Good morning and welcome to Wednesday. Car insurance companies love to tell us about how much money we can save, but just imagine how much more we could save if they didn’t spend so much on commercials.😉🤯

Some things you’ll know after reading this email:

• 🩸 How tattoos can measure blood pressure
• 🏘 The median existing home price for May (hint: it was a record-high)
• 🙈💨 Which animal literally runs so fast that it can’t see

... and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today's news takes 4.61 minutes to read.

"Fear has two meanings: 'Forget Everything And Run' or 'Face Everything And Rise.' The choice is yours."

–Hilary "Zig" Ziglar (1926-2012)

Crypto networks like bitcoin aren’t as decentralized as many of their proponents claim, according to a new report commissioned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

🪙📋 A deeper dive… In recent years, it’s largely been taken for granted that blockchains – the public ledgers keeping track of crypto transactions, which are replicated on computers around the world – are decentralized and unable to be changed.

But in practice, nearly all of the major crypto networks have evolved to create “unintended centralities” that could grant outsized power to certain groups, the report says.

• For instance: 60% of all bitcoin traffic is handled by just three internet service providers. So in theory, a country with top-down control of their domestic internet could take over a ‘decentralized’ blockchain and control all of its transactions, past and present.
• The report also said 21% of bitcoin nodes – the computers that host its blockchain – are running old software that has a known vulnerability; only a simple majority of nodes need to be hacked in order to control bitcoin’s entire blockchain (aka a ‘51% attack’).

✋ Yes, but… Some crypto executives told NPR the scenarios proposed in the DARPA report are only theoretical, and highly unlikely to happen under real-world conditions.

📸 Big picture: The overall crypto market has shrunk from $3+ trillion in market cap to less than $1 trillion since early November, with bitcoin losing nearly 70% of its value.

• The S&P 500 has lost roughly 20% over that same period, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has dropped nearly 30%.

Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D) signed a new law this week requiring public schools in the state to offer free menstrual products to all students.

📝 More deets... The measure is expected to cost state taxpayers roughly $1 million per year once it goes into effect on July 1.

• A recent study carried out by nonprofit Mai Movement Hawaii discovered that eight out of 10 local students faced difficulties getting period products.
• Other nationally-focused research has found millions of impoverished Americans are forced to choose between menstrual products and food each month.

🌎 Zoom out: Hawaii is now one of six states to mandate free menstrual products in public schools, joining California, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland and Vermont.

• On a global scale, Scotland recently became the first nation in the world to make period products free of charge to all who need them; the measure, which passed unanimously, is expected to cost around $32 million per year (or ~$6 per resident).

Call your significant other to check-in, because breakups are all the rage rn.

Kellogg’s, the multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan, became the latest to hop on the trend, announcing yesterday that it’s breaking up into three separate companies.

😋🥣🌱 And then there were three… The yet-to-be-named solo brands are as follows:

1. Snacks. Think: Pringles, Cheez-Its, Pop-Tarts, etc. This division is a heavy-hitter for Kellogg’s, the $11.4 billion business accounted for 80% of the company’s net sales last year.
2. Cereal. This division, which is the second-largest cereal supplier in the US after General Mills, includes hard-working salespeople like Tony the Tiger, Snap, Crackle, Pop, and Toucan Sam.
3. Plant-based. In early 2020, Kellogg’s released a line of plant-based burgers and tenders called Incogmeato. The company plans to expand that and other plant-based brands it owns in North America first, then globally; this division brought in $340 million in net sales last year.

🚗 Driving the move... Kellogg aims to create more agile, focused companies that can better adapt to shifting market trends – a marked difference from the food industry’s decadeslong strategy of pursuing acquisitions and building scale, according to the WSJ.

🔀 Zoom out: Kraft Foods orchestrated a similar split about 10 years ago, spinning off its North American grocery business to focus on its faster-growing snack brands including Oreos and Triscuits, a business it named Mondelez International Inc.

It can be largely overrated! If you’re not wisdomous or well-knowledgized, it’s ok, no one likes a know-it-all anyway!

The good news is we’re all at least a little bit Smartish, and that’s even better!

What’s Smartish you ask?

📖 Definition of Smartish…

1. Mindset to simplify the overly complex
2. Makes everyday life a little easier

Our friends took these values and turned them into a company, aptly titled Smartish, which delivers ingenious-ish and affordable smartphone products built to last, backed by a lifetime warranty and over 30 thousand 5-star reviews. 👏

We're talking cool products like the magnetic Cable Wrangler, which keeps cords clean and within reach, or the Dancing Queen, a cross-body wallet case (and much more!).👌

Make life a little breezier this summer with Smartish.

Researchers from UT Austin and Texas A&M have developed a new e-tattoo that can deliver highly-accurate blood pressure measurements for up to 24 hours at a time, according to a new peer-reviewed study.

🩸 Background: Blood pressure is “the most important vital sign you can measure,” per the study’s authors; if left untreated, high blood pressure can lead to a range of potentially fatal outcomes, like a heart attack or stroke.

• For decades, the gold standard for measurement has been cuff-based devices that constrict around the arm. 
• But these only measure a single moment in time, rather than delivering continuous results, and are often too clunky to use outside of medical settings.

💉 That’s where e-tattoos come in… This technology is similar to temporary tattoos for children: you get them damp, hold them to your skin, and they stick for a few days.

• But while temporary tattoos are merely decorative, the new e-tattoos are designed to monitor a patient’s blood pressure in all kinds of scenarios – like sleeping or exercising – while delivering thousands more measurements than any device currently on the market.

👀 Looking ahead... While their e-tattoo is still in early development, the scientists are hopeful it’ll lead to the “holy grail” of blood pressure monitoring – an accurate, cuffless device for commercial use.

• ☝️ Hong Kong’s iconic Jumbo floating restaurant has reportedly sunk in the South China Sea days after it was towed away from the city's harbor, where it operated for nearly 50 years.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 US markets rebounded from their worst week since March 2020 yesterday after taking Monday off for Juneteenth. (Dow: +2.2% | S&P: +2.5% | Nasdaq: +2.5%)
• 🏘️ Median existing-home prices rose nearly 15% year-over-year in May to reach $407,600, the highest level on record dating back to 1999.
• 🚬 The Biden administration has officially started the process of requiring tobacco companies to reduce the amount of nicotine in their cigarettes to non-addictive levels. (From the Left | From the Right)

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 Browns QB Deshaun Watson has reached settlements with 20 of the 24 women who filed sexual misconduct suits against him, according to their attorney.
• 😷 Broadway will lift its audience mask mandate on July 1.
• ⚖️ A civil jury found that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted a minor at the Playboy Mansion in the mid-1970s, awarding the victim $500,000 in damages.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🚀 South Korea successfully launched a satellite into orbit on a domestically built rocket for the first time in history.
• ☀️ An enormous sunspot that's doubled in size over the past 24 hours is currently facing Earth, though experts say it's unlikely to burst and send a solar flare our way.
• 🤖🍳 A team of Chinese and Swiss researchers created a machine learning-based system that teaches robots to stir-fry like the pros.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🇷🇺 Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov auctioned off his 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for $103.5 million; Muratov, the co-founder and former editor-in-chief of independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, said all of the proceeds would go to Ukrainian refugees affected by the war.
• 📝 A bipartisan group of senators agreed on the legislative text of a pending measure to address gun violence. (From the Left | From the Right | Background from the DONUT)
• 🏛️ The Jan. 6 House Committee held its fourth public hearing yesterday. (From the Left | From the Right | See the 360° view from Day 1)

💬 Quoted… “Abject failure.”

There was nothing preventing officers in Uvalde, TX, from entering a dual elementary school classroom where a shooter was actively gunning down students and teachers, the director of Texas’ Department of Public Safety told state lawmakers at a hearing yesterday.

• He specifically criticized the decisions of Uvalde school district police chief Pedro Arredondo, whom he said was “the only thing stopping the hallway of dedicated officers from entering [the] rooms.” 

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

📊 Stat of the Day: A record-low 81% of Americans believe in God, according to a new Gallup poll, down from 87% in 2017.

🌎 Around the World: The Indian government has asked state oil companies to purchase huge volumes of cheap crude from Russia, which would likely take most of the sting out of Western energy sanctions, industry executives told the WSJ.

• India has increased imports of Russian oil by more than 25-fold since the start of the war, buying an average of 1 million barrels a day in June vs. 30,000 in February.

+Dig deeper: How Russia is evading Western oil sanctions.

🤯 Did You Know?... Tiger beetles can run so fast that they effectively blind themselves; at speeds of ~120 body lengths per second, their eyes don’t take in enough photons to create an image, leaving them temporarily unable to see.

📖 Worth a Read: 'The Worst Person You Know': The Man Who Unwittingly Became a Meme → (The Guardian)

I’ll never touch it

A few projects look interesting, but I’m still mostly wary

There are some drawbacks, but on the whole it’s great

I’m all in, baby

I haven’t formed an opinion yet/other

+Note: A written response isn't required, all you need to do is click one of the links above and your vote is recorded. Poll results and the best comments for each response will be featured in tomorrow's newsletter.

1. ❓ Trivia: Who released the 1971 album titled Hunky Dory?
2. 🐬 True or False?… Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
3. 🤔 Riddle Me This: What came first, the chicken or the egg?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get just for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone you think would like the DONUT.

Trivia: David Bowie.👨‍🎤

T/F: True.😉😴

Riddle: The egg. Dinosaurs laid eggs long before chickens were around.🦖🥚