Grant Gochnauer: Awesome Humans — Issue #190
Awesome Human
Yale’s Popular Happiness Class, Distilled — www.theatlantic.com
“On Monday morning at the Aspen Ideas Festival, co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, Santos presented the “shortest possible crash-course version of the class,” covering two primary “glitches” (and how to counteract them) in less than an hour. “You can’t just shut off the kinds of biases that I’m talking about,” she said. “But we can understand them.””
The best books to read at every age, from 1 to 100 — www.washingtonpost.com
“Sometimes books come into our lives just when we need them. Here’s what to read and when.”
The Data-Driven Guide to Sane Parenting (Ep. 376) — freakonomics.com
“Wouldn’t it be nice if someone out there could cut through the dogma and the old wives’ tales and use data to help parents make decisions?”
The Most Important Question of Your Life
“Pleasure is an easy question. The more interesting question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to sustain? Because happiness requires struggle. The positive is the side effect of handling the negative. You can only avoid negative experiences for so long before they come roaring back to life.”
Healthy Human
Researchers identify the origins of metabolism — phys.org
“A Rutgers-led study sheds light on one of the most enduring mysteries of science: How did metabolism — the process by which life powers itself by converting energy from food into movement and growth — begin?”
Researchers say they’re closer to finding cure for HIV after using CRISPR technology to eliminate disease in live mice for the first time — www.cnbc.com
“Researchers say they’ve come one step closer to finding a potential cure for HIV after they successfully eliminated the virus in living mice for the first time in history.”
A performance-enhancing pill based on the gut bacteria of elite athletes is in the works — www.cnbc.com
“Harvard researchers who founded a company called FitBiomics are now developing a prototype for a supplement that they hope will boost your endurance during a workout. It stems from a four-year study that found a performance-enhancing bacteria in the guts of elite athletes.”
Human Builders
The Fundraising Checklist: 13 Proof Points for Series A — www.nfx.com
“A checklist of 13 proof points for startups to put themselves in the best possible position to fundraise for a Series A or later.”
The Best Products Play the Long Game — productcoalition.com
“A great product can quickly become mediocre when it starts to chase short term wins.”
Future Humans
Scientists are searching for a mirror universe. It could be sitting right in front of you. — www.nbcnews.com
“At Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, physicist Leah Broussard is planning experiments to reveal the existence of a mirror universe, or mirrorverse.
The mirror world, assuming it exists, would have its own laws of mirror-physics and its own mirror-history. You wouldn’t find a mirror version of yourself there (and no evil Spock with a goatee — sorry “Star Trek” fans). But current theory allows that you might find mirror atoms and mirror rocks, maybe even mirror planets and stars. Collectively, they could form an entire shadow world, just as real as our own but almost completely cut off from us.”
AI invents more effective flu vaccine in world first, Adelaide researchers say — www.abc.net.au
“Flinders University Professor Nikolai Petrovsky has told the ABC the computer running a program called Sam invented the new drug on its own, in what he claimed was a world first. “We essentially showed all of that to the AI program called Sam and then Sam came up with its own suggestion of what might be an effective adjuvant, which we then took and tested, and sure enough, it worked.” The chosen strains are decided by the World Health Organization, according to which ones were prevalent in the previous northern or southern hemisphere flu seasons. This year’s Australian vaccine for people aged over 65 contains a component in it which boosts their immune system.”
Scientists Are Giving Dead Brains New Life. What Could Go Wrong? — www.nytimes.com
“In experiments on pig organs, scientists at Yale made a discovery that could someday challenge our understanding of what it means to die.”
