The best longform journalism we consumed this week
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Let’s jump into it…
The Truth about Drone Deliveries!
We've been hearing about the coming ubiquity of drone deliveries for at least a decade, but that future never seems to arrive...at least in America. Ironically, it's actually poorer countries that have already seen this tech put into action, with drones being used to deliver life-saving medicines to far-flung locales. But once it does come to the US, what will it actually look like? YouTuber Marques Brownlee visited the company that's on the forefront of this technology, and its drones operate differently than you'd expect. [Marques Brownlee]
The NIH’s Most Reckless Cuts Yet
Imagine having a health condition so dire that you're willing to enroll in an experimental drug trial in the desperate hope that it will bring you relief. Now imagine that, halfway through that trial, it comes to a premature end because funding has been cut. That's the reality for thousands of Americans who have been impacted by the Trump administration's slashing of NIH grants, and it's only the beginning of the carnage that's about to be inflicted onto our healthcare system. [The Atlantic]
The Biggest Loser
For most people throughout history, a compulsive, unchecked gambling problem has led to complete financial ruin. Vegas Matt may be the sole exception; he loses so spectacularly that people spend a collective 5.7 million hours a month watching him do so on YouTube. The economics work out so that he manages to bring in far more on YouTube than he loses in the casinos. He's essentially accomplished the financial equivalent of defying gravity. [Slate]
A Notorious Twitch Streamer Was Robbed. Why Didn’t Anyone Believe Her?
A popular Twitch streamer was violently attacked one night by three masked assailants who demanded access to her crypto accounts. But because she was known for staging viral publicity stunts, many didn't believer her, and an entire army of internet sleuths pored over her video evidence, looking for signs of fakery. It wasn't until the arrest of the three assailants — one of whom had a gunshot wound from when the streamer's husband shot him — that she was finally vindicated. [Rolling Stone]
The New Way Nations are Fighting (and why it matters)
Proxy wars, which involve major super powers funneling supplies and resources to smaller countries to aid them in their fighting, are increasing in frequency, mostly because they're becoming cheaper and easier to fund. These wars are far more deadly than normal conflicts because the super powers can supply each side with arsenals that they wouldn't have had otherwise. The Syrian civil war, for instance, would have been far less devastating if not for the arms supplied to each side by Western countries and Russia. [Johnny Harris]
Comedy’s Most Erudite Buffoon
Why has Conan O'Brien's comedy endured for over 30 years? To answer this question, one could look to his 2024 appearance on Hot Ones, where he eagerly gulped down the world's spiciest hot sauce, all while pretending it didn't have the heat to nearly melt his face off. It's this unrelenting commitment to the bit that can win over the staunchest critics. How can you do anything but like the person who would go to such great personal pain just to make you laugh? [The Atlantic]
Beneath Greenland’s Ice Lies a Climate Solution—and a New Geopolitical Battleground
Greenland is one of the countries that has been most affected by climate change, with billions of gallons of its ice melting each year. Ironically, that melting ice makes it easier to mine the treasure trove of rare earth minerals beneath its soil — the very minerals we need to build green energy infrastructure that will eliminate carbon fuels. [Wired]
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Secret home listings are about to skyrocket
For decades, the US real estate market has been uniquely transparent, mostly because all real estate agents upload listings to a public database that anyone can access. The theory behind this is that the more people who can see a real estate listing, the more potential bidders. But some of the largest real estate companies are increasingly trying to skirt this practice, hoarding all the best listings for their own agents. This anti-competitive behavior aims to lock both buyers and sellers into using a single brokerage. [Business Insider]
A Mysterious Startup Is Developing a New Form of Solar Geoengineering
Most of the proposed solutions for halting climate change involve reducing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. Some have proposed a more radical approach: geoengineering, which involves altering some fundamental aspect of our environment in a way that would force the earth to cool. Many environmentalists are staunch opponents of geoengineering because of the potential unintended side effects, but a secretive startup in Israel is working on a method that would deflect radiation from the Earth's atmosphere, which would temporarily reverse the greenhouse effect. The company's critics believe it should be more transparent about its plans. [Undark]
Why Disney wants to erase this beloved cartoonist from history
Back in the 1980s, a comic book enthusiast liquidated his construction company so he could work full time writing and drawing comics in the Donald Duck universe, and his work developed a small fanbase. But then Disney tried to exert more control over his work, and so he quit, even though he had no other career path to fall back on. Luckily for him, it turned out Europeans were much bigger Donald Duck fans than Americans, and he was hired by a Danish company to continue his comic book series. Today, he's a pop culture hero on the continent. [matttt]
A US Drone Maker Tries to Take Back the Country’s Skies
The US used to be the leader in drone technology, but China, after a 10-year investment, has pulled way ahead, mostly due to its ability to develop drones at much lower costs. Now, US firms are scrambling to catch up and have been aided by legislation banning sales of Chinese drones. Given the growing importance of drones for everything including warfare, public safety, and even product delivery, many leaders in both the private and government sector believe the stakes are high, even as actual drone enthusiasts bemoan the bans as misguided economic protectionism. [Bloomberg]
How Many New Yorkers Are Secretly Subsidized By Their Parents?
Baby Boomers are poised to pass down trillions of dollars of wealth to their Millennial children, but of course that wealth won’t be distributed evenly. It’s now becoming a common phenomenon to watch a friend who you thought was on equal financial footing quickly receive a money windfall that allows them to escape the trappings of the rise-and-grind. For those not lucky enough to experience this rapid upward mobility, the sudden wealth disparity can be disconcerting. [New York]
We should be living in the golden age of hobbies. What happened?
A century ago, economists thought we were heading toward a golden age of leisure, but Americans today spend the same number of hours working as people back then, and what leisure time we do have is often spent looking at our phones and TVs. What’s more, those who have hobbies feel pressured to turn them into some kind of money-making side hustle. Why can’t we simply devote time to developing skills that have no monetary reward? [WashPo]
How an American Radical Reinvented Back-Yard Gardening
In the mid 20th century, a mystery novelist named Rex Stout was so successful that he had more books in circulation than any other living writer. Today, many of his books are out of print, and it's actually his sister, Ruth Stout, who is much more famous. The author of three major gardening books, the late Stout is now a staple of TikTok, where many influencers post videos of their vegetables grown with the "Ruth Stout Method." But who was she? A newly unearthed autobiography reveals she was a radical socialist who had a love/hate relationship with her famous brother. [New Yorker]
My other newsletter: The harsh economics for serialized podcasts
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