Hot Links: God Particle Discovered, Texas GOP Opposes Critical Thinking, Hack a Drone

Welcome back to Hot Links, Motherboard’s weekly roundup of some of the coolest stories you missed from the weekend.

Big science’s worst kept secret finally revealed: Proof that the Higgs boson, aka God Particle, exists will be delivered on July 4. Considering Fermilab, host to the Tevatron particle accelerator is shutting down, CERN announcing such a massive discovery on July 4 seems like kind of a jab at American big science (which is woefully in decline).

In a bid to open the doors towards selling tablets in China, Apple has settled a goofball lawsuit regarding the iPad named for $60 million. It’s a sign that the Chinese market is really lucrative.

I still can’t get over this: the Texas GOP’s official education platform includes opposition to schools teaching critical thinking, would could cause kids to undermine authority. My goodness.

Fortune put together a monster report on the ‘truth’ of the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal. Agents involved with the case say they didn’t purposely allow guns into Mexico; instead, they say they were hamstrung by extremely loose gun laws.

A kerfluffle has erupted regarding an unpaid research internship advertised by the University of Birmingham, which has since pulled its ad. Meanwhile, in the U.S., people are still paying to get an internship.

Smithsonian’s Design Decoded blog has a brilliant post on the history of the espresso machine. Photo above via the post, from Wiki Commons.

Here’s how to hack a drone and fly it however you want.

Armando Montano, a 22-year old summer intern for the AP based in Mexico City, was found dead in an elevator in that city this past weekend. The cause of his death is still being investigated.

Batteries that can be painted on to objects now exist, which means tech form factors could soon lose a major design constraint.

Really important news: Siri still sucks.

Mozilla is bringing its Firefox OS to smartphones, and apparently it involves a gecko.

Facebook is fucking with people again, by giving everyone a Facebook email that’s really dumb.

A report from The Economist says the Supreme Court isn’t as politicized as people think.

Need a supercomputer? Now you can rent one from the cloud.

Combine that last tidbit with this discovery of the oldest human DNA ever recovered (7,000 years old!) and you basically have Jurassic Park all over again.

A Russian Soyuz capsule landed gently over the weekend. Congrats.

Really depressing (sorry): as crops rot in India, thousands are starving.

Let’s end on a funny note: Rest easy, because the UK’s porn filter is nothing but lies on top of lies.

Follow Derek Mead on Twitter: @derektmead.