Welcome to the latest installment of my bi-weekly newsletter, covering some of my favorite new developments in the fields of biotech, data science, engineering, and more. If this is your first issue, it's great to have you! For everyone else, thanks for coming back!
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Notes
Well, this is getting out quite a bit late — sorry to all of you loyal readers who may have begun to worry if I was okay. I’m quite fine and just got a little too busy on Friday to send this edition out at its regular time. Better late than never, though, so here are some fun and interesting links to close out your weekend.
Also, being late doesn’t mean we don’t get another font. This one is called Niagara.
Hardware, Prototyping, and Fabrication
🚅💨 For a long time, the only thing keeping Japan's bullet trains from running as fast as they could was the loud pressure waves they would generate in tunnels. Thanks to some design inspiration from the animal world, though, these pressure waves were effectively eliminated.
🛠 Made How is a remarkably thorough catalogue of information on the fabrication of just about everything.
🗜 When this 100+ year old vise designed for clamping awkwardly-shaped objects made the rounds on the internet a few weeks ago, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a 3D printable design for it as well.
Software and Programming
🚀 Cosma Schema wants you to have your own space company logo.
🎨 Photopea is a browser-based design software that looks an awful lot like another design software I think many of us know pretty well, and it's exactly for the reason you might think.
🤬 F*** Off YouTube is an adblocker for YouTube videos.
💭 This website/game shows you just how much CO2 we put into the atmosphere.
Science, Engineering, and Biomedicine
🗣 The space industry doesn't just give us amazing new technologies with applications in the consumer sector, it also gives us great new approaches for conflict resolution (because you probably shouldn't hold a grudge with mission control).
🧊〰 We can bend ice now. (And I don't mean like in the Avatar series.)
📝🧪🌑 Here's the write-up of every experiment that was performed during the Apollo program.
Mapping, History, and Data Science
🗺 If Pleiades was Google Maps for the ancient world, then Stanford's Orbis is Citymapper for the Roman Empire.
🔎🐶 The Scrappy-Doo entry on Wikipedia is 25,623 words, nearly 2,000 words longer than the entry for the history of Poland. The page has a greater word count than Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis - and a writer decided to find out why. (BTW: Some boring Wikipedia editor has noticed this article and since deleted most of it - you can find the long version through the edit history.)
👩👨👴🧓👳♂️👳♀️👨🦲👩🦲 Discriminator is an interactive documentary about facial recognition databases.
🏐🏑🏓🏸🤽♀️🤾♀️🏋️♀️ The Tokyo Olympics are now over, which means it's time to start thinking about what events you'd have even a minimal change of competing in.
Events and Opportunities
Tuesday, 8/10 Bio Pharma Networking Group Meeting w/ Speaking that Connects. The New Jersey arm of the Bio Pharma networking group hosts the next virtual BPNG meeting, featuring Eileen N. Sinett from Speaking that Connects. As coach and facilitator, Eileen helps professionals communicate at their best, by sharing tips and feedback on presentations, networking speeches, interviews, keynotes, and speaking style.
Thursday, 8/12 NYC Builds Bio+ Networking Event. New York's community of life sciences developers and professionals get together for their next online networking event, with a special showcase on development firm Boston Properties. Learn more about their projects, plans for the New York City marketplace and meet and network with Boston Property professionals and other NYC Builds Bio+ members and prospective members.
Thursday, 8/19 Biomaterials for 3D Printing. I’ll be back moderating another panel for 3DHEALS, assembling one of their most international panels to date for a discussion on the myriad applications and opportunities for biomaterials in the 3D printing space. Covering everything from orthopedic medial devices to bioactive polymer implants, this event promises to be a thorough and sweeping look at the state of the art in the biomaterials field.
Map of the Month
💡 Here's a map of all the lighthouses in the world.
Odds & Ends
⌨🖱 When you accidentally type in the wrong URL and find out that someone likely set up an entire company to take advantage of people doing just that...