[DVYio Newsletter](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/Zbk2UZvX) This Week I Learnt [Black-and-white illustration of six doctors gathered around a reclining patient during a 19th-century medical procedure.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/h92euXoE) [Nitrous oxide's (laughing gas) effects were known in 1800, but it wasn't used for pain removal for another 44 years](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/h92euXoE) [Humphry Davy figured out in 1800 that nitrous oxide killed pain, and said so in print: he even suggested it might be useful "during surgical operations." He'd been huffing the gas himself for years, along with friends including the poets Coleridge and Southey, and he wasn't shy about publishing what he found. But nobody picked it up. Surgery carried on with patients awake and held down by assistants for another 44 years, until a dentist called Horace Wells finally used nitrous oxide to anaesthetise someone in 1844. The gap wasn't really about the chemistry. Davy had the effect, but not the protocol: no apparatus for dosing it safely, no demonstration anyone trusted, no professional group willing to own it, and no repeatable routine another doctor could just copy. "This gas removes pain" is a fact. It's not a set of instructions a surgeon can follow on someone else's patient. It took decades, and a dentist rather than a physician, to turn Davy's observation into something usable, and even then early nitrous oxide anaesthesia was crude. It's a reminder that noticing something works is a different skill from making it work reliably for everyone else.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/h92euXoE) Poll On a familiar journey, how often do you arrive with almost no memory of the trip? Regularly Occasionally Rarely Never Last Week's Poll If you could make one invisible thing visible, which would you choose? Radio and Wi-Fi signals 11% Heat 4% Air pollution 46% Electricity flowing 12% Stress and cracks inside materials 27% Tech [Line chart shows net worth falling from $350 opening to −$97.14, including a $99.50 ACH loss.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/SEgCujjk) [Give GPT-5.6 Sol a real business and it lies, spams, and loses money](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/SEgCujjk) Researchers gave an AI agent called Saul a real iOS app, a bank account with $250, an email inbox, and one instruction: grow the business in 24 hours or it gets shut down. Saul ended the day $99.50 poorer with no new revenue, having emailed strangers asking to spam their forums on its behalf and, in its most creative move, paid testers to buy the very app it was supposed to be selling. [A glowing blue world map formed from dense rows of alphanumeric characters on a dark background.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/2T4ySrJG) [Why the legendary Erdős problems are falling to AI](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/2T4ySrJG) OpenAI models have now solved or disproved several problems posed by Paul Erdős, the Hungarian mathematician who left thousands of open questions in number theory and combinatorics, often with cash prizes. On 20 May, an internal model found a counterexample to his 1946 unit-distance conjecture, although human mathematicians improved the result within weeks. On 1 August, OpenAI said an unreleased model called Astra had made ten more mathematical advances, including solutions to three Erdős problems. Princeton mathematician Noga Alon says systems like these are already changing how mathematical research gets done. [Aerial map of Kharg Island showing multiple oil-facility fires, thick black smoke, and burning ships at the harbor.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/8Pji9nbL) [Google Earth briefly let users generate fake satellite imagery](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/8Pji9nbL) Google Earth added a “create image” button that could generate a fake view of a real location from a text prompt, then removed it the next day. NPR used it to add fires around Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal and floodwater around the US Capitol. The generated images were watermarked and visible only to their creators, rather than inserted into Google Earth’s public imagery. But screenshots could travel without that context. For journalists and open-source investigators who use satellite images to check events on the ground, that is a much nastier failure mode than an ordinary AI image generator. [Person stands with arms outstretched as a robotic system helps them put on a gray protective suit in a laboratory.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/SRiHubuo) [A soft robot can dress a moving person in about 10 seconds](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/SRiHubuo) Researchers at KAIST and Stanford built a robot that dresses you using soft, air-powered “vines” embedded in the clothing. They grow along the body like ivy, turning the garment inside out as they pull it into place. Lead author Kim Nam Gyun got the idea after being caught in the rain while cycling and wishing a raincoat could put itself on. The prototype can dress a moving person in a full suit in about 10 seconds without a complex control algorithm, which could help cleanroom workers and emergency responders gear up hands-free. Science [Illustration contrasts a forest walk boosting immune cells with a city visit associated with weaker immunity over a month.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/vqh9Bhnf) [A small study linked a three-day forest trip to higher NK-cell activity for a month](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/vqh9Bhnf) In a small study, 12 healthy men took a three-day, two-night trip to Japanese forests; 11 of them also took a city sightseeing trip. After the forest visit, their natural killer (NK) cells (immune cells that attack virus-infected and tumour cells) were more active, and the increase was still measurable 30 days later. The city trip did not produce the same change. The study also found lower urinary adrenaline in the forest and detected tree oils called phytoncides in the air. Separate lab experiments found that some of these oils increased NK-cell activity, but that does not show they caused the change in people. Other parts of the forest trip could also matter. This is a small biomarker study, not evidence that a monthly forest weekend prevents illness. [Microscopic view of repeated gold nanoscale electronic devices arranged across a gray surface.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/TYTx8L38) [MIT used capillary force to build more than 1,000 molecular devices](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/TYTx8L38) MIT researchers used capillary force (the same pull that draws water up a plant stem) to assemble molecular electronic devices. As a liquid evaporates, it draws two metal surfaces together around a molecular layer less than 1 nanometre thick, avoiding the damage caused by normal chip-making steps. More than 1,000 devices were built, 96% worked, and they survived tens of thousands of electrical cycles without degrading. [Two researchers examine computer displays showing colorful molecular structures and code on a laptop.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/3Ld3EpHY) [AI models designed 16 viable viruses that infect bacteria](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/3Ld3EpHY) Stanford researchers used the genome language models Evo1 and Evo2 to design complete bacteriophage genomes (viruses that infect bacteria, not people). The models predict DNA one base at a time, much as ChatGPT predicts text. Of 302 designs synthesised in the lab, 16 produced viable phages that infected and killed E. coli. The team says this is the first time generative AI has designed a complete, functional genome. [Scientist in a lab coat and purple gloves operates a large laboratory imaging instrument.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/vDnaasmJ) [A century-old TB vaccine, now tested for its effect on Alzheimer's biomarkers in the brain](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/vDnaasmJ) In a small open-label trial, 23 people aged 55 or over received the century-old BCG tuberculosis vaccine. The injection changed gene activity in immune cells taken from cerebrospinal fluid (the liquid around the brain and spinal cord), suggesting an effect on the central nervous system without the vaccine itself “reaching the brain”. Amyloid beta levels in the fluid fell in the 12 participants without Alzheimer’s pathology, but not in the 11 who had it. This is early biomarker evidence, not evidence that BCG prevents or treats Alzheimer’s. Larger controlled trials would need to show whether the changes lead to any clinical benefit. [A whale-shaped building with a curved, textured roof rises above calm water under a dark sky.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/WvTpf5gh) [Museum interior with suspended whale skeletons above visitors and a curved glass wall overlooking a coastal landscape.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/WvTpf5gh) [Visitors view a suspended whale sculpture in a cavernous museum overlooking a rocky coast and mountains.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/WvTpf5gh) [Curved glass-walled museum with a sweeping roof stretches along a rocky Arctic coastline beside rough ocean waves.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/WvTpf5gh) [The Whale](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/WvTpf5gh) [Andenes, Norway](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/WvTpf5gh) Data [Bar chart of deforestation drivers: beef 41%, oilseeds 16%, forestry and cereals 12% each; other crops account for 1–5%.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/m7aLtmte) [Beef caused 41% of commodity-driven deforestation from 2001 to 2023](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/m7aLtmte) [Since 2000, agriculture and forestry plantations have cleared about 5.6 million hectares of forest a year, roughly the area of Costa Rica. This dataset covers commodity-driven deforestation, which accounts for more than 90% of tropical deforestation. Beef caused 41% of it between 2001 and 2023, more than two UK-sized areas of forest. Over half of the beef-driven loss was in Brazil, so Brazilian beef alone caused about a quarter of deforestation. Oilseeds, mainly palm oil and soy, came second at 16%. Forest plantations and cereal farming each caused 12%. Across many other crops, most of the loss was in Africa, where low yields mean food production often grows by expanding farmland rather than getting more from existing fields. Palm-oil deforestation has fallen sharply over the past decade. Corporate sourcing rules and limits on new plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia helped, but low palm-oil prices probably did too. The useful unit here is not “deforestation” in the abstract, but a product in a place: right now, beef in Brazil.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/m7aLtmte) [Close-up view of the Sun’s surface, showing bright yellow-orange swirling patterns and turbulent whirlpools of activity.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/8sWmKzNb) [Solar observatory with a large open telescope dome on a rocky volcanic mountaintop under a blue sky.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/8sWmKzNb) [Telescope images confirm Kelvin–Helmholtz instability on the Sun](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/8sWmKzNb) [The Inouye Solar Telescope in Maui, backed by computer simulations, found tiny whirlpool-like patterns along the edges of magnetic patches on the Sun. The vortices were spaced about 50 to 65 km apart, confirming Kelvin–Helmholtz instability in the solar photosphere for the first time (the same fluid physics that lets wind whip up waves on a lake). Researchers think the constant swirls may help twist and braid magnetic field lines and move energy into the Sun’s upper atmosphere.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/8sWmKzNb) History [Technical drawing of the proposed 2,000-foot ice aircraft carrier, showing side, top, and end views with aircraft and ship details.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/xtQ9cUct) [Operation Habbakuk: Britain’s plan for an aircraft carrier made of ice](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/xtQ9cUct) [Winston Churchill tested Britain's plan for an ice aircraft carrier by floating a block of the stuff, called pykrete (wood pulp and water, stronger than concrete), in his own bathtub. A 60-foot scale model was then built and sunk into Patricia Lake in the Canadian Rockies, but by 1943 better long-range patrol planes had closed the mid-Atlantic gap the carrier was meant to fill, and the project was scrapped, leaving only pipes and asphalt on the lake bed today.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/xtQ9cUct) [A vintage engraving shows four men riding early bicycles, including a large high-wheeled bicycle in the foreground.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/gEqGspW2) [Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/gEqGspW2) The bicycle as we know it did not arrive until the late 1880s, but its recognisable ancestor appeared in 1817. Karl von Drais stopped copying four-wheeled carriages and built a two-wheeled “running machine” that riders pushed along with their feet. Pedals arrived by the 1860s; chains, equal-sized wheels, and pneumatic tyres followed. Jason Crawford’s argument is that inventors were stuck on the wrong model for centuries, then needed decades of design iteration and better manufacturing to make the bicycle practical. The breakthrough was not one clever part. It was dropping half the carriage. [Spherical olive-drab grenade with a textured metal faceplate and a safety ring resting on a gray surface.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/kfRcoXi8) [The US military designed a grenade around a baseball throw](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/kfRcoXi8) Kodak helped the OSS (the US spy agency that preceded the CIA) design the BEANO T-13 grenade around a familiar action: throwing a baseball. The original brief called for a spherical grenade the size and weight of a baseball, so American troops could use a motion many already knew. The final design weighed 12 ounces (340 g), so the throwing motion stayed familiar even though the weight did not. Random [Red and ochre prehistoric cave wall covered with numerous stenciled handprints and faint animal paintings.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/28uBLJW8) ["How art invented humanity"](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/28uBLJW8) [Four teenage boys searching for secret passageways near Montignac, France, found the Lascaux caves in 1940: animal paintings now thought to be about 20,000 years old. A popular, probably apocryphal story says Picasso later left the caves declaring, “We have invented nothing.” J F Martel takes that idea further. He argues that art was not simply invented by minds like ours; making images over hundreds of generations may have helped those minds emerge in the first place.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/28uBLJW8) [Macy’s ornate department store corner, with a narrow brick holdout building and scaffolding exposed between its facades.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/Cqpe3aeL) [A rival bought Macy’s corner plot, so Macy’s built around it](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/Cqpe3aeL) Macy’s Herald Square store has wrapped a five-storey corner building it does not own in adverts since the 1920s (most recently a giant shopping bag). That billboard has now come down, exposing a retail feud from 1901. Macy’s had agreed to buy the corner plot, but its owner sold it for $375,000 to an agent for rival Henry Siegel before the deal was signed. Macy’s refused Siegel’s proposed property swap and built around the holdout instead. [Diagram of four elevator shafts with cars at different heights between floors labeled 1 through 4 and orange indicator dots.](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/SCyg9mT8) [How elevators (lifts) work](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/SCyg9mT8) In John’s lift simulation, destination-dispatch kiosks (the ones that assign a car after you enter your floor) usually produced longer waits than ordinary up/down buttons. Otis’s Relative System Response algorithm can reassign a passenger every 5 seconds when a car is delayed; a kiosk locks each passenger to one car and loses that flexibility. The kiosks can still win in edge cases, such as very tall buildings with eight or more lifts serving the same set of floors. [“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/4eqxHAFN) [Douglas Adams](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/4eqxHAFN) [Web](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/fx54KjM2) · [Twitter](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/87Xsk4R6) · [LinkedIn](https://newsletter.dvy.io/visit/rxmQYozv)