Good morning. For anyone worried about AI creating all of our content – don’t worry, reality is already weird enough. Like, for example, the word “mortician,” which came about because of a PR move!

That’s right. In 1895, an actual magazine called The Embalmers’ Monthly put out a call for suggestions to replace the much-too-spooky “undertaker.”

Wow. First off, big ups to the self-awareness of these funeral directors. They looked inward, saw a problem, and decided to fix it.

But… “mortician”?? That’s not exactly screaming warm-and-fuzzies, is it? Anyways. If The Embalmers’ Monthly has another contest, here are some of our rebranding ideas:

• Post-life party planner
• Cadaver care coordinator
• One last thing before you go stylist
• Farewell fashionista
• Departure Design Planner (if weddings can have planners, why not funerals?)

If this wasn’t weird enough, when we googled “mortician names,” the VERY FIRST result was an article called “Baby names for future morticians.” Great stuff, everyone!

Ok our mom is screaming that breakfast is ready, here’s NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.87 minutes to read.

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

–Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Those who love Mardi Gras would probably feel right at home on the Moon. According to a study published yesterday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience, our lunar surface contains trillions of gallons of previously-undiscovered water that’s embedded in microscopic glass beads scattered across its surface.

There’s no word yet on whether you can run a string through ‘em – but the study’s findings could help future lunar missions produce drinking water, breathable air, and rocket fuel.

📿 More details… The study’s evidence came from a Chinese rover that spent two weeks on the Moon in December 2020, where it drilled down several feet into the lunar surface and brought 3.7 pounds of material back to Earth for analysis.

The lunar sample included thousands of millimeter-wide glass beads (pictured above), which originated from past asteroid impacts or volcanic activity. And much like Dippin’ Dots stands in a baseball stadium, they’re found across the entire surface of the Moon.

• After analyzing over 100 of the beads, Chinese scientists discovered that water was embedded inside most of them. And while the amount of water in each individual bead was miniscule, there are a LOT of beads on the Moon’s surface – enough to provide an estimated 71 trillion gallons of water.
• For context, that’s enough to supply all of the American public’s water needs for nearly five years. And all future missions have to do to access the H2O, per the study, is collect the beads containing water and heat them to a temperature of 212°F.

🌕💧 Zoom out: It’s potentially not just our Moon that contains this form of H2O. The researchers say they think other moons orbiting planets in the Solar System contain similar or even larger amounts of water embedded inside glass beads.

🇮🇱 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to temporarily pause his controversial judicial reform plan following mass protests. Since early January, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated against a proposed law that would allow Parliament to override Supreme Court decisions, restrict the Court’s ability to block laws, and give the government full control over appointing new judges. Supporters argue the changes are necessary to balance the court, while critics claim the reforms give Netanyahu nearly unchecked power and weaken the court. After Israeli citizens staged a general strike yesterday – the size of which multiple sources called “unprecedented” – Netanyahu said he would postpone a vote on the plan until the next Parliament session on April 30.

🇩🇪 Speaking of strikes: German workers participated in the largest nationwide walkout since 1992 yesterday. The 24-hour strike, which drew nearly 3 million participants, marked the beginning of three days of negotiations between the German government and local trade and transportation unions. Workers are seeking a pay raise of at least 10% due to increased inflation in Germany, which stood at 9.3% over the year-long period ending last month.

🇳🇴🇸🇪🇫🇮🇩🇰 Four Nordic countries have agreed to combine their 250 advanced fighter jets into a single fleet. The joint military agreement between Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark features two current NATO members, and two other countries that are in the midst of applying to join the global military alliance (Sweden and Finland). On a related note, Hungary officially approved Finland’s NATO application yesterday, putting the nation on track to join the alliance by the end of next month.

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As much as we’d love to report on the above swagged-out Pope Francis strutting into St. Peter's Square clutching a limited-edition Bible covered in Swarovski crystals, we cannot.

Because this photo isn’t real. But that didn’t stop it from going viral this past weekend.

The image was made by a popular AI-image creation tool called Midjourney. Looking closely, you can see the flaws: unrealistic smears, blurs, and the biggest AI-image tell of all, weird fingers (yes, for some reason, the AI simply cannot draw fingers).

So why did it go viral? Well, to put it bluntly, people aren’t spending much time inspecting the photos they see online, especially hyper-realistic photos of celebrities. Plus, if you see everyone else talking about the image as real, there's probably no reason why you would think it isn't.

🌐 Zoom out: The pope isn't the only one getting the AI-treatment. Fake photos of Elon Musk holding hands with AOC, Emmanuel Macron running through tear gas, and Donald Trump getting arrested have all gone viral recently.

And the party's just getting started. Remember the 'crazy fingers’ problem? Midjourney reportedly released a fix earlier this month. Now the platform generates flawless, five-fingered hands.

👋 Bottom line: Even with the upgrade to perfect paws, experts say there are a handful of ways to check if an image is AI-generated: using a reverse image search, looking for watermarks, checking the 'grain,' and watching for lighting and proportion errors.

US regulators filed a lawsuit yesterday against Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, for allegedly violating federal trading and derivatives laws. If successful, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s suit would impose a series of fines on Binance and permanently outlaw the exchange from serving any US customers.

🤔 What are the allegations?... The CFTC accused Binance of knowingly creating and maintaining a loophole from 2019 to the present through which US users could trade on its global platform. Over the same period, the company consistently claimed its global exchange wasn’t serving any Americans, and thus shouldn’t have to follow US regulations.

In a statement published yesterday, which didn’t mention the specific allegations, a Binance spokesperson cited the company’s efforts to operate legally in the US, including an American affiliate called Binance.US that offers a limited number of crypto products.

⚖️🪙 Zoom out: The CFTC’s lawsuit marks the latest clash between US regulators and companies or individuals involved in the crypto industry.

• The SEC last Wednesday notified Coinbase, the largest US crypto exchange, that it plans to sue the firm for allegedly violating a range of investor-protection laws.
• Also last Wednesday, the SEC also charged Tron founder Justin Sun and eight celebrities – including Jake Paul, Lindsey Lohan, Akon, and Lil’ Yachty – with illegally selling or promoting crypto tokens.

+Worth mentioning: Despite crypto’s recent legal woes, the price of bitcoin is up more than 63% so far this year. It recently eclipsed $28,000 for the first time since last June.

💬 Quoted… “The House will be moving forward with legislation to protect Americans from the technological tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party.”

On Sunday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the chamber plans to move forward with legislation that would ban TikTok from all US devices due to its connections with the Chinese government.

• His comments came days after TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress over lawmakers’ concerns with the social media platform, which include national security threats, data privacy, the spread of misinformation, and safety for minors.

☝️🏘️ Stat of the Day: Someone call the Key and Peele announcers, cuz the East vs. West Game is back. According to mortgage-data firm Black Knight, all 12 major housing markets west of Texas (plus Austin) saw home prices fall in January on an annual basis – meanwhile, every one of the 37 biggest metro areas east of Colorado (except Austin) saw home prices rise over the same period.

🤯 Did You Know?... The wealthiest athlete in recorded human history was ancient Roman charioteer Gaius Appuleius Diocles, who won the modern equivalent of $15 billion over the course of his career.

📖 Worth a Read: How Big Companies Choose Who Is Laid Off → (WSJ)

• ☝️ Scientists have retracted a 2021 study documenting a “rare goblin shark” that reportedly washed up on a Greek beach (image A), after other researchers raised doubts about the findings – including the possibility that it could have been a plastic toy.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed mixed yesterday (S&P: +0.2%; Dow: +0.6%; Nasdaq: -0.5%).
• 📉 Disney will begin laying off 7,000 employees, per a memo from CEO Bob Iger. | Lyft co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer are stepping back from managing the company; current board member David Risher will take over as CEO.
• 👂 US advertising revenue will grow by an adjusted 5.2% in 2023, per media investment company Magna; that’s down from last year’s adjusted growth of 7.2%.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📱 Apple released iOS 16.4 yesterday; the update adds 21 new emojis including a moose and a goose.
• 🏃‍♀️ Monarch Collective, an investment firm focused on women’s sports, has raised an initial fund of $100 million.
• ⚖️ Jonathan Majors (Creed III, Ant-Man sequel) was charged with assault and harassment on Sunday following an alleged “domestic dispute” in Manhattan on Saturday night.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🐟🥺 Humanity’s ability to feel empathy may have originated in our ancient aquatic ancestors, per a new peer-reviewed study that examined the chemical mechanisms behind how fear spreads among zebrafish populations.
• 🧘 Sitting cross-legged at the knee or ankle can result in long-term misalignment of your pelvis, spine, and shoulders, according to the latest research.
• 🐙 An Australian woman was recently bitten multiple times by a blue-ringed octopus, one of the world's most toxic animals, but escaped unharmed – and doctors aren’t sure why.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🙏 Six people, including three children, were killed in a shooting at a Nashville, TN, elementary school yesterday; the suspect, who was shot and killed by police, was a 28-year-old former student; there was some confusion about the attacker's gender, since police initially said the alleged shooter was a woman before saying the shooter was transgender.
• 🌐 A federal judge ruled the Internet Archive does not have the right to scan books and lend them out like a library without first being authorized by copyright holders. (Background)
• ⚖️ The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a First Amendment challenge to a federal law that makes it a crime to “encourage” unauthorized immigrants to come to or stay in the US. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🧓 Here’s what retirement with less than $1 million looks like in America.

*Sponsored post

Yesterday we covered a WSJ-NORC poll that found more than three-quarters of Americans think people from Generation Alpha (aka anyone born after 2012) won’t have better lives than themselves, the highest percentage dating back to 1972.

❓ Our question to you: Do you think that life for Gen Alpha will be better than it has been for you?

• 👍 Strongly agree: 11%
• 📈 Agree/Somewhat agree: 15%
• 🤷 Neutral: 18%
• 📉 Disagree/Somewhat disagree: 32%
• 👎 Strongly disagree: 24%

Click here to read some of the best responses from yesterday’s poll.

+Note on sample size: We received 10,834 votes and 988 longform responses.

🥰 Be the change... When fifth-graders Layla Reyes and Madi Clabaugh started to notice some of their classmates being less-than-kind to other students, the girls took matters into their own hands. 

• With the help of school counselor Amy Kneisley, they founded their school's first official "Kindness Club." The club is open to all students, and encourages them to treat others with respect and kindness.
• “We want to spread a message that everyone needs to be treated with respect and kindness,” Layla told The Fremont News-Messenger. “We want them to know you can always change if you think what you’re doing is wrong.”

❓ Trivia: How many bags of wool did "Baa Baa Black Sheep" have?

🦍 True or False?... A group of apes is called a gaggle.

🤔 Riddle Me This… What can you put in a barrel to make it weigh less?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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❓ Trivia: Three

🦍 T/F: False, it’s called a shrewdness

🤔 Riddle: A hole

**The Parallel Flight sponsor block was written and/or published as a collaboration between The DONUT's in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of The DONUT. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. The DONUT may receive monetary compensation from the issuer, or its agency, for publicizing the offering of the issuer’s securities. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice. This is a paid ad. Please see 17(b) disclosure linked in the campaign page for more information.