👋 Hello there,
Welcome to another edition of the Stellar Recap, a weekly newsletter where I share interesting content you may have missed over the week. This issue features 90 bullets.
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📊 Business, Economics & Personal Finance
The number of foreign workers in Japan surpassed 2M for the 1st time in 2023 (🔒Bloomberg), up ~3x in 10 yrs.
US workers quit 5.6M fewer jobs from Jan.-Nov. 2023 (🔒WSJ) than the same period in 2022.
The IRS’s “Where’s My Refund” tool will offer more detailed info this year, like whether the IRS is waiting for more info from you. In 2023, the tool was used 230.2M, which is more than 1x for every individual income tax return.
Last Tue., in a lawsuit by shareholders, a judge ruled that Elon Musk’s $56B compensation package at Telsa was unfair and that it should be undone (🔒WP). Musk is worth ~$146B without the package (🔒WP).
A study by Groundwork Collaborative estimated that corporate profits drove ~53% of inflation in Q2 and Q3 of 2023. The findings suggest that companies didn’t lower prices though their costs fell.
A new study estimated that only 42% of US jobs in 2031 will require a bachelor’s degree and 72% of jobs will require postsecondary training.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund made a record $213B profit in 2023, largely due to its tech stock holdings.
A survey by ResumeBuilder.com found that 31% of hiring managers said that they avoid hiring Gen Z workers in favor of older workers. 30% said they’ve fired a Gen Z worker within a month of their start date.
23andMe's valuation has crashed 98% from its peak in 2021 (🔒WSJ). Nasdaq is now threatening to delist the sub-$1 stock.
A new study examined 137 large US companies and found that return-to-office mandates aren’t associated with performance improvements. The researchers stated that managers use RTO mandates “to reassert control over employees and blame employees as a scapegoat.”
~66% of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware (🔒Bloomberg), which earned the state $2B+ in related fees in 2022. Delaware’s Court of Chancery is the oldest business court in the US.
The federal government added 11K jobs in Jan. Most of those jobs are attributable to special hiring initiatives at the IRS and VA.
A new survey found that 51% of US workers and an average of 52% of workers globally would be willing to take a 20% pay cut for a “better quality of life.”
🧘 Health, Healthcare & Safety
Dog bites led to ~48.6K California ER visits in 2022, the highest level in at least 18 yrs. There were ~125 ER visits for dog bites per 100K California residents in 2022, ~70% higher than in 2005.
The latest data from the CDC showed that the rate of sexually transmitted infections rose 9% in 2022. There were 207.5K cases of syphilis, up 17% YoY, which was the highest count in the US since 1950.
A new study estimated that the ban on surprise medical bills protected US patients from 10M+ claims for out-of-network services in the first 9 mo. of 2023. ~670K claims were submitted to arbitration during that period, which eclipsed the typical 17K arbitration claims that were submitted annually before the ban.
In 2022, the top 2 causes of death for Americans aged 65+ were heart disease and cancer, respectively. Heart disease was the top cause of death in 94% of states.
The VA will begin covering IVF services for unmarried veterans and same-sex couples., following the lead of the DoD.
A new study suggests up to 10% of dementia patients might have undiagnosed liver disease and accompanying neurological problems which can be resolved with treatment.
The patent for Humira expired on Jan. 31. Humira has raked in $21.2B for drugmaker AbbVie in 2022 and ~$200B since it first came to market, making it one of the best-selling drugs in the world.
Data from the CDC showed that 72% of US adults didn’t get enough exercise for a healthy lifestyle in 2023.
In 2023, European countries reported 42.2K measles cases, up from <1K cases in 2022.
New data suggests that the updated Covid vaccine had 54% effectiveness against infections for all persons aged 6 mo.+ between Oct. 27, 2023 - Jan. 12, 2024. This is similar to the effectiveness of flu vaccines.
A new study suggests that a molecule called Xist is a major reason why more women than men suffer from autoimmune diseases (🔒WP) which include 100+ ailments. Xist, pronounced like “exist” is found only in people with 2 X chromosomes.
San Mateo, CA, became the 1st US county to formally declare loneliness a public health emergency.
~1 in 5 US adults reported heaving drinking or binge drinking in 2022. DC reported the highest percentage of binge or heavy drinking at 27.6% while Utah reported the lowest at 13.6%.
According to updated guidelines from the American Dental Association, lead aprons are unnecessary since modern digital X-ray equipment is sufficient to protect patients.
🎓 Lifelong Learning
The language with only ~120 words (21 min. video).
The famous weather forecasting groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, didn’t see his shadow last Fri., which suggests spring is around the corner. In total, Phil has seen his shadow 107x. Of the 21 times he hasn’t seen his shadow, 11 occurred in the last 34 yrs.
A data visualization of the number of times a color is mentioned in a Taylor Swift album. Red dominates at 68 mentions.
A study of ~600K British dogs found that the Lancashire Heeler has an average lifespan of 15.4 yrs. (🔒NYT), the longest of the 150 breeds studied. The Caucasian Shepherd Dog has the shortest lifespan, living 5.4 yrs on average.
🌴 Lifestyle & Travel
The world’s coolest travel jobs and how to get them, according to AFAR.
The best cheeses of 2023, according to Culture.
The forecasted average daily hotel rate in Las Vegas for Super Bowl weekend is $573/night, topping the $559/night record set in Miami in 2020.
🗳️ Politics, Security & International Affairs
Israel and the UN claimed that 12 members of a UN agency assisted Hamas’s Oct. 7th attack (🔒Reuters). The UN has since fired those employees and launched an internal investigation.
A visual explanation of who’s on track for the GOP nomination.
US forces may have mistaken an enemy drone for an American one and let it pass into a base in Jordan where it killed 3 US troops and wounded 40+ others. Since the incident, the US launched a counterattack and hit more than 85 targets (4 in Syria and 3 in Iraq) affiliated with the Quds Force (🔒WP), a unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and local militias that it supports.
Donald Trump spent >$55M of donor money on legal fees (🔒WP) for himself and his associates in the last year. Across all of his PACs, Trump had a war chest of $70M at the end of 2023.
As of Jan. 25, US mobile carriers have been tasked with using a caller’s exact location to dispatch the closest emergency services, not the nearest cell tower that picks up the call which is how it previously worked. The issue resulted in up to 23M misrouted wireless calls each year.
>450 organizations spent $957M on federal AI-related lobbying last year, a 185% spike from 158 in 2022.
⏩ Pop Culture, Art, Sports & Entertainment
The Kansas City Chiefs will face the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas on Feb. 11.
NYT analyzed 121 menus from restaurants across the US (🔒) and identified trends like fancy Ceasar Salads, bold and bright menu colors, and fewer ingredient details.
Data from Nielson showed that viewers watched 57.7B min. of the legal drama Suits in 2023, eclipsing the previous record of 57.1B min. of viewership accumulated by The Office in 2020. The most-watched streaming original was Ted Lasso at 16.9B min.
Universal Music Group pulled its catalog from TikTok last Thurs. (🔒NYT) after the 2 companies failed to reach an agreement on payments for the use of UMG’s recordings and regulation on AI-generated recordings. UMG’s catalog includes songs by Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Rihanna. UMG controls ~33% of the global music market.
The number of tabletop games that were successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2023 rose to 4.9K+ from ~4K in 2022 and ~2.3K in 2018.
The exercise tracking app, Strava, and Chipotle created a competition in 6 cities that would give Strava users a year’s supply of burritos if they ran a 300m segment more than all other users in the area. NY’s winner ran the stretch 832 times; Chicago = 613x; Denver’s = 1,041x (#2=898); Clumbus = 1K (#2 = 376); DC = 1,345x; and LA saw a 5-way tie at 369.
The 150 greatest science fiction movies of all time, according to Rolling Stone.
🏡 Real Estate
Durham, NC, had the highest share of inbound searches coming from renters currently living in a different metro at ~63%, according to Apartment List.
Data from NAR showed that pending home sales climbed 8.3% MoM in Dec., which was the biggest increase since Jun. 2020.
An 8,368 sq ft oceanfront home just outside Jacksonville, FL, sold for $22M, setting a record for the area. The home was sold off market in an all-cash deal.
New data from ATTOM showed that 46.1% of mortgaged residential properties in the US were equity-rich in Q4 2023. Equity rich means that the estimated loan balance was no more than half the estimated market value of the property.
New data from RentCafe showed that the number of renters who are millionaires ~tripled between 2020-2022, with the greatest share observed in NYC.
Home sales in LA were down 26.6% from Jan. through Sep. 2023 compared to the same period a year ago, partly thanks to a new tax on homes that sell for $5M+.
Since 2020, at least 24 US homes sold for $100M+ (🔒WSJ), more than the total number of 9-figure sales during the entire prior decade.
🌎 Society
In fall 2022, ~54% of college students took at least 1 online class, up ~50% over fall 2019.
Invitation site Evite reported a 22% increase in divorce-related event invitations from 2019 to 2023.
The Office of Personnel Management reported that the gender pay gap for the federal government’s civilian workforce in 2022 was 5.6%, down from 24.5% in 1992.
New survey data showed that just 1 in 3 US teens ages 12-17 said things were going well for children and teenagers today. ~2 in 3 said that politicians and elected officials didn’t reflect the needs and experiences of young people.
What prevents and what drives gendered ideological polarisation?
A Pew survey found that, of US adults who said that they made at least 1 New Year’s resolution, 59% have kept up with their resolutions. Overall, only 30% of respondents made a resolution.
A pilot and explorer who embarked on an $11M expedition believes he located the final resting place of Amelia Earhart’s plane that vanished in 1937.
In 2021, 20% of US newlyweds married someone outside their major race/ethnic group.
Europe would have to absorb about half of the entire working-age population growth in India to sustain its current population by 2050 (🔒NYT). China could take all the growth of Pakistan and Nigeria — Africa’s most populous country — and its population would still be 2M short of where it stands now.
A YouGov poll found that just 38% of Americans intend to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, including only 53% of people who are in a relationship.
🧪 Science, Climate, Environment & Technology
Using lidar tech, researchers found remnants of 5 ancient settlements and 10 gathering places in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest (🔒NYT). The evidence suggests that Indigenous communities organized there from ~500 BCE to 600 CE, which was ~1K yrs before European colonists arrived.
Raging wildfires have burned >40K acres across Colombia since Nov. As of last Sat., there were 17 active wildfires. At least 2 people have been killed.
Apple’s new Vision Pro headset contains 2 depth sensors, 6 microphones, and 12 cameras that continuously track people and rooms in 3D. A WP columnist noted that “This device collects more data than any other personal device I’ve ever seen” (🔒). Apple sold ~180K+ Vision Pro headsets via pre-order within the first week of its release. It expects to sell 400K total units this year.
A new study suggests that AI can be designed to be benign during testing but behave differently once deployed.
Researchers entered 11K prompts into ChatGPT and found that small changes such as a space at the start of a prompt led the tool to change its prediction in 500+ cases. Asking the chatbot to present its reply in a specific file format also made its predictions up to 6% less accurate.
A new report by IEA estimated that data centers around the world could use 1,050 terawatt-hours by 2026, which is 2x the level in 2022 when they accounted for ~2% of global electricity demand.
Toyota is urging the owners of 50K older US vehicles to get immediate recall repairs for a potentially deadly airbag inflator. The advisory covers some 2003-04 model year Corolla, 2003-04 Corolla Matrix, and 2004-05 Rav 4. There have been 30+ deaths worldwide, including 26 in the US.
Toyota was the bestselling automaker in 2023 (🔒Bloomberg) for the 4th straight year. It sold a record 11.2M vehicles.
There are between 7K-11K manatees in Florida. On New Year’s Day, a record 932 of them were at Blue Spring State Park. The previous record was 736.
A new study suggests that nocturnal insects are drawn to artificial lights because they instinctively twist their backs toward bright objects, which are typically the quickest way to orient upwards. The researchers suggest reducing upward-facing lights and ground reflections to avoid confusing flying insects at night.
Deemed a supermassive Mother of all Breaches, 12TB of information spanning 26B records from previous leaks, breaches, and privately sold databases were leaked online due to a “firewall misconfiguration.”
Fulton County, GA, was hacked last weekend, causing a “widespread system outage.” The county includes most of Atlanta. The DA said that the racketeering case against Trump and others is not affected.
Glassdoor reported that the number of people with the title of chief or vice president of AI rose from 19 in 2022 to 122 in 2023 (🔒NYT).
During his testimony, the CEO of TikTok said that the average age of its US users is over 30.
Due to climate change and human development, North America has lost ~3B in the past 50 yrs. (🔒WP) If you have a WP account, click the link to see how populations have changed in your city.
A new study of math papers claims to have discovered several “citation cartels,” which are groups of mathematicians who consistently and unnecessarily cite each other’s work with the express goal of exploiting algorithms that determine the relative importance of scientific research.
20 yrs ago, for every $1 spent on fossil fuel infrastructure, $0.50 was spent on clean energy. This ratio increased to 1:1 in 2016. Today, $1.80 is invested in clean energy for every $1 invested in fossil fuels.
The Allen Institute for AI released a fully open-source large language model called OLMo 7B, which is designed to help researchers understand how generative AI works.
YouTube and Facebook are the most widely used online platforms among US adults, according to a survey by Pew. Btw, today is Facebook’s 20th anniversary.
Snap recalled ~71K Pixy camera drones because the battery is a fire hazard.
A survey of >22K researchers found that 4 in 5 support the idea of making the entire research life cycle freely available to everyone.
Wishing you a good week
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