Stellar Recap | Jul 21-27
28 JULY 2024
👋 Hello there,
Welcome to another edition of the Stellar Recap, a weekly newsletter where I share interesting content you may have missed. This issue features 67 bullets.
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📊 Business, Economics & Personal Finance
A recent survey by ZipRecruiter showed that just 15% of job seekers said that their hunt is going well.
In the first 6 mo. of 2024, the bankruptcy rate among 100-yr-old businesses in Japan rose 95% YoY to 74 (🔒Nikkei Asia), which is the highest # since 2000. As of Sep. 2023, ~43.6K companies were 100+ yrs old. Each year, another ~2K companies join that list.
Sales of refrigerated dairy products hit $76B in 2023. Butter, cheese, and yogurt items accounted for $10.1B of the total.
A new report found that just 26% of new food and beverage products released from Jan. - May 2024 were new products, down from 50% in 2007. 65% of products were reformulations, relaunches, new packaging, or extensions of an existing line.
Alphabet made >$1B in net interest income in Q2, which is more than the total net income of 397 companies in the S&P 500.
In May, the number of internship postings was down 14% YoY in tech and 13% YoY in financial services.
🧘 Health, Healthcare & Safety
DaVita and Fresenius control 70%+ of the dialysis market. Many nephrology practices have become dependent on the extra income from their relationships with these companies and noncompete agreements may keep them locked in.
A new study found an association between constipation and decreased kidney function while people on the other side of the spectrum showed signs of impaired liver function.
A listeria outbreak tied to deli meat in the US has killed at least 2 people and hospitalized 28 across 12 states. The CDC hasn’t mandated a food recall because it’s unclear which products are contaminated. Boar’s Head voluntarily recalled 207K lbs of meat out of caution. Officials have advised that people who are pregnant, elderly, or have compromised immune systems to avoid eating sliced deli meat unless it’s recooked at home to be steaming hot.
A new study estimated that Covid fatalities in central Europe would have been 18%-27% higher during the height of the pandemic if death certificates indicated the virus was the underlying cause instead of a complication.
New data showed that from 2011-2014, an average of ~65% of new GLP-1 users had Type 2 diabetes compared to 57% from 2019-2023. During that same period, the share of new GLP-1 users with obesity rose from 47% to 66%.
The most recent survey from the AMA showed that ~48% of US physicians said they had 1+ burnout symptoms in 2023, down from 53% in 2022 and ~63% in 2021.
New Hampshire enacted 2 anti-trans laws that will limit transition-related care for transgender minors and bar some trans students from competing on school sports teams that match their gender identities.
A new UNAIDS report showed that, for the 1st time, the majority of new HIV infections in 2023 occurred in countries outside sub-Saharan Africa. The number of infections in sub-Saharan Africa was 56% lower than in 2010. Globally, infections have fallen by 39%.
The Florida Health Dept. has been denying requests to update birth certificates for transgender Floridians even when they hold other government-issued identification that reflects their gender identity.
VR players are showing up in the ER (🔒WP) with fractured fingers, rib contusions, and facial lacerations from crashing into real obstacles. The prevalence of VR-related injuries is increasing “kind of really alarmingly quickly.”
PwC estimated that, in 2025, medical costs in the US will increase 8% in the group market and 7.5% in the individual market, which is the highest level in 13 yrs.
2023 data from NHIS showed that when asked “Are you limited in the kind or amount of work you can do because of a physical, mental or emotional problem?” a growing share of US adults begin reporting limitations in their late 40s with ~40% reporting limitations by age 80. Errands and socialization become difficult starting at ~70.
The VA is on pace to deliver ~127M healthcare appointments this year, up from last year’s record of 120M. The number of veterans enrolled in VA care in the last 365 days has increased 27% YoY.
A recent review of pediatric sleep studies conducted from 1980-2022 found that a majority of studies advocate for infant sleep training yet social media users, particularly on Reddit, are convinced it’s harmful.
🎓 Lifelong Learning
Tornadoes occur around the world but they occur most frequently in the US. For example, the US and Europe are similar in land area but the US sees ~4.6x more tornadoes per year.
Why does hitting your funny bone feel so horrible? (4 min. video)
“Brat” summer is a lesson in hype literacy (🔒WP). The concept went viral on 7/22 when British singer Charli XCX posted “kamala IS brat” on X . Charli XCX has defined "brat" as a form of rejection of the "clean girl" aesthetic. The concept is about authenticity, having fun, and being a bit trashy.
A new study suggests that an 86-yr-old’s musical memory and recognition is just as good as an 18-yr-olds.
How the Olympic games have changed since Paris last hosted the event 100 yrs ago.
An American’s guide to Olympic cycling. Another guide I found interesting is the one on table tennis (aka Ping Pong).
🌴 Lifestyle & Travel
51.2M people visited Columbus, OH, in 2023, which was close to the number of people who visited Chicago (51.96M). According to UN Tourism, “a visitor is a traveler taking a trip to a main destination outside his/her usual environment, for less than a year, for any main purpose (business, leisure, or other personal purpose) other than to be employed by a resident entity in the country or place visited.”
Beyond Paris, 9 of the best places to visit in France this year, according to Afar.
Silver Spring, MD is the #1 best place to live in the US for families, according to Fortune.
A passport from Singapore allows its citizens to visit 195 out of 227 countries without a visa, which makes it “the world’s most powerful passport” according to Henly & Partners. The US is #8.
The world’s 100 greatest places to explore in 2024, according to Time Magzine.
🗳️ Politics, Security & International Affairs
Nate Silver shared his critiques on the new election forecasts on 538. Nate Silver created the original models and took them with him when he left the brand.
The FCC voted to lower the price of prison phone calls from $11.35 per 15 min. call to $0.90. A similar call in a small jail will drop from $12.10 to $1.35. The new price will go into effect in Jan. 2025.
Within just a few hours of Joe Biden’s announcement that he was dropping out of the race and endorsement of his VP Kamala Harris, Harris raised $46.7M from small-dollar donors through ActBlue. By the day’s end, donations climbed to $68M+. Within the first 24 hours, she raised $81M which is the largest 24-hr total in US history. Harris may also inherit Biden’s war chest but Republicans are planning to challenge the transfer.
A Quinnipiac University poll found that 37% of respondents had a favorable view of Kamala Harris vs 51% who had an unfavorable view. That’s compared to a 46% favorable vs 49% unfavorable view of Donald Trump. The latest NYT/Siena College poll showed Trump was just 1 pt ahead of Harris (🔒) and 48% reported a favorable view of Trump vs. 46% for Harris. The WSJ reported similar findings.
Cryptocurrency-focused political action committees have spent $42M on Congressional races. The PACs have spent a similar amount to support and oppose Democrats while the money they’ve spent on Republicans has mostly been in support.
On the opening day of the Olympics, a major arson attack disrupted high-speed rail services across France and affected ~800K passengers including athletes on their way to Paris. A regional airport on the border with Switzerland was also evacuated due to a bomb threat.
⏩ Pop Culture, Art, Sports & Entertainment
For the UAE Team Emirates, Tadej Pogacar won his 3rd Tour de France title and became the 1st rider to win 6 stages in a single edition since 2009.
For the 1st time ever, a second baseman was #1 in the MLB draft. Before Travis Bazzana, the highest-drafted second baseman was Rickie Weeks in 2003, who was drafted 2nd overall.
Following the news that Kamala Harris clinched enough pledged delegates to claim the Democratic presidential nomination, viewership of the HBO series’ first season of Veep rose 353% on Jul. 22 compared to the day before, with 2.2M total min. watched.
Inside Out 2 is now the highest-grossing animated film of all time, after topping $1.46B in box offices worldwide. The previous record holder was Frozen 2 with ~$1.45b.
The US has won the most medals in the Summer Olympics since 1896. The Soviet Union is #2 though it only took part between 1952 and 1988.
🏡 Real Estate
~1 in 3 custom homes built within the past year have an outdoor kitchen. Custom homes make up ~20%-30% of single-family starts.
East Orange, NJ is the most affordable walkable city, according to Realtor.com.
Foreign buyers spent $42B on ~54.3K existing homes in the US between Apr. 2023 and Mar. 2024, marking a ~21% decrease YoY. The average price of a purchased home was $780.3K and the median price was $475K, both of which were the highest ever recorded.
The southern-most house in the contiguous US is for sale for $18.5M.
Data from ATTOM showed that US home sellers earned an average 55.8% profit margin on a typical single-family home and condo sale in Q2, up ~1% QoQ and down 1% YoY.
~15% of pending sales for homes in the US were canceled in Jun., mostly due to affordability issues. Orlando had the highest share of cancellations at ~21%.
The average number of ADUs permitted each year in California increased by 334% between 2016 and 2022. In 2022, ~1 in 5 housing units produced in CA was an ADU.
🌎 Society
Florida’s population topped 23M for the 1st time, as of Apr. 1, mostly because of the influx of people moving from other states. California remains the most populous state with 39.5M residents.
A recent Pew survey showed that 47% of US adults under age 50 said they’re unlikely to have kids. 64% of women in this group said they don’t want to have children vs. 50% of men.
By striving for gender parity at the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee has reinforced a gender binary that categorizes athletes as male or female while overlooking transgender and nonbinary athletes. “The percentage of women athletes or events isn’t the only way to measure the progress of gender equality in sports.”
🧪 Science, Climate, Environment & Technology
A startup called Savor claims to have created a dairy-free butter using a thermochemical process that allows it to build fat molecules with chains of carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen.
The faulty CrowdStrike update last week affected 8.5M Windows devices, which is <1% of Windows devices but those affected were crucial businesses like airports, hospitals, and banks. Parametrix estimated that the outage cost the healthcare sector ~$1.9B and airlines ~$860M.
The organizers of Burning Man announced that the festival will be carbon-negative by 2030.
The Pacific Ocean is home to ~3K shipwrecks (🔒Nikkei Asia) and ~1K of them are near Micronesia and Melanesia.
A new study estimated the average tree is home to ~1T prokaryotes (🔒Science). There are ~10T trees on Earth.
Publisher Taylor & Francis signed a contract to allow Microsoft to train AI models on its publications. The contract is worth ~$10M in the first year. Some authors said that they weren’t informed about the agreement or given a chance to opt-out.
Jul. 22 was the hottest day ever globally according to provisional data from Copernicus. The global average air temp. was 62.87F which was ~0.1F hotter than the previous record which was set about the same time last year.
Apple reportedly contacted suppliers about manufacturing components for an iPhone that would fold along its width.
Scientists found traces of cocaine in wild sharks off the coast of Brazil (🔒WP), in a discovery that highlights the risks to marine life of the illegal cocaine trade.
Several wildfires throughout the Western US and Canada have triggered evacuations and air quality alerts. As of 7/26, the largest active wildfire in the US has scorched 280K+ acres in eastern Oregon and a new blaze (the Park fire) in California consumed 178K acres. The Park Fire burned >307K acres as of 7/27.
954 active wildfires in Canada on Jul. 23 There are ~70K EVs in Ethiopia but only ~50 charging stations.
Researchers found that minerals called polymetallic nodules can produce oxygen in total darkness. This challenges the thinking that organisms need light to make oxygen through photosynthesis. It may also challenge the practice of deep-sea mining since it could deplete oxygen sources that deep-sea life may depend on.
Meta removed ~63K Instagram accounts in Nigeria that were targeting people with financial sextortion scams, including 2.5k accounts linked to 20 individuals that primarily targeted adult men in the US.
New findings suggest that AI models that are trained on synthetic data become less accurate and errors get amplified over time.
A report by CarbonPlan estimated that the majority of cities around the world will be too hot to host the Summer Olympics by 2050.
Oklahoma City averaged 19 severe storm watches a year from 2004-2023, which is more than all US metros with 500K+ residents.
Wishing you a good week
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