💬 Quoted: “Jumping provides an effective way of traveling around locations where the terrain is very uneven, or where there are a lot of obstacles.”

• Engineers at the University of Manchester have created a new system that enables robots to channel their inner Superman Superbot and scale a 40-story building in a single leap – or nearly 4x higher than the current robot-jumping record (~400 ft vs ~110 ft). Their breakthrough design opts for a leg-based propulsion system similar to how kangaroos hop, which helps maximize the energy of each jump. Manchester researchers say their improved robot-jumping technique has a wide range of applications, including planetary exploration, disaster rescue, and monitoring hazardous or inaccessible spaces.

💳 Stat of the Day: Credit-card chargebacks have surged in popularity over the past few years. US consumers disputed ~$11 billion worth of credit-card charges last year, up from $7.2 billion in 2019, according to research firm Datos Insights. At the same time, North American merchants reported a 69% increase in chargeback misuse last year, while merchants globally estimate that “friendly fraud” (when people misuse the process to chargeback legitimate purchases) accounted for 20% of all disputes in 2023.

🤔 Did You Know? Pistachios are prone to spontaneous combustion when stored together in large quantities, leading to strict regulations when transporting shipments of the nut.

📰 Worth a Read: A story of greed, corruption, and cartel fights: Inside Mexico's anti-avocado militias → (The Guardian)