From TLDR 2025-01-02

9 INTRIGUING ENGINEERING FEATS FOR 2025 (4 MINUTE READ) [6]

This article covers nine engineering projects planned for this year.
These include MethaneSat, a satellite that anyone can use to pinpoint
specific problem areas and track emissions of methane more broadly; a processing site for radioactive nuclear waste; a personal aircraft
called the Airhart Sling that anyone can fly in under an hour; Rocket
Lab's Neutron, a reusable booster capable of launching 13,000
kilograms to low earth orbit; and profitable robotaxis.

HOW AI IS UNLOCKING ANCIENT TEXTS - AND COULD REWRITE HISTORY (15
MINUTE READ) [7]

Artificial neural networks are being used to decipher ancient texts.
The technology is producing more data for scholars than they've had
for centuries. It is making sense of vast archives, filling in missing
and unreadable characters, and decoding rare and lost languages. The
technology promises a fundamentally new way to explore ancient
sources.

H5N1: MUCH MORE THAN YOU WANTED TO KNOW (24 MINUTE READ) [10]

All pandemic flus started as bird flus - influenza A evolved in birds
but it sometimes spreads to other animals, including pigs, cattle, and
humans. The most common way for a bird flu to spread to humans is to
'reassort' with a human flu virus, which results in a virus with all
of the human flu virus' human adaptations, but with enough new
antigens from the bird virus to evade the immune system. Pigs can be
infected by both human and bird viruses, so they are a common place
for this reassortment to take place. Humans can catch animal diseases
without the disease having 'crossed over' to humans, but every viral replication that takes place in a human who has both a bird and a
normal human flu gives the virus an extra chance to reassort in a way
that produces a bird-antigen-fortified human-adapted flu virus.

2024 IN AI PREDICTIONS (14 MINUTE READ) [11]

This article contains a list of predictions made in 2024 by prominent
people in the AI industry about AI development over the next couple of
decades. It also reviews some of the predictions made about 2024. Elon
Musk thinks that AI will probably be smarter than any single human by
the end of this year. However, Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun have
both said that it will take much longer, possibly even two decades.

INTERNAL SPACEX DOCUMENTS SHOW THE SWEET STOCK DEALS OFFERED TO
INVESTORS LIKE A16Z, GIGAFUND (7 MINUTE READ) [12]

a16z was authorized to buy nearly 4.3 million shares for almost $300
million and Gigafund, whose co-founder is a SpaceX board member, was
allocated over 1.4 million shares at a cost of nearly $100 million.

Links:
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[6] https://spectrum.ieee.org/technology-in-2025?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[7] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04161-z?utm_source=tldrnewsletter [10] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/h5n1-much-more-than-you-wanted-to?utm_sou rce=tldrnewsletter
[11] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CJ4sppkGcbnGMSG2r/2024-in-ai-predictions?u tm_source=tldrnewsletter
[12] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/01/internal-spacex-documents-show-the-sweet -stock-deals-offered-to-investors-like-a16z-gigafund/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter

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