess Asato filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI on Wednesday, claiming the company’s Grok AI platform was used to generate fake sexualized images of her.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

TechSpot: Mathematicians used Minecraft mobs to calculate Pi without writing a single line of code. “Minecraft was never designed to behave like a calculator. Its world is built entirely from cubes, with no smooth curves and no native concept of continuous geometry. That makes it an awkward place to tackle a number like pi, which depends on the properties of a perfect circle. But two mathematicians have shown that, even in a blocky universe, you can still get surprisingly close.”

Poynter: Opinion | A merger could put two of America’s most important news archives under one owner. “The proposed merger threatens to place CNN and CBS News, two of the most significant news libraries in America, under a single owner. The future preservation and accessibility of these archives are at risk if they are allowed to be merged under one private entity, as the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger would entail.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Tom’s Hardware: Aviation enthusiast uses Raspberry Pi and ADS-B radio to create viral real-time airport tracker — open-source ‘Skylight’ intercepts aircraft signals and projects flight paths onto your ceiling. “Living near an airport isn’t for everyone. But for some, like software engineer Cameron Paczek, the unique environment offers inspiration for very unique projects. Paczek’s latest creation, Skylight, harnesses the power of a Raspberry Pi 5, a radio antenna, and a projector to listen for aircraft signals as planes pass over your house and then instantly projects their real-time paths across your ceiling exactly as you hear them soaring above.” Good morning, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

University of Prince Edward Island: Mi’kmaw-led digital archive launches for 300th Anniversary of 1726 Treaty. “L’nuey is launching a new Mi’kmaw-led digital archive to mark the 300th anniversary of the 1726 Peace and Friendship Treaty on June 4, 2026. The project aims to make Mi’kmaw history in Epekwitk (Prince Edward Island) easier to find, understand, and use.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

UPI: Doodle for Google contest winner celebrates beauty of textured hair. “Google has announced the winner of its 17th Doodle for Google contest. Washington high schooler Kameirah won the competition with her illustration celebrating kinky hair and its culture.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Nazarbayev University: Kazakhstan to Create a Digital Archive of Historical Monuments. “The project is based at Kazakhstan’s first Art&Tech laboratory within the NU Өnergy Creative Hub and applies LiDAR technologies in close collaboration with researchers at Nazarbayev University. According to the team, this interdisciplinary approach goes beyond creating visual 3D models and instead builds a comprehensive scientific database that integrates knowledge from geodesy, archaeology, architecture, biology, ecology, digital humanities, and museology.”

Vietnam.vn: We will build a database and map of typical pho restaurants representing Vietnamese pho.. “Data, stories, and maps of typical pho restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City will be compiled by the Saigon Pho Association in collaboration with other organizations to promote Vietnamese pho culture.”

WHEC: George Eastman Museum’s new $400-per-hour photography fee has local photographers calling for a lower, more affordable option. “Local photographers are pushing back against the George Eastman Museum’s new policy requiring a $400 hourly fee for professional photo shoots on the grounds. The museum recently announced the policy change, which photographers say stems from an altercation involving a prom party.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Signal Akron: Ohio Republican senator called cops seeking charges against blogger . “A powerful state senator asked that his local police chief file criminal charges against a political blogger, leading to an eventual arrest and formal accusation of telecommunications harassment, new records show.”

NPR: United Airlines flight to Spain pulls U-turn, apparently over Bluetooth device name. “A United Airlines flight from Newark, N.J., to Palma de Mallorca, Spain, pulled a U-turn late Saturday over what appears to have been a suspiciously named Bluetooth device on board.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

UCLA: How misinformation about archaeology spreads online. “What happens when a 12,000-year-old archaeological site becomes fodder for TikTok videos and the subject of pseudoscientific theories? That’s the sort of question Lara Fabian asks students to wrestle with in a new Fiat Lux seminar.”

Washington Blade: Fighting ‘Rainbow Panic’ in museums. “Please know the LGBTQ community will remember the hard truths we learned this past year — that we and our histories were expendable. If we can be cast aside, hidden, or disowned, whose histories are safe? How can (and can we) rebuild trust in the institutions that failed us this past year?”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Yale News: Growing a new ‘leaf’ that harnesses sun, water and CO2 to make liquid fuel.”A Yale-led research team has developed the first standalone device that produces the liquid fuel methanol using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide as the ingredients.” Good afternoon, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Spotted in my RSS feeds: The Last Museum, a search engine for museum art. From the About page: “The Last Museum is the largest search engine for museum art. It uses semantic search, allowing you to search for artworks by theme, style, subject, vibes, or any description you can imagine. We currently have around 5 million artworks indexed, and strive to eventually index all museum art in the world.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google is letting social media stars customize their search result page. “Google now lets big creators and publishers in the US claim dedicated profiles in Search to highlight things like videos, articles, and their other profiles online.”

CNBC: Bluesky was launched as a Twitter rival — but it’s far less popular. Now it’s eyeing Reddit for inspiration. “Bluesky, the social media platform that originated within Twitter, rose to prominence as a rival to the network after Elon Musk acquired the company and rebranded it as X. But, two years since its launch, the site has around just 10% of X’s estimated global users. Bluesky’s Chief Operating Officer Rose Wang told CNBC that the site saw its future not in rivalling X, but in taking inspiration from the online community forum Reddit.” I finally got on Bluesky. It’s fine, but Mastodon is still best for engagement and conversations.

NBC News: Bot web traffic has overtaken human web traffic, data shows. “Website traffic from AI agents and bots has eclipsed its human-generated counterpart for the first time, according to Cloudflare, an earlier-than-expected milestone that speaks to AI’s rapid advance and impact.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: ‘Teachers Are Going to Hate It’: How Social Media Apps Hooked Teens at School. This link goes to a gift article. “Again and again, the world’s leading social media companies have targeted students, even as complaints have mounted that they are hurting teenagers’ mental health and academic performance, according to a New York Times review of internal documents that lay bare for the first time these tactics to hook young users.”

Politico: Polymarket is paying some of social media’s biggest political influencers. “At least 20 of the content creators identified by POLITICO promoted Polymarket on social media after they started receiving money from [chief marketing officer Matthew] Modabber, according to the payment records and POLITICO’s analysis of their social media activity. During the 14-month span reflected in the payment records, they posted about Polymarket at least 490 times on the social media platform X without clearly disclosing a paid partnership.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

FTC: FTC Seeks Comment on X Corp. Petition to Set Aside or Modify FTC Order Concerning Twitter. “The Federal Trade Commission is seeking public comment on a petition from X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, to set aside or modify its 2022 settlement order with the agency. In its petition to the Commission, X Corp. cited several reasons why it believes that the order should either be set aside or modified so that it terminates at the end of 2026.”

Reuters: Meta loses challenge against EU gatekeeper label for Messenger. ” Meta Platforms lost its ​fight on Wednesday against the EU’s labelling of ‌its Messenger app as a powerful ‘gatekeeper’, which places obligations on tech companies with significant influence. Europe’s second-highest court upheld the European Commission’s ​finding that Messenger is an important gateway ​for businesses to reach users, triggering obligations under ⁠the bloc’s Digital Markets Act.”

Ars Technica: Google ordered to put clearer links in AI search and let UK publishers opt out. “UK regulators today ordered Google to put clearer attributions and links to publishers’ content in its AI-generated search features. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) also said Google must give publishers a way to opt out of AI features in search.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Digital Preservation at the University of Cambridge Libraries and Archives: Digging for Data: Recovering Files from Forgotten Word Processing Systems. “The collections we work with contain disks from machines that were once used professionally but are now largely forgotten. While imaging the disks themselves was possible, none of our usual tools, or others we could find online, were able to extract the discrete files to make it possible to appraise and access the material on them.”

Mashable: Survey: Teens regularly see harmful content, messages on Snapchat. “Teens on Snapchat frequently encounter unwanted or dangerous content on the platform, according to a new survey. A third of the poll’s 1,016 respondents said they’d seen or received unsafe content or messages in the past week. More than half said they’d had at least one such experience in the past year.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

The Guardian: ‘They surprise me every time’: bees can use tools to solve problems, study finds. “In the latest research, bees were shown to be able to roll a polystyrene ball to a specific location and climb on to it in order to access an artificial flower on a low ceiling. The findings challenge the longstanding assumption that insects operate purely on instinct and mindless trial-and-error learning.” Good morning, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

404 Media: Google Employees Internally Share Memes About How Its AI Sucks. “While Google CEO Sundar Pichai proudly tells the world that 75 percent of all new code at the company is AI-generated, internally Google employees are sharing memes about how AI is bad at that exact task and makes their job harder.”

France24: AI chatbot responses polluted by pro-Russian disinformation. “AI-driven chatbots are increasingly being used as sources of information, but they are also vulnerable to disinformation campaigns. Experts have found that pro-Russian misinformation, in particular, can seep into the responses generated by these conversational agents.”

TechCrunch: Instagram is alerting users who were targeted by hackers during AI chatbot attacks. “The widespread hacking campaign that relied on simply asking Meta AI’s chatbot to take over a victim’s Instagram account appears to have continued even after the company said the issue had been resolved. Meanwhile, the company has been scrambling to secure the targeted accounts and alert victims.”

DATA CENTERS

The Nevada Independent: Reno extends its data center moratorium into 2027. Here’s what happens next.. “City of Reno staff are planning to cast a wide net in proposing regulation changes for data centers after the city council voted 6-1 on Monday to extend a temporary moratorium on the centers through August 2027.”

Chestertown Spy: Bay Journal: Data Center Boom Raises Environmental Justice Concerns in Maryland. “In Prince George’s County, the debate over data centers has an added dimension: worries that the industry will worsen health and environmental problems in communities already overtaxed by them.”

Heatmap: Exclusive: Americans Now Overwhelmingly Oppose New Data Centers Near Them. “At least seven in 10 Americans would now oppose a data center being built near their home, according to a new Heatmap Pro poll, a record low that reveals a staggering shift in public opinion against the facilities powering the artificial intelligence boom.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Maine Morning Star: Gubernatorial candidates have competing visions for AI use in Maine. “Two Democratic candidates released plans to limit the use of artificial intelligence in Maine’s schools, hospitals and businesses. A Republican candidate wants to take the opposite approach, prioritizing business growth over artificial intelligence regulation.”

AI LEGISLATION

NC Newsline: NC House lawmakers fast-track data center regulation bill. “North Carolina House lawmakers are moving quickly to pass a bill placing restrictions and regulations on data centers, mandating more nuclear power, and speeding up the permitting process for new plants.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

CNBC: SoftBank’s OpenAI bet and rising debt are raising liquidity crunch concerns. “SoftBank’s ascent to becoming Japan’s most valuable company has put the spotlight on the conglomerate, raising questions about whether it is taking on too much risk through its highly leveraged bet on artificial intelligence.”

Search Engine Land: Google begins testing healthcare ads in AI Mode. “Google confirmed it is testing healthcare-related ads in AI Mode, marking the latest expansion of advertising into the company’s AI-powered search experiences.”

Business Insider: Sam Altman says OpenAI’s top token spender uses 100 billion tokens a month — and they’re not even the world leader. “OpenAI’s employees are spending tokens on tokens on tokens. And yet it’s someone outside the company who is spending the most. The AI lab’s employees are known for their high AI spending. Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, once spent $1.3 million worth of tokens in a month.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Times Weekly: Joliet residents sue to block massive $20 Billion AI Data Center Project. “A grassroots coalition of residents has launched a legal battle to stop a controversial $20 billion artificial intelligence (AI) data center campus from moving forward in Joliet. The lawsuit claims if the 795-acre Joliet Technology Center project proceeds, the industrial complex could place serious pressure on water and power supplies and nearby neighborhoods as designs call for four sub-campuses and 24 buildings.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Guardian: My year with the robots: how Joanna Stern let AI into her home, work – and heart. “In 2025, the tech journalist invited artificial intelligence to do nearly everything for her, including editing the book she was writing about the experiment. Some of it was useful, some not – but it was her time with a chatbot companion that really shook her.”

Search Engine Roundtable: Microsoft: AI Summarizes Results, Reducing Clicks & Website Visits. “Yep, Google said clicks are stable and the studies out there are flawed. But here is someone from Microsoft saying yep, clicked are reduced and website visits are reduced.”

Reuters: AI to double data centre power and water consumption by 2030, UN researchers say. “Data centres are expected to consume twice as much power and water by 2030 as they expand to meet the surge in demand from ​artificial intelligence, U.N. researchers said on Wednesday.” Good afternoon, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

McDonald Observatory: HETDEX Opens Massive Cosmic Dataset to Scientists, Novices, and AI. “Today, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) – which recently completed the largest survey ever taken of the early universe – has released all of its immense, information-rich database to the public.”

Daily Herald: Illinois grant helps preserve Elgin’s ‘Butter Capital’ legacy through digital archives. “The Gail Borden Public Library District recently announced that a vital piece of local heritage, The Elgin Dairy Reports (1892-1903), have become fully digitized and freely accessible. Following a year of meticulous preservation work funded by a state grant, this one-of-a-kind historical collection is now accessible to researchers, genealogists and history buffs worldwide.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: New Google Labs ‘Dreambeans’ app is like a hyper-personalized Google Now. “Google Labs today announced an experimental Dreambeans app on Android and iOS to ‘proactively dream up personalized daily stories that cut through the clutter and connect you to what matters.'”

USEFUL STUFF

ZDNet: How to try out over 85 Linux distros, no installation required – with DistroSea. “Unlike the Virtual OS Museum, DistroSea allows you to actually test several new distros. Currently, there are 85 distributions available, including AerynOS, Alpine Linux, AnduinOS, Arch Linux, Arco Linux, Bazzite, Big Linux, BlendOS, Bodhi Linux, BunsenLabs Linux, CachyOS, Chimera Linux… the list goes on.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

UC Berkeley Library: ‘A beautiful artist’: Mildred Howard’s archive comes to The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, offering a peek into a singular creative mind. “Morning light filters through the gauzy curtains on the floor-to-ceiling windows. A tufted chaise rests on a zebra-print rug. An oversized pear perches atop a stack of books beneath a scarlet semicolon, part of Howard’s series of glass punctuation marks, metaphors for the passage of time. Toward the back, at a table near a burnt-red wall, Howard is inspecting the contents of a box — one small part of her archive, recently acquired by The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.”

Front Office Sports: Why WWE Is Airing One of Its Most Anticipated Shows on YouTube. “…the first clash between the Grande Americanos will air on YouTube, where WWE has been putting all of its content from AAA, the Mexican promotion it purchased in April 2025. To many, the idea of giving away such a long-awaited event for free might be surprising. But WWE’s recent track record shows that YouTube has become a key component in how WWE builds interest around its biggest storylines.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Courthouse News: Free PACER: Senators take another stab at revamping access to federal court records. “The Open Courts Act, introduced Tuesday, would instruct the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to develop a new system for record-keeping and electronic filing. The new service would be funded by filing fees as well as a standard annual fee collected from government agencies by the U.S. Judicial Conference. And the PACER replacement, the legislation said, would remove the existing paywall on federal court documents.”

404 Media: Demand Is Booming for New No Tech, Repairable Tractor. “The secondary market for decades old, low-tech John Deere tractors has been booming for years as farmers have sought reliable tractors that they can actually fix without having to deal with John Deere’s repair monopoly. A Canadian company has seen that demand and came up with a radical thought: What if they made a new, repairable, ‘no-tech’ tractor to solve what has become a gigantic pain point for farmers?”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Iowa State University: Integrating ‘citizen science’ with experimental data helps uncover how plants adapt. “Led in part by Iowa State University agronomy professor Jianming Yu, the research team identified the genetic basis for adaptative responses that help explain the contradictory flowering-time trends. But the framework – wringing useful insight from ‘citizen science,’ in this case an online cache of photos mostly from iNaturalist – is as notable as the findings, said Yu,”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

KOLO: Archivist’s Alter Ego. “Archivist by day, rock star by night. Laura Rocke’s version of 9-5 at the University of Nevada as an archivist is contrasted by her life on stage. Rocke is the founder and lead singer of the 90s band As If!” Good afternoon, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Museo Galileo: Leonardotheka 2.0 online from Monday, June 8. “Leonardotheka 2.0 expands to include the approximately 600 sheets preserved in the Royal Collection at Windsor, which contain spectacular anatomical, figurative, and landscape drawings.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Stars and Stripes: Plaintiffs sue Pentagon, allege illegal limits on Stars and Stripes. “Two plaintiffs said in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that recent Pentagon actions targeting Stars and Stripes violate federal law and should be blocked.”

Engadget: Apple begins requiring age verification for App Store use in Texas . “New Apple Accounts in Texas will be subject to SB 2420 and will need to verify their ages. A parent or guardian will need to provide consent when minors download apps or significant updates to apps and when they make in-app purchases. Developers will also need to support parents or guardians revoking that consent to access at any time.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: Trump library says no Twitter DMs can be found, despite evidence he sent them. This link goes to an MSN-syndicated version of the article and has no paywall. “The newly operational Trump Presidential Library, the entity responsible for preserving records from the White House, says that it cannot find a single Twitter direct message sent by a president who tweeted more than 25,000 times during his first administration.”

Honolulu Civil Beat: Makana Eyre: Can Social Media Fill A Growing News Void?. “If you’re on social media, I bet you’ve already encountered them. They have names like Hawaii News Report, HHHNewz, My Kailua, Stolen Stuff Hawaii, 808 Viral, Mean Hawaii and a dozen others. In a broad sense, they function like community-driven incident aggregators, posting a mix of crime, accidents, theft and local announcements — all delivered with a heavy dose of paid promotional content.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Amazon’s Ring sued over facial recognition feature, latest privacy concern for doorbell maker. “Amazon was sued on Monday by a Virginia resident over what he said were privacy violations after the company’s Ring doorbell cameras at friends and ​family members’ homes collected and stored images of his face using facial recognition ‌software.”

Gizmodo: China-Linked Spies Are Reportedly Using Job Platform Scams to Harvest Intel. “The report claims China’s military intelligence operation is finding people in places like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Upwork, and offering what is essentially gig work, but then pressuring applicants to do sketchier and sketchier things to keep their paychecks coming—in this case potentially committing espionage.”

Action News Jax: ‘It’s our duty’: Bill requiring each state to create animal abuse database introduced. “The Law Enforcement Animal Safety Harm Reporting Act of 2026, or LEASH Act would require all states nationwide to create an animal abuse database similar to Florida’s.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Daily Sabah: Turkish scholar links ‘lost’ Timurid works to European archives. “Turkish academic, professor Selin Şenocak, said European archives have begun the scientific identification of manuscripts and historical artifacts from the Timurid era that were long considered ‘lost.'”

International Atomic Energy Agency: New IAEA Research Project to Improve Cultural Heritage Authentication and Provenance Techniques Using Nuclear Science. “The IAEA’s work on cultural heritage focuses on four pillars: non-destructive analysis, radiation-based conservation, combating illicit trafficking and cross-disciplinary research… This work supports the IAEA’s mission to promote the peaceful use of nuclear science, including by training professionals to apply these techniques to protect cultural and natural heritage.”

Stephen Bainbridge: The Social Science Research Network Has Jumped the Shark. “The research paper series has been an incredibly useful way of staying on top of recent scholarly developments. It gives you a listing of recently posted works and, crucially, each work’s abstract. As such, you know whether or not the paper looks to be of sufficient interest to justify downloading and reading the whole work. I shall miss it greatly.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Bangor Daily News: Team attempting 1st trans-Atlantic trip in hydrogen balloon will launch from Maine tonight. “For the fourth consecutive year, an international team of balloonists will attempt to make history from northern Maine, where they will launch Wednesday night on an expedition that — if successful — would be the first trans-Atlantic crossing in an open-basket hydrogen balloon.” Good morning, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Krebs on Security: Hackers Used Meta’s AI Support Bot to Seize Instagram Accounts. “A video released on Telegram by pro-Iran hackers claimed to document a remarkably simple exploit that appears to have involved using a VPN connection with an IP address that is in or near the target’s usual hometown, requesting a password reset for the account, and then choosing to chat with Meta’s AI support assistant.”

Radio New Zealand: We asked Google AI about big tobacco. Its answer was missing some controversial history. “Philip Morris International is a company with a controversial history. The tobacco giant has been accused of aggressively marketing addictive, cancer-causing cigarettes and fuelling smoking-related deaths and diseases around the world. But when a colleague doing some research recently put the company into Google for a search, the result they received surprised them.”

ANTI-AI ACTIVISM

Gizmodo: Philly Cops Are Reportedly Monitoring Anti-AI Memes, According to Internal Alert. “A confidential law enforcement bulletin recently obtained by The Intercept reveals that, at least in Philadelphia, cops are taking note of those speaking out against AI. In a December report from the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center, marked “for official use only,” its authors warned that ‘domestic violent extremists (DVEs) are likely interested in targeting artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.'”

DATA CENTERS

Virginia Mercury: What’s in the water? What we know and don’t know about data center water discharge in Virginia. “Most data centers in Virginia are permitted to discharge water into municipal wastewater systems, the same place household water goes to be treated and recycled for consumption. But there’s limited data tracking of potential chemicals in data centers’ discharge water.”

LkldNow: WITHDRAWN: Facing Intense Opposition, Developer Voluntarily Ends Data Center Quest. “The move came one day after more than 50 residents attended a City Commission meeting to oppose the project — and the same day the developer received a 13-page review containing comments from 15 city departments and specialties.”

AI EVENTS

Mashable: What we learned at Microsoft Build: Autopilots, MAI-Thinking-1, and Nvidia RTX Spark. “CEO Satya Nadella doubled down on AI agents and tools during his keynote at the company’s annual Microsoft Build conference for developers on Tuesday. That included a first look at Project Soltera, an Android-based software platform which Microsoft calls ‘a chip-to-cloud platform designed for an open, multiple agent world that expands how agents are built, deployed and experienced.'”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Politico: Trump signs downsized AI order after weeks of reversals. “In a quiet action with none of his usual fanfare, Trump issued an executive order Tuesday that seeks to address the potentially catastrophic cybersecurity threats posed by artificial intelligence. But the directive calls for less-advanced government scrutiny than the White House had been set to impose last month — the AI industry’s latest victory in its push to avert heavy federal oversight.”

Mediaite: Senate Candidate Roasted Over Operative Posting Doctored Image of Him to Make Him Look Buff: ‘What the Absolute F*ck?’. “A Senate candidate running in Michigan was promptly roasted by the internet after a staffer posted an AI-altered image of him with a wildly different physique.”

AI IN WORK

Politico: Unions flex muscle as states weigh data center rules. “From California to New Jersey, labor groups are throwing their weight behind the energy-guzzling facilities, even as public opposition grows. As legislators in both parties — but especially in blue states — pitch everything from cost restrictions to water standards to outright bans on new data centers, unions are pushing back to protect what they see as the best opportunity for work they’ve had for years.”

Hollywood Reporter: Martin Scorsese Teams Up With AI Company, Says Tech Was “Creatively Freeing” for Storyboard Use: AI “Allowed Us to Move Faster”. “Martin Scorsese is teaming up with the artificial intelligence company Black Forest Labs, where he will serve as an advisor with the research lab. The Academy Award winner said in a statement released Tuesday that he’s utilizing the company’s FLUX technology to assist in creating storyboards.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Reuters: Luxury brands seek to lure America’s AI super-rich. “European luxury brands have sharpened their focus on the United States, with a surge of ​store openings and fashion shows to lure a new crop of wealthy shoppers enriched by the AI and tech boom and offset weak consumer confidence in ‌the rest of the world.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Orlando Weekly: ChatGPT creators knew product would cause harm, Florida argues in lawsuit. “OpenAI should’ve known the damage its chatbot would cause, the state argues in a lawsuit against ChatGPT’s creators. In an 83-page filing in state circuit court in Highlands County, the Florida Department of Legal Affairs and Attorney General James Uthmeier laid ChatGPT’s rollout and management side-by-side with instances in which the technology has been consulted or involved in tragedy, including the 2025 mass shooting on campus of Florida State University.”

PetaPixel: Model Sues Fashion Brand After it AI-Generated Pictures of Her. “The New York Post reports on a lawsuit filed on May 22 in the New York Supreme Court by fashion model Francheska Pujols against budget clothing retailer Rainbow Shops. Pujols, a New York-based model, accuses Rainbow of photographing her in the brand’s clothing items against a plain white background and then using AI to generate entirely different images.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: AI chatbots fail medical misinformation test, returning inaccurate and fabricated advice. “An audit of chatbot responses in health and medical fields prone to misinformation found that 49.6% of responses were problematic. Specifically, 30% of responses were somewhat problematic, and 19.6% were highly problematic.”

The Conversation: From cloning romance authors to YouTube piracy, AI is transforming audiobooks. “Around 17% of Australian audiobook listeners have (knowingly) listened to an AI audiobook, according to my own recent survey of over 500 Australian audiobook listeners. This rate is higher among listeners with vision impairments and other disabilities, who have long used AI for accessibility reasons – and should be centred in these discussions. How have AI voices in audiobook listening evolved? And where is it heading?” Good evening, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Chestertown Spy: Sharing Stories of the Chesapeake: Chesapeake Homelands Project Kicks Off. “Adkins Arboretum and Beech Works are excited to announce the first offerings from Chesapeake Homelands, a new project that shares stories from the diverse Indigenous cultures that make up the Chesapeake Bay region.”

Vintage Aviation News: Bluetail Completes Digitization of Nearly 80 Years of Records for the Boeing B-29 Superfortress DOC. “Doc’s Friends Inc., Wichita, Kansas, announced that Bluetail, an aviation records management and compliance software company focused on digitizing aircraft documentation, has completed the digitization of nearly 80 years of maintenance and historical records connected to the Boeing B-29 Superfortress DOC.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

How-To Geek: Google just made it way harder for scammers to trick Android users. “One of the worst things about the explosion of AI tools is how much more advanced scam calls have become. It’s now entirely possible to get fake calls with voices that sound exactly like people you know. The June Android drop is here to address this (and add some other goodies).”

The Register: Microsoft reaches for olive branch after public dustup with 0-day researcher . “Microsoft has moved to calm an increasingly noisy backlash from the security community after appearing to threaten legal action against a researcher who spent the past several weeks dumping Windows zero-days onto the internet.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Juha-Matti Santala: An entire wiki in a single file? A look at Feather Wiki. “Feather Wiki is a really cool project that I ran into a couple of weeks back. It’s a wiki project that fits the entire wiki, including all the content, in a single HTML file. You can upload it to a server (or use locally), make changes in browser and when you’re done with changes, you download a new version of itself with the changes and you can deploy that to update it.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Courthouse News Service: News publishers take fight over copyright of embedded content to Fifth Circuit. “A newspaper publisher urged a Fifth Circuit panel Tuesday to rule that the news aggregator NewsBreak violated the company’s copyright to its online articles by displaying embedded versions of them on the NewsBreak app.”

NC Newsline: NC Senate considers tax on obscene materials, social media age limits, license plate readers. “The Senate Judiciary Committee also discussed several other bills Tuesday morning, including a proposal passed by the House to prohibit minors under 14 from using ‘addictive social media platforms’ and a bill allowing the State Bureau of Investigation to install license plate readers on North Carolina highways.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ars Technica: Feds failing in bid to take a supercomputer from a climate research center. “There are still additional threats to NCAR, including breaking it up, transferring other resources, and even selling its Boulder headquarters. So, this victory is far from the end of the threats. But the legal issues that decided the case are likely to apply to the additional threats, unless the government has a defense that it simply chose not to present here.”

FedTech Magazine: How NIH Is Translating 70 Years of Health Data to Speak the Same Language. “The National Institutes of Health sits on one of the largest collections of biomedical research data in the world. Decades of federally funded studies on health issues such as heart disease, lung conditions, sleep disorders and genomics have generated petabytes of information. But for most of that history, the data was collected by different institutes and under varying standards. Historically, those disparate formats haven’t been easy to integrate.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Valley Advocate: An Amherst man’s quest to become the world’s biggest Ant-Man fan?. ‘Hi. My name is Aaron Damon-Rush and I’m attempting to set a Guinness World record.’ Thus, a young Amherst man publicly states his case. Damon-Rush, 26, aims to set a record for the most memorabilia related to Ant-Man and the Wasp.” Good evening, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

UK Parliament: A journey into history – Hansard records dating back to 1803 now available online. “Hansard – the official report of Parliament – has added around 130 volumes from the 19th and early 20th centuries to its online database, completing its online archive. The Hansard website now provides users access to debates and proceedings not previously available in digital form.”

Library of Virginia: Newly-Available Archival Accessions, January 1-March 31, 2026. “In addition to state and local government records, LVA has an unparalleled collection of private papers that includes records of businesses, organizations, churches, and individuals. These archival collections continue to grow, and archivists are constantly acquiring and processing records to make them accessible to the public. Four times a year, we publish reports of newly accessioned records.”

Spotted in my RSS feeds: Bike Rack Map. It’s a worldwide crowdsourced map of places to park bikes.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Android Headlines: The European Parliament Ditches Google Search — Qwant Swoops In. “According to a report from the European Parliament, the institution is set to replace Google as the default search engine on its internal computers with Qwant, a French privacy-focused search engine.”

Politico: Tech-favored candidates fell short on California’s primary night. “San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan threw in the towel Tuesday after falling woefully short in the gubernatorial race, as Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton lead the pack and billionaire Tom Steyer stays in striking distance. Mahan, who’s likely to finish in the single digits when the dust clears, is not alone among former tech entrepreneurs turned candidates.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 5 neat Google Chrome tricks that have nothing to do with browsing the web. “If you strip away the websites, feeds, login pages, and a dozen open tabs silently judging your attention span, Chrome still has a few party tricks left. Almost all of these do not require an internet connection, an extension, or a Google account. They are all baked into the browser you probably already have open right now. If you spend any real time inside Chrome, some of these will change the way you use it every day.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Guardian: Tech billionaires are spending unprecedented sums in California races. Experts say it’s the tip of the iceberg. “The industry has used a cover-all-bases approach, funding candidates and ballot measures big and small, contributing to what looks to be the most expensive primary season in California history. The goal, experts say, is to gain both political and regulatory leverage that will perpetuate dominance in business.”

Search Engine Journal: Google CEO Sundar Pichai Downplays Google Zero Concerns. “Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Google has spent 25 years learning how to measure user satisfaction in Search, including engagement, sessions, return behavior, and bounce-backs, saying that those metrics help Google improve AI Search. When asked about the concept of Google Search traffic dwindling to zero, the Google Zero scenario, Pichai insisted that the reality is quite different.” Uh-huh.

SECURITY & LEGAL

NPR: DOJ is investigating former congressman George Santos for insider trading on Kalshi. “Kalshi detected Santos’ trades, froze his account and referred the case to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Department of Justice, which both opened investigations into Santos, according to a person familiar with Kalshi’s investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly.”

Reuters: Sweden weighs social media age limit of 15 . “Sweden should introduce a minimum age of 15 for the use of social ​media, a government-appointed commission recommended on Tuesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Kansas Reflector: Buzzing to volunteer? Kansas looks for help with Great Plains Bumble Bee Atlas. “The Great Plains Bumble Bee Atlas is a community science project, and this year’s mission relies on volunteers to survey prairie land, largely in western Kansas, where sampling isn’t as developed as other parts of the state.”

Internet Archive Blog: Keep the News in the Wayback Machine. “Fight for the Future has launched an open letter calling on major media organizations to work with the Internet Archive to ensure the news remains preserved and accessible in the Wayback Machine.” Good afternoon, Internet…

This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.