2024 Tech Breakthroughs: Autonomous Vehicles, Apple Hearing Aids and More

Summary

Morning Brew Daily: 2024 Tech Breakthroughs – Detailed Summary

Released: December 24, 2024

Hosts Neal Freyman and Toby Howell explore the most significant technological advancements of 2024, highlighting their positive impacts across various sectors. This episode emphasizes optimism in science and technology, showcasing breakthroughs that promise to enhance lives and transform industries.

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1. Autonomous Vehicles: Waymo's Robotaxi Expansion and Regulatory Landscape

The episode kicks off with a deep dive into the advancements in autonomous vehicle technology, focusing on Waymo's impressive growth and the broader implications for urban transportation.

Key Highlights:

• Waymo's Expansion: After over a decade and more than $100 billion in investments, Waymo's autonomous car division has made significant strides. In August, they provided approximately 312,000 rides monthly in California, doubling their ride volume within three months. Waymo now captures over 4% of the San Francisco rideshare market and is expanding to cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles, with plans for Austin, Atlanta, and Miami in the near future. By testing in 25 major metro areas, Waymo is poised for rapid adoption ([01:38]).

• Public Sentiment Shift: Initially met with resistance—evident from incidents like San Francisco residents sabotaging Waymo vehicles—public trust has begun to shift. Increased ride volume and broader city adoption indicate growing confidence in robotaxis ([03:01]).

• Regulatory Efforts: Neal highlights Elon Musk's role in advocating for federal regulations alongside Tesla's pivot towards becoming a robo-taxi company. This collaboration with the government could streamline the regulatory landscape, facilitating faster deployment of autonomous vehicles nationwide ([03:55]).

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman: "If you live in the United States, it's not inconceivable that in the next few years you will be able to hail a robotaxi like you would in San Francisco, in Phoenix right now." ([04:00])
• Toby Howell: "There is a vibe shift when it comes to driverless cars." ([03:55])

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2. Breakthrough in HIV Prevention: Lena Capavir

The conversation shifts to a monumental breakthrough in healthcare with Lena Capavir, a new HIV prevention drug that has shown remarkable efficacy in clinical trials.

Key Highlights:

• Clinical Success: Lena Capavir offers six months of protection against HIV, achieving a 96% reduction in infections. Recognized as the breakthrough of the year by Science journal, it represents a significant advancement in HIV prevention ([06:04]).

• Administration and Compliance: Administered as a twice-yearly injection, Lena Capavir simplifies adherence compared to daily oral medications, which are often hindered by stigma and compliance issues ([06:04]).

• Global Impact and Cost Concerns: While the drug holds promise for regions like sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV prevalence is high, its high cost—$42,000 per patient annually in the U.S.—poses a barrier to widespread adoption. Lowering the price is crucial for global impact ([07:00]).

Notable Quotes:

• Toby Howell: "Lena Capavir offers six months of protection against HIV and has been shown to be remarkably effective in clinical trials." ([06:04])
• Neal Freyman: "To get this adopted at all, they are going to have to drop the price considerably to get it to the affected populations." ([07:00])

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3. Neuralink’s Advances in Brain-Computer Interfaces

Neuralink's pioneering work in brain-computer interfaces is spotlighted, showcasing a groundbreaking milestone and future directions.

Key Highlights:

• First Successful Implant: In March, Neuralink demonstrated the first patient with a brain implant controlling a computer cursor, marking a significant leap in BCIs. The implant now transmits data wirelessly, eliminating the need for external wires ([08:00]).

• Technical Challenges: Despite successes, challenges persist. Approximately 85% of the implanted threads have detached, limiting the device's effectiveness. Neuralink is addressing this by enhancing thread anchoring and scaling their surgical robots for higher precision ([09:08]).

• Future Innovations: Neuralink plans to deepen implant placements within the brain and introduce new devices like "Blindsight" to restore vision, signaling continued innovation and expansion in the BCI field ([10:02]).

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman: "He could not move from his shoulders down and now he's being able to communicate with his brain and move a cursor and play chess." ([10:02])
• Toby Howell: "It's extremely cool... a lot of optimists." ([09:08])

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4. Apple's Affordable Clinical Hearing Aids: Transforming AirPods

Apple has merged consumer technology with medical functionality by introducing clinical-grade hearing aids into their AirPods Pro 2, making hearing assistance more accessible and affordable.

Key Highlights:

• New Feature Integration: The AirPods Pro 2 now include a hearing aid feature that enhances ambient sounds, effectively serving as clinical hearing aids ([10:39]).

• FDA Approval and Affordability: Approved by the FDA as over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids, these devices are priced at $249, significantly lowering the barrier for those needing hearing assistance ([11:21]).

• Reducing Stigma: By integrating hearing aid functionality into popular consumer devices, Apple aims to reduce the stigma traditionally associated with hearing aids, encouraging more individuals to seek assistance ([11:40]).

Notable Quotes:

• Toby Howell: "It isn’t just a marketing ploy either. The FDA approved their use as clinical grade over the counter hearing aids." ([11:21])
• Neal Freyman: "Maybe that's what a lot of these innovations have in common—to reduce the stigma around certain ways to help yourself get better." ([11:40])

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5. LG's Transparent TV: A Novel Display Innovation

LG has unveiled a 77-inch transparent OLED TV, pushing the boundaries of display technology and sparking interest in its practical applications.

Key Highlights:

• Product Features: The transparent TV can switch between displaying content and becoming fully transparent, revealing the background. It also offers a 3D mode, allowing for creative displays like virtual aquariums ([14:11]).

• Market Positioning and Perception: Initially perceived as a luxury item for the affluent due to its high cost, the transparent TV raises questions about its practicality and performance compared to existing high-end models.

• Industry Competition: Samsung has also entered the transparency display market with its own version of a see-through TV, indicating a trend towards innovative display technologies in consumer electronics ([14:11]).

Notable Quotes:

• Toby Howell: "When you see this, it literally is a glass box. There's nothing in it." ([14:11])
• Toby Howell: "I was reading some reviews on how the TV actually performed, and it's not quite up to par with the top of the line models from LG." ([14:11])

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6. Blue Zones Debunked? New Research on Longevity

The hosts discuss recent research challenging the validity of Blue Zones, regions renowned for their high longevity rates, and its implications for global health trends.

Key Highlights:

• New Findings by Dr. Newman: A postdoctoral researcher from Australia posits that the high number of centenarians in Blue Zones may result from faulty record-keeping rather than lifestyle factors, garnering attention at the IG Nobel Prizes ([17:32]).

• Impact on the Blue Zones Brand: The Blue Zones concept has evolved into a global brand with products and initiatives, but Dr. Newman's research threatens its credibility, leading to debates within the scientific community ([18:35]).

• Ongoing Longevity Trends: Despite challenges to Blue Zones' validity, trends towards longevity and anti-aging practices continue to gain popularity, driven by figures like Brian Johnson and societal shifts towards healthier living ([19:04]).

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman: "Longevity is becoming much more in vogue these days." ([19:04])
• Toby Howell: "There's definitely a vibe shift in our society towards longevity, being more popular." ([19:04])

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7. CERN’s Antimatter Transport: Pioneering Experimental Physics

CERN has achieved a landmark in particle physics by successfully transporting antimatter, a feat previously relegated to science fiction.

Key Highlights:

• Historic Transport: Scientists at CERN have moved antimatter in trucks, maintaining its isolation in vacuum conditions to prevent annihilation upon contact with matter. This unprecedented move enables further experimental research ([20:40]).

• Scientific Purpose: Transporting antimatter is crucial for studying the asymmetry between matter and antimatter, which is fundamental to understanding the universe's composition and origins ([20:40]).

• Safety and Precision: Ensuring antimatter remains isolated during transport requires sophisticated containment systems, emphasizing the technical challenges overcome by CERN ([20:40]).

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman: "Antimatter is the most expensive material on Earth, requiring several trillion dollars just to make a single gram." ([24:07])
• Toby Howell: "They need to bring it to a place where it's less affected by that so they can more efficiently measure it." ([20:40])

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8. AI Solves the Vesuvius Challenge: Deciphering Ancient Scrolls

Artificial Intelligence made significant contributions to archaeology by winning the Vesuvius Challenge, which aimed to decode ancient, fragile scrolls without unrolling them.

Key Highlights:

• Vesuvius Challenge Overview: Funded by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, the competition offered a $700,000 prize for developing a method to peer inside delicate, carbonized scrolls damaged by volcanic ash ([22:00]).

• Winning Solution: A team comprising an Egyptian PhD student in Germany, a robotics student in Switzerland, and a computer science student in Nebraska utilized machine learning algorithms to decipher over 2,000 characters, surpassing the contest's stringent requirements with under a 30% success probability ([22:00]).

• Broader Implications: This achievement underscores AI's practical applications in preserving and studying historical artifacts, demonstrating the global and collaborative nature of technological innovation ([23:02]).

Notable Quotes:

• Toby Howell: "This is using AI to do something extremely practical." ([22:00])
• Neal Freyman: "It's like the most pure form of playing a video game." ([23:02])

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9. Redefining the Infinite Monkey Theorem: Limits of Probability

The episode concludes with a discussion on recent research questioning the feasibility of the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which posits that monkeys typing randomly could eventually reproduce Shakespeare's works.

Key Highlights:

• Research Findings: Two Australian researchers argue that the time required for monkeys to type out Shakespeare would surpass the universe's lifespan, rendering the Infinite Monkey Theorem practically impossible ([24:07]).

• Philosophical Debate: While the theorem holds theoretically under the concept of infinity, the researchers emphasize the practical limitations imposed by the finite nature of the universe ([25:16]).

• Broader Implications: This debate highlights the intersection of mathematics, probability, and philosophy, challenging listeners to reconsider long-held theoretical concepts in light of scientific scrutiny ([25:49]).

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman: "They were saying it's not practical in our known universe." ([25:16])
• Toby Howell: "I think the infinite monkey theorem does hold true because that's the whole concept of infinity right there." ([25:49])

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Conclusion

Neal and Toby wrap up the show by underscoring the optimistic trajectory of scientific and technological advancements. They encourage listeners to stay informed and engaged with Morning Brew’s offerings for more insightful content.

Notable Quotes:

• Neal Freyman: "Hope you are all filled with a little more optimism about the world." ([27:54])
• Toby Howell: "Great show today, Neal. Let's run it back tomorrow." ([27:54])

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This episode of Morning Brew Daily provides a comprehensive overview of 2024’s most impactful technological breakthroughs, balancing innovations in autonomous vehicles, healthcare, AI, and theoretical physics. Neal Freyman and Toby Howell emphasize the positive advancements shaping our future, offering listeners a wealth of knowledge to start their day with optimism and insight.

Transcript

[Sponsor]

This episode is brought to you by Google Gemini. With the Gemini app, you can talk live and have a real time conversation with an AI assistant. It's great for all kinds of things, like if you want to practice for an upcoming interview, ask for advice on things to do in a new city, or brainstorm creative ideas. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. Download the Gemini app for iOS and Android today. Must be 18 to use Gemini Live.

[Neal Freyman]

Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.

[Toby Howell]

And I'm Toby Howell.

[Neal Freyman]

Today put on your safety goggle and hold on to your beakers because here comes the science episode all the biggest.

[Toby Howell]

Tech breakthroughs of the year and why they matter it's Tuesday, December 24th. Let's ride.

[Neal Freyman]

Good morning and Merry Christmas and Hanukkah Eve as part of our run of special edition episodes over the holidays. Today we're going to be diving into the biggest science breakthroughs of the year. Look, it wasn't hard to find alarming things about technology in 20 AI deepfakes. ChatGPT taking your job, Mysterious drones swarming the good folks of New Jersey. It's a little unnerving, but at the.

[Toby Howell]

Same time, technology has resulted in so much progress. Helping create medicines that will save lives, turn AirPods into hearing aids, and invent cool gadgets you didn't know you needed, like a transparent tv. And that's what we want to focus on today, the positive sides of tech. Because you hear plenty about the downsides. Call it Morning Brew Daily's science fair. So without further ado, Neil, you won the pre show present wrapping competition. Kick us off first.

[Neal Freyman]

Let's do it. Well, it's been a long time coming, but after more than $100 billion invested in nearly a decade of promises, 2024 was the year that self driving cars proved the haters wrong, leaping from niche and often despised technology to actually shuttling people around roads. Take Waymo in California, for example. In August, Google's autonomous car division gave about 312,000 rides per month, double its ride volume only three months before. Some estimates say Waymo now accounts for 4% or more of the San Francisco rideshare market. And then over in China, Wuhan is on its way to becoming the world's first driverless city. Now around three in every 100 taxis. There are robo taxis developed by Baidu's autonomous car division. There have been bumps along the way. GM shut down its cruise robot taxi division following safety issues, saying it couldn't justify the enormous investment. But Waymo is Growing like a weed. Now operating commercial robotaxis in three American cities, sf, Phoenix and L A. It's going to enter Austin in Atlanta next year and then Miami after that. It's currently testing in 25 major metro areas around the country. Toby, last year we were talking about how angry San Francisco residents were setting fires to Waymos, putting cones on their hoods to incapacitate them. There's been a distinct vibe ship this year and there's a sense that we might be on the cusp of rapid robotaxi adoption.

[Toby Howell]

There were a lot of understandable naysayers. Was self driving just this pie in the sky, moonshot that was the distraction from actually improving transportation? Should we have put our efforts towards micro mobility or just better urban infrastructure? These were valid questions. But now you see these amount, the amount of rides increasing. You see people's attitudes have totally shifted and now they start to trust these robotaxis a little bit more. In the S curves of how technology is usually adopted, what we've seen is so far the like kind of the tastemaking cities, the San Francisco's of the world, the Wuhan of the world, they usually embrace these technologies a little more. But now we're seeing it rolled out across Miami, across Phoenix, across these other metro areas that aren't necessarily always on the cutting edge of tech adoption. But I do think that you are, you have seen, you use the word vibe shift. A huge vibe ship when it. Vibe shift when it comes to driverless cars.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah, we could see some movement in D.C. as well. One of the biggest roadblocks to autonomous vehicles being more widely adopted and rolling out faster is regulations. And obviously you want to have a lot of rules on the road, literally when it comes to self driving cars. And we have Elon Musk essentially in the White House now. He's betting his entire company, Tesla, they're moving away from just making EVs to becoming a robo taxi company. He said he's going to work with President elect Trump to develop rule, regulation, federal regulations when it comes to autonomous vehicles. So I think there's generally a lot of bullishness and there's no doubt going to be more speed bumps along the way. But you know, if you live in the United States, it's, it's not inconceivable that in the next few years you will be able to hail a robotaxi like you would in San Francisco, in Phoenix right now. And I mean, have you met somebody who's done that?

[Toby Howell]

No. Which maybe just reflects on where my friends live around the country, but I mean, I assume someone who lives in San Francisco. I just don't know that many people who live in the SF area right now. But absolutely, once it comes to Miami, I'm sure my tune will change. Let's keep the good science news rolling. A groundbreaking new HIV prevention drug fared well in clinical clinical trials this year. Called Lena Capavir, the drug was named as the breakthrough of the year by the journal Science, not just in pharma, but in all of science. Lena Capavir offers six months of protection against HIV and has been shown to be remarkably effective in clinical trials so far with a 96% reduction in HIV infections. One of its main draws. It is administered as a twice yearly injection, which is a lot easier for patients to stay on top of compared to the daily oral medications currently on the market. The drug works by targeting a specific protein to prevent the virus from replicating and forming mature particles, an innovation that carries implications for other viral infections as well. Neil, I feel like these trials were a little lost in all the hype around GLP1 drugs this year, but Lena Cap veer is a huge step for the nearly 1.3 million people who were infected with HIV last year.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah, they're saying it could end the HIV epidemic. And you know, this is very concentrated in one region of the world, sub Saharan Africa. This region accounts for 10% of the world's population, but accounts for two thirds of people living with hiv. So if you can get this injection to those people, it could go a long way because the existing treatment or preventative treatment for for HIV is that pill that has a lot of stigma attached with it. People just don't take it as they need to on a daily basis. The big question for this particular drug is cost. It does exist in the United states as an HIV treatment. In 2023, it cost $42,000 per new patient per year. Here in the U.S. meanwhile, the daily oral pill cost less than $4,054 a year. So to get this adopted at all, and they are quite bullish about what this actually can do, going to have to drop the price considerably to get it to the affected populations.

[Toby Howell]

And remember, the UN has this very ambitious goal of trying to end HIV AIDS by the year 2030. And before Atlanta cap of your kind of hit the market, that goal looked entirely unobtainable. But now, given the fact that it is easier to administer, given the fact that you don't have to take this daily tablet that does have stigma attached to it, it is looking like it could potentially be something that's in the cards by 2030. Another reason why people are so excited for excited about these trials that we saw is that they were replicable across geographies and sexes. You saw the study conducted in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, the United states, and across 30, 30, 200 cisgender men, transgender men, transgender women, and gender non binary individuals. So those are some of the reasons why scientists were just so thrilled with this specific breakthrough.

[Neal Freyman]

Let's keep it in the health world. Back in March, the world watched in astonishment as the first patient with a neuralink brain implant used his noggin to move a cursor on a computer screen. The patient, Noland Arbaugh, lost all movement below his shoulders in a diving accident. But thanks to the implant and working with engineers, he was able to play his stepdad in Mario Kart and multitask by talking about the operation after and playing chess at the same time. It was a milestone moment for Brain Computer Interfaces, experimental technology that aims to put a chip inside someone's brain to help people regain their speech, sight or movement. People have moved cursors with their neurons before, but those required a device outside of the brain to transmit data. So you need wires coming out of your skin. Neuralink's breakthrough is that it transmits data wirelessly. It didn't go perfectly. In the subsequent months, about 85% of the threads implanted into Arba's brain came undone, limiting his ability to move the cursor. But all in all, he said he was very grateful and lucky to have the procedure. I just want to bring everyone along this journey with me, he said. I want to show everyone how amazing this is, and it's been just so rewarding. So I'm really excited to keep going. Neuralink has since done an implant in a second patient and got FDA approval for more.

[Toby Howell]

Right. And that is the big question, is where do you go from here? Their second implantation, they want it to reach deeper within the brain. So the first one was around 3 to 5 millimeters in that first surgery. The second one, they want to get to a depth of, of 8 millimeters in order to get better thread anchoring, because that is the next big step here is you said 85% of the threads detach, which really decreases performance. They want to boost those numbers. Another thing they want to do too is that they have this thing called the R1 robot that is really crucial for getting a precise implementation implantation. Excuse me. And they need to scale that up so it can perform multiple surgeries a day. NeuroLink also got FDA's Breakthrough Device designation for this new implant called Blindsight, which they want to try to implant to bring back eyesight for people who have lost it. So yes, there are issues, but again, this is the optimistic science episode and those are a lot of optimists.

[Neal Freyman]

I mean, this guy could not move from his shoulders down and now he's being able to communicate with his brain and move a cursor and play chess. So it's pretty cool. And he is only singing the praises of Neuralink. And we should add, this is Neuralink's not even close to the only company operating this space. There are at least five other companies that want to do something similar and have, have applied from the FDA to be able to test on human patients. So then they're all doing this implant in a different way. Neuralink has its particular way. This, these other companies have their own particular procedures. So seems like there is a movement among a broad swath of companies to get this going.

[Toby Howell]

Apple's AirPods Pro 2 are great for listening to morning brew daily. But Apple wants you to hear more than just the number one business news podcast in the world. It unveiled a groundbreaking feature this year which aims to assist people with mild to moderate hearing loss by turning the popular headphones into hearing aids. Pop in an AirPod in. The feature enhances surrounding sounds so you can hear your environment more clearly. And it's not just a marketing ploy either. The FDA approved their use as clinical grade over the counter hearing aids, which at just $249 means that they are one of the more affordable OTC options out there. And Neil, that is the big unlock here, the affordability of these new hearing aids.

[Neal Freyman]

Would you say this is the coolest thing Apple did this year?

[Toby Howell]

I mean, probably. They've done a lot. They've been digging further into the health space. I mean, they really want their Apple Watch to become this big cohesive health unit. And now they have these AirPods that actually do function as clinical hearing aids. So yes, even though in this era of Apple Intelligence, it might have been the coolest.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah, Vision Pro sailed and flopped and Apple Intelligence allowed people to make, make their own emojis. Siri got a slight upgrade, but that has yet to roll out to a lot of people. I think this was certainly the most consequential thing Apple did this year and it was buried in a list of updates to its new new Operate mobile operating software. So it's really, it's really a big deal. Because so many Americans have hearing loss, but due to the cost of hearing aids. And also we've said this word a lot, stigma. And maybe that's what a lot of these innovations have in common is reduce the stigma around certain ways to help yourself get better. It's, you know, that will probably lead to a lot more people getting help for, for hearing loss and make, make a lot of people's lives better.

[Toby Howell]

So I have the AirPods Pro 2. And so I did the hear test, which is essentially just pings little noises in your ears and you have to determine whether you heard in your right ear or your left ear. And luckily I did not have a ton of hearing loss. But people said that the test is mostly accurate. It doesn't line up perfectly with like their clinical hearing tests that they receive, but it's close enough that they do feel confident that they are diagnosing hearing loss appropriately. And then the other thing that some people who test them out said that you have the same conversation with almost everyone you miss is that, yes, these are hearing aids. No, I understand that they're AirPods. They are also hearing aids. And no, I'm not being rude. I promise you, I'm hearing you better with them. And so even though it says it's reducing that stigma, going up and talking to someone while wearing AirPods or an AirPod still is a little bit weird.

[Neal Freyman]

It's confusing. Maybe they need a different color. Different.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah. Or light to show that they're being used as a, as a hearing aid.

[Neal Freyman]

Have you ever wondered what's going on behind the scenes of your favorite TV show? And behind the scenes, I don't mean the bloopers. I mean literally what's going on in your living room behind the scene. Well, now you can. Thanks to LG's first of its kind transparent TV, which it revealed at the CES trade show in January. This product was the talk of the convention. A 77 inch transparent OLED TV that can either show you content on a screen or go full invisibility cloak and reveal what's behind it. It's. It'd be perfect for the living room of a billionaire Marvel villain when it ships because it's expected to cost in the tens of thousands of dollars and has no real practical purpose. But Toby LG isn't the only one trying out transparency. Samsung also revealed a see through TV of its own at ces. What do you think? Gimmick or new design esthetic for the rich and famous?

[Toby Howell]

I think it's somewhere in the middle. I know That's a cop out. But when I heard Transparent TV I thought it would be like this plastic semi translucent thing. But when you see this, it literally it is a glass box. There's nothing in it. And I think the 3D nature of it was something I didn't expect is that it's got multiple modes. One mode shows off its 3D effect so you can turn it into an aquarium that looks like there's fish swimming around in it because it is a box. But then you can also watch regular TV on it. I was reading some reviews again on like how did the TV actually perform? And it's not quite up to par with the top of line models from, from lg. And so that could be a point of kind of departure for these big TV nerds. They don't want to watch something that they know they could get better resolution somewhere else out there. But I will say it was cool, especially kind of that 3D effect that we spoke about. Up next, some more science breakthroughs coming your way.

[Sponsor]

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[Toby Howell]

Neil, you've had the chance to work with plenty of strong leaders in your career. What traits do you think are the most important?

[Neal Freyman]

In my experience, a few do stand out, like leading by example, taking risks and being passionate.

[Toby Howell]

And for all those influential leaders out there, there's the Range Rover Sport that's.

[Neal Freyman]

Definitely a match made in heaven.

[Toby Howell]

Each model strikes an ideal balance between on road performance and world renowned off road capability of sophisticated refinement and visceral power. And you can build a Range Rover Sport that matches your leadership style at Range Rover Sport@Land RoverUSA.com that's Land Rover USA.com okay, so I know this is a science positive episode, but this next story is less of an innovation and more of a debunking. Remember Blue Zones, Those special places around the world where people seem to live longer, healthier lives thanks to a simple set of easily repeatable behaviors. Stuff like community involvement in specific diets were enough to produce lifespans well into the 90s and 1000s in regions stretching from Okinawa Japan to Loma Linda, California. The only issue, some scientists think it's a bunch of hoo ha. One postdoctoral researcher from Australia, Dr. Newman, published a paper that was recently honored at the IG Nobel Prizes, a humorous spinoff of the Nobel Prizes, that chalked up the increased lifespans found in Blue Zones to shoddy record keeping. Newman found that areas with high levels of faulty records also had high levels of, of centenarians living there. One especially egregious example is a 2010 Japanese study that found that 230,000 centenarians were actually just a result of unreported deaths. So, Neil, there's been some pushback to Newman's work and his paper is not peer reviewed yet. But it certainly cast Blue Zones in a different light.

[Neal Freyman]

It did and it made a lot of waves because the Blue Zones brand has quietly become huge. There's Blue Zones iced tea, there's Blue Zones bean soups, there's eight books and Netflix series, partnerships, $1 million program for other cities to become part of Blue Zones. We even talked about real estate developments getting a Blue Zone designation, which probably cost money that they had to play Blue Zones for. So it was a, maybe a direct threat to the global Blue Zones brand. And the Blue Zones guy who's a National Geographic reporter who turned Blue Zones from just a concept into, into global brand, certainly pushed back on the research from, from the. Dr. Newman, Dr. Newman, sorry, Dr. Newman and said, look, we cross check everything like you think. We just go and take everybody, take these cities, you know, word for the fact that how many people live over 100 like we did our research. So there was, there's certainly a debate over that, but I think it knocked down Blue Zones a little bit from its perch.

[Toby Howell]

One thing that is for sure though, longevity is becoming much more in vogue these days. Remember there's Brian Johnson, the former tech founder who now has devoted all his time and money and dignity to try to slow aging. You also see a rise in people trying out these different protocols to live longer. Drinking is going down. There is definitely a vibe shift in our society towards longevity. So even if Blue Zones, the brand might have taken a hit, I do think this is a trend that is moving towards longevity, being more popular.

[Neal Freyman]

And also, you know, the stuff that he says people in Blue Zones do is kind of universal and, and seems good for lack of a better words, a word. I mean, it's like, eat nutritious, diet fruits and vegetables, get plenty of physical activity, build physical activity into your daily life. Prioritize family and community. Don't smoke, drink in moderation. I mean, even if blue zones are bunk or a bunch of hoo ha, as you say, I mean, those seem to be, like, some worthwhile principles to follow. What's the trickiest thing to move in the world? My mind goes straight to carrying a very full beer from the bar to the table without any spillage. But no, no, there's something far more dicey, and scientists have finally cracked how to do it. Researchers at the CERN Particle Physics lab in Switzerland have learned how to move antimatter and are preparing to take it on a truck to other labs. The first time anyone has ever moved antimatter. Antimatter is the most expensive material on Earth, requiring several trillion dollars just to make a single gram. And transporting it is not easy. The only time it's ever been done is in fiction, Dan Brown's novel Angels and Demons, when terrorists steal a quarter gram from CERN and plan to use it to blow up the Vatican. And that's kind of the problem with shuttling antimatter around. If it comes into contact with matter, both get annihilated instantly. The scientists say it won't result in any significant explosion if it rubs elbows with matter, but it would mean a lot of work and money will have gone down the drain. So they're taking remarkable precautions to make sure the antimatter stays isolated in a vacuum when it is moved. Toby, I can't wait for this.

[Toby Howell]

I can't wait for it either, but my first question was, why the heck are we moving it at all? And part of the reason is that antimatter can tell us a lot about just the origins of the universe, because technically, when the big brain happened, equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created. But if you look out in the known universe, there's a lot of matter out there. So why did the balance shift so heavily in favor of matter? These are the fundamental questions of our universe. And so in order to study them, they want to compare matter with antimatter very closely to see where the differences are. And the reason why they can't do it is the current positioning of antimatter is affected by some magnetic fields of the Earth, So they need to bring it to a place where it's less affected by that so they can more efficiently measure it. But, yeah, I'm excited, too. They're doing it on trucks, too. Yeah, you said that. They're putting them in vacuums so they don't come in contact with antimatter. But what about. Or come in contact with matter. But what about a little bump in the road or something like that? They're putting them on seven ton trucks and actually driving them through the countryside. So that would be quite the nervy piloting job of trying to drive to Toby to eyes on the road.

[Neal Freyman]

We need it. We need a helicopter police cam of this. Like the, like the O.J. bronco chairs.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah. It probably won't be quite as fast paced, but it will be fun to watch. Of all the uses of AI that have arise over the past year, I think this one is my favorite. When Mount Vesuvius erupted over 2,000 years ago, some papyrus scrolls actually ended up surviving. But the carbonized scrolls are incredibly delicate to handle and crumble if you try to unroll them. Enter the Vesuvius Challenge, a competition funded by some Silicon Valley and entrepreneurs that promised to reward a cash prize to anyone who could find a way to peer inside the scrolls without actually unrolling them. Back in February of this year, A team of three students won the $700,000 grand prize using AI to decipher the scrolls hidden secrets. Despite the contest organizers estimating a less than 30% probability of anyone actually meeting the contest criteria, the three students machine learning algorithm deciphered more than 2,000 characters in the scrolls exceeding the grand prize's requirements. This was definitely one of my favorite stories of the year Neil, because it is using AI to do something extremely practical.

[Neal Freyman]

Actually extremely practical, extremely cool. And the people who won it show the global nature of this and how competitions like this can actually be really effective. I mean the three, the guys who won the the $700,000 prize were an Egyptian PhD student in Germany, a robotics student in Switzerland and then a computer science student in Nebraska. All young, all in it just to they said it was like the most pure form of playing a video game. So I think this is cool. And we'll probably see similar competitions to, to accomplish different things that you know, machine learning can do.

[Toby Howell]

And I think we bury the lead here too. But what did the passages say first? The first word that was deciphered was just the word for purple actually. But the passage in general, they think it is a kind of philosophical discussion of life's pleasures. So talking about music and food, a lot of people likened it to reading a 2000 year old blog post about just how to enjoy life. So it shows you self help books or self reflection books do go back to the very beginning of western civilization.

[Neal Freyman]

Okay, let's close out the show with perhaps the most important scientific discovery of the year. Monkeys cannot type out the complete works of William Shakespeare given infinite time because the universe will run out before then. I'll back up. There's a famous mathematical concept called the infinite monkey theory, which suggests that a monkey pressing random keys on a typewriter would eventually write out the complete works of Shakespeare with an infinite amount of time, because anything is possible over an infinite time horizon. However, two Australian researchers rejected the theory in a peer reviewed study. They claimed that the amount of time it would take for a monkey typing to write out the complete works of Shakespeare would be far longer than the lifespan of our universe, one Google years. So they rejected the infinite monkey theory as misleading. Even getting the monkeys to write out a single word would be a challenge. If all 200,000 chimpanzees were recruited and typed at a rate of one key per second until the universe ended, there would only be a 5% chance a single one would type out the word bananas. The probability of one writing a coherent sentence would be 1 in 10 million billion. Toby, are you buying this?

[Toby Howell]

Well, I'm buying it, but I feel like they are not jiving with the concept of infinity here. Whenever you put a time horizon on infinity, it ceases to become infinity. So yes, technically all the known monkeys in the universe couldn't type Shakespeare in the given before the heat death of our universe. But that's the key word here. It's an infinite monkey theorem. They need infinite time to do it. So they were just saying it's not practical in our known universe. But I still think the infinite monkey theorem does hold true because that's the whole concept of infinity right there.

[Neal Freyman]

I think I could be, you know, a published scientist if I said that this is not practical.

[Toby Howell]

Right?

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah, I could have told you that. Maybe it would have, you know, won some awards.

[Toby Howell]

It was fun though to hear that they would be a 5% chance that they would be able to successfully type the word bananas in its own lifetime. So it is a fun, you know, kind of rabbit hole to go down. I actually do love the infinite monkey theorem too, because I wrote a paper back in high school that was basically asking if it was a philosophical discussion, really, but if someone recreated a text word for word, but in a different time period, under different historical and environmental circumstances, is it still the same piece of work? So if I wrote Shakespeare today, would it still be considered the same piece of work given our current modern formatting? And so it is just a fun thing to think about. Like if a monkey wrote Shakespeare, is it still Shakespeare at that point? Or is it becomes something else. So it's. It's fun to think about beyond just the mathematical ideas behind what if you.

[Neal Freyman]

Just reduce the amount of keys? Like, how much would you have to reduce the amount of keys for a monkey to be able to plausibly type out Shakespeare by the end of the universe? You know, if we got rid of the return. The shift. I'm looking at my keyboard now. There's a lot of extraneous keys. So if we just narrowed it.

[Toby Howell]

Well, it is a typewriter.

[Neal Freyman]

Typewriter. So none of that has it anyway, right?

[Toby Howell]

I think it just has.

[Neal Freyman]

You know, I just wonder what the minimum amount. Amount of keys, you know, I guess then you couldn't. You would miss some letters.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah.

[Neal Freyman]

Shakespeare. Anyway. Wow. I'm getting deep into the infinite monkey theorem. But Christmas is tomorrow, Hanukkah is tomorrow. So we need to wrap up. Hope you are all filled with a little more optimism about the world, a little more understanding of how monkeys type on a typewriter. For any questions, comments or feedback, send an email to Morning Brew Daily at Morning Broadcom. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Uchenawa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Menino is on Audio Hair Makeup's Paper Mache Volcano did not make the final cut for the show. Devin Emery is our chief content officer. And our show is a production of Morning Brew.

[Toby Howell]

Great show today, Neal. Let's run it back tomorrow. Wait, wait. Before you go, Neil has one more thing to tell you.

[Neal Freyman]

It's time to come clean. Hosting Morning Brew Daily isn't my only job.

[Toby Howell]

Wait, are you Batman?

[Neal Freyman]

No. When I'm not here sitting next to Toby, I'm also the executive editor of Morning Brews free daily newsletter. If you love the pod, you'll love the newsletter. Not only does it give you your daily dose of news, but it also has crosswords and trivia and jokes written by people way funnier than me and Toby.

[Toby Howell]

I hate to admit it, but it's true. I read it every day and I think you all will love adding it to your routine as well.

[Neal Freyman]

Subscribe now at Morning Broadcom or head to the link in the show notes.