#146 - Potential Aliens, Colossal Squids, and The Impact Summit!
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Impact Update
We’re excited to announce that the Impact Summit this year will be taking place in late summer in San Francisco! More details to come, but we’re super excited to reunite with you all! If you’re interested in joining the programming team or would like to volunteer during the event itself, fill out this interest form and specify that you’re interested in joining the summit team - we’ll get back to you shortly!
In the News
Lots of cool news this week!
👽 The atmosphere of planet K2-18 b, 124 light years from earth, has been found to contain to organic compounds that are typically produced by living organisms. While it’s far from conclusive, this is definitely the closest we’ve gotten to discovering extraterrestrial life.
🐭 The most detailed neuronal map of a mouse brain has been achieved by scientists of the MICrONS project, resulting in 1.6 petabytes of data for only 1% of the volume of the mouse’s brain.
🍃 According to a recently released report by Ember, renewables accounted for 40% of global energy production in 2024
🤧 A variation of the influenza virus, B Yamagata, has gone extinct.
🦑 We finally caught a colossal squid on camera! Anticlimactically, it’s of a juvenile only 1ft long.
⚡️ At last, perovskites might be ready for commercialization, with a British perovskite company entering into a licensing contract with one of China’s largest solar manufacturers.
Opportunities
“GoodParty.org is on a mission to make people matter more than money in our democracy by empowering independent candidates to run, win, and serve. Our AI-powered platform provides free tools to independent candidates to run their campaigns, connect with voters, and serve their communities effectively.” The team is currently searching for a range of open technical and non-technical roles.
“Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to policy advocacy in the public interest, focused on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. Our mission is to help U.S. policymakers develop a thoughtful governance framework for rapidly advancing technologies that protects the public from harm while continuing to foster innovation.” Their team in DC is currently seeking a policy analyst.
AidData is looking for a summer intern to help them map the flow of finances in China, which helps other researchers better assess policy interventions. “Research Assistants will play a key role in assembling the world's most comprehensive dataset on Chinese official financial flows. Work will include but is not limited to: identifying new Chinese financing, scraping government documents, and collecting geospatial information. Your work will assist policymakers at partner institutions to better understand the scale and scope of development and commercial finance from nontraditional donors.”
New Incentives is a charity that promotes vaccination efforts in northern Nigeria, one of the most difficult regions to reach from a public health perspective. They’re on the lookout for a stakeholder relation officer. “The Stakeholder Relation Officer is responsible for supporting the initiation and coordination of strategic relationships and partnerships with communities/settlements, health professionals, local government, community service organizations and other relevant stakeholders to improve the program.”
“The Long Now Foundation is seeking an experienced Front End Engineer to bring new capabilities to longnow.org. You'll work from detailed, high fidelity mockups to create responsive, user-friendly front-end experiences that connect seamlessly with our back-end systems in service of Long Now's mission of fostering long-term thinking and responsibility. This is a part-time contract opportunity open to individuals or web development firms. We welcome proposals from experienced front end developers.”
What We’re Watching
This very cool dashboard shows how the rate of deforestation in the Amazon is declining. Keep in mind, that means deforestation is still happening, but at a lower rate than compared to the same time last year.
The EU is starting to pay attention to forever chemicals like PFAS. They recently banned the sale of children’s toys containing PFAS.
We may soon be able to listen in on what dolphins are saying.
If you’ve ever wanted to see a rhino being transported upside down in a helicopter, look no further (it’s for conservation, we swear)!
Quotes We Love
“The difference between try and triumph is a little umph.”
- Marvin Phillips
That’s all for now! See you in your inbox in another two weeks! ❤️