Stellar Recap | Sep 15-21
22 SEPTEMBER 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 58 bullets.
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📊 Business, Economics & Personal Finance
From 1963-2021, the average cost of a 4-year college rose 155%. In 2024, the average sticker price for a public in-state college, including housing and meal plans, was ~$24K and ~$56.2K for a private nonprofit college.
Elon Musk travels with 20+ security personnel which cost Tesla $2.4M in 2023 (🔒NYT).
The IDC forecasted that AI will add $19.9T to the global economy through 2030 and account for 3.5% of global GDP.
A new Gallup poll showed that more Americans gave a negative (47%) than positive (33%) rating for the grocery industry for the 1st time since 2001.
23andMe’s entire board resigned last Tue. (9/17) after the CEO announced plans to take the company private.
Ivory Coast lost 150K-200K tons of cocoa beans this season (🔒Bloomberg) due to smuggling and is planning to raise prices by 23% due to the shortfall, which is likely to affect chocolate prices globally.
MIT canceled its subscription to Elsevier’s bundled license for 675 scientific journals in 2019 and has saved ~$2M/yr since.
🧘 Health, Healthcare & Safety
The FDA approved Apple’s Hearing Aid software update for AirPods Pro 2, marking the 1st time the agency has authorized over-the-counter hearing aid software. The FDA also approved the Apple Watch as a sleep apnea detector. The software is only available for the most recent models. The watch requires data from 10 nights of sleep within 30 days to detect the condition.
The cost of drugs that are used during in vitro fertilization procedures has risen 84% since 2014 compared to a ~34% rise across all prescription drugs.
There are ~14K chemicals in food packaging (🔒WP) and ~25% of them have been found in the human body where they’re known to cause cancer and disrupt the endocrine system. The worst packaging for leaching chemicals was recycled paper.
A new study estimated that 39M+ people could die from antibiotic-resistant superbugs by 2050.
New provisional data from the CDC showed that drug overdose deaths in the US fell 10.6% YoY in the 12 mo. ending in Apr.
Deaths from cancer in the US fell 33% from 1991-2021. The decrease equates to ~4.1M lives saved.
A poll conducted by the American Psychiatric Association in May found that 73% of US adults reported feeling anxious about the 2024 election.
🎓 Lifelong Learning
Optical illusions made by rotating and layering generative AI images. Learn more by watching this video (18 min.).
The US consumed ~12.55 lbs of mozzarella cheese per capita in 2022, which was more than all other cheeses.
Sep. 9 is the most common birthday in the US, among people born between 1994 and 2014.
It took 172 yrs for 50 states to be added to the US.
Georges Méliès’s short horror movie Le Manoir du Diable is the world’s 1st horror film, according to Mental Floss.
🌴 Lifestyle & Travel
Switzerland is the best country in 2024, according to US News. The US was #3, which is its highest ranking since the list began.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the most popular US business of all time, according to Yelp.
A new analysis of satisfaction scores showed that the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport is the top-ranking mega-airport while Newark Liberty International Airport is ranked the lowest.
Capella Bangkok is the world’s best hotel, according to The World’s 50 Best Hotels.
🗳️ Politics, Security & International Affairs
How Republican or Democrat is your first or last name? (🔒WP)
Residents in several areas of Poland and the Czech Republic were forced to evacuate last Mon. (🔒Reuters) as others in central Europe began cleaning up after the worst flooding in 20+ yrs.
~1K people died and at least 4M were displaced by floods across Central and Western Africa.
Shanghai was hit by the strongest typhoon since 1949. 414K+ people were evacuated.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined to endorse a US presidential candidate after internal polling showed a majority of its union members support Donald Trump over Kamal Harris. It’s the 1st time in ~30 yrs that the union has not endorsed a presidential candidate.
53% of gen Z women voters have a favorable view of Taylor Swift compared to 35% of their male peers, so Swift’s endorsement of Harris is unlikely to help close the gender gap among young voters.
A NORC survey showed that the share of Democrats or Democrat leaners who own a gun rose from 22% in 2010 to 29% in 2022 (🔒WSJ). The share of Republicans who own a gun only rose by 3% over the same period to 55%.
⏩ Pop Culture, Art, Sports & Entertainment
FX’s drama about feudal Japan, Shogun, won 14 Emmys, setting a record for the most Emmy wins by a show in a single year.
The 75 greatest horror movies of all time, according to IndieWire.
A new survey found that 49% of Americans report favorable views of the Roman Empire.
Netflix subscribers watched 94B hrs of content in the first half of 2024. Bridgerton accounted for the most views with 189M.
🏡 Real Estate
According to Realtor.com, the best time to buy a home in the US is during the week of Sep. 29 - Oct. 5, with the following 2 wks being almost as favorable.
From 2001-2019, 21% of all new residential properties in Florida were built in floodplains, the highest % of any state.
63% of US homes that were flipped in Q2 were purchased with cash. Flipped homes accounted for ~1 in 13 home sales. The average gross profit was ~$73.5K, up from $70K in Q1 and ~61.5K in Q2 2023.
The typical renter household in a swing state earns ~$50.3K/yr, which is 17.1% less than they need to afford the typical apartment.
🌎 Society
~47% of US Latinos are aware of the term “Latinx”, up from 23% who said the same in 2019. 75% of Latinos who have heard of the term Latinx say it should not be used to describe the Hispanic or Latino population, up from 65% saying the same in 2019.
In 2023, 35% of recent college graduates said they wish they’d chosen a different major. 44% of those who majored in social or behavioral sciences indicated regret, more than all other disciplines.
A new poll of US parents of children 6-12 yrs old found that 19% said their child has no friends or not enough friends.
A new study found that ~2M surface and subsurface acres of land on 79 Native American reservations across 15 states are impacted by state trust land laws and policies. In 4 states, 5 tribal nations must pay the state to lease the land within their own reservation borders.
A new study by LeanIn.org found that most women in C-suite positions are promoted to staff roles like chief HR officers instead of “line” roles that manage core business operations which are seen as a pipeline to CEO.
🧪 Science, Climate, Environment & Technology
The music festival Lollapalooza reported a 67% decrease in fossil fuel use this year because it powered most of its events with electric batteries. In the past, it used generators that ran on diesel.
On average, it takes ~20 yrs for scientists to be awarded a Nobel Prize for their work.
Radio waves from Starlink satellites are interfering with radio telescopes that scientists use to study the universe. The newest models emit 32x more radiation than their predecessors.
Google plans to roll out changes to its image search results to include tags letting users know if a photo was taken by a camera, edited with software, or generated with AI.
The US Geological Survey released a new map of landslide susceptibility. The WSJ featured a story about a California home that was worth $1.55M until it was destroyed by a landslide (🔒) last year.
These homes slid into a canyon in Rolling Hills Estates in July 2023 in an area that had never had a landslide before. Five other homes were badly damaged. ADAM AMENGUAL FOR WSJ ~756K sockeye salmon were recorded in a run over Bonneville Dam in Oregon this year, far above the 10-yr average of ~329.6K.
A new study suggests that polar bears split off from brown bears and evolved unique features to survive arctic environments ~70K yrs ago.
New projections showed that the average length of the year's longest heat wave would be 24.5 days if the world warmed by 3°C. In a 1.5°C world, the longest average heat wave would be 16.3 days.
For the first time, scientists have observed quantum entanglement in fundamental particles called top quarks.
Pre-orders for Apple’s new iPhone 16 Pro were down ~13% YoY compared to the iPhone 15.
Wishing you a good week
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