Good morning. In this edition:

• 🔋 Shell’s EV breakthrough
• 🏦 Fed rate cut
• 🚢 “Ghost ship” discovery

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.11-minute read (1,092 words).

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“Words are the clothes thoughts wear.”

–Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)

In yesterday’s Trivia answers, we mistakenly wrote that there are 26,000+ cups of coffee consumed per day in the world, instead of 26,000+ cups per second. Thanks to all the readers who pointed this out.

EV owners could soon experience a perk that many conventional drivers take for granted: the ability to refuel their vehicles in the time it takes to order a latte.

Last week, oil-and-gas giant Shell unveiled a new battery fluid that could drastically shrink EV charging times, which currently take anywhere from a half-hour to over a day.

• Shell’s “magical” liquid immerses each battery cell in a non-conductive coolant, pulling heat away more efficiently than current plate-based systems.
• In lab demos, a mid-sized EV battery charged from 10% to 80% in just 9 minutes and 45 seconds—without overheating the battery.

But…Bringing this technology to the masses could be a difficult and lengthy process.

Shell plans to showcase its technology at the Battery Show in Detroit this fall, but adoption would require automakers to redesign their battery packs to accommodate the new cooling system. And even the fastest EV charging stations can be limited by grid demand, so Shell’s “10-minute charge” also depends on US infrastructure.

It could charge EV sales

Should a system like this become popular across the US, analysts say it would tackle some of the major obstacles to widespread EV adoption. According to a recent J.D. Power report, the top barriers holding vehicle shoppers back from purchasing an EV are:

1. Lack of charging station availability (51%)
2. Time required to charge (49%)
3. Limited driving distance per charge (47%)

The US is home to ~228,000 public EV charging ports. About three-quarters are Level 2 chargers, which add 20-40 miles per hour of charging, while the other quarter are Level 3 (DC fast chargers) that typically add 180–240 miles in 20–60 minutes.

Big picture: EVs accounted for 7.4% of all new car sales in the US in Q2 2025, while total EV sales through the first half of 2025 stood at a record-high 607,000. Analysts largely attribute the recent sales surge to consumers rushing to lock in Biden-era EV tax credits before they expire at the end of this month.

Austin Allison sold his first company for $120M. He later served as an executive for Zillow. But both companies reached massive valuations before regular people could invest.

“I always wished everyday investors could have shared in their early success,” Allison later said. So he built Pacaso differently.

Pacaso brings co-ownership to the $1.3T vacation home market, earning $110M+ in gross profit in under 5 years. No wonder the same early investors who backed Uber, Venmo, and eBay already invested in Pacaso.

They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO. Now, after adding 10 new international destinations and securing a $100M private credit facility, Pacaso is hitting their stride.

And unlike his previous stops, you can invest in Pacaso as a private company. But your opportunity ends after tonight.*

Call up Ben Stiller, because history could soon be coming back to life.

Texas-based startup Colossal Biosciences yesterday announced a key breakthrough in its quest to create replicas of the extinct dodo bird and reintroduce them to their native habitat.

The way of the dodo

To create a dodo, which went extinct due to human activity in the late 17th century, Colossal plans to modify the bird’s closest living relative—the brightly colored Nicobar pigeon—then slowly “re-wild” thousands of animals on the East African island of Mauritius.

• Colossal’s latest breakthrough involves growing pigeon primordial germ cells—which are precursor cells to sperm and eggs—for the first time, marking a “pivotal step” in the resurrection process.
• Colossal has also developed gene-edited chickens to act as surrogates for the dodos.
• These chickens will be injected with the newly grown pigeon primordial germ cells, which will eventually allow them to breed dodos following a series of further genetic edits.

What’s the point? Colossal says its attempts to resurrect extinct animals could help improve conservation efforts for living animals, and also help inspire people about science. But critics and anyone who's seen Jurassic Park caution that it could also have some pretty gnarly implications.

👀 Looking ahead…“Rough ballpark, we think it’s still five to seven years out, but it’s not 20 years out,” CEO Ben Lamm said about the dodo’s return. Colossal’s efforts will be bolstered by a new $120 million funding round, announced yesterday, from investors including filmmaker Peter Jackson.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🏦 The Fed cuts interest rates by a quarter-point—its first cut in nine months—and signals two add’l rate cuts are likely coming later this year; newly installed Gov. Stephen Miran was the only policymaker voting against the quarter-point move, instead advocating for a half-point cut.
• 🍦 Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield is leaving the ice-cream maker after 47 years; he cited parent company Unilever’s discouragement of his social and political activism.
• 🇨🇳 China’s top cybersecurity regulator issues new guidance urging companies not to buy one of Nvidia’s newest AI chips; the move effectively prevents the chip from being sold nationwide.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Prevagen

• 📺 South Park skipped yet another week of episodes; creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone broke the news hours before yesterday’s episode was set to air. | The Summer I Turned Pretty feature film greenlit by Prime Video, following the finale for its third and final season.
• 🎤 Rapper Cardi B reveals she’s having a child with NFL WR Stefon Diggs; the baby is expected to arrive before Cardi B’s tour in February.
• ⚽ National Women’s Soccer League announces first-ever combine to identify top prospects; the two December events will be split between adults (U18-23) and youth players (U13-17).

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 💊 Eli Lilly’s obesity pill, orforglipron, outperformed Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide in head-to-head diabetes trial, showing greater improvements in blood sugar levels and greater weight loss.
• 🚕 Lyft and Waymo partner to bring robotaxis to Nashville starting in 2026.
• 🦧 Wild chimpanzees found to consume the equivalent of a beer bottle’s worth of alcohol each day from eating ripened fruit; scientists say the finding indicates humans may have developed our taste for alcohol from common primate ancestors who ate fermented fruit.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🇬🇧 President Trump and First Lady Melania began a historic state visit to the UK, where King Charles III and his family welcomed them at Windsor Castle; it marks the first time a US President has been granted a second state visit (Trump’s first was in 2019).
• 🏛️ Fired CDC Director Susan Monarez testified before a Senate committee regarding the events that led to her dismissal by Health Secretary RFK Jr.; Monarez says she was fired for refusing to pre-approve vaccine recommendations.
• 🇷🇺 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned in prison and didn’t die of natural causes as claimed by the Kremlin, per Navalny’s widow; she didn’t provide evidence, but urged labs in two unspecified countries to publish their analysis of samples taken from Navalny.

☝️ A “ghost ship” that sank in Lake Michigan nearly 140 years ago has finally been found. The 144-foot vessel, long thought lost to history, eluded multiple search efforts over the past five decades before researchers with the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association recently managed to locate it.

🤔 Did you know? America’s national anthem got its tune from a drinking song titled “To Anacreon in Heaven,” which was written in the 1770s by British composer John Stafford Smith for London’s Anacreontic Society—a gentlemen’s group devoted to music, wit, and a fair bit of wine.

📰 Worth a read: ChatGPT passed the Turing test. Now what?

🖱️ Clickbait: Kodak’s latest camera is a $30 keychain

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Yesterday, we covered a proposal supported by President Trump and others that would have publicly traded companies in the US shift from reporting earnings on a quarterly basis to doing so twice per year.

❓ Our question to you: What are your thoughts on the proposal to shift SEC requirements for publicly traded companies from quarterly earnings to a frequency of 2x/year?

• Support: 34%
• Oppose: 41%
• Unsure/other: 25%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 906 votes and 77 longform responses.

The Ring of Brodgar is located in which country?

🎻 Composer and musician Alexander Demidov has perfected the art of escalator concerts. Watch him fill The Saint Petersburg Metro with music. 

Scotland (or the UK)

*DISCLAIMER: This is a paid advertisement for Pacaso's Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving the ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.