P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #349
New podcast
my story 🚀
🎙️ I made a guest appearance on The Nick Halaris Show this week. Nick and I would both honored if you listened to the episode!
fun facts 🙌
Kurt Vonnegut explains storytelling in 4 minutes. ~ watch video
The word algorithm was invented by mistake. So were these 8 other words. ~ learn more
Challenge anxious thoughts with help from this tool. Created by an anxious person who didn’t always have someone to talk out their worries with. Describe anything you’re anxious about and the tool will help put you at ease (if appropriate). It can also predict and handle your rebuttals. ~ learn more
Welding and the automation frontier. “A good job for drilling down into the specifics of automation is welding. Welding today exists right on the “automation frontier” — some industries, like car manufacturing, have automated nearly all their welding, while others, like construction, have automated very little of it. Welding also encompasses a fairly narrow set of tasks that have changed comparatively little over a long period of time. This makes it easy to understand what, specifically, is being automated, how automation capabilities have advanced, and how advancing automation has affected welding employment.” ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
How much energy does it take to run an AI model? This blows my mind. I double-checked the math and think it’s accurate. The average power needed to generate one image from text is equivalent to an entire cell phone battery. A new paper published by researchers from Hugging Face and Carnegie Mellon University used a plugin called CodeCarbon to measure power usage while running queries against a variety of models. Text classification was the lowest usage, while image generation was the highest by far. learn more and original paper
Teaching a computer to smell (or: smellovision, here we come). “In short, the paper validates the idea that it’s now possible to apply machine learning to quantify, digitize, and engineer scent. A core problem preventing us from digitizing scent is something that the other senses already have – a map. RGB is a three-dimensional map of all colors, and low- to high-frequency is a one-dimensional map that lets you describe any sound and transmit any song. Scent has never had a map.” ~ learn more
A new XPRIZE for increasing healthspan. The original prize was designed to promote space tourism with a $10 million bounty. Now here comes another: “XPRIZE Healthspan is a 7-year, $101 million global competition to revolutionize the way we approach human aging.” ~ learn more
better doing 🎯
Life lessons from the death bed. While finishing high school, this author chose to volunteer at a local hospice. ~ learn more
The real magic of rituals. “We might call them superstitions or spells, but they genuinely drum anxiety away.” Anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas writes about the prior research into superstition as well as his most recent experiments that demonstrated that “those who performed the ritual were faster to recover from that anxiety. Their heart-rate variability increased by 30 percent, suggesting that they were better able to cope with the stress.” ~ learn more
to your health ⚕
Superstar DJ Steve Aoki is also a longevity junky. “On the surface, the 45-year-old Aoki doesn’t seem like the person to hang out with for insights into the promise and perils of longevity science—he has I’LL SLEEP WHEN I’M DEAD tattooed on the back of his neck. But earlier this year, Aoki took an epigenetic test popular with longevity bros to calculate his biological age, and it revealed that his pace of aging was among the best on the planet.” ~ learn more
Social determinants of elderhood. “The editors [of Nature Aging] speak to Louise Aronson, geriatrician and Pulitzer Prize finalist, about how old age is perceived and defined, and the influence of social determinants on health.” ~ learn more
retail therapy 💸
The North Face gets social media. “The North Face pulled an elaborate marketing stunt on TikTok and delivered some rain gear via helicopter to a woman in New Zealand, whose complaint about the brand went viral on the platform.” ~ learn more
A post mortem for skincare brand Disco. “Shutting Disco down resulted in the loss of millions of investor capital from friends, family, close connections, and funds I respect and trust. A few key decisions led to our downfall. Below are some reflections on what went wrong at Disco, with the intention of helping other founders avoid the same mistakes.” ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
Scientists 3D-print hair follicles in lab-grown skin. The first use case they’re building toward is an improved skin model for testing topical products. “Scientists have 3D-printed hair follicles in human skin tissue cultured in the lab. This marks the first time researchers have used the technology to generate hair follicles, which play an important role in skin healing and function.” ~ learn more
Alzheimer’s linked to the gut, again. “Published in Brain, the study shows that that the memory impairments in people with Alzheimer’s could be transferred to young animals through transplant of gut microbiota.” ~ learn more and original paper
A small-molecule drug that blocks pain via new calcium channel. “Next, the team tried out the compound in four different mouse models of pain: injury induced; inflammatory; chemotherapy-induced; and trigeminal nerve pain, which is a type of chronic pain affecting the face. … In all cases, the CBD3036 significantly reduced the pain experienced by the mice and had no reported side effects.” ~ learn more
A wooden tongue depressor with biosensing capabilities. If anyone can explain to me how this works I would be grateful. “This proof-of-principle biosensing device demonstrates the feasibility of “simultaneous determination of glucose and nitrite in artificial saliva,” according to the NKUA scientists who hope it will help doctors diagnose a variety of conditions.” ~ learn more
thoughts of food 🍔
Time to inform the public about the adverse effects of ultra-processed foods, researchers say. “In their paper, "Ultra-processed foods and cardiometabolic health: public health policies to reduce consumption cannot wait," published in BMJ, the authors point out that while there is convincing evidence that processed foods have adverse health risks, efforts to reduce, change or eliminate these food formulations lack sufficient support.” ~ learn more
Two grocery challenger brands become one. “Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen & Market, are merging to become Outfox Hospitality.” I was living near a Foxtrot in Wicker Park, Chicago and really appreciated it. They luckily followed me to Austin and opened right near my house and the location is crushing it. It will be interesting to see how the new business evolves. ~ learn more