💬 Quoted: “Social media creates a virtual reality, and who controls the virtual reality? Our new archenemy, the famous Elon Musk. Do you want to fight? Let’s do it. Elon Musk, I’m ready.”

• Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is currently dealing with the fallout from last weekend’s controversial presidential election – but he still has time to trade barbs with the world’s richest man. In recent days, Elon Musk has posted 50+ tweets about Maduro, that label him a dictator, compare him to a donkey, accuse him of carrying out “major election fraud,” and blame Venezuela’s collapsed economy on the corruption of leftist politicians. Musk’s comments have triggered strong pushback from Maduro, who challenged the billionaire to a fight during a televised speech Tuesday (quote above; to which Musk responded in a post: “I accept”). Separately, the US government last night recognized Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González as the winner of Sunday’s presidential election, discrediting the results announced by electoral authorities who declared Maduro the victor.

💎🪐 Stat of the Day: If Lucy was in the ground with diamonds instead of the sky, she was probably visiting the planet Mercury. According to a new study published in Nature Communications, the smallest planet in our Solar System likely contains a layer of diamonds up to 11 miles thick below the planet’s surface. However, researchers say the diamonds are virtually inaccessible – even with future, more advanced technologies – since they’re buried 300+ miles underground.

🤔 Did You Know? Using CRISPR gene-editing tools, Harvard scientists in 2017 managed to store a GIF animation of a galloping horse in the DNA of bacteria.

📰 Worth a Read: ChatGPT and the movie ‘Her’ are just the latest example of the ‘sci-fi feedback loop’ → (The Conversation)