P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #485

Visit to the lakeshore

my story 🚀

Northwestern University has a great view of Chicago!

⛷️ PSA: For years, I have complained about the cost of lift tickets. I also have a tendency to buy them when it’s winter and I have a ski trip coming up. Well, it’s July and I just bought lift tickets! As it turns out, they are much more affordable this far in advance.

fun facts 🙌

Data wizardry on road quality. “Using data from Uber, they are able to estimate the roughness of every road in America and precisely estimate the value people place on it, and so much more.” Even pavement condition can be measured at national scale, if you have the right data exhaust. ~ learn more

The “women are better multitaskers” stereotype. “We can do things at the same time when they are highly automatized, but other than that, humans in general struggle,” says cognitive neuroscientist Marco Hirnstein. The gender part is messy too: “The findings are incredibly inconsistent.” ~ learn more

Pigeons sense magnetic forces in their livers to navigate. “We found by far the strongest magnetic response in liver tissue,” which points to iron-loaded liver macrophages acting like a compass. When researchers depleted those cells, pigeons could still get home on sunny days, but “could not navigate home on overcast days.” ~ learn more

Chinese automakers in Detroit. “No one answers a knock on SAIC’s locked office door. It’s not possible to leave the company a phone message unless the caller has an extension, but no phone directory is offered.” Chinese automakers cannot sell cars in the U.S. yet, but Jalopnik reports that they are quietly setting up offices and R&D centers to learn the supply base and hire talent. ~ learn more

tech, startups, internet ⚡

How this Texan Startup Ranch plans to save America. From Ashlee Vance: “A group of twenty-somethings has taken over a 1,200 acre Texas ranch and is trying to turn it into the next Shenzhen. It’s called Proto-Town, and this is the first outsider look inside.” ~ learn more

The critical mass theory of Al search. “Now the funnel collapses. The person asks a question and gets an answer. One answer. Maybe three.” This is a good article on the topic of AI search by a former colleague who is very good at search marketing. ~ learn more

AI confidence theater. “So I started asking a simple question whenever someone told me AI had changed their life: ‘Cool. Show me.’” Elena Verna’s point: most “life-changing” AI workflows are just decent time-savers dressed up like miracles, and the hype is warping expectations inside companies. ~ learn more

better doing 🎯

People are bad at picking health plan. “They spent 24% more than they had, with a majority of employees picking a plan for which a strictly better version existed.” I am not sure that I’ve always (or ever?) picked the optimal health plan either. ~ learn more

11 universal and objective truths about making friends. “Also, when you’ve just moved to a new city, you have to say “yes” to everything.” ~ learn more

How to ask for help. “There is only one principle. Put yourself in their mind.” The whole piece is a checklist for asking strangers for help without making it weird: show you are serious, give tight context, make the ask small, and make it easy to say no. ~ learn more

to your health ⚕

Gray-market peptides, familiar sellers. “Crypto payments to gray-market peptide vendors, many of which are part of the fentanyl business, totaled $27 million in the first quarter of this year, up nearly 150% from Q4 2025, per Chainalysis.” The Axios piece traces how some China-based fentanyl precursor makers are pivoting into the influencer-fueled peptide boom, often selling to buyers who “often have no idea who they’re buying from.” ~ learn more

Mysterious compassionate use approval. “STAT has learned that Eli Lilly and the FDA have allowed one person to gain access to the drug through the FDA’s ‘compassionate use’ program.” The patient was “a 79-year-old man” and sources say the request “drew the interest of top health officials,” hinting at unusual pull behind the scenes. ~ learn more

retail therapy 💸

He charges $1,000 to haggle. “Tomislav (Tomi) Mikula charges a $1,000 flat fee to negotiate vehicle purchases on behalf of his clients, and business is booming.” He used to sell cars, now he livestreams negotiations and runs Delivrd with a small team that reportedly brings in about $200,000 a month. ~ learn more

under the microscope 🔬

A frog gut microbe for attacking tumors. “A single intravenous dose of Ewingella americana led to complete tumor elimination in 100% of treated animals, with no recurrence upon re-exposure to cancer cells.” It’s a preclinical mouse colorectal cancer result, but the mechanism is wild: a living bacterium that homes to hypoxic tumors and then triggers a broad immune response. ~ learn more

Exhale longer, take more risks. “Prolonged exhalation increased risky choices by enhancing reward sensitivity and elevating cardiac parasympathetic activity.” The authors show that a longer exhale shifts autonomic state toward parasympathetic dominance and that shift tracks stronger reward responses in two parts of the brain. ~ learn more

A dividing cell from non-living parts. “It’s a big step forward to this holy grail of making a living thing out of dead components.” Researchers packed lab-made biomolecules into a membrane, then watched the synthetic cell grow, copy DNA, and split, even though it still needs constant deliveries of supplies. ~ learn more

thoughts of food 🍔

A soup older than some employees. “What has outlived them all? A beef broth simmering at a Thai restaurant since 1974.” In Bangkok, one family has kept the same pot going for 52 years, treating it like a living thing you maintain, not a batch you finish. ~ learn more

thanks for reading!