✍️ 9 things I learned last week (Issue 010)
Hey folks! This week: semicolons are dying, the deep sea remains unseen, and your name lights up your brain like fireworks.
Here’s a round-up of what stuck with me:
The use of semicolons in British books has nearly halved since 2000, from one per 205 words to one per 390 words. And 67% of the UK students say they never or rarely use semicolons.
An estimated 99.999% of the world’s deep seafloor has never been seen.
Your brain reacts more strongly to your own name than to anyone else’s—lighting up areas linked to attention and self-awareness.
Women who use dating apps are more likely to get cosmetic procedures and feel more positively about them than non-users.
Microsoft’s carbon emissions have jumped 30% since 2020, largely due to its AI expansion. This makes it much harder to reach their goal of being carbon-negative by 2030.
As the 2025 papal conclave neared, Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo’s birthday shifted—from January 25 to December 31, 1945—making him 79 instead of 80, and still eligible to vote for the next pope.
The new pope chose the name Leo XIV because of AI, signalling the Catholic Church must defend human dignity against artificial intelligence, just as a previous Pope Leo did during the Industrial Revolution.
Modern estimates suggest it would take 3,000 to 7,000 workers about 20 years to build the Great Pyramid of Giza.
When Turkish merchants introduced coffee to Venice, it was prescribed for digestive purposes and served in small, cold doses.
What I’ve been reading
9 federally funded scientific breakthroughs that changed everything: “Google got its start in 1994 with a $4 million federal grant to help build digital libraries.”
The most-cited papers of the twenty-first century: “The articles garnering the most citations report developments in AI; approaches to improve the quality of research or systematic reviews; cancer statistics; and research software.”
World’s oldest fingerprint may be a clue that Neanderthals created art: “One day around 43,000 years ago, a Neanderthal man in what is now central Spain came across a large granite pebble whose pleasing contours and indentations snagged his eye. Something in the shape of that quartz-rich stone may have compelled him to pick it up, study it and, eventually, to dip one of his fingers in red pigment and press it against the pebble’s edge, exactly where the nose on that face would have been.”
That’s it for today! Thanks for reading! If you enjoy the newsletter, share it with a friend—or a dozen. And if you really enjoyed it, consider upgrading to a paid subscription—it helps support my work and means a lot.
Elia Kabanov is a science writer covering the past, present and future of technology (@metkere)
Illustration: Elia Kabanov feat. DALL-E.