| | Good morning. In today’s edition: - 🇬🇱 Greenland is prepping for its tourism era
- 🍄 Fungi intelligence
- 🎓 MBAs – so hot rn
… and more. 🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.79-minute read (1,276 words). P.S. Did someone forward you this email? Subscribe here for free. |
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💬 Daily Sprinkle | “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” –Mark Twain (1835-1910) |
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⏱💥 Speed Rounds: Quick, Impactful Stories |  | Greenland is prepping for its tourism era |  Image: Yadid Levy/Alamy | Travelers looking for a taste of #islandlife will soon have another option to consider. This month, United Airlines announced a nonstop, four-hour flight from Newark to Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, the world’s largest island. The route, beginning next summer, is a first for a US airline. And it’s expected to generate more tourism for the autonomous country within the nation of Denmark, which has been pushing to expand its number of visitors in recent years. - Airlines operated flights with a combined 55,000 seats to Greenland from April–August of this year, according to the CEO of Greenland Airports. That figure is expected to nearly double next year in the same period, to about 105,000 seats.
If you build it, they will comeGreenland is roughly 3x the size of Texas, but has only ~57,000 residents. This limited population has resulted in an existing infrastructure that makes it tough to accommodate an influx of visitors. Tourists travel by boat or small aircraft when venturing to different regions; virtually no roads connect towns or settlements. There also aren’t many places to stay. Nuuk, for example, has ~550 hotel rooms, according to government documents, while a tourism analysis published by Visit Greenland predicts there could be a shortage of rooms beginning in 2027. But, similar to an influencer filming a drawn-out GRWM TikTok, Greenland has been prepping for what’s next for years. Companies and officials have been building out the island’s infrastructure so that, in tandem with airlines flying more routes into the country, it should be easier for foreigners to visit. - An investment of $700+ million will yield three new airports, the first of which will open next month in Nuuk. These airports will be able to accommodate large jets, where before small turbo-prop planes were necessary.
- Air Greenland, which currently doesn’t fly nonstop from the US because there isn’t enough space to host all travelers in hotels, is building a new hotel in the city of Ilulissat to increase capacity when the airport opens – while the owner of Hotel Norbo, a 67-room property in Nuuk, is considering adding 50 more rooms to meet the coming demand.
🇬🇱 Walk the line: As nearby destinations like Iceland and Spain grapple with the consequences of overtourism, Greenland officials are working to find a balance between attracting more tourists – but not too many. New legislation that would further regulate tourism is expected to be passed in time for the 2025 season. |
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Pics du jour |  Image: BRICS News | 🌏 Russia is hosting the 16th annual BRICS summit. Representatives from 20+ countries are gathering in Russia this week – including China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi – for the annual meeting of BRICS, a group of emerging economies seen as a counterweight to the US-led Group of Seven (G-7). Participating countries this year account for nearly half the world’s population, and over a quarter of the global economy. |
|  Image: Anthropic | 🤖 Anthropic’s latest update allows its Claude AI to “use” a computer on its own. The company’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model has a new feature in public beta, called “computer use,” that allows developers to direct Claude to work on a computer like a human does. Claude’s new feature allows it to take over a user’s computer by looking at their screen, moving their cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text. |
|  Image: Lee R. Alacoque et al. | 🛞 Scientists modeled how humanity may have first started using the wheel. In a new study, researchers propose that humans made three key innovations to the wheel (shown by the arrows☝️) over a period of ~500 years, taking it from essentially tree trunks with their limbs removed to the modern-day version of a wheel. Nobody knows for certain who invented the wheel, or when it was first used, but historians do know the wheel was widely used around the world as early as 3000 BC. |
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Companies are bringing accessibility to live entertainment |  Image: Field of Vision | “They shoot, they score! And the crowd goes wild!” – that is, unless you can't see the play. Such is often the case for blind and low-vision sports fans, who struggle to follow sports games while in attendance due to delays or volume problems with audio descriptions. But a first-of-its-kind accessibility tool from Irish company Field of Vision aims to change that by allowing visually impaired sports fans to “feel” the game in real time. How it works: The Field of Vision device uses a combination of AI and cameras to send live signals to a tablet-sized device sitting in the user’s lap. The game information is then transmitted to the tablet after a ~0.5-second delay, with a magnetic ring guiding the user’s finger around the miniature field based on where the ball (or puck) is. - It also vibrates to convey different game events, such as a tackle or change in possession.
- While the device is initially designed and programmed for soccer, Field of Vision plans to expand into all field sports worldwide.
🧏 Zoom out: Disability access at live events has grown increasingly widespread in recent years. The Super Bowl began implementing ASL interpreters during its halftime performance in 2022, Coldplay rolled out a wide range of disability inclusion tools during their recent world tour, and the newly opened Romeo + Juliet is the first Broadway show in history to offer open captioning at every performance. |
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🔥🙌 In partnership with Practice of Life |  | Feel like your devices are owning you – not the other way around? | 
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💬 Overheard |  | "You'd be surprised at just how much fungi are capable of. They have memories, they learn, and they can make decisions.” If you had “fungi sentience” on your 2024 bingo card, congrats. A team of researchers in Japan studying an obscure fungus called Phanerochaete velutina discovered it can not only recognize shapes, but even communicate information about its surroundings throughout its entire fungal network. Dive deeper. |
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🍩 DONUT Holes |  |  Images: Richard Cannon | Hozifa Mahmmed | Wei Zhang | Raman Maisei | BUSINESS & MARKETSin partnership with Cornbread Hemp - 💰 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.9%; Dow: -1.0%; Nasdaq: -1.6%). | 🏡 September home sales fell to their lowest level since 2010; US home sales overall are on track for their worst year since 1995.
- 🤑 Read how a little-known private equity firm generated a 79x return on a ~$97 million investment.
- ✈️ Boeing reported a $6+ billion loss in Q3, its largest since 2020; the company’s striking machinists voted to reject Boeing's latest contract offer (64%–36%). | 🥤 Coca-Cola posted quarterly revenue and earnings that topped expectations.
*From our partners: 😴🙌 Your daily dose of good sleep… Relax, unwind, and sleep better with Cornbread CBD Sleep Gummies. USDA-Organic certified ingredients, available in three strengths. No melatonin, no hangover. Save 25% on Cornbread CBD Sleep Gummies until Oct. 31 with code DONUT. SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT- 🏈 The Kansas City Chiefs acquired five time All-Pro WR DeAndre Hopkins from the Tennessee Titans for a conditional 5th-round pick.
- ⚖️ Director Roman Polanski, 91, no longer faces a trial over an alleged sexual assault on a minor in 1973 after reaching a settlement, per AFP; Polanski fled the US decades ago after admitting to the statutory rape of a 13-year-old in a 1977 plea bargain.
- 🎮 Netflix shut down its Southern California-based video game studio that was focused on producing AAA games; the company still owns five other game studios.
SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECHin partnership with JadeYoga - 🤖 Microsoft is releasing a suite of autonomous AI models – or "agents" – that can serve as virtual employees for its customers; it’s also giving users the ability to create autonomous agents of their own using Copilot Studio.
- 🚁 The FAA issued a final rule for how electric-powered flying taxis (aka eVTOLs) should be operated, and how pilots will be trained to fly them.
- 🥽 Apple is reportedly scaling back production of its current Vision Pro mixed reality headset to focus on building a cheaper model. | 🎮 Another Apple report: The tech giant is reportedly working on a separate dedicated app store for games, which would rival the Epic Games store.
*From our partners: 🧘♀️🏆 Award-winning yoga mats that last… JadeYoga’s Harmony Mat provides unmatched grip, comfort, and durability. Voted “Best Mat of 2024” by The New York Times’ Wirecutter. Made from sustainably sourced natural rubber, JadeYoga also plants a tree for each mat sold. Explore JadeYoga. MISCELLANEOUS- 🚨📈 The FBI recently – and quietly – revised national crime statistics for 2022 to show a 4.5% overall increase in violent crime, instead of a 2.1% decrease the agency first reported last September, per a recent RealClearPolitics report. | 💰🗳️ The Justice Department sent a letter to billionaire Elon Musk’s super PAC warning that its new $1 million/day giveaway in battleground states may violate federal law.
- 🍔🦠 One-fifth of US McDonald's restaurants have temporarily stopped selling Quarter Pounders due to an E. coli outbreak that has sickened at least 49 people and killed one.
- 🇰🇵🇷🇺 Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed the US has evidence North Korea sent at least 3,000 military troops to Russia to aid in its war with Ukraine, affirming accusations made by Ukraine and South Korea in recent days. | 🇹🇷 A major defense facility in Turkey experienced what officials are calling a terrorist attack that killed five people and wounded 22 others. | 💥 Hezbollah confirmed that a top official widely expected to be the militant group’s next leader was killed in an Israeli strike earlier this month.
CLICKBAIT |
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🔥 The Hot Corner |  | 🎓 Stat of the Day: American workers and students are getting back to business. Applications to MBA programs in the US rose by 12% this year, reversing two years of declines, per a new survey from the nonprofit Graduate Management Admission Council. The rebound was most evident in applications for full-time, in-person degrees – which increased 32% year-over-year, the highest level in a decade – while data also showed Americans drove the newfound popularity of US programs, rather than international applicants. 🤔 Did You Know? The NSA recommends that Americans completely power off their phones at least 1x/week to help protect against malware and make it more difficult for hackers to steal information from your phone. Whether to trust them or not – that’s up to you🤷♀️. 📰 Worth a Read: The Enterprising Woman Who Built – and Lost, and Rebuilt – a Booming Empire During the Klondike Gold Rush → (Smithsonian Magazine) |
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📊 Poll Results |  | Yesterday, we covered how a growing number of US school districts are cracking down on the use of cellphones among students – though some efforts have received significant pushback from parents. ❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, should students be banned from having cellphones in K-12 schools? - 👍 Yes: 49%
- 👎 No: 28%
- 🤷 Unsure/other: 23%
Click here to read more of the most thoughtful longform responses. +Note on sample size: We received 3,695 votes and 371 longform responses. |
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive |  | Fast & Furious: Senior Circuit |  Image: Instagram | 👆 Meet 94-year-old Donna Maddox, an adrenaline junkie who recently raced a Ferrari around the Xtreme Xperience track in Brooklyn at 150 MPH. Donna's joy ride is part of the Life Enrichment Program at her nursing home, which provides residents the opportunity to embark on an experience that's uniquely curated and meaningful to them. - "My mother used to say I came into this world running,” the nonagenarian said about her need for speed. Her daily mantra: "If you’re alive, then live!"
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🧠 Trivia |  | GeoGuessr, DONUT Style |  A total of four seas across the globe are named after colors. Can you name them? |
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🧠 Answers |  | - Red Sea
- Yellow Sea
- Black Sea (pictured)
- White Sea
Source |
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