After the stunning fall of Terraform Lab’s Terra USD stablecoin sent shockwaves through the crypto markets that wiped out some $200 billion in wealth in just 24 hours, the public—and many government officials—are questioning just how “stable” these stablecoins really are. But Terra isn’t the first stablecoin to tumble. The idea behind stablecoins is that, unlike other forms of cryptocurrency which often have wildly fluctuating price
In December of 2020, Los Angeles-based photographer Sam Comen began photographing the essential workers of Los Angeles—from trauma nurses and grocery store cashiers to truckers and custodial staff—and documenting the toll that the pandemic would take on their lives. Reported during the pandemic’s relentless winter wave, Comen’s photographs laid bare the systemic inequalities that forced underpaid and overworked employees to shoulder an unthinkable burden. They also hi
A New York-based tech industry charity called 1K has gathered millions in donations to send directly to needy families in Ukraine. The charity says it’s raised more than $5 million from individuals, startups, and venture capitalists, all of which has provided financial assistance to some 5,000 Ukrainian families. 1K was founded by entrepreneur and VC Alex Iskold, who was born in the Ukraine, and Chrysi Philalithes, who runs digital outreach at the AIDS organization (RED). 1K works th
Two companies working to bring ketamine therapy to patients with PTSD, depression, and other mental health conditions are teaming up to grow the reach of psychedelic-assisted mental health care. Field Trip, which has a network of clinics for ketamine-assisted therapy, now offers therapy via Nue Life, a telehealth mental wellness company launched in 2021. Two-year-old Field Trip, which went public on the Nasdaq last summer, has opened 11 clinics in North America, as well as one in Europe, built a
Since the Apollo days, astronauts have experienced an existential overwhelm through their reframed view of Earth as a fragile planet against the harshness of space and the vessel of all humanity. It’s an event so profound that it’s come to be known as the overview effect, a term coined in 1987 by author and space philosopher Frank White. For civilians, it’s reserved for a rarified few who can shell out $450,000 to $55 million for several weightless minutes at the edge of s
As the world’s need for large amounts of portable energy grows at an ever-increasing pace, many innovators have sought to replace current battery technology with something better. Italian physicist Alessandro Volta tapped into fundamental electrochemical principles when he invented the first battery in 1800. Essentially, the physical joining of two different materials, usually metals, generates a chemical reaction that results in the flow of electrons from one material to t
As the cryptocurrency market burns through its worst crash in years, Twitter is ablaze with charts streaked in red, suggesting that a new crypto winter is here. The great downturn came during a bearish week for Wall Street stocks, a correlation that didn’t escape notice:
I never wanted to see this, but if you check the charts it's obvious:#Bitcoin never had a bull run without #Nasdaq support. Actually, if correlation goes down, it's even a bearish signal, since this has happene
The first time Major League Baseball jumped into NFT-based fantasy sports, it was too early. MLB Champions, launched in 2018 with a company called Lucid Sight, was a fantasy baseball-like game and marketplace for bobblehead-looking NFTs that users could buy, sell, and trade to build a team roster. It shut down two years later, after failing to gain traction. The league is now taking another swing, along with the MLB Players Association, this time via a multiyear deal with Sorare, the Paris-based
Satellites help run the internet and television and are central to the Global Positioning System. They enable modern weather forecasting, help scientists track environmental degradation and play a huge role in modern military technology. Nations that don’t have their own satellites providing these services rely on other countries. For those that want to develop their own satellite infrastructure, options are running out as space fills up. I am a research fellow at
If you’re like me, you’re constantly looking for ways to save time. I’m not all that busy, mind you: I’m mostly just lazy. And the less time I spend doing stuff, the more time I have to not do stuff. Enter Google Assistant. It’s very good at setting timers, which must be among its most oft-requested tasks. But it can do a whole lot more, some of which can result in real time-savings each day. Here are a handful of Google Assistant commands that I use every day