The wackiest headlines from the week as they would appear in a Classifieds section.

Careers

HEDGEROW TRIMMER: Ecologists found that England has so many hedgerows that if they were lined up, they would stretch around the globe 10 times. Here we were making fun of a country for weird breakfasts when we could have been clowning on them for having so many fancy little bushes (which are actually very beneficial for wildlife and the environment).

1990s TECH WIZ: A job posting for a German railway IT role stated that candidates should be experienced in Windows 3.11 and MS-DOS. Also a plus is knowing how to code your own Myspace background.

Personal

BABY PICTURES: Researchers used a drone to capture what they believe is the first image of a baby great white shark—a 5-foot-long pup anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days old. This will be a fun one to look back on at the wedding.

DENTIST FRIENDLY DOG: A dentist’s office in Minneapolis, MN, has a goldendoodle lay on patients who have anxiety about getting their teeth looked at. A less popular version of this was the acupuncturist with 38 cats roaming around.

For sale

KINGUSSIE KONG T-SHIRT: A Japanese macaque was captured after escaping from a wildlife park in Scotland. The monkey spent five glorious days stealing the nuts and the hearts of the Scottish people.

MATING SEASON EARPLUGS: For years, residents of Tampa, FL, have been bothered by a recurring rumbling bass sound. Turns out, it might just be fish doin’ it. A local scientist thinks that the noise comes from black drum fish flexing their muscles against their swim bladder during mating.—MM

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even have sympathy for the moth circling your porch light.

🫥 A real-life invisibility cloak is in the works. Your dream of sneaking into the Restricted Section of Hogwarts could soon be realized. Inspired by the camouflage techniques of chameleons, glass frogs, and bearded dragons, researchers in China have developed an experimental synthetic material that they say can blend into surrounding environments and evade radar and heat detection by manipulating electromagnetic waves. Once the wearable tech is more developed, the researchers say, it could be a boon for stealth military operations and environmental conservation (since going undetected helps observation efforts).

🪰 Pests don’t actually like light—they’re just lost. Scientists have poked holes in the phrase “like a moth to a flame” with new research showing that flying insects only seem thirsty for your porch light because they’re trying to use it as a North Star of sorts. For most of the many eons that flies have buzzed around, the starry sky served as the brightest source of light at night, and many winged bugs still use it to know which way is up when navigating. So, when pests detect a glow from lampposts, for example, their sense of direction goes out the window, and their instinct to keep the light overhead traps them in an orbit. The researchers observed flying insects in Costa Rica and noted that many flipped upside down or crashed into other bugs while trying to keep their backs to an artificial light.

Love languages are apparently a myth. Do you prefer to show/receive love with words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, gifts, or acts of service? This question, long a discussion point in the dating scene, is much ado about nothing, according to researchers at the University of Toronto and York University, who discovered “very little evidence” that having matching love languages made relationships any better. Instead, they found that people value all of the love languages in different situations and likely manifest their affections in additional ways that don’t fall under those categories. The five “love languages” were made popular more than 30 years ago in a book of the same name written by the Baptist preacher Gary Chapman, who’s been slammed for homophobia and misogyny.—ML

Elmo began the week as the victim of online trauma-dumping and ended the week as the victim of a violent attack from a deranged madman. An unprovoked Larry David took a break from promoting the final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm—which premieres tonight—and assaulted Elmo during a live broadcast of Today on Thursday. Elmo attempted to embrace his role as the world’s most famous uncredentialed therapist by asking David to sit on the couch to talk about his feelings, but the disagreeable Seinfeld co-creator unsurprisingly rejected the heart-to-heart.

David eventually apologized, and Elmo accepted, but the entire incident should make the Muppets consider boycotting Today and only appear on Good Morning America because no way Michael Strahan lets that happen.

Elon Musk’s futuristic brain implant startup has been on everyone’s mind since the billionaire announced on X this week, “The first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well.”

Beyond inspiring a torrent of cyberpunk mind-control jabs, the news prompted some major head-scratching. While a successful implant procedure could lead to a revolutionary breakthrough, no information has been shared beyond the tweet. There’s been no independent confirmation and, despite its CEO’s social media reveal, Neuralink has kept mum.

Here’s what we know:

• Since its founding in 2016, the startup has been developing a microchip implant to enable people to control a phone or a computer with their thoughts.
• The FDA gave it the green light to test on humans last May, and the company began recruiting participants in the fall.
• While Musk claims Neuralink’s long-term goal is to turn users into AI-empowered cyborgs, the company’s first product—called Telepathy—is intended to help people with neurological disorders use digital devices. Musk said that “initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs.”

While there’s not much verifiable info about Neuralink’s work, the field of brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) and Neuralink’s track record of alleged ethically dubious research practices provide a lot to think about. So, let’s wrap our minds around the cerebral endeavor.

The nuts and bolts

Neuralink has developed a surgical robot (that, as Vox put it, functions a lot like a sewing machine) to implant a quarter-sized microchip into the part of the brain responsible for movement.

• The chip is meant to send neural signals to a phone or computer via Bluetooth, which could help someone with a motor disorder or a motor neuron disease move a cursor or type text messages.
• Neuralink says it also wants to help people with blindness by transmitting visual signals to their brain.

Can it work?

Maybe. Scientists say that it’s hard to gauge Neuralink’s progress without seeing concrete data in a scientific paper. BCI researcher John Donoghue told Scientific American that he’s happy there’s promise of a commercial product that builds on research in the field—but he warned that it’s too early to speak of any success.

Neuralink is also not alone in its quest to develop a cutting-edge BCI:

• The Bill Gates- and Jeff Bezos-backed startup Synchron has been testing its brain implant on patients since 2022.
• Researchers at Stanford University created a BCI that allowed a man with paralysis to imagine letters and transmit them to a computer screen.
• The Chinese government established a BCI lab last year. Also in China, scientists from Tsinghua University developed a device that connects to the brain through the inner ear.

But Neuralink claims its devices can do more than its competitors’ can. And while most companies in the space are working to create assistive devices for medical uses, Musk says he hopes Neuralink’s brain chip will eventually become a consumer product. 

What could possibly go wrong?

Aside from the possibility of Musk one day using Neuralink to broadcast X’s “For You” feed into your brain 24/7, there are more immediate anxieties.

• Neuralink has been called out for allegedly sloppy research practices when testing its devices on pigs and monkeys. Some former employees accused the company of carelessness that has led to avoidable animal deaths.
• Those reports of negligence have raised concerns about patient safety during human trials.

Even without that baggage, some skeptics have expressed reservations about brain implant technology more generally: Testing volunteers can become incredibly reliant on the tech and might suffer if the trial ends and their implanted devices stop working. This happened in the case of patients who lost their eyesight when a retinal implant startup ran out of cash.

Looking ahead…even if Neuralink’s multiyear patient safety trial goes well, one expert told Reuters it’ll probably be over a decade until the $5 billion startup can start charging for implants.—SK

Cook: Elevate a dish with this spice blend. (We like it on scrambled eggs.)

Storage: The cheapest small-space storage hack.

Skip the line: Traveling in 2024? See if your credit card qualifies you for a fast pass.

Watch: Peaky Blinders meets The Wire in this Irish TV show.

Read: If you enjoyed reading The Great Gatsby in high school, check out this ingenious novel.

Prepare for 2/14: Roses that won’t wilt.

Keep e-comm fresh: How should retailers be testing new creative, analyzing consumer insights, and keeping their online experience up to par? The Line Studios’ co-founders join Retail Brew to discuss. Listen in.

It’s a big world out there. In this section, we’ll teleport you to an interesting location—and hopefully give you travel ideas in the process.

Your last chance to see a total solar eclipse in the contiguous US until 2044 will be on April 8, which you’d think leaves plenty of time to plan your travel to the path of the eclipse. Unfortunately for you—the casual celestial event enthusiast—eclipse-chasers took care of their plans months ago, leaving scarce and mostly expensive options for watching the moon pass between the sun and Earth.

While that sounds bleak, the travel opportunities are nowhere near as dark as the skies will be for 4.5 minutes that day.

Where will the eclipse be most visible? Much like cutaways to Taylor Swift during NFL games, the “path of totality” will split the country nearly in half, with skygazing options stretching from Texas to Maine. While it’s possible to predict the path of totality, prognosticating clear skies is more difficult—Axios looked at average cloud cover over the past 30 years and found that Texas tends to be the best bet for an unblemished view.

The view won’t come cheap. Hotel prices in Texas have increased 390%, while Airbnb reported that some residences in the path of totality have raised rates to more than $1,000 per night. One home in Texas was listed on Airbnb for $1,789 a night, a 1,100% increase over the previous month, per the WSJ.

It doesn’t mean you don’t have options. A “Total Eclipse of the Park” event in Addison, Texas, is an example of an off-the-beaten-path-of-totality option expected to have a smaller crowd. Campspot offers a comprehensive list of campgrounds throughout the US that won’t require a small loan to see the eclipse. For a more communal experience, places like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland have festivities scheduled throughout the day.

While in Cleveland, you could also attend the Guardians’ home opener, which is scheduled to coincide with the eclipse that afternoon.—DL

Last week, we asked: “What’s a classic movie that needs a remake, and who would you put in the lead role?” Here are our favorite answers:

• “Cillian Murphy in 2001: A Space Odyssey.”—Michael from San Marcos, CA
• “Ncuti Gatwa in Kindergarten Cop.”—Cate from Parkersburg, WV
• “Big Fat Liar; Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Adam Sandler.”—Kayla from Sacramento, CA
• “Mrs. Doubtfire with John Cena.”—Morgan from Connecticut
• “E.T. with Adam Sandler as E.T., except he’s not in makeup or anything. He’s just Adam Sandler but everyone treats him like an alien and he just kinda goes with it.”—Noah from Eau Claire, WI
• “Give Adam Driver a shot at Mrs. Doubtfire.”—Mamadi from Brooklyn, NY
• “Kevin Hart as George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life.”—Wayne from Kansas City
• “To Wong Foo but with Alaska, Trixie, and Shangela.”—Caitlyn from Washington
• “Idris Elba in Casablanca.”—April from Collingswood, NJ

This week’s question

Imagine this: It’s the morning of Monday, February 12, and the Super Bowl took place last night. What shocking moment from the broadcast will everyone be talking about?

Matty’s answer to get the juices flowing: In a push to promote its messaging apps, Meta brings back the “Wasssssup!” bit from Budweiser’s commercial but has people saying “WhatsApppppppp” to each other instead.

Share your response here.