In the NEWS

Penn Reckoning
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned Saturday amid backlash over remarks made during a congressional hearing about on-campus antisemitism Tuesday. Reports of antisemitic harassment have increased at US universities since the start of the Israel-Hamas war two months ago, prompting scrutiny of those institutions' responses. A major donor withdrew a $100M partnership with Penn Thursday as a protest of Magill's comments.




Diamond Deal
Shohei Ohtani, one of baseball's biggest stars, will depart the Los Angeles Angels and head across town to the Los Angeles Dodgers after signing a contract reportedly worth $700M. In total value, the 10-year deal is believed to be the biggest contract signed by any athlete in global sports history.



Texas Abortion Battle
The Texas Supreme Court paused a lower court's ruling over the weekend allowing a Dallas-area woman to receive an abortion despite the state's new laws limiting access to the procedure. The case is believed to be the first of its kind in the US since Roe v. Wade was overturned last June.



Retirement
This Princeton grad's startup raised $161M to help people plan for retirement.


If you're one of the whopping 110 million Americans over age 50—or a wise Millennial looking to get ahead—SmartAsset's no-cost tool makes it easy to find vetted financial advisors who serve your area. Research suggests that people who work with a financial advisor could end up with 15% more money to spend in retirement.¹


Science

• European Union reaches world's first comprehensive set of regulations for AI; plan creates a risk ranking system for different types of AI and allows consumers to file complaints against platforms (More)
• Paleontologists discover 75-million-year-old fossil of a Gorgosaurus, a species of tyrannosaur from what is now western North America, with its final two meals preserved in its stomach (More)
• Physicists demonstrate optical tweezers—focused laser beams that can hold and move tiny objects—which can position single molecules so precisely they can be used for quantum computing (More)

Restrictions on Solar

The Texas legislature is currently considering a bill to heavily restrict the generation of wind and solar energy, University of Texas at Austin research scientist Joshua D. Rhodes revealed in a tweet.

The bill in question is Texas SB 624, co-sponsored by Senators Lois Kolkhorst, Mayes Middleton, and Bryan Hughes. It establishes new permit requirements for affordable “renewable energy” — not for dirty energy sources, such as coal. If passed, it would take effect this September.

According to the latest version of the bill (as of late May), any Texas resident with a large solar or wind system who wants to connect to the grid would need a permit. The lengthy permitting process requires a public meeting to allow comments, multiple surveys and assessments, and a website with information about the project.

SB 624 also requires that wind turbines be placed a whole 3,000 feet — more than half a mile — away from the property line, except with the permission of neighboring property owners.

“Texas #SB624 would turn all of Texas into an HOA where your neighbors are now going to be able to tell you what you can and can’t do on your own property,” tweeted Rhodes.

As it’s currently written, the bill applies to facilities with a capacity of 10 megawatts or higher to connect “with a transmission facility.” That wouldn’t include small residential systems, which are usually between one and four kilowatts (0.001 to 0.004 megawatts), according to Yes Energy Solutions.  READ MORE...

FBI Gets Involved With Disney

FBI Gets Involved in Disney’s “Plans” to Move to a New State, Federal Charges Filed

Federal charges were filed after the FBI was forced to get involved in Disney’s “plans” to move to another state.

This week, evening news programs and websites are teeming with stories and posts about the Walt Disney World Resort packing up and moving to another state in response to the escalating feud between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida lawmakers, and The Walt Disney Company. 

Millions of online users are searching terms associated with Disney World moving away from Florida–and for good reason.

On Wednesday, North Carolina State Senator Michael Garrett filed a bill called “Mickey’s Freedom Restoration Act,” seeking $750,000 for the creation of a committee to determine how to attract The Walt Disney Company and its Central Florida theme Park Resort to the state of North Carolina.

Some say North Carolina is the perfect place for Disney World to relocate. Others say the best place for Disney World to move to is the state of Virginia. And some say there’s no way the Disney World Resort would/could be moved to another state.


But this isn’t the first time other states have invited Disney to relocate. In April 2022, similar sentiments in favor of Disney and opposed to Gov. Ron DeSantis were expressed by Colorado Governor Jared Polis, who tweeted an offer of asylum to Mickey and Minnie in the early weeks of the Disney vs. DeSantis war, extending an invitation for Disney to pack its bags and head to the Centennial State. 

Only days later, a judge in South Texas extended a warm and welcoming “howdy, y’all” to The Walt Disney Company, inviting the company to pack up, head west, and plant Disney roots deep in the heart of Texas.  READ MORE...

Young Professionals Leaving California and New York

Young professionals who make more than $100,000 have started to flee California and New York, and the prices that go with them.

Instead, they’re going home, according to a study done by SmartAsset. In fact, analysis by the Census Bureau and Harvard University earlier this year found that 80% of young adults now live less than 100 miles from where they grew up.

Looking at adults under 35 who earn $100,000-plus per year, SmartAsset examined the inflow and outflow of wealthy young professionals from state to state between 2019 and 2020: 

Where did they leave? 

And where did they go?

It’s time to cue up the map app and take a closer look.

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Texas
In 2019-2020, Texas ranked the most popular destination. Roughly 15,000 came into the state and only about 11,200 left for a net inflow of about 3,800, according to SmartAsset.  READ MORE...

California's Economy Declining

California officials are sounding the alarm after recent statistics showed that fewer corporate and start-up activity in the state was leading to a decline in tax revenue, according to a report by Bloomberg News.

This year, just nine companies based in the state had held initial public offerings (IPOs), which is when a company first lists shares for sale on the stock market – considered a milestone in its growth after strong activity and high valuation, the report revealed. 

In 2021, California – whose start-up ecosystem in ‘Silicon Valley’ is considered the most prodigious in the world – saw 81 companies conduct IPOs, making 2022 a year of a nine-fold decrease.

Moreover, the value of these IPOs was far lower than in the past, raising merely $177 million, or 2% of the total amount of money raised by U.S. companies that went public in 2022. 

By contrast, in 2021, California’s share of the revenue generated by IPOs was 39%, by far the largest of any state.  READ MORE...

Masquerading as Fish Tongue

Mouth dwelling isopods in different fish species. (Nico Smit, Int. J. Parasitol, 2014)

An unsuspecting worker at Galveston Island State Park on the western Gulf Coast in Texas found a fish with a surprise.

Within the Atlantic croaker's (Micropogonias undulatus) gaping mouth, where its tongue should have been, instead sat far too many legs for any mouth, or fish. These legs came with eyes, too.An isopod from the genus Cymothoa had replaced the croaker's tongue. Females of this group of crustaceans migrate up from the fish's gills, pinch, and siphon off the blood supply to the tongue until the organ withers and falls off. They then attach themselves onto the remaining fleshy stub, continuing to feast on their captive's blood for years.

"[It] happens to be the only known case where a parasite functionally replaces a host's organ," the park workers shared on their Facebook page.

Mark Fisher, science director at Texas Parks and Wildlife explained that these parasites are quite common in some fish species, like the spotted seatrout. While he'd never before seen one in an Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus), one 2015 study found the isopods were relatively fond of this particular host.

While the parasite, which can reach up to 8 mm long (0.3 inches), doesn't seem to change feeding habits of some of the fish it infects, it can lead to a reduction in their growth, a 2013 study found.

The researchers suggested this may be due to respiratory stress produced by receiving less oxygen over the long term, because the massive parasite clogging the mouth doesn't allow the fish to take up and filter as much oxygen from the water. Others attribute this decline to the parasite's draining of nutrients.

These findings were specific to the C. borbonica species infecting the Trachinotus botla fish. We're not sure which species has infested the mouth of the Atlantic croaker, although C. excisa is thought to have high host specificity towards this fish.  READ MORE...

Colder Winters

A new study shows that increases in extreme winter weather in parts of the US are linked to accelerated warming of the Arctic.  The scientists found that heating in the region ultimately disturbed the circular pattern of winds known as the polar vortex.


This allowed colder winter weather to flow down to the US, notably in the Texas cold wave in February.  The authors say that warming will see more cold winters in some locations.  Over the past four decades, satellite records have shown how increasing global temperatures have had a profound effect on the Arctic.



Warming in the region is far more pronounced than in the rest of the world, and has caused a rapid shrinkage of summer sea ice.  Scientists have long been concerned about the implications of this amplification of global change for the rest of the planet.

This new study indicates that the warming in the Arctic is having a significant impact on winter weather in both North America and East Asia.   The researchers detail a complex meteorological chain that connects this warmer region to a rotating pattern of cold air known as the polar vortex.

The authors show that the melting of ice in the Barents and Kara seas leads to increased snowfall over Siberia and a transfer of excess energy that impacts the swirling winds in the stratosphere above the North Pole.

The heat ultimately causes a stretching of the vortex which then enables extremely cold weather to flow down to the US.  There has been an increase in these stretching events since satellite observations began in 1979.  The scientists believe this vortex stretching process led to the deadly Texas cold wave in February this year.  READ MORE