P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #348
P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #348
Happy Thanksgiving
my story 🚀
fun facts 🙌
4.5 billion years in 1 hour. “We’ve scaled the complete timeline of our Earth’s life into our first animated movie! Every second shows about a million years of the planet’s evolution. Hop on a musical train ride and experience how long a billion years really is.” ~ learn more
Fiddlesticks. “Fiddlestick is recorded from the fifteenth century, and Shakespeare used a proverb based on it in Henry IV: “the devil rides on a fiddle-stick”, meaning that a commotion has broken out…” ~ learn more
The engineering behind the largest nuclear fusion reactor. The host of Practical Engineering gets a tour of the ITER megaproject from Laurent Patisson, one of the key leaders responsible for building the whole complex. ~ learn more
oh, chicago 🏆
Chicago is most corrupt city 4 years straight. “The report uses public corruption statistics published by the U.S. Department of Justice from 1976 through 2021. In those 45 years, Chicago’s elected officials and public servants weaseled their way to a record 1,824 corruption convictions, according to the report.” ~ learn more
oh, austin 🤠
Housing data 2010-2020. “Austin had the fastest household growth, or growth in occupied housing units, of all large U.S. cities, as well as among select peer cities.” Inside: “In this story map, we focus on housing units in Austin, their growth between 2010 and 2020 and how this growth compares to that of other U.S. cities and to the larger metro region.” ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
Printed robots with bones, ligaments and tendons. This is absolutely incredible. 3D printing keeps getting better. “For the first time, researchers have succeeded in printing a robotic hand with bones, ligaments and tendons made of different polymers using a new laser scanning technique.” ~ learn more
LA's hard tech ecosystem. Two venture capitalists from Upfront Ventures put together a list of 50 cool companies based in the Los Angeles area that are pushing the frontiers of hard tech. Of course SpaceX and Anduril are on the list, but so are others founded as recently as this year. ~ learn more
How to approach markets with few early adopters. Some industries are not tolerant of MVPs and lack early adopters for new products. What’s a startup to do? Jackie DiMonte explains. ~ learn more
better doing 🎯
Byron Wien’s 20 life lessons. The famed Wall Street investor died last month. “Here are some of the lessons I learned in my first 80 years, which I continue to practice as I enter my 90’s.” ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
Precisely making a single DNA spelling change in the liver of a human being. “Scientific milestone: VERVE-101 provides first proof-of-concept for in vivo DNA base editing in humans” ~ learn more
Improving deep sleep may prevent dementia. “As little as 1 per cent reduction in deep sleep per year for people over 60 years of age translates into a 27 per cent increased risk of dementia…” These sorts of studies tend to struggle with limited data and small sample sizes. In this case, the researchers used the Framingham Heart Study, which is “a unique community-based cohort with repeated overnight polysomnographic (PSG) sleep studies and uninterrupted surveillance for incident dementia.” ~ learn more
AI system self-organizes to develop features of brains of complex organisms. Researchers mapped each “neuron” of their AI system to a physical location, creating a constraint found in physical brains. “When the system was asked to perform the task under these constraints, it used some of the same tricks used by real human brains to solve the task. For example, to get around the constraints, the artificial systems started to develop hubs—highly connected nodes that act as conduits for passing information across the network.” ~ learn more
thoughts of food 🍔
Evaporative cooling makes a come back for sustainable food storage. “German industrial designer Lea Lorenz has created a new clay cooler based on the age-old principle of evaporative cooling. Dubbed TONY, this simple design offers a modern reinterpretation of the traditional clay jug cooler, providing an eco-friendly solution to keep food fresh without the need for electricity.” ~ learn more
big ideas 📚
The Chimp-Pig hypothesis. I was unaware of this hypothesis and I think “wow” is in order. “If someone pointed out a few random features of humans, and then pointed out that some other random animal shares those cherry-picked features, you shouldn't be very impressed – in fact this is comically easy to do. But if someone goes through a primatology textbook and makes a list of all features that are shared among primates except humans, and then goes through other animal textbooks and finds that every one of those features is shared (in a detailed, specific manner) with one specific, non-primate animal, you've got a much stronger hypothesis.” ~ learn more
profiles of people 🚶
The secret life of Jimmy Zhong, who stole – and lost – more than $3 billion. “In 2012, someone stole 50,000 bitcoin from the Silk Road, an illegal dark web marketplace. Over time, the value of the stolen bitcoin skyrocketed to more than $3 billion dollars and for years it remained one of the biggest mysteries in the world of cryptocurrency.” ~ learn more