incuriosity
Fingerprints are becoming a ubiquitous entry device—used for background checks, travel security, and to open car doors without keys. But this unique identifier made of ridges and furrows can fade or temporarily wear down—and an increasing number of people are finding out just how easy it is to lose their fingerprints […] it became an issue for her when she applied for citizenship, and the first stage involved getting fingerprinted. […] Typically fingerprints return in a matter of months
In Oakland and beyond, police called to crime scenes are increasingly looking for more than shell casings and fingerprints. They’re scanning for Teslas parked nearby, hoping their unique outward-facing cameras captured key evidence. They’re even resorting to obtaining warrants to tow the cars to ensure they don’t lose the video.
In what feels like a desperate attempt to stay afloat, 23andMe plans to… start prescribing weight loss drugs. How did we get here, with the once-mighty DNA testing company becoming just the latest to join the GLP-1 trend […] Even Scott Gottlieb’s Illumina, the flagship DNA sequencing company is struggling! […] Tome Biosciences, a high-profile gene editing startup spun out of MIT, is halting its lab work and looking to sell itself or find a partner to continue developing its technology. […] despite raising $213 million across two funding rounds, the three-year-old startup is running out of money. Since January, Tome has tried, and failed, to raise a third large round of funding needed to finish preclinical tests.
Can Plastic Waste Be Transformed Into Food for Humans? The bacteria that would otherwise eat plants can perhaps instead draw their energy from the plastic. After the bacteria consume the plastic, the microbes are then dried into a powder that smells a bit like nutritional yeast and has a balance of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins
You are what you eat — at least when it comes to the microbiome
The story of the “National Radio Quiet Zone” dates back to 1958, when the US federal government designated a region in West Virginia to help astronomers shield their sensitive equipment from interference. This means no radio signals, no cellphone coverage, and limited WiFi for the surrounding community. Even the vehicles transporting staff to and from the telescope must run on diesel, as gas cars’ spark plugs generate electrical interference. […] There’s also a long-standing theory that if other civilizations exist, they might emit radio waves, just as ours has since the dawn of radio communication in the 19th century. […] There have been a few moments of heightened excitement in the SETI community, including the 1977 detection of the so-called “Wow!” signal from the constellation Sagittarius, which remains unexplained.
Physicists recently created a time zone for the Moon
Crows and ravens, which belong to the corvid family, are known for their high intelligence, playful natures, and strong personalities. They hold grudges against each other, do basic statistics, perform acrobatics, and even host funerals for deceased family members. […] a species of crow called the hooded crow is able to manage a mental feat we once thought was unique to humans: to memorize the shape and size of an object after it is taken away, and to reproduce one like it.
One thing I mastered in failing to get a Ph.D. was an ability to research things for their own sake. That is, I never learned how to properly research anything at all; I just mutated procrastination into a taste for curiosity in itself and would search not for answers to any specific problems but for further questions. One book would lead to fifteen others, and so on, and I never got anywhere close to organizing any of my “findings” or even developing a dissertation topic. […] Generative AI is the quintessence of incuriosity, perfect for those who hate the idea of having to be interested in anything.
A brilliant optical trick makes this sign read correctly from any possible angle
AIs are now paying other AIs with crypto — This week at @CoinbaseDev we witnessed our first AI to AI crypto transaction. What did one AI buy from another? Tokens! Not crypto tokens, but AI tokens (words basically from one LLM to another). They used tokens to buy tokens. This is an important step to AIs getting useful work done. Today if you give an AI agent a task and come back in a few days or hours, it can’t get useful work done. In part this is [because] AIs can’t transact to acquire the resources they need. They don’t have a credit card to use AWS, Github, or Vercel. They don’t have a payment method to book you the plane ticket or hotel for your upcoming trip. They can’t get through paywalls (for instance to read a scientific article), promote their post on X with a paid ad, or use the growing network of paid APIs to integrate data they need.
