On Saturdays we catch up with the non-finance related items that we didn’t get to earlier in the week. You can check out last week’s edition here. Have a great weekend!
Quote of the Day
"Every interaction you have with someone is an opportunity to make their day better."
(Jared Dillian)
Autos
- Motor vehicle thefts rates, especially Kia and Hyundai, are soaring. (axios.com)
- Roundabouts save lives. (time.com)
EVs
- Ford ($F) is cutting F-150 Lightning prices. (wsj.com)
- Tesla's ($TSLA) margins are falling. (axios.com)
- EV charges may soon be a roadside assistance service. (wsj.com)
- EV owners have a big tire problem. (theatlantic.com)
Environment
- Canada's wildfires have burned an area roughly the size of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie and Lake Michigan combined. (bnnbloomberg.ca)
- Climate change has been known about for decades. (newyorker.com)
- What is behind this year's massive sargassum bloom? (slate.com)
- How to recycle your oral care products. (thecooldown.com)
- How rip currents form. (theconversation.com)
Animals
- Elk have regional accents. (hcn.org)
- Sea turtles have ancient routines. (science.org)
- A warming planet means more mosquitoes at higher altitudes. (grist.org)
- King salmon numbers are falling dramatically. (nytimes.com)
Research
- What happens when a professor fakes research data. (behavioralscientist.org)
- How many clinical-trial studies in medical journals are fake or fatally flawed? (nature.com)
Science
- How physics is using neural networks to analyze sometimes sparse data. (wired.com)
- Early humans were skilled woodworkers and tool makers. (newatlas.com)
Behavior
- Being sad or anxious is not mental illness, per se. (theatlantic.com)
- Can tracking your moods backfire? (wsj.com)
- How stress messes with your gut. (scientificamerican.com)
- Decision making IS emotional. (every.to)
Covid
- After three years, excess deaths in the U.S. are back down to zero. (marketwatch.com)
- A genetic variant that may have helped people from getting sick from Covid-19. (wsj.com)
- The NSF moved faster than the NIH during the pandemic. (om.co)
- A hint of China's struggles with Covid in 2023. (bloomberg.com)
- How much can we really prepare for a pandemic? (timharford.com)
Weight loss
- Add Noom to the list of weight loss companies embracing Ozempic. (wsj.com)
- Why Ozempic looks a lot more attractive than the grind of dieting. (theatlantic.com)
Cognitive decline
- More evidence that hearing aid use can reduce the rate of cognitive decline. (statnews.com)
- On the relationship between constipation and cognitive decline. (newscientist.com)
Pharmaceuticals
- Why Gilead Sciences ($GILD) slow walked a new version of an HIV drug. (nytimes.com)
- The FDA has approved nirsevimab for RSV in infants. (statnews.com)
- What you need to know about the first FDA-approved OTC birth control pill. (wired.com)
Health
- Bird flu isn't going away any time soon. (vox.com)
- On the dream of growing new human teeth. (newatlas.com)
- On the use of honorifics in medicine. (statnews.com)
- Retail clinic hot spots, mapped. (axios.com)
Fitness
- Exercise is no cure-all when it comes to maintaining weight. (theconversation.com)
- Just how dangerous are soccer-related head injuries? (scientificamerican.com)
Aspartame
- A look at the disagreements about the health effects of aspartame. (arstechnica.com)
- So how much aspartame is too much? (marketwatch.com)
Food
- Why they call 'MasterChef Australia' the most difficult cooking competition in the world. (theringer.com)
- A 5pm reservation is the new flex. (wsj.com)
- Everything old is new again. On the return of the automat. (axios.com)
- How the world consumes meat. (visualcapitalist.com)
Drink
- Emily Oster, "Alcohol is probably not the key to longevity. But it’s not arsenic, either." (msn.com)
- How did Bud Light become the best-selling beer in America in the first place? (msn.com)
- A natural experiment on alcohol and mortality rates. (papers.ssrn.com)
The Bear
- 'The Bear' is a hit for Hulu. (hollywoodreporter.com)
- Tina and Richie are the stars of Season 2 of 'The Bear.' (jezebel.com)
- Cousin Richie is the best character on 'The Bear.' (nytimes.com)
- What we can learn from Richie's storyline. (insidehook.com)
Media
- How the job of the television writer has changed over time. (nytimes.com)
- Songwriting credits are overwhelmingly male. (pudding.cool)
- Concert tours need to feed a lot of people. Things are getting healthier. (nytimes.com)
- Movie theaters are decidedly in the experience business. (axios.com)
College
- Another high profile college drops legacy admissions. (thedailybeast.com)
- The college admissions process was never fair. (wsj.com)
- There are a lot of college costs above and beyond tuition and room and board. (thecollegefinanciallady.com)
- The sibling discount is gone for financial aid. (wsj.com)
- Student journalists are making waves at Stanford and Northwestern. (nytimes.com)
Children
- Many states are struggling to raise teacher pay. (wsj.com)
- Affluence and the challenge of raising children these days. (ourtinyrebellions.substack.com)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
- What you missed in our Friday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Podcast links: the state of AI. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Are you a financial adviser looking for some out-of-the-box thinking? Then check out our weekly e-mail newsletter. (newsletter.abnormalreturns.com)
