Summary #1 for 2025-04-23

Alright Alex, checking in at 10:22:58 AM.

First things first, exercise! You’ve got that Bike/Run Brick workout planned for today. The weather forecast shows the rain should be easing up significantly from 11:00 AM onwards. With sunset not until 8:10 PM, you’ve got a huge window this afternoon for your run once the weather clears up. Get that bike leg done indoors whenever suits, then hit the pavement when the rain stops!

Calendar-wise, your Backend stand-up is coming up shortly at 10:30 AM, followed by the Frontend stand-up at 11:00 AM. Don’t forget the JUXT Safari at 1:00 PM.

Speaking of things disappearing, scientists say insect populations are dwindling at an alarming rate. I’m pretty sure Tara could reverse that trend single-handedly if you left a biscuit tin open.

Here are a few bits from the news:

• Musk to reduce US government role after Tesla profits plunge
• Pressure builds on UK finances as Reeves pushes for US trade deal
• Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks in London downgraded
• Chris Mason: Gender debate has changed but it’s not over yet
• Prince Louis photo marks seventh birthday
• Mystery of medieval cemetery near airport runway deepens
• Trump says he has ‘no intention of firing’ Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell
• Atuin Desktop: Runbooks That Run (HN)
• Sapphire: Rust based package manager for macOS (Homebrew replacement) (HN)
• ClickHouse gets lazier and faster: Introducing lazy materialization (HN)
• I should have loved biology too (HN)
• Algebraic Semantics for Machine Knitting (HN)
• Native visionOS platform support (HN)
• Solidjs: Simple and performant reactivity for building user interfaces (HN)
• State of Emergency Declared as Huge Explosion Rocks Russia’s Vladimir Region (Reddit)
• Canada election sees record high early voting, figures show (Reddit)
• US Treasury secretary says trade war with China is not ‘sustainable’ (Reddit)
• EU will never recognize Crimea as Russian, Kallas says (Reddit)
• Zelensky rules out recognizing Crimea as Russian, warns against playing into Putin’s ‘game’ (Reddit)
• Mexico’s Sheinbaum bans ‘foreign propaganda’ after US anti-migrant ad (Reddit)
• Politico: Putin’s sham Easter truce was marketing ploy aimed at Trump, Paris says (Reddit)
• Gen Z grads say their college degrees were a waste of time and money as AI infiltrates the workplace (Reddit)
• Ford Blows Off Trump On Clean Power, Strikes Biggest Ever PPA With DTE (Reddit)
• Tesla reports 20% drop in auto revenue as first-quarter results miss Wall Street estimates (Reddit)
• 4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere (Reddit)
• New images could change cancer diagnostics, but ICE detained the Harvard scientist who analyzes them (Reddit)
• Tesla hammered by protests and plummeting sales, to report 1st quarter performance (Reddit)
• Tesla short sellers have made $11.5 billion from this year’s selloff (Reddit)
• Insects are disappearing at an alarming rate worldwide. Insect populations had declined by 75% in less than three decades. The most cited driver for insect decline was agricultural intensification, via issues like land-use change and insecticides, with 500+ other interconnected drivers. (Reddit)
• A study of more than 3,000 adolescents showed that those who went to bed the earliest, slept the longest, and had the lowest sleeping heart rates outperformed others on reading, vocabulary, problem solving and other mental tests. (Reddit)
• Recent projections suggest that large geographical areas will soon experience heat and humidity exceeding limits for human thermoregulation - The study found that humans struggle to thermoregulate at wet bulb temperatures above 26–31 °C, significantly below the commonly cited 35 °C threshold. (Reddit)
• Intellectually humble people show heightened empathic accuracy and emotional resilience | The findings also suggest that intellectual humility can increase empathic concern without amplifying personal distress—a pattern the researchers call “empathic resilience.” (Reddit)
• Global plastic production expected to triple by 2060. Innovations in plant-based polymers show promise for biodegradable plastics. Projections estimate that by 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in our oceans. This is not just alarming — it’s a call to urgent action. (Reddit)
• Banned DDT discovered in Canadian trout 70 years after use, research finds | Potential danger to humans and wildlife from harmful pesticide discovered in fish at 10 times safety limit (Reddit)
• Dave Coulier learned he beat cancer on same day he became a grandpa (Reddit)
• US Will Work With Foodmakers to Stop the Use of Synthetic Dyes (Reddit)
• A sequoia forest in Detroit? Plantings to improve air quality and mark Earth Day (Reddit)
• Ford and DTE begin construction of new 100MW solar array to help power Detroit’s manufacturing (Reddit)
• Advanced cancers returned to prepandemic levels, according to a reassuring report (Reddit)
• British-Ukrainian Aid: Retired London ambulances given to Ukraine (Reddit)
• NASA’s Perseverance rover hits the Mars rock gold mine: ‘It has been all we had hoped for and more’ | “The last four months have been a whirlwind for the science team, and we still feel that Witch Hazel Hill has more to tell us.” (Reddit)