First Republic Sold, AI Mind Reader, and The Titanic of the Pacific

First Republic Takeover

JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $10.6B to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to acquire First Republic Bank yesterday, marking the second-largest bank failure in US history. JPMorgan will assume control of about $92B in customer deposits, $173B in outstanding loans, and $30B in securities. The FDIC, which seized First Republic early yesterday, estimates its insurance fund will suffer a loss of roughly $13B.

The San Francisco-based bank is the third to fail this year, with Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsing in March. First Republic was known for catering to wealthy clients, with many of its accounts holding more than $250K—the insurance limit set by the FDIC. In March, the bank received a $30B funding package from major US banks, including JPMorgan. However, following previous bank failures, panicked investors withdrew more than $100B in deposits.

First Republic was ranked as the 14th largest bank in the US at the end of 2022, with consolidated assets of nearly $213B. Account holders at First Republic became customers of JPMorgan upon acquisition.

Semantic Decoder

Researchers have revealed a new artificial intelligence system capable of translating a person's brain activity into a continuous stream of text in a noninvasive way for the first time. New research from the University of Texas at Austin shows the brain-computer interface can generate word sequences that recover the meaning of perceived speech, imagined speech, and brain responses while watching silent videos. 

Unlike previous language-decoding systems, the new decoder doesn't rely on surgical implants. The study focused on three participants whose brain activity was measured using an fMRI scanner, which utilizes changes in blood flow to produce brain scans, as they listened to podcasts, thought about stories, and watched short silent films.

A large language model (see 101), similar to OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Bard, then matched patterns in the participants' brains to words and phrases they heard and translated the brain's response to hearing new words into corresponding text. The decoded text is not a word-for-word transcript but rather a gist of a person's thoughts.

Seaweed Blob Arrives

A 15 million-ton, 5,000-mile-wide patch of seaweed known as the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt is making landfall throughout the southern Atlantic and Caribbean coasts, disrupting vacations and marine activities as it collects and rots along the shore. An annual open-sea phenomenon, this year's crop is the largest on record (see map) and is expected to inundate shorelines for months.

While the macroalgae have been observed in the central Atlantic—an area known as the Sargasso Sea—for centuries, its levels were inconsequential until 2011, when scientists first noted a spike in growth. The yellowish-brown organism is kept afloat by oxygen-filled bladders the size of berries, providing shelter for small marine life.

Its exponential growth, likely due to an uptick in nutrient-rich wastewater flows from the Mississippi, Amazon, and Congo river systems, now presents a nuisance and potential hazard to sensitive beachgoers at a steep cost to cities looking to keep the beaches clear. Watch a breakdown of the algae here. 

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In-Depth

> The Titanic of the Pacific

Atavist | Tyler Hooper. In 1906, the sinking of the SS Valencia off the coast of Vancouver resulted in the deaths of more than 130 people, making it one of the worst maritime disasters in the region's history. (Read)

> Kindergarten During Wartime

NPR | Elissa Nadworny, Claire Harbage. A look into a kindergarten classroom in Ukraine and how the students, now dispersed throughout the world, have been impacted. (Read)

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