Good morning. In this week’s edition of epic feats, 44-year-old Robert Pope downed a pint of Guinness and ran the entire length of Ireland.

The cause he was supporting? The WWF.

One can only assume that Robert, like many of us, fondly misses the attitude era of wrestling from the late 90’s, featuring larger-than-life personalities like Stone Cold, Triple H, The Rock… and don’t get us started on the time in 1998 when The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell and he plummeted 16 ft through an announcer's table….

HOLD UP: It’s just come to our attention that the “WWF” in question is actually the World Wildlife Fund. A somewhat less noble cause (😉) but hey, hats off for an impressive accomplishment.👏

For kicks, you can also down a pint of Guinness and donate to the WWF here.

In today’s edition:

• 📱 Why texts go green
• 📶 How WiFi actually works
• 🕷 Spiders may have dreams

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.98 minutes to read.

“The greatest harm in the world has been done by people with good intentions.”

–T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Google began its “Get the Message” PR campaign yesterday, taking aim at Apple and reviving the age-old debate that’s divided friend groups, torn apart families, and sowed division throughout the world: green bubble vs. blue bubble.

🤔 What’s going on?… For time travelers from the past, iMessage is only available to people with an iPhone. Apple reverts any non-iMessage to SMS or MMS, resulting in the green bubbles 47% of smartphone-owning America knows and secretly (or openly) loathes.

But this debate goes beyond just green bubbles. Google is pushing Apple to adopt what’s known as RCS, a next-gen text messaging standard that would allow for several new features when an iPhone user texts an Android user, including higher-resolution photos, the ability to send texts over Wi-Fi, and the ability to display read receipts. RCS messages are also encrypted, while SMS/MMS messages are not.

The issue with this whole pitch – and what Google’s trying to change – is that Apple isn’t exactly incentivized to switch. In fact, it’s the direct opposite.

• Internal emails made public during a lawsuit last year showed senior Apple execs shooting down proposals to bring an iMessage app to Android, due to its ecosystem lock-in.
• “I am concerned iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” current Apple senior vice president in charge of software Craig Federighi wrote in 2013.
• 87% of all smartphone-owning teens currently have an iPhone, according to the latest Piper Sandler survey… and 87% say their next phone will be an iPhone.

📱 Bottom line: This isn’t the first time Google’s made the RCS pitch (or tried to foray into messaging), and it probably won’t be the last. And while one can dream for a more secure, unified cross-platform messaging standard in the near future… it’ll probably remain just that.

+Dive deeper: With iMessage, Apple has created a phenomenon referred to in the investment world as a “network effect.” Learn more.

A team of Austrian scientists developed a new technique to make WiFi signals more transmittable through walls without reflection, per new research published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

📶 We were today years old when we found out… WiFi stands for Wireless Fidelity. It works off the same (very simplified) principle as other wireless devices:

1. When accessing the Internet, your computer or mobile device converts the information you’ve requested into radio waves, transmitting it via 1’s and 0’s, the basis for all computer code, using an antenna. (A more in-depth look at how that’s done.)
2. Your wireless router receives the signal and decodes it. The router then sends that information through a physical, hardwired cable connected to the Internet.
3. Finally, the process is reversed. Your wireless router receives the relevant information from the Internet via cable, translates it into a radio signal, then beams it back to your device, which translates the radio signal into a webpage.

All of this happens incredibly quickly. Most routers operate at 54 Mbps (megabits per second), meaning when they translate and transmit data, 54 million 1’s and 0’s are taken in or sent out each second.

📝 One thing to note: WiFi radio waves can already penetrate through most walls fairly well, but there is some reflection. The Austrian scientists’ new technique would eliminate virtually all reflection, allowing for a stronger WiFi connection than before.

Drumroll, please… 🥁🥁🥁

The Consumer Price Index, the most widely used measure of US inflation, rose 8.5% in the year through July, according to official government figures released yesterday. That’s down from 9.1% for the twelve months preceding June.

And on a monthly basis, the CPI was unchanged in July after rising 1.3% the prior month, marking its largest monthly deceleration since 1973 (from +1.3% → 0%).

📉📈 Driving the numbers… energy prices, which saw a 4.6% overall decline in July compared to the previous month. That helped offset a 1.1% monthly increase in food – including the highest annual grocery inflation since 1979 (13.1%) – and a 0.5% increase in shelter costs.

• The price of gas at the pump has fallen for 57 straight days, and now costs 20% less than it did in mid-June ($4.01/gallon nationwide, per AAA).
• Used-car prices also dropped on a month-to-month basis, as did airline fares and apparel. July tends to be a big month for discounting, largely due to Amazon Prime Day and other sales-based holidays from its competitors.

👀 Looking ahead… The Fed’s policy-making committee, which has raised interest rates from near-zero to the 2.25%–2.50% range so far this year, will meet in early September to consider a further increase. The central bank’s long-term goal is for annual US inflation to be around 2%.

+In the know: Social Security recipients are on track to receive the highest cost-of-living increase in more than four decades next year, based on averaging monthly inflation readings in 2022.

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Fun fact – Earth is the only planet in our Solar System that has continents (yeah, yeah, yeah, four of the eight planets are gas. But still).

Exactly how they formed is still an open question, but scientific consensus maintains that long ago, all of our planet’s land mass was connected together to form one big supercontinent, known as Pangea – though just like a previously married couple who quietly changed their last names on Instagram, we’re not quite sure what caused it to break up.

📝🌏 Until now… There’s strong evidence Pangea broke up due to giant meteor impacts throughout Earth's early history, according to a newly published peer-reviewed study conducted by scientists from Curtin University in Australia.

The researchers’ smoking gun lies in the Pilbara Craton, aka the best-preserved chunk of the Earth’s crust in existence from the Archean Eon, a period of time ~3 billion years ago.

• After studying the presence of different types of oxygen isotopes in 26 rock samples from Pilbara, they discovered the first solid evidence that giant meteorite impacts stimulated continent formation.

✋ Yes, but: There are other Pangea break-up theories – like the plate tectonic theory, for instance. And the researchers only studied one craton, a piece of continent that’s been stable for over a billion years, out of around 35 known in the world.

👀 Looking ahead… The scientists’ next step is to compare results from this craton with samples from others... only then will we see if their model holds up.

💬 Quoted… “A second job for $1 million."

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was told by the Justice Department yesterday that he was the second target of a foiled assassination plot by an Iranian operative. 

• The first target? Then-National Security Adviser John Bolton, who the suspect allegedly tried to hire someone to assassinate for $300,000, Axios reports.

🦠 Stat of the Day: 7 in 10 Americans, regardless of party affiliation, want to be able to vote on an abortion measure on their state ballot, according to an Ipsos/USA Today poll published yesterday.

• If there was an abortion-related state ballot measure, the poll found 54% of Americans would vote in favor of abortion legality, whereas 28% say they’d vote against it.
• Party-wise, Democrats overwhelmingly support legal abortion in their state (76%-10%), Independents favor it by a 2-to-1 factor (52%-27%), and most Republicans would oppose it (34%-54%).

🌎 Around the World: Drought conditions are currently affecting about 60% of the EU and UK, according to new research from the European Drought Observatory.

🤯 Did You Know?... The term ‘buccaneer’ was derived from a process for smoking meat.

📖 Worth a Read: The Haves and the Have-Yachts → The New Yorker

📊 Poll results: Yesterday, we asked whether y’all agreed with the FBI’s decision to search former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

• 53% of y’all said yes, 25% said no, 18% said there’s not enough info yet, and 4% were unsure or had a different, more nuanced opinion.

See the full 360° view here.

• ☝️ A single-engine plane carrying a pilot and one passenger crash-landed on California's 91 Freeway after an engine malfunction yesterday, striking a truck before igniting into flames; both the pilot and passenger survived and didn’t require medical assistance.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🪙 The SEC unveiled a new proposal that would require large hedge funds to report their exposure to crypto.
• ⚖️ Two former JPMorgan Chase traders were convicted by a federal jury in Chicago yesterday for manipulating gold prices. | A former Twitter employee was convicted on Tuesday of spying for Saudi Arabia.
• 💰 Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold $6.9 billion worth of shares in the EV maker, saying the funds could be used to finance a potential Twitter deal if he loses the upcoming legal battle. (Background)

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📺 Disney reported a 14.4 million gain in Disney+ subscribers last quarter, bringing its global total to 152.1 million as of July 2; the company now has 221.1 million subscribers across all of its streaming platforms globally, putting it ahead of Netflix, which has 220.7 million.
• 🔌 Apple is reportedly planning to switch the iPhone and AirPods to USB-C as soon as next year, per analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
• 🏈 NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league is seeking at least a year-long suspension for Browns QB Deshaun Watson. (Background) | NFL owners officially approved the sale of the Denver Broncos to an ownership group led by Walmart heir Rob Walton for $4.65 billion, a record sale for an American sports franchise.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🌕 The last supermoon of the year, called the ‘Sturgeon moon,’ will be in the night sky tonight.
• 🧠〰️🏠 At Chinese tech company Xiaomi’s recent hackathon, a group of engineers developed a headband that uses “electroencephalogram technology to translate your brainwaves into smart home commands.”
• 🕷️💤 A new study suggests that spiders could have dreams.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🚚🍺 Yesterday was a bad day to be a Bud Light: A semi-truck carrying an undisclosed amount of Bud Light cans overturned on a highway outside of Louisville, KY.
• 💉 Around 1 million children in London will be offered polio vaccine boosters after British health authorities discovered virus samples throughout the city, suggesting a level of transmission.
• ⚖️ Former President Trump asserted his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination yesterday during a daylong interview with the New York AG over allegations that he fraudulently inflated the value of his real-estate holdings. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)
• 📢 Ready to cut through the noise? 10+1 Things is a free weekly newsletter that shares fascinating, highly-curated information… the stuff you won’t get recommended to you by robots or algorithms. Subscribe for free.🙅🤖*

*Sponsored post

In a small village up north, a group of 200 young Ukrainians is working tirelessly to clean up explosion debris from a Russian occupation months before. At the same time, a DJ spins his turntables to the next track.

🕺 Let's dance... These daytime “clean-up raves” in Yahidne were organized by young citizens who love to dance. They've been using parties as a way to motivate the recovery and rebuilding efforts.

• The dance parties are a group endeavor, with volunteers showing up with shovels and tools to help clear through the rubble, all while listening to their favorite techno music. 

🎶🇺🇦 Bottom line: “I like electronic music and I used to party," said one volunteer. "But now it’s wartime and we want to help, and we’re doing it with music.”

Can you name the 5 largest cities in Europe by population?

(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.

1. Istanbul (pop. 15.8 million; the city straddles the border of Europe and Asia)
2. Moscow (pop. 12.6 million)
3. London (pop. 9.0 million)
4. St. Petersburg (pop. 5.3 million)
5. Berlin (pop. 3.7 million)