Tootfinder

Filings: crypto industry donated $26M to Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc., in H1, including $5M from Blockchain.com; Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz gave $3M each (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/08/01/trump-crypto-donors-maga-super-pac

Crypto donations flood Trump's super PAC
The Trump family is deep in everything from stablecoins, meme coins and NFTs to Bitcoin mining.

Here's a more positive challenge for the "AI scientists": reproduce a paper. From the PDF alone, implement and re-run the experiments as written, filling in the gaps as necessary and get the same results.
That's a lot more meaningful than passing peer review and it would actually be quite useful to automate. It could become a required check on any accepted paper.

Peru seizes record 4-ton mercury shipment in fight against illegal gold mining https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/07/peru-seizes-record-4-ton-mercury-shipment-in-fight-against-illegal-gold-mining/

Peru seizes record 4-ton mercury shipment in fight against illegal gold mining
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Peruvian customs officials have seized a record-breaking shipment of illegal mercury, exposing a cross-border smuggling network fueling illicit gold mining in the Amazon. The 4-ton haul, discovered in June at the port of Callao, was hidden in gravel bags and bound for Bolivia, officials said on Thursday. Experts say it could […]

Scalable Etch-Free Transfer of Low-Dimensional Materials from Metal Films to Diverse Substrates
Kentaro Yumigeta (Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA), Muhammed Yusufoglu (Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA), Mamun Sarker (Department of Chemistry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA), Rishi Raj (Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Scienc…

Scalable Etch-Free Transfer of Low-Dimensional Materials from Metal Films to Diverse Substrates
Low-dimensional materials hold great promises for exploring emergent physical phenomena, nanoelectronics, and quantum technologies. Their synthesis often depends on catalytic metal films, from which the synthesized materials must be transferred to insulating substrates to enable device functionality and minimize interfacial interactions during quantum investigations. Conventional transfer methods, such as chemical etching or electrochemical delamination, degrade material quality, limit scalabil…

Calamus 14 Not heat flames up and consumes
A declaration of love, eroticism mixed with nature imagery. Something of a theme in Calamus! It didn't really grab me though, I think because so many of the lines start with negations and it distances me from the meaning.
The sexy line here:
the flames of me, consuming, burning for his love whom I love!
I also like the imagery of seeds wafted in the wind, then heading to "my Soul is borne through the open air".
This musical performance by the Erato Ensemble is a nice interpretation.

Development of an Atomic Layer Deposition System for Deposition of Alumina as a Hydrogen Permeation Barrier
Zachary R. Robinson, Jeffrey Woodward, Alexander C. Kozen, Joshua Ruby, Tyler Liao, Luke Herter, Rashad Ahmadov, Mark D. Wittman, Matthew Sharpe
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00958

Development of an Atomic Layer Deposition System for Deposition of Alumina as a Hydrogen Permeation Barrier
Tritium permeation into and through materials poses a critical challenge for the development of nuclear fusion reactors. Minimizing tritium permeation is essential for the safe and efficient use of available fuel supplies. In this work, we present the design, construction, and validation of custom atomic layer deposition (ALD) and deuterium permeation measurement systems aimed at developing thin-film hydrogen permeation barriers. Using the ALD system, we deposited conformal Al2O3 films on coppe…

So much groundwater is now being pumped that it is filling the oceans as it drains off land,
becoming one of the largest drivers of global sea level rise.
https://www.propublica.org/article/water-aquifers-groundwater-rising-ocean-levels

“Staggering” Water Loss Driven by Groundwater Mining Poses Global Threat
A new study finds that freshwater resources are rapidly disappearing, creating arid “mega” regions and causing sea levels to rise.

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.02288 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_mat…

Generalized saturation game
We study the following game version of the generalized graph Turán problem. For two fixed graphs F and H, two players, Max and Mini, alternately claim unclaimed edges of the complete graph Kn such that the graph G of the claimed edges must remain F-free throughout the game. The game ends when no further edges can be claimed, i.e. when G becomes F-saturated. The H-score of the game is the number of copies of H in G. Max aims to maximize the H-score, while Mini wants to minimize it. The H-score …

Both Harvard and Columbia are failing to articulate the need and meaning of education, besides economic value. There is no sense of humanity or the humanities or the search for a truths. Both schools are for-profit companies in the minds of their boards, and their presidents reflect that understanding.
From: @…

Calamus 43 O you whom I often
A short and sweet love poem, Whitman at his most writerly. The spare and simple words have a light musicality that's often missing from his more didactic blank verse.
The literal meaning is Whitman telling someone how his very presence inspires feelings of love. It's so short and precise I'm just going to quote the whole poem.
O you whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you,
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.
I love the lack of action. Whitman simply wants to sit in the same room as his beloved, a quiet devotion I appreciate. And that phrase "subtle electric fire". Electric had a different meaning in pre-Edison America but it works both ways.
Mostly this poem is just a lovely mood.
(The linked video and commentary are more than usually good.)