đ You know the rules: Every dog is a puppy, no matter their age. And every saber-toothed cat is a kitten, even if itâs 35k years old, like the one found in Siberiaâs permafrost. The well-preserved 3-week-old specimen allowed researchers to get up close and personal with the feline, which went extinct ~12k years ago. While it surely wouldâve eaten us alive, it was pretty dang cute.
đ§ On the pod:What do the 47% of teens who use AI multiple times per week use it for?
NEWS FLASH
đą Are you feeling less annoyed? That may be because reports of spam calls are down 50%+ from 2021, per an FTC report. The FTCâs Operation Stop Scam Calls, launched in 2023, has attempted to crack down on illegal telemarketing, including most robocalls and voice cloning. In the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, 2024, the most common complaints of unwanted calls regarded medical and prescription issues, 50%+ of which were robocalls.
đď¸ Bard or bot? A study presented 1.6k+ participants with 10 poems, half by a poet and half AI-generated in the style of that poet. Participants were only able to correctly distinguish them ~46% of the time. A separate study of ~700 participants found that they typically rated poems they knew were penned by humans higher, but, on average, preferred AI-generated work if they didnât know who â or what â wrote it. Researchers suspect that may be because the AI poems were simpler and followed expected rules, unlike the work of capricious, complicated humans.
đď¸ Oh great, a new risky cosmetic procedure: An increasing number of patients are going under the laser for keratopigmentation â or corneal tattooing â to change their eye color. The surgery, which costs ~$12k and isnât covered by insurance, plays paint-by-numbers on your cornea to switch your peepers to the color of your choice. While the procedure has long been used to treat patients with eye diseases and injuries, itâs only recently taken off as a cosmetic procedure â and, unshockingly, it carries some serious risks.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Netflixreported that a record 60m households watched Jake Paul defeat Mike Tyson last Friday, explaining the 95k+ reports of buffering and other tech issues. The fight also generated $17.8m in ticket revenue, making it the largest boxing gate outside of Nevada.
McDonaldâs is shelling out $100m to win back customers after the E. coli outbreak that sickened 100+ people. The company will spend $35m on marketing â including a chicken nugget value deal â and $65m on the franchises most affected by the outbreak.
ByteDance, TikTokâs parent company, valued itself at ~$300B in a recent share buyback offer. The valuation comes despite the Biden administrationâs law that would ban TikTok in the US unless ByteDance divests from it by mid-January.
CRUSH GOALS
5 mad skill-development templates
You have to keep on learning new things â every day, all the time. Because staying curious is one of those classified secrets to winning at life.
For a stronger sense of structure, try these tidy skill-building templates. Use the space to kick-start new habits, better manage time, read more books, or otherwise get shit done.
You get a template, and you get a templateâŚ
Five-year plan template
Individual skill-development template
SMART goal-setting template
Management by objective template
Performance improvement plan template
We also call them âskillets.â They help you break in beautifully.
One startup might have the solution to donor bone marrow in the bank
Every year, ~18k people ages 0-74 in the US discover they need a bone marrow transplant.
And while 30% of patients have a relative who is a match, 70% â ~12k people â need to use bone marrow from an unrelated donor.
That process can be especially hard for those who are racially or ethnically diverse, with Black and African American patients having just 29% odds of finding a full match.
Now, San Francisco-based startup Ossium Health is trying to fix the problem, perWired.
Rather than matching living donors, the company collects bone marrow from recently deceased organ donors.
The bone marrow is extracted from the spinal column using Ossiumâs proprietary method and cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen vapor.
The companyâs goal is to make a bone marrow bank, where patients in need of a time-sensitive transplant can get an âoff-the-shelfâ treatment.
So far, Ossium has processed the bone marrow of thousands of donors, which itâs used to treat three cancer patients, with a fourth transplant scheduled soon.
For nowâŚ
⌠most patients must rely on volunteer donors to find a match â or close to it.
Partially matched donors are becoming increasingly common thanks to a drug that reduces the risk of graft-versus-host disease.
If a matched donor canât be found through a relative or registry, some patients â mostly children â are given donated stem cells with a cord blood transplant, collected from the umbilical cord and placenta after a baby is born.
But, hopefully soon, some patients will have the option to source perfectly matched marrow directly from Ossiumâs bank.
To test its process, the company partnered with the National Marrow Donor Program on an early-stage clinical trial for patients with blood cancer.
And itâs all in the name of a lofty goal: Ossium hopes to up the percentage of patients receiving transplants to 95% in the next 10 years.
Want to build a $100m brand? Sometimes that means putting long-term brand building in front of immediate financial gains.
Finally taking your side hustle full time?Hereâs how to write a resignation letter to leave on a high note.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Pistachios produced by the US in the 2023-24 season, up 69% YoY, perSherwood News. Pistachios, besides being delicious, are also easier and cheaper to grow than almonds, especially when it comes to using less water. Thatâs key for drought-prone California, where pistachio crops generated ~$3B in 2023.
While California still produces ~80% of all almonds â which generated $3.9B in 2023 â farmers are dedicating less acreage to the nut amid declining almond prices and increasing inflation and water costs.
AROUND THE WEB
đŚ On this day: In 1996, exotic bird expert Tony Silva was sentenced to seven years in prison for an illegal parrot smuggling operation involving 100+ hyacinth macaws, valued at ~$1.4m, and hundreds of other birds.
đ Video: How did Southwest Airlines, one of the most beloved airlines, take such a massive nosedive?
