Sunday Special: meteor showers and crashing asteroids

Look up, there are two meteor showers expected this month. It’s been a big week in science, as physicists created a new state of matter and spacecrafts got hurled at asteroids.

P.S. This is our final experimental Sunday Special email. I created it to help you discover the latest scientific and technological breakthroughs beyond AI. I will continue to write these emails only if you ask me to in the feedback section at the bottom of today’s newsletter.

SCIENCE SUNDAY

The most interesting scientific discoveries and breakthroughs this week

Supersolid Surprise: Scientists at the University of Innsbruck claim they’ve successfully stirred a type of matter called a "supersolid," an exotic state of matter that is both rigid and fluid for the first time, shedding light on its strange dual nature.

Big if True: Turns out all of our memories aren’t stored in the brain. A new study published in Nature found that other cells in the body — like kidney cells — can count, detect patterns, store memories, and do so similarly to brain cells.

Planetary Defense: China plans to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid to see whether it can destroy or deflect asteroids heading toward the planet. It’s the second country to conduct such an experiment.

Big Brains: According to a BBC report, the person with the current highest IQ in the world is mathematician Terence Tao (225-230), followed by magazine columnist Marilyn vos Savant (228). But that is not the highest IQ score ever recorded.

Finite Monkeys: A new study disproved the popular Infinite Monkey Theorem, which claims that given a typewriter and an infinite amount of time, a monkey could in theory produce the full works of William Shakespeare.

NEW TECH

Our favorite new tech gadgets this week

1. Espresso Display: A portable monitor that connects to your laptop, gaming devices, and more. Handy if you’re on the go and can’t carry a full-sized monitor with you.

2. Airthings Air Quality Monitor: I recently picked up one of these to measure the air quality in my house and found that the air quality in my bedroom drops significantly during the night. Opening a window or door fixed it.

3. PS5 Pro: The upgraded PS5 just came out. This one has improved graphics and 4k resolution.

4. Measurrd: A cool-looking kitchen scale that claims to have 4x more sensors than your typical measuring scale.

SOCIAL SIGNALS

What’s trending in Tech on socials this week

End of an Era: This chart visualizes the decline of Stack Overflow since ChatGPT’s release.

Flying Alligators: An AI-generated music video of Game of Thrones filmed in a trailer park went super viral on X.

Instant Regret: A user asked ChatGPT to create an image of them based on what ChatGPT thought they looked like, gets roasted.

Night Vision: A new video camera made for night time videos got people talking. The footage does look stunning for a tiny device.

Bored Invention: One ChatGPT user got bored and created a reading light app with ChatGPT in less than an hour.

ONLY GOOD NEWS

A healthy dose of optimism to kickstart your week

Look Up: Two major meteor showers are expected this month, according to the American Meteor Society. The showers should be most visible around Nov 5 and 17 at night.

Cancer Cure: Scientists at Stanford have found a way to get cancer cells to self-destruct by gluing two proteins together.

Space Tracker: A new breakthrough laser technology has yielded a 10,000x improvement in tracking space debris. The Earth is increasingly surrounded by debris from previous space missions, some of which are travelling at 30,000 kilometers per hour.

Less is More: Scientists have discovered a way to convert wastewater into biofuel. The discovery could cut airplane emissions by 70%.

Fighting Chance: The world’s first cloned ferret gave birth to healthy kits in a milestone for conserving the endangered species by enhancing their genetic diversity.

MEME OF THE WEEK

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Zain and the Superhuman AI team