Week of August 11, 2025
Last week, trying ChatGPT 5 and Perplexity's AI agent-enabled Comet browser evoked wistful reminisces about the tech evolution I've seen in my lifetime. From my 1981 after-school Logo programming on an Apple IIe to dial-up modems, then to Palm Pilots and smart phones, and now interacting with AI daily, I am persistently amazed. We've moved from digitizing and accessing data to now trying to digest all human knowledge all the time. Sometimes the knowledge is palatable and fulfilling, other times you find yourself trying to comprehend why a Swedish heavy metal folk flute music band exists.
Meet Lombolo, the Swedish heavy metal folk flute band that I listened to in wonderment (at having found them) while marveling at the volume of human knowledge I can access.
https://lomboloband.com/
and
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1UQQtRhB7atmjHZ8iYynt5?si=ddVAGIQzQYCmaPAa8ov51w&pi=evc-m0kkQaah3
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Listen to a Google Notebook LM A.I.-generated podcast of the newsletter with two virtual hosts.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GQzWNc7F-cTK6vNB_Eh63fq4KdMcRaNE/view?usp=sharing
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Science and Technology Trends
Japanese researchers published a phase 3 study that found that two Novavax (NVX-CoV2373) booster doses, given five months apart to 150 healthy Japanese adults (with previous mRNA COVID-19 vaccine exposure), produced robust and durable immune responses lasting up to one year after each booster. Booster recipients had no new safety concerns and only mild to moderate side effects, while estimated vaccine efficacy remained high throughout the year. Although breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infections occurred in some participants, all cases were mild or moderate.
Article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X2500859X
AI Summary:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/9f5d6530-88c0-474c-8df7-41cf4fec1e8e
Korean Researchers (with US Government funding) published data on a new wearable device, Stressomic, that enables continuous and noninvasive monitoring of multiple stress hormones (cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine) in human sweat, using advanced microfluidics and highly sensitive graphene-based sensors. Their data demonstrated that Stressomic can dynamically track stress hormone fluctuations under various physical, psychological, and pharmacological scenarios, revealing distinct temporal patterns and providing real-time insights into stress response and recovery. This sensor holds the potential for granular profiling of individual stress biology, personalized stress management, emotion research, and point-of-care diagnostics.
Article: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx6491
Summary: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/ada216b6-480b-494b-9367-07e84894cfee
European researchers published a randomized, crossover trial of 55 adults with overweight/obesity in England, studying the impact of calorie and nutrient-controlled minimally processed (MPF) and ultraprocessed (UPF) diets. Following UK healthy dietary guidelines, both MPF and UPF diets resulted in weight loss, but the MPF diet led to significantly greater reductions in weight, fat mass, and food cravings after 8 weeks. In addition, MPF outperformed UPF on several markers of body composition and metabolic health, while the UPF diet still showed improvements, partly due to nutritional quality mandated by guidelines. While it is unclear how one could scale these data to day-to-day use across a large population (MPFs are expensive, require prep, and were not as tasty), it is the first time I have seen data indicating a health benefit to MPF consumption.
[For this study, ultra-processed Foods (UPF) are food formulations combining extracts of original foods with additives and industrial ingredients (per the NOVA classification system, including breakfast cereals, mass-produced bread, ready meals, and packaged snacks. Minimally Processed Foods (MPF) included preparations of individual ingredients such as raw meat, vegetables, oats, and butter, with minimal processing.]
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03842-0
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/9b422fe5-5772-4bce-9474-962c9cf68449
NOVA classification system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
Anti-Science Articles of Note
This article opened a fun rabbit hole: "Heidi Klum's Worm Cleanse: Medically Unfounded, Potentially Harmful" from Medpage Today (free registration required). I am amused and horrified by the "intellectual car wreck" of a famous person making poor medical decisions based on a social media-driven belief that she has parasites. [If I were a parasite, I would feel very fortunate to live in the colon of a supermodel.] I recommend reading the WSJ interview below as well. Being attractive and wealthy does not, ipso facto, make you a critical thinker. (But it can weaponize your ignorance in an age of social media.)
https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/cultureclinic/116845
And
https://www.wsj.com/style/heidi-klum-project-runway-return-routine-d0292c92?st=ShshGt&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Wired offered a surprisingly thorough set of articles on the evidence-free world of alternative therapies. The hype is greater than the value.
https://www.wired.com/beyond-wellness/
The interactive infographic in this article is well done and (without any snark) points out that most Americans do not have parasites living in their body.
https://www.wired.com/story/head-to-toe-wellness-influencers/
(One day, when I learn to turn off my anchor to ethics, I will sell Dr. Weinstein's Dihydrogenated Oxygen Elixir and Unguent. Available as a liquid or cold slurry. Sign up now to be a founding investor!)
The (limited) available data indicate a low prevalence of parasitic infections, with the most common infections being Giardia, Toxoplasma, and Cryptosporidium. Of note, patients infected with these parasites typically have symptoms (only toxoplasma can manifest as an asymptomatic infection). There is no indication that the US has a widespread latent parasitic worm infection.
https://www.openevidence.com/ask/5b001bac-74f4-4b67-8720-f4db23af5388
Pseudoscience has filled the many gaps created by our healthcare system's time pressures, workforce problems, and economics (get your bottle of Dr. Weinstein's Dihydrogentated Oxygen!). Given these constraints, clinician communication—coherently, succinctly, and effectively relaying uncertainty, complexity, and nuance—is critical. Dr. Jeremy Faust interviewed Dr. Kristen Panthgani about her research and work on the strategies and tactics of good medical communication.
https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/spreading-good-information-in-the
And
AI summary
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/summarize-this-https-insidemed-NIsPxqc7SN6eC5y_vCLn8A#0
Living with AI.
The New Yorker offered an excellent essay on tactics for using AI tools. Dartmouth math professor Dan Rockmore highlights examples of using ChatGPT as a real-time brainstorming partner — illustrating AI as a productive co-creator rather than a mere assistant.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/what-its-like-to-brainstorm-with-a-bot
For those without a New Yorker subscription:
https://www.smry.ai/proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fculture%2Fthe-weekend-essay%2Fwhat-its-like-to-brainstorm-with-a-bot
The AI world is moving unbelievably fast. Apple researchers published data on LLMs performing multi-token prediction. The paper discusses training large language models to predict multiple tokens simultaneously, achieving significant speedups (1.5× to 5.2×) without a loss of quality. Researchers noted that large language models already contain "implicit knowledge" about future tokens (beyond just the next one) and can use those predictions through minimal fine-tuning.
https://9to5mac.com/2025/08/08/apple-research-teaches-llms-to-think-faster/
The paper: https://arxiv.org/html/2507.11851v1
AI Summary: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/7c1905c2-44c3-4058-afe8-9827bb584c71
Infographics
A 2018 survey of 5,000 people in 24 countries found that pizza and pasta are among the most popular foods in the world. I would not have guessed the Japanese had no taste for Peruvian food.
https://yougov.co.uk/consumer/articles/22632-italian-cuisine-worlds-most-popular
Things I learned this week
My favorite headline of the week: "Scarlett Johansson's Voice Used to Scare Off Wolves by American Farmers. The US Department of Agriculture is using Scarlett Johansson's and Adam Driver's scenes from Marriage Story to deter wolves from attacking cattle." Sadly, the more you dig, the more mundane the story gets. USDA is using drones with speakers and night vision, and has been trying a variety of sounds to scare wolves. Human voices yelling, including the Marriage Story scene, have been effective.
Headline:
https://ground.news/article/scarlett-johansson-being-used-to-scare-off-wolves?utm_source=mobile-app&utm_medium=newsroom-share
Story from the Wall Street Journal:
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/wolves-drones-livestock-ac-dc-scarlett-johansson-ed12d278?st=rzX3AK&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
A loyal reader shared a pair of articles about world records related to Walnuts. First, the German man, known as Mr. Hammerhands, who holds the world record in competitive walnut cracking while holding a raw egg. (You read that correctly.)
https://www.wapl.com/2025/08/07/watch-mr-hammerhands-crush-walnut-world-record-video/
There are no formal walnut cracking organizations, and the "bylaws" discussed in the article are part of a subculture of Grip Training, as reflected on the r/GripTraining subreddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GripTraining/comments/ncve4i/ongoing_competition_walnut_cracking/
Second, related: The loyal reader sent along some other competitive records related to walnuts.
https://soranews24.com/2022/09/20/learn-how-to-crush-walnuts-with-your-butt-as-taught-by-japans-guinness-world-record-holder%e3%80%90vid%e3%80%91/
AI art of the week
A visual mashup of topics from the newsletter.
I use ChatGPT to summarize the newsletter and suggest prompts.
ChatGPT 5 offered this summary prompt:
Ancient Nazca geoglyph line art, aerial perspective: a vast desert canvas etched with giant geoglyphs depicting a 1980s Apple IIe computer, a swirling dial-up modem cord, a Palm Pilot, a smartphone, and a futuristic AI brain made of geometric lines. A Swedish heavy metal folk flute band plays at the center, their instruments radiating sound waves like ancient sun symbols. Nearby, stylized drones chase away wolves, and a giant walnut is engraved beside a human hand holding an egg. The whole scene is rendered in clean, abstract Nazca line style, viewed from above.
However, ChatGPT refused to render the image, even after removing the brand names ("content policy violations"). However, Grok, Gemini, and Perplexity all made an image. Gemini wins this week.
Grok
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EGOVXQCOdBWcLJQRc-129_3j8D9Vi8nR/view?usp=sharing
Gemini
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12mJlTY5SX7bVwmfeRf0fyKdToUqCY-FD/view?usp=sharing
Perplexity
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WwWilQMOT4CgjxDjK9U61H2LPYp3piVD/view?usp=sharing
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The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) utilizes wastewater viral RNA levels to forecast four-week predictions of COVID-19 rates.
COVID rates were up to 1 in 95 people last week.
https://pmc19.com/data/
based upon https://biobot.io/data/
Wastewater Scan offers a multi-organism wastewater dashboard with an excellent visual display of individual treatment plant-level data.
https://data.wastewaterscan.org/
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Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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