🐳 Orca war ☕ Coffee 2.0 💤 Sleep hack

🐳 Orca war ☕ Coffee 2.0 💤 Sleep hack

The best news, hacks, & facts from the past week!
June 23, 2023
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Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg might cage fight each other.

How? Why? Are we in a simulation?

It all started when Elon responded to a tweet about Facebook's plans to release a Twitter competitor with: "I'm sure Earth can't wait to be exclusively under Zuck's thumb..."

Someone replied that Musk should watch out because Zuck does jiu-jitsu now and Musk quipped back: "I'm up for a cage match if he is lol."

"Send me location," Zuck replied. What a time to be alive...

As always, please forward IQNEWS to a friend if you're a fan!

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STORY OF THE WEEK

Orcas are going buck-wild

image: dive mag

Orcas - also known as killer whales - have been damaging and sinking boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal for weeks now.

Over a dozen whales are involved, which suggests the combatants have organized a small army and are teaching each other how to bring down vessels.

No one knows why this is happening and the internet is freaking out about it.

Leading theories include:

  1. A female in the pod known as "White Gladis" and her posse may be exacting revenge for an injury gleaned from a boat rudder.
  2. They're simply playing around. Most orcas in the pack are juveniles and juveniles like to have fun.
  3. Orcas really enjoy the feeling of the water currents and bubbles from a moving boat's rudders and propellers. When boats stop, orcas get frustrated and lash out.

But here's the simplest, and perhaps most bizarre, take: it's simply a fad, just like the 1987 "salmon hat wearing fad" where an orca off the coast of Seattle began wearing a salmon over its nose and then 70+ orcas quickly followed suit. Can't make this stuff up!

Sometimes we forget just how smart these creatures are - orcas have an IQ similar to that of a 15-16 year old human and have robust cultural practices amongst themselves.

So there...now you have a rabbit hole good for at least three hours of reckless Googling.

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IN OTHER NEWS

Coffee breeding, synthetic people, 19hr days...

image: daily grind
Coffee 2.0

A coffee research institute has worked for 20+ years to breed a zero-caffeine coffee bean and they're close. This would eliminate the need to use chemicals to de-caffeinate coffee.

Synthetic People

Scientists developed a synthetic embryo with a heartbeat from stem cells without the need for either an egg or sperm. A remarkable breakthrough with plenty of ethical questions.

Drugs

Alcohol is now no longer the most abused drug by American children - marijuana is. Teen cannabis abuse has increased by a whopping 245 percent in the US since 2000.

19hr Days

Days used to be 19hrs long! For a billion years - a time known as the "boring billion - days were shorter and never expanded. Now, days lengthen by 0.000015 seconds per year.

Math Crisis

In the wake of COVID, American children continue to struggle academically. Math scores have dropped significantly since 2019 and all achieved gains since 1990 have been lost.

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HACK OF THE WEEK

Win-win way to doze off

image: verywell

Do you have trouble falling asleep? And are you one of those people who always wanted to get into meditation but never did.

Well boy do I have a wildly simplistic hack for YOU!

Learn the basics of meditation via basic research or an app like Headspace and then simply start meditating when you're in bed at night.

It's a total win-win. At a minimum you get a great meditation session in during a time you'd otherwise be stressfully staring at the wall. And/or you'll pass out while you're meditating.

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SHOWER THOUGHTS
  1. Every big city has had a point in its history where there was only 1 high-rise in the entire city and it must’ve looked super awkward.
  2. It’s a good thing we can’t hear our eyeballs move inside their sockets.
  3. Paper cuts will become increasingly less common in the future.
  4. Most awkward people are only awkward because they are so concerned about being awkward that they become awkward.
  5. Your accent is your voice's font.
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QUOTE / TIL / WORD / TRIVIA

T.S. Eliot: "Only those who are willing to risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."

Today I learned that Chinese checkers is actually called Sternhalma and is not related to Chinese culture or checkers and was invented in Germany in 1892. (more here)

nudnik [ nud-nik ] - noun
a person who is a bore or nuisance
Nobody wants to hang around with that nudnik.

Q: From which country does Gouda cheese originate?
A: (see below next section)

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TWEET OF THE WEEK
image: twitter

TRIVIA ANSWER: The Netherlands.

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