Good morning, and Happy Halloween! In today’s edition:

• 🏙 Ancient Maya city discovered in Mexico – by accident
• 🤖 Google leans into AI coding
• 🍌 The $1+ million banana auction

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.76-minute read (1,268 words).

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“Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.”

–Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

It’s not quite the lost city of Z, but it’s close. Researchers discovered a huge Maya city centuries after it was swallowed by the jungle in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, according to a study published this week in the journal Antiquity.

The team discovered three sites in total, in a survey area ~1.5x the size of Washington DC (6.4 sq. miles), “by accident” when one archaeologist browsed data on the internet. “I was on something like page 16 of Google search and found a laser survey done by a Mexican organization for environmental monitoring,” Luke Auld-Thomas, a PhD student at Tulane, told the BBC. A subsequent analysis of the laser survey revealed 6,764 Maya structures of various sizes.

The city, which the researchers named Valeriana after a nearby freshwater lagoon, had two major centers with large buildings ~1.2 miles apart, linked by dense houses and causeways. As outlined by the BBC:

• There were two plazas with temple pyramids – resembling those at the famous sites of Chichén Itzá or Tikal – where Maya people would have worshipped, hidden treasures like jade masks, and buried their dead.
• There was also a court where people would have played an ancient ball game, as well as evidence of a reservoir, indicating the landscape was used to support a large population.

The researchers estimate the city was home to 30,000–50,000 people at its peak, and probably collapsed between 800 AD–1000 AD for a complex set of reasons, including drought, sickness, and Spanish conquistadors.

More “lost city” discoveries could be coming soon. And all because of what archaeologists and cats have in common – namely, an obsession with laser beams. The technology used to uncover Valeriana, LiDAR – which uses laser pulses to generate a topographic map similar to how a bat uses echolocation – enables much quicker mapping of large, sparse areas compared to surveying them by foot.

Case in point: A separate study published earlier this year documents how researchers used LiDAR to uncover a large settlement in the Amazon at least 2,500 years old, 1,000+ years older than any other known complex society in the region.

There’s a noticeable rise in the number of strokes among adults under 55. According to recent studies, younger adults are now more vulnerable to stroke than ever, largely due to lifestyle factors and rising rates of hypertension – the leading risk factor for strokes worldwide.

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🇺🇸📈 US GDP continued its streak of solid growth. The Commerce Department found America’s GDP rose by an adjusted annual rate of 2.8% from July-September, slightly below economists’ expectations for a 3.1% pace. Figures show US consumer spending rose 3.7% last quarter (up from 2.8% in Q2), with the category solely responsible for ~2.5 percentage points of overall GDP growth during that period.

🇪🇸 Valencia, Spain, experienced the deadliest flooding in the country’s modern history. Meteorologists say over an entire year's worth of rain fell over a span of just eight hours across parts of Valencia overnight Tuesday, leading to intense flooding that killed at least 95 people and caused widespread property damage. The Spanish government has declared three days of mourning to honor the victims.

🦸🍿 Marvel Studios revealed its full slate of TV series for 2025. The studio plans to release a total of nine TV shows next year, including new series like Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Marvel Zombies, along with the third and final season of What If…? The 2025 slate represents a departure from Disney CEO Bob Iger’s comments earlier this year, when he said Marvel would reduce its output “to probably about two TV series a year.”

What’s old is becoming new again. After years of decline, print magazines are slowly mounting a comeback, joining vinyl records and classical music on the “making a resurgence” list.

In recent months, a growing number of magazines across a variety of niches have announced a print comeback, including Sports Illustrated, Vice, Field & Stream, Nylon, and Saveur. And publications historically known for their magazines, like Architectural Digest, The Atlantic, Bon Appétit, GQ, New York, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, are still cranking out content.

The idea: Many publications newly leaning into magazines are banking on the theory that consumers asked to pay for digital publications will be even more willing to subscribe if offered an occasional print edition to go along with online access.

🖨 Zoom out: While US magazine advertising revenue has fallen from $15+ billion per year in the early-to-mid-2000’s to ~$6 billion last year, print magazines are still an attractive option for high-end advertisers. Data shows print magazine readership is disproportionately made up of affluent and well-educated people, who are generally willing to pay for upscale and/or high-quality products.

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“More than a quarter of all new code at Google is generated by AI, then reviewed and accepted by engineers.”

When it comes to artificial intelligence, Google appears to be practicing what it preaches. CEO Sundar Pichai revealed on the company’s Q3 earnings call Tuesday that 25+% of new code written by the tech giant is generated by AI, which, per Pichai, “is boosting productivity and efficiency…[by helping] our engineers do more and move faster.”

Google devs aren’t the only ones with this approach. According to Stack Overflow’s 2024 Developer Survey, 75+% of respondents are already using or are “planning to use” AI tools to aid software development. Another survey by GitHub indicates 92% of US-based developers are currently using AI coding tools.

🖐️ But… Like your mom says, just because everyone’s doing it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. According to a 2023 study out of Stanford University, developers using AI coding assistants tended to include more bugs while paradoxically believing their code is more secure.

• ☝️ The Royal Meteorological Society announced the winners of the 2024 Standard Chartered Weather Photographer of the Year competition, which attracted entries from 84 countries.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Going

• 💰 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.3%; Dow: -0.2%; Nasdaq: -0.6%).
• ✌️ Ernst & Young resigned as the auditor to troubled server maker Super Micro, citing concerns about the company’s governance and transparency; Super Micro shares fell 33% on the day.
• ☕ Starbucks reported quarterly results that missed on both revenue and earnings. | ⌨️ Reddit turned a quarterly profit for the first time; has ~100 million daily active users; shares jumped 42% yesterday. | 📱 Meta reported quarterly results that beat expectations on revenue and earnings but missed on user growth. | ☁️ Microsoft posted strong quarterly results powered by cloud growth.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚾ The Los Angeles Dodgers are MLB Champs: LA beat the New York Yankees 7-6 in Game 5 last night to clinch the best-of-seven series; the title is LA's eighth in franchise history; Freddie Freeman was named Series MVP. | ⚾ The Women’s Pro Baseball League, a six-team professional women’s baseball league based in the northeastern US, aims to begin competition in 2026, per a news release.
• 😱 A Scary Movie reboot is in the works, with the Wayans brothers reuniting for the first time in 18 years for a new original screenplay.
• 🎶🏆 Disney agreed to pay a reported $500+ million for the rights to stream the Grammy Awards from 2027-2036; the deal ends the show’s 50+-year run with CBS.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with "Pick Your Poison" from Dyce Games

• 💼🤖 LinkedIn launched Hiring Assistant, its first AI-powered agent, which is aimed at helping job recruiters with tasks involved in employee recruitment.
• 📐 Two students who discovered a groundbreaking trigonometry-based method for proving the Pythagorean theorem as high school seniors have had their work validated by peer review, per a new study; they also identified nine more solutions to the problem.
• 🚫📝 A recent study testing methods to ensure the integrity of published research was retracted last month, in part due to its failure to follow one of the practices the study was looking to test (fully documenting key aspects of the project before running experiments).

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ☕ Starbucks will discontinue its Oleato olive oil-infused drinks on November 7 in a push to simplify its menu; the coffee chain is also removing its surcharge for dairy substitutes at the same time.
• 🗣️🗑️ Both presidential candidates are attempting to distance themselves from recent statements by people campaigning for them – comedian Tony Hinchcliffe for Trump, President Biden for Harris – that refer to Puerto Rico and Trump supporters as “garbage,” respectively.
• ⚖️ The Supreme Court ruled Virginia can cancel 1,600+ voter registrations the state government says are held by non-citizens; voters who believe they were improperly removed can still vote this election, as Virginia has same-day registration.

CLICKBAIT

• 😋🍫 Making a Snickers bar is a complex science − a candy engineer explains.

🍌💰 Stat of the Day: How much blood, sweat, and tears are needed to create a piece of artwork worth a million bucks? According to Sotheby’s, all it takes is a banana and a roll of duct tape. Last week, the auction house announced plans to put Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous “Comedian” – which consists of a banana duct-taped to a white wall – on the auction block next month. Despite the artwork’s simplicity, Sotheby’s says it’s expected to fetch between $1 million–$1.5 million, with the eventual buyer receiving a certificate of authenticity, official installation instructions, a roll of tape, and one banana – the latter two of which “can be replaced as needed.”

🤔 Did You Know? At its height, the British Empire was the largest in human history, comprising nearly one-quarter of the world’s land surface and more than one-quarter of its total population. At that point (1919-1922), the saying “The sun never sets on the British Empire” was literally true.

📰 Worth a Read: Night of the zombie insects → (Knowable Magazine)

Yesterday, we covered how the 2024 election features a slew of contentious state ballot measures across the country.

❓ Our question to you: Which candidate are you planning to vote for in the 2024 election?

• Former President Trump: 33%
• Vice President Harris: 49%
• A third-party candidate: 8%
• Not planning to vote/Too young to vote: 7%
• Unsure/other: 3%

Click here to read the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 3,716 votes and 357 longform responses.

Meet Boone and Rellie, who cumulatively spent 450+ days at an animal shelter in South Carolina. Rellie was friendly with other dogs, but scared of humans – until her new bestie Boone came along. 

🐾 An unlikely pair... Boone is deaf, and his previous owner couldn't care for him in the way he needed. When he arrived at the shelter, he immediately bonded with shy girl Rellie.

• The dogs quickly became inseparable – so much so, that when a prospective adopter came to meet Rellie, she ended up taking home Boone, too.

The Hoia-Baciu Forest, often dubbed the most haunted forest in the world, is located in which European country?

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Romania (the Transylvania region, specifically)