P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #385
Lab visit
my story 🚀
🧬 I felt lucky to get a tour of Portal, a state-of-the-art biotech lab in Fulton Market. On the one hand, it’s a coworking space, so it feels a bit strange to get excited about it. But on the other hand, it’s a bigger deal than it seems because it enables life sciences entrepreneurs to build in Chicago. One great example is Jeff (your fellow subscriber, pictured above), who is building ReAx Biotechnologies. They are applying chemical proteomics to discover new small molecule therapeutics. Big props to Jeff and all the other scientists working to push the boundaries of human achievement!
fun facts 🙌
African dust feeds South American rainforest. “The Sahara Desert is a near-uninterrupted brown band of sand and scrub across the northern third of Africa. The Amazon rain forest is a dense green mass of humid jungle that covers northeast South America. But after strong winds sweep across the Sahara, a tan cloud rises in the air, stretches between the continents, and ties together the desert and the jungle.” ~ learn more
The Cuban internet comes on a weekly hard drive. “El Paquete Semana. The weekly packet. A one-terabyte hard-drive loaded with a week’s worth of American movies, shows, music, magazines, and even smartphone apps.” ~ learn more
Pacific bluefin tuna rebound to new highs. “The recovery of Pacific bluefin tuna has achieved a major milestone—the species exceeded international targets a decade ahead of schedule.” ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
Takeaways from the 8th Research and Applied AI Summit. People working at the cutting edge of AI get together annually to show off their work to one another. This is a summary of several presentations from this year. ~ learn more
Figure 02. Check out this new humanoid robot. “Speech-to-speech: capable of conversation with humans through onboard mics and speakers connected to custom AI models … Cameras: AI-driven vision system powered by 6 onboard RGB cameras … Hands: 4th gen hands with 16 degrees of freedom and human equivalent strength” ~ learn more
better doing 🎯
Fingerspritzengefuhl. “The easiest and most literal example of finger tip feeling is the finicky lock on my apartment door. When I first moved in, it would sometimes take me four or five minutes to get it locked or unlocked. Now, I have a sort of intuitive feel for what the lock needs and can usually get it open or closed in a few seconds.” ~ learn more
to your health ⚕
Doctors are lobbing AI-written letters at insurers. “Since using A.I. to draft prior-authorization requests, he said about 90 percent of his requests for coverage had been approved by insurers, compared with about 10 percent before.” Eventually AI will both write and read the letters. ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
The heart’s electromagnetic field is your superpower. “With an electrical component about 60 times greater and an electromagnetic energy field 5000 times greater than the brain’s, the heart has a significant influence on the body down to the cellular level.” This article is pretty fringe, with its sole scientific reference being to an article published in 2003. But I don’t know enough to discredit it, so I remain to it being true! ~ learn more
Lithium hypothesis of obesity. I had read bits and pieces of this before, and it’s quite interesting. This is a thorough recap of the investigation into the hypothesis that lithium contamination is a major driver of obesity. “All this seems like pretty strong evidence in favor of the lithium hypothesis. A critic would have to argue that unusually obese cities just happen to be downstream from lithium grease plants that experience catastrophic failures. This happened not once, but twice. What are the odds of that, exactly?” ~ learn more
thoughts of food 🍔
Long ago and farfalle. Pasta science! “We tested pasta without salt because salting your pasta water is one of the most common pieces of advice. We tried pasta in cold water to test the story that Lan Lam shared about her friend. And we tried cooking pasta in water that a previous batch of pasta had been cooked in because we heard that some restaurants do this, and claim that it makes the pasta more delicious. Each variation was tested both with and without sauce.” ~ learn more
big ideas 📚
New sails promise to cut cargo ship fuel consumption by up to 90%. “Flettner rotors are large rotating cylinders that produce aerodynamic thrust at right angles of the air passing over them. The CoFlow Jet cylinders developed by Zha don't rotate. They draw in a bit of the air from the wind blowing across and through them and then expends it at another part of the cylinder. By drawing in a small amount of air from the intake, pressurizing it using an impeller, and squirting it through the outlet, this generates a pressure imbalance and a considerable amount of thrust, which extends the full length of the cylinders.” ~ learn more
profiles of people 🚶
Meet Priscila, Queen of the rideshare mafia. “She came to the US with a dream. Using platforms like Uber, Instacart, and DoorDash, she built a business empire up from nothing. There was just one problem.” ~ learn more