P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #255

What is LUCA? The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. “While there is no specific fossil evidence of LUCA, it can be studied by comparing the genomes of all modern organisms, its descendants.” | learn more

US vs UK English words. What words do Americans know that the English don’t? And vice versa! | learn more

Teen sentenced to prison for plotting terror attach in Minecraft. Russia… “Two of the three teens were cleared of charges because they cooperated with authorities, but Nikita Uvarov, age 16, was sentenced to five years in prison by a Siberian military court for “training for terrorist activities,” rights lawyer Pavel Chikov told EN and Agence France-Presse via Telegram.” | learn more

Austin politics newsletter. I’ve been enjoying the Austin Politics Newsletter by Jack Craver. I met him around the neighborhood and right away could tell he grasped the many nuances of local politics. Over the past week he’s done a great job covering the issues related to water and the city’s latest boil order. | learn more

Why Sam Altman thinks idea generation is crucial. This link came to me by chance, and I was thrilled to see it hosted on my friend’s site DailyIdea.com! “Any time you can think of something that is possible this year and wasn’t possible last year, you should pay attention.” | learn more

Trying too hard. A very good keynote speech from Dean Williams of Batterymarch Financial Management. “Confidence in a forecast rises with the amount of information that goes into it. But the accuracy of the forecast stays the same.” | learn more

How to foster healthy disagreement in your team meetings. “If your team’s interactions are becoming predictable or languishing in a flat line, it might be time to stir things up. These four strategies can break stale habits in your team and raise the temperature in your meetings…” | learn more

New lightweight material is stronger than steel. “The new substance is the result of a feat thought to be impossible: polymerizing a material in two dimensions.” | learn more

Targeting an enzyme in fat cells drives rapid weight loss in obese mice. “A new study has shown how targeting an enzyme within fat cells can alter sensitivity to leptin and in turn drive rapid weight loss in obese mice, while also improving overall metabolic health.” | learn more

Book review: Life’s Edge. “From the begin­ning we are intro­duced to a mena­gerie that perches in the gray area bet­ween alive and not-alive: creatures like tardi­grades and nema­todes that can re­emerge from crypto­biosis with the touch of water, pythons whose basal meta­bolic rates can grind almost to a halt, slime molds that display a brain­less kind of mem­ory and problem-solving abil­ity…” | learn more

The untold story of sushi in America. True World Foods, the company established by Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, is responsible for bringing the taste for sushi, and the supply of fish, to America. | learn more

Batteries and the new lithium gold rush. This is a theme I’ve been following since last year. Most batteries, especially vehicle batteries, rely on Lithium. In the near-term, there isn’t enough supply. For reference, the spot price is up 5x YoY, and about 30% in the past month. This is a beginner-friendly article from CBS news. | learn more

An anatomy of Bitcoin price manipulation. This gets detailed! “I show how price manipulation to liquidate traders is done in cryptocurrency markets. I point fingers at people.” | learn more

Crypto theses for 2022. I finally got around to reading the annual tome from Messari’s Ryan Selkis. It is an incredible snapshot of what’s going on in the ecosystem. He does not shy away from making predictions (and drilling into SEC Chair Gary Gensler. | learn more

MetaFi: DeFi for the metaverse. A really interesting read from Outlier Ventures: “We believe the next phase of growth in the evolution of DeFi will come not from better integration into the existing financial system, more regulation or real world assets and CeFi but instead by unlocking digital value already native to the Metaverse.” | learn more

The unknown entrepreneur who built the great UPS. The founder, “Jim [Casey] led UPS for fifty-five years. He continued as the Chief Executive Officer of UPS until 1962, when he handed over the reins at age seventy-four.” | learn more

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