Cider House Rules.

A huge AT&T hack.

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1. In 2018 an international team of scientists — from labs in Houston, Copenhagen, Barcelona and beyond — got their hands on a remarkable biological specimen: a skin sample from a 52,000-year-old woolly mammoth that had been recovered from the permafrost in Siberia. They probed the sample with an innovative experimental technique that revealed the three-dimensional architecture of the mammoth’s genome. The resulting paper was published on Thursday in the journal Cell. Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Canada, was “floored” — the technique had successfully captured the original geometry of long stretches of DNA, a feat never before accomplished with an ancient DNA sample. “It’s absolutely beautiful,” said Dr. Poinar, who reviewed the paper for the journal. (Sources: nytimes.com, cell.com)

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2. Small investments in nutrition could make the world brainier. Many pregnant women and babies are malnourished—and not just in poor countries. Just as muscles need food and exercise to grow strong, the brain needs good food and stimulation to develop properly. The first 1,000 days after conception, known as the “golden window”, are crucial. From the third trimester to the second birthday, a million synapses a second are formed in a well-nourished brain, creating the foundation on which “all learning, behaviour and health depend”, notes Meera Shekar of the World Bank. In a malnourished one, fewer connections are created. And if the brain is chronically deprived during this period, the damage is irreversible. So a better diet for pregnant mothers and infants would eventually make humanity more intelligent. Alas, child malnutrition is far from being eradicated—and not just in poor, war-charred places like Congo. Many middle-income countries also have shockingly high rates. How much of a cognitive boost would the world get from feeding babies better? Precision is tricky, but scientists agree it would be huge. (Source: economist.com)

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3. The world’s population is growing more slowly and will peak at a lower level than previously projected, new estimates from the United Nations show. The Earth will top out at around 10.29 billion people in 2084, before declining to 10.18 billion by 2100, the U.N. said in biennial population estimates released Thursday. That compares with the Earth’s population in July 2023 of 8.09 billion. Across much of Europe—and in longtime population leader China—population levels have already peaked and are declining. (Source: wsj.com)

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4. When China launched its one-child policy more than four decades ago, it sped up an evolution toward smaller family sizes that would have happened more gradually. The policy supercharged the country’s workforce: By caring for fewer children, young people could be more productive and put aside more money. For years, just as China was opening its economy, the share of working-age Chinese grew faster than the parts of the population that didn’t work. That was a big factor in China’s economic miracle. There was a price and China is now paying it. Limiting births then means fewer workers now, and fewer women to give birth. A United Nations forecast published Thursday shows how quickly China is aging, a demographic crunch that the U.N. predicts will cut China’s population by more than half by the end of the century. (Source: wsj.com)

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5. US inflation cooled broadly in June to the slowest pace since 2021 on the back of a long-awaited slowdown in housing costs, sending the strongest signal yet that the Federal Reserve may be able to cut interest rates soon. The so-called core consumer price index — which excludes food and energy costs — climbed 0.1% from May, the smallest advance in three years, Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showed Thursday. The overall measure fell for the first time since the onset of the pandemic, dragged down by cheaper gasoline. Similar to the May CPI report — which Fed Chair Jerome Powell described this week as “really good” following an unexpected flare-up in the first quarter — the June reading will go a long way toward giving Powell and his colleagues the confidence they need to cut rates. (Source: bloomberg.com)

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