1. Bitcoin surveillance helped feds take down a massive child abuse site (blockchain, MIT Technology Review) 2. How Do the New Plant-Based Burgers Stack Up? (new-food, NYT) 3. As the World’s Garbage Piles Up, Controversy Over Waste-to-Energy Continues (energy, Undark) 4. George Takei (book, Full Stop)
1. The year of the NBA unicorn (NBA, Axios) 2. Automating humans with AI (AI, Axios) 3. Mammon. Far from representing rationality and logic, capitalism is modernity’s most beguiling and dangerous form of enchantment by Eugene McCarraher (society, aeon) 4. The city trying to make urban living good for your health (cities, BBC) 5. The World Can Make More Water From the Sea, but at What Cost? (technology, NYT)
1. The New Makers of Plant-Based Meat? Big Meat Companies (new-food, NYT) 2. The Great Biomass Boondoggle (energy, The New York Review of Books) 3. This Fungus Mutates. That’s Good News if You Like Cheese (food, NYT) 4. Five Reasons the Diet Soda Myth Won’t Die (food, health, NYT) 5. If a Robotic Hand Solves a Rubik’s Cube, Does It Prove Something? (AI, NYT) 6. What We Lose When We Lose Indigenous Knowledge (culture, JSTOR)
1. How many NBA players have tweeted in support of Hong Kong? by Tyler Cowen (sports + politics + China) 2. The peculiar bathroom habits of Westerners (culture, BBC) 3. Quantum gold rush: the private funding pouring into quantum start-ups (startups, Nature) 4. But is it science? Theoretical physicists who say the multiverse exists set a dangerous precedent: science based on zero empirical evidence by Jim Baggott (science, aeon)
1. This Is What Adapting to Climate Change Looks Like (climate, The Atlantic) 2. Cows Need Friends to Be Happy (nature, The Atlantic) 3. Why it’s time to start talking about blockchain ethics by Mike Orcutt (blockchain, MIT Technology Review) 4. Flour power: meet the bread heads baking a better loaf (food, The Guardian) Bonus: The Super Zoom
1. Kale is not giving up: Actually, Kale Is Good and Lots of People Still Like It (food, Slate)I don’t know anyone who likes kale. 2. Cell-Bacteria Mergers Offer Clues to How Organelles Evolved (science, Quanta Magazine) 3. In the Sea, Not All Plastic Lasts Forever (environment, NYT) 4. Integrating the Science of How We Learn into Education Technology by Stephen M. Kosslyn (education, Harvard Business Review)
1. Do Octopi Dream? An Astonishing Nature Documentary Suggests They Do (science) 2. The Patron Saint of Bookstores. 100 years ago, Sylvia Beach, the first publisher of James Joyce’s Ulysses, opened the doors to her legendary bookstore, Shakespeare & Co. (publishing history, JSTOR) 3. GDP Is Not a Measure of Human Well-Being (society, Harvard Business Review) 4. Another Week, Another Nutrition Axiom Upended: Is Eating Meat Unhealthy? (food, Undark)and Is meat really that bad for […]
1. Why I Called It ‘Quantum Supremacy’ (technology, Quanta Magazine) 2. The Cult of Rich-Kid Sports (society, The Atlantic) 3. The Saddest Leafy Green (food, The Atlantic) 4. Would You Survive a Merger with AI? by Susan Schneider (AI, Nautilus)
1. The Brewery Powered by a Wind Turbine (JSTOR) 2. The value of thoughts and prayers (economics, PNAS – open access) A standard response of both policy makers and private citizens to hardships—from natural disasters to mass shootings—is to offer “thoughts and prayers.” Critics argue that such gestures are meaningless and may obstruct structural reforms intended to mitigate catastrophes. In this study, we elicit the value of receiving thoughts and prayers from strangers following adversity. […]
1. How to Monetize a Business Ecosystem (business, Harvard Business Review) 2. Climate Change and Our Emerging Cultural Shift by Andrew J. Hoffman (climate, Behavioral Scientist) 3. A Utah Woman Is Facing Criminal Charges for Going Topless in Her Own Home (society, Mother Jones) 4. Teens explain the VSCO girl—and why you never want to be one (new-culture, Slate)
Oragious 