P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #352
Winter Break
my story 🚀
We’re wishing a happy holiday season to all and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. Our family began a 19-day stretch of school break this week. Please wish us luck.
fun facts 🙌
Oidashibeya. Japanese workplace culture is the opposite of America’s at-will employment. “Japanese companies are barred both by societal and legal constraints that make it very difficult to fire employees.” So they invented “the oidashibeya, literally the banishment room or the expulsion room.” ~ learn more
Where do people come from? “When someone is born, chemical parts once scattered across the world converge to form a human. Days, years, and decades before, those atoms were always somewhere in the world. I recently got curious about this: where do people come from? Or rather, looking ahead — where are future people?” ~ learn more
A startup banking story. From Mitchell Hashimoto, the founder of HashiCorp ($HCP). “I also figured a local branch of a global bank is just a fungible tentacle of the giant banking machine, so also... who cares.” ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
The short case against Twist Bioscience. I learned about Twist in October 2021, when I shared a link from Alex Danco. He was excited about an API for biotech, enabling a new class of bio founders. In April 2022 I was impressed by Twist’s CEO speaking on a podcast about their strategy to drive down cost to promote a new bio-based economy. In November 2022, a short seller released this detailed research report with a price target of $0, throwing everything and the kitchen sink at this company. ~ learn more
More consent required before lead-gen robocalls, thanks to FTC. “The new rule represents a major change for the online lead generation industry, including comparison shopping websites, by requiring lead generators to obtain consumer consent to receive robocalls and robotexts from one seller at a time, rather than having a single consent apply to multiple sellers at once.” ~ learn more
better doing 🎯
The optimal morning routine by Andrew Huberman. The very popular scientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. explains the intricate timing of circadian rhythms and how to best support them with a morning routine that prioritizes light exposure, exercise and cold water immersion. This is a 15 minute clip from his podcast paired with helpful animations. ~ learn more
to your health ⚕
Why the world is going blind. The cause: not enough exposure to sunlight. “In China, up to 90 percent of teenagers and young adults are myopic. In the 1950s the figure was as low as 10 percent. A 2012 study in Seoul found that an astonishing 96.5 percent of 19-year-old men were nearsighted. Among high schoolers in Taiwan, it’s around 90 percent. In the US and Europe, myopia rates across all ages are well below 50 percent, but they’ve risen sharply in recent decades.” ~ learn more
An introduction to peptide therapy. I want to hear from you if you have personal experience with peptides. “From helping you to build more lean muscle mass to assisting you maintain stable hormone levels, the benefits of peptide therapy are clear. Even though peptide therapy has grown increasingly common in the United States, most peptide treatments are still a relatively new idea, and one a lot of people don’t know much about.” ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
Moiré quantum transistor performs associative learning at room temperature. "[T]he device simultaneously processes and stores information just like the human brain. In new experiments, the researchers demonstrated that the transistor goes beyond simple machine-learning tasks to categorize data and is capable of performing associative learning.” The bit about working at room temperature is the key breakthrough here. ~ learn more
Study directly links high insulin levels to pancreatic cancer. “The study, published in Cell Metabolism, provides the first detailed explanation of why people with obesity and type 2 diabetes are at an increased risk of pancreatic cancer. The research demonstrates that excessive insulin levels overstimulate pancreatic acinar cells, which produce digestive juices. This overstimulation leads to inflammation that converts these cells into precancerous cells.” ~ learn more
No limit to how much protein your body can use after exercise. “These findings demonstrate that the magnitude and duration of the anabolic response to protein ingestion is not restricted and has previously been underestimated in vivo in humans.” ~ learn more
thoughts of food 🍔
Are acai bowls healthy? From the excellent health and nutrition content team at Nutrisense. “Acai bowls have surged in popularity in the health and wellness community, celebrated for their vibrant appearance and perceived nutritional benefits. But how healthy can acai bowls really be, and should they really be considered a health food?” ~ learn more
Panera’s caffeine-infused lemonade. I just learned of this product called Charged Lemonade, which is “charged” with caffeine — 260mg in a 20-ounce serving. A couple people with extreme sensitivity to caffeine died after drinking. There is a big lawsuit. “Whether Charged Lemonade will be found liable here is one question. The bigger question, in my view, is why should Americans rely on a law firm, and the eventual decisions of a judge and jury in Delaware to decide what will effectively be a national standard for caffeinated lemonade?” ~ learn more
big ideas 📚
Recycling un-recyclable plastic. “The RePlastic project focused on using pyrolysis for chemical recycling. During the process, plastic waste is heated to high temperatures in a nitrogen-filled furnace, triggering a splitting of the chemical components of the plastic materials. Because there is no oxygen in the furnace, the plastic does not burn, but gasification occurs. The gas is then condensed into so-called pyrolysis oil, which can be used as an additive in fuel or new plastic products.” ~ learn more
Fracking enables first-of-its-kind advanced geothermal project. This plant is built for Google in Nevada. “Where most geothermal projects need to seek out areas where highly-fractured, highly-permeable hot rocks are easy to get to, the Nevada plant, built in partnership with Fervo, is a pilot to prove a technique borrowed from the oil and gas industry.” ~ learn more
The renewable energy disaster far more deadly than Chernobyl. The point here is pro-nuclear, not anti-renewables. In 1975, China’s Banqiao Dam collapsed, “forming a wall of water six meters high and twelve kilometers wide moving up to fifty kilometers per hour. The towering deluge eventually collapsed 62 more dams, flooded thirty cities, and destroyed 6.8 million houses. Thousands of people drowned.” The author’s message is that, like Chernobyl, it was hasty design and construction that led to disaster. ~ learn more