Bruce Hornsby on Tupac. “The original “Changes” was a lot dirtier, had a lot of the n-word. They took that out for the single.” Bruce Hornsby says he got the track on a cassette from the Shakur Foundation, and he […]
Continuous cloth roll towel machine. “It spools a real cloth roll that is almost 100 feet long in a spool to dry your hands.” Robert Moseley tours a Darman continuous cloth roll towel machine, the oddly satisfying alternative to paper […]
Why Japan has such good railways. “These cultural explanations are wrong.” Japan’s trains work because of policy choices: private operators, land use rules, and regulation that let rail companies build the corridor and the city around it. ~ learn more
Unlimited counterfeit coins. Privacy coin Zcash’s price crashed 57% in 24 hours thanks to a newly disclosed bug. “The vulnerability could have been exploited to undetectably create an unlimited amount of counterfeit ZEC within Orchard,” Shielded Labs said. The scary […]
The cost of safetyism. “What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard. … The world didn’t get more dangerous. We got more afraid.” Steve Magness argues that the big shift is a perception-reality gap, and the […]
Rods that run cone software. Despite my comment above about humanity taking control over biology, it’s also true that we still know very little about biology. “For more than 150 years, vertebrate vision has been understood as a two-part system: […]
Functional human sperm in a lab. “Growing functional human sperm entirely outside the body.” Little by little we’re living in an era where humans are taking control over biology. In this example, they were able to coax stem cells into […]
One-shot gene editing for LDL. “One dose of VERVE-102 led to dose-dependent, substantial, and sustained reductions in PCSK9 and LDL cholesterol levels.” It is a phase 1 study in 35 people, with LDL reductions up to 62% at the highest […]
How banks kept $485 billion of the Fed’s rate hikes from savers. “Even then, just 7 cents of every dollar of rate increase reached the average savings account.” The study tracks Fed Funds vs. the FDIC’s national average savings rate […]
Ford’s IPO was a circus. “The syndicate will include just about everybody who’s in the business and who isn’t, or hasn’t been, in jail,” a Blyth vice-president told John Brooks. In 1956, Ford’s IPO needed a 722 firm syndicate, mailed […]