The Sunday Fix: December 10th
UPenn, IVF, Alex Jones, Cuss Words and More
Good morning, all! Hope you had a great weekend. I thought I pressed send on this last night, but I woke up to a draft - guess I was sleepy. Just about two weeks until Christmas. Cheers to that.
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The Sunday Six
Getting you well-read headed into the week
1) Penn Shakeup
Some drama over the weekend at the University of Pennsylvania. President Liz Magill and board chairman Scott L. Bok have packed their bags and said their goodbyes after facing major backlash around comments related to the university’s stance towards antisemitism speech.
Magill's comments on antisemitism came during a Congressional hearing last week. Magill, Claudine Gay of Harvard, and Sally Kornbluth of MIT were discussing the rise of antisemitism on their campuses when things turned sour for the university presidents.
The heat was turned up when Rep. Elise Stefanik pushed Harvard’s Gay on “where she draws the line between protected speech and incitement to violence, and whether she would take disciplinary action against individuals who participated in rallies where there were calls for an intifada, or a violent Palestinian uprising.” Gay (and the other presidents) all answered with a squishy answer of “it depends”. Video below of Stefanik’s exchange with Magill
Needless to say, the outrage was swift and came from every the highest level. On Thursday, financier Ross Stevens said he would rescind a $100 million donation made in 2017 unless Magill was ousted. I imagine that made the board’s decision pretty clear..
Jury is still out on if Gay and Kornbluth will resign / be fired. I don’t think they’re out of the woods just yet, however, it does seem that Harvard faculty is throwing their support behind President Gay (see below). Some interesting questions about protected speech and how to draw the line on college campuses - I put a good article in the Fix’s Picks if interested.
2) Ohtani
Baseball's best-kept secret is out. Shohei Ohtani is leaving the Angels for the Dodgers. And the Dodgers certainly paid up for Ohtani - the superstar signed a $700 million, 10-year deal. Mind boggling number.
Ohtani, a phenomenon likened to Babe Ruth for his dual-threat as a pitcher and hitter, has had a stellar run with the Angels. Despite an elbow injury putting a damper on his pitching prospects for 2024, he's set to continue as a designated hitter.
The Dodgers are betting big here, in large part because of the value Ohtani can bring the team. He drives massive interest in the US, but also in Japan. Thought this was interesting from the NYT:
Japanese companies, no doubt aware that Ohtani’s games will be broadcast live in Japan, will rush to buy signage at Dodger Stadium. How much more they might be willing to pay than an American company is unclear. The Dodgers keep all the revenue from the sale of jerseys, caps and other merchandise in their home market, but sales of gear sold elsewhere must be shared with all 30 major league teams.
There is no doubt that $700M is an insane amount of money. But maybe (just maybe) it can give us all a little bit of solace to see how much Ohtani is paying in taxes.
3) IVF
Some cool news this week related to In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) from Orchid Health. Traditional methods of IVF involve genetic testing to identify potential disorders that the embryo could have. Really helpful tests, but they cover less than 1% of the embryo's genome. Said otherwise, they can really only prevent a narrow range of terrible conditions, many of which are missed unless you know of a history of a condition before the screening.
Orchid's innovation, however, sequences over 99% of the genome, “enabling the detection of over 1200 monogenic conditions.” The screening can also test for randomly occurring mutations within the embryo - conditions that wouldn’t show up in a family history and likely wouldn’t be screened for in the traditional method.
George Church, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School said “For the first time, comprehensive screening is made possible for genetic forms of neurodevelopmental disorders, congenital anomalies, and cancers prior to pregnancy. Helping empower families with this critical health information is a game-changer. This is the future of preventive medicine and family planning."
Cool stuff.
4) Gemini
Gemini takes on ChatGPT. Google's unveiling of Gemini, their latest AI model, marks a big shift in the AI landscape. Gemini, has three versions and boasts an impressive ability to understand and interact with multimedia content, setting a new standard in AI capabilities.
Google's move is seen as a direct response to OpenAI's ChatGPT. Google has said they benchmarked Gemini to ChatGPT - Gemini (reportedly) outperformed ChatGPT on 30 of 32 benchmarks. Perhaps slight bias in that test.
But, one example of the multimedia interacting capability noted above. This would have saved me (and my parents) some long nights in middle school as I tried to understand Algebra II.
5) Alex Jones
Elon Musk has reinstated the account of controversial conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. This decision follows a user poll where 70% supported Jones's return. Jones, banned in 2018 for abusive behavior, is known for calling the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting a hoax.
I am starting to think that Musk is trying to bankrupt X (Twitter) on purpose. The move to reinstate Jones comes amidst backlash Musk received from advertisers regarding his posts related to antisemitism. Many advertisers pulled out dollars from X - I am not sure this will help much.
6) Sardines
Sounds like a bad day to go to the beach in In Hakodate, Japan. Thousands of tons of dead sardines washed up on a beach in northern Japan and officials are stumped on the cause.
Takashi Fujioka, a Hakodate Fisheries Research Institute researcher, said the fish may have been chased by larger fish, become exhausted due to a lack of oxygen while moving in a densely packed school, and were washed up by the waves. Officials are investigating and are encouraging residents to use caution when eating fish in the area.
The video of this beach is crazy. It’s an insane amount of fish.
The Fix’s Picks
Summarizing and linking to some of my favorite reads, podcasts, photos, and clips from the weekend.
Genius Kindergartner
A 6-year-old in NJ has an IQ of 138. To put this in perspective, the highest average score for people under 64 years of age is 109. Her parents said they noticed her intelligence when she was 18-months-old. Her mother said "We were on a trip in the airport, and she just started to count in Mandarin”
I am not sure I believe that, but regardless, a wild life ahead for this little one. Full story from USA Today
LA Coroner
The Los Angeles coroner deals with the same routine as other coroners across the country. Except for the addition of celebrities. Officially called the County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner, the office is often referred to as “the coroner to the stars”. The NYT took an inside look into the office - fun (albeit a little dark) read.
One photo included in the article was the one below - the body of Marilyn Monroe at the coroner’s office in August 1962.
Free Speech
The debate about free speech and where to draw the line is in the light this week after the congressional hearing debacle we discussed above. I thought this piece by Bret Stephens from the NYT was good about the challenging position the university presidents were in, but the hypocrisy they showed through it all is also evident. Full read here
I have some sympathy for the three presidents following their stumbling performance. None have been in their jobs for long. They all expressed abhorrence for antisemitism during more than three hours of testimony. And they are clearly struggling with how to balance respect for free expression on campus with opposition to hate speech.
But the deep problem with their testimonies was not fundamentally about calls for genocide or free speech. It was about double standards — itself a form of antisemitism, but one that can be harder to detect.
The double standard is this: Colleges and universities that for years have been notably censorious when it comes to free speech seem to have suddenly discovered its virtues only now, when the speech in question tends to be especially hurtful to Jews.
Bystander Effect
Little psychology for you! The bystander effect suggests that people are less likely to help a victim when surrounded by a group, as the responsibility is diffused among the bystanders.
Don’t be a bystander. Go help someone.
The Best of the Rest
All the funny or wise content I came across to kick your week off right
Texas Instruments
American Cuss Words
At risk of stating the obvious, this video does have bad language
Have a great week! See you next Sunday.