Stellar Recap | Sep 22-28
29 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 61 bullets. This issue also marks the second to last publication. Stay tuned for the final issue next week.
📊 Business, Economics & Personal Finance
The price of a dozen eggs in the US has risen 61% between Aug. 2020 and Aug. 2024, higher than all other items in the consumer price index.
Toys R Us partnered with the USPS to fulfill gift requests from kids in need who mail letters to Santa.
In 2023, the corporate swag industry in the US and Canada grew for the 3rd consecutive year to a record of $26.1B which is on par with the US book publishing industry.
1 lb. of Chimayo chile peppers costs ~$50 compared to ~$7 per lb of Hatch chile peppers.
The DOJ filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa for its alleged monopoly on the debit card market. Visa handles 60%+ of US debit card transactions and collects $7B+ in processing fees from those transactions each year.
UCLA is the #1 public university in the US, according to Niche.
American Airlines will be removed from the S&P 500 index, along with Etsy and Bio-Rad Laboratories. The companies will be replaced by Dell, Palantir, and Erie Indemnity.
Walmart, Kroger, and Costco generated ~49% of all US grocery sales in 2023 (🔒WP).
~4% of jobs listed on Indeed.com in Jul. advertised signing bonuses (🔒WSJ), up from 1.7% during the same period in 2019. Healthcare jobs were most likely to advertise signing bonuses, with some reaching $100K.
Adobe Analytics predicted that online sales will grow 8.4% YoY this holiday season (🔒Forbes) to a record $240.8B.
The average price of a burger from a fast food restaurant has risen 16% over the past 5 yrs (🔒Bloomberg) to $8.41 in Q2 2024.
🧘 Health, Healthcare & Safety
A new Commonwealth report ranked the US 9th out of 10 countries on health care efficiency. The US ranked 10th on health system performance.
California passed a law that will bar social media platforms from deliberately delivering addictive content feeds to minors without parental consent starting in 2027.
Five Guys cheeseburgers is the unhealthiest fast-food burger option in the US, according to a virtual primary care website that ranked 24 chains.
A new study found that the impact of stressful adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on the metabolic system were more pronounced in women while neglect appeared to have a larger impact on men. Emotional abuse was associated with a higher risk of cancer and respiratory issues than their peers who did not report ACEs in both genders.
The number of people living with dementia in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to nearly double every 20 yrs, increasing to 3.5M by 2030 and 7.6M by 2050.
The FDA expanded its approval of AstraZenca’s nasal spray flu vaccine for people up to age 49. FluMist will be available starting next fall via an online pharmacy.
Cigna is the latest health insurer to roll back its Medicare Advantage offerings for 2025. The planned reduction will affect 36 plans in 8 states.
The cost of outpatient prescription drugs in the US is projected to rise by a record 11.4% YoY in 2025, according to a new Segal survey.
The list price of the weight loss drug Ozempic is $968.52/mo, but generic manufacturers said they could make it for <$100/mo (🔒Bloomberg).
A new survey of 1,980 former NFL players who played between 1960 and 2020 found that ~33% said they believe they have chronic traumatic encephalopathy. 176 also reported a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia.
~50% of family doctors have a significant number of Medicaid patients—defined as 150+ under their care. A new study that identified the race-ethnicity of physicians showed that the likelihood of accepting a significant # of Medicaid patients was 60% higher for Black doctors and 40% higher for Latino doctors compared to white doctors. Doctors tend to hesitate to accept Medicaid patients because of poor reimbursement rates, admin hassles, and/or because they require more complex care.
The US has a shortage of 58K clinical psychologists; 49K social workers; 27K mental health counselors, and 15K psychiatrists. 115M Americans live in an area that is designated as a Mental Health Professional Shortage Area.
A new analysis of brain scans showed unique patterns in people ages 12-25 with severe depression than older adults with severe depression, which could indicate a greater tendency to ruminate among depressed youth.
The number of people in the US in their 20s who got Botox increased by 71% between 2019 and 2022 (🔒The Atlantic). The number increased by 75% among those <20 yrs old.
A new study estimated that ~33% of children and teens worldwide are nearsighted, which is 3x more than in 1990. The highest prevalence of nearsightedness is in East Asia.
The FDA approved the 1st new drug to treat people with schizophrenia in 30+ yrs.
🎓 Lifelong Learning
From Sep. 29 - Nov. 25, the near-Earth object 2024 PT5 will temporarily orbit our planet, giving us, for a short time, two moons.
A podcast episode about pumpkins (~47 min.), including the difference between pumpkins and squash and what it takes to grow the largest pumpkin on record.
Why some verb sets are odd, like “go” and “went.” (~16 min. podcast)
🌴 Lifestyle & Travel
Notre-Dame-du-Mont in Marseille, France is the coolest neighborhood, according to TimeOut.
Provo, UT is the nicest place in the US in 2024, according to Reader’s Digest.
🗳️ Politics, Security & International Affairs
Over the past month, the Taliban have begun enforcing restrictions on men in Afghanistan (🔒WP) like requiring men to wear a fist-long beard and barring them from looking at women other than their wives or relatives and wearing jeans.
New data showed that the violent crime in the US fell 3% from 2022-2023. Murder was down 11.6%, which is the biggest drop in 20 yrs.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams was indicted on 5 counts of federal criminal charges, including secretly soliciting and accepting freebies and illegal campaign donations from wealthy foreigners as far back as 2014. Adams is the 1st of NYC's 110 mayors to be criminally charged while in office.
63% of Americans would prefer that the popular vote decide the winner of a presidential election vs. 35% who prefer the Electoral College system, according to the Pew.
>1M vehicles were stolen in the US in 2023. DC had the highest theft rate.
⏩ Pop Culture, Art, Sports & Entertainment
Ronald Kiger won the $10K grand prize for the annual 10-day Florida Python Challenge after he removed 20 Burmese pythons from the Florida Everglades. 800+ people from 33 states and Canada competed for a total of ~$25K in total prize money.
Ellie the Elephant is challenging the dude code of sports mascots (🔒WP). Ellie the Elephant is the mascot for the WBNA New York Liberty team.
Dr. Bruno Vellutini won 1st place in Nikon’s 2024 Small World in Motion Competition for his video of mitotic waves in the embryo of a fruit fly.
60+ music festivals have been canceled this year due to high production costs and slumping demand.
MLB player Shohei Ohtani became the 1st player to ever get 50 home runs and 50 steals in a single season.
The Unicode Consortium announced 8 new emojis.
Purple Rain is the best movie soundtrack, according to Rolling Stone.
The Chicago White Sox lost their 121st game of the season, making them the MLB team with the most losses since 1900.
🏡 Real Estate
Canadian investors and corporations own 14.2M acres of land in the US, as of the end of 2022.
~36% of Florida homeowners with a mortgage paid $3K+ for home insurance in 2023.
The number of co-homebuyers with different last names jumped to ~1.3M in 2021 (🔒WSJ), but has since fallen ~30%.
The average price of a new single-family property in China is down 5.4% YoY.
Private insurance losses in Florida from Hurricane Helene are estimated to be as high as $6B.
Last month, 16.7% of new Zillow listings had “major” risks for wildfires, and 12.8% had major flood risks.
LA is the least affordable housing market in the US, according to RealtyHop. LA households spend ~$5.9K/mo on their mortgage payments and property taxes.
🌎 Society
The share of New Zealand’s population that can speak te reo Māori increased from 4% in 2018 to 7.9% in 2021 thanks to reeducation efforts.
40% of gen Z women in the US identify as religiously unaffiliated vs. 34% of men (🔒NYT). This is surprising since, historically and in every other age group, women are consistently more religious than men.
🧪 Science, Climate, Environment & Technology
MIT engineers created 3D-printed bricks made from recycled glass that can withstand pressures similar to that of a concrete block.
A new study estimated that ChatGPT uses, on average, 519 mL of water to generate a 100-word email (🔒WP).
The number of fire alerts detected by satellites and other sources is 79% higher than average for this time of year, according to Global Forest Watch.
Mathematicians discovered a new class of shapes that have corners that are deformed into thin points with internal angles of zero, which let them tessellate on a 2D plane with no gaps.
California’s AG filed a lawsuit against Exxon for allegedly engaging in a “decades-long campaign of deception” that dramatically overstated the effectiveness of plastic recycling.
AI hosting platform Hugging Face reported that it surpassed 1M AI model listings.
Wishing you a good week
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