#55: AI Music, Gulls, Decapitated Sperm, Salty Batteries, Airspace Ownership, and more!

Hi everyone!

For months, I have been surprising my friends by generating custom songs using Suno, an AI tool that generates entire songs from a single prompt. It's not only fun, some songs are very catchy!

But last week, something interesting happened. I was listening to a Spotify radio when a catchy rock song started playing.

I played it a few times until I realized this sounds a lot like a song Suno would generate. It’s hard to explain what ticked me off, but I did some research and sure enough, the song was AI generated.

In fact, the artist didn't even exist. It's a fictitious band made by a Christian digital studio. Wow!

I think it’s amazing that AI can generate full-length songs that actually sound good. It’s not a masterpiece, but it made me uneasy. Will this become more widespread in the future? Will our music feeds be populated with highly personalized songs? And how can we attend a concert of an AI-generated artist?

If you're curious, give the song a listen and let me know what you think.
"By His Wounds" by "The Sowers".

Enjoy this edition of the newsletter,
Xavier

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🤓 Cool Stuff I Found on the Internet

Cannes Film Festival hired hawks...
The Cannes Film Festival employed Harris hawks to deter gulls from disrupting events. Gulls are considered a pest in many cities, but the real problem is not the gulls. It’s human-caused ecological issues that destroy gull habitats, and we attract them to cities because we’re bad at waste management.

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Decaf with effects of caffeine
Need coffee to keep you awake? Caffeine might have nothing to do with it! Researchers gave coffee drinkers either caffeinated or decaf coffee, but they didn’t know which. The result? Heart rate increased, and performance on mental tasks improved for BOTH groups. Conclusion: the ritual of making and drinking coffee is powerful on its own. No caffeine needed (although that helps as well).

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See-in-the-dark contact lens
Chinese researchers have developed contact lenses that convert infrared light into visible light, allowing humans to see in the dark. The lenses use nanoparticles to transform infrared wavelengths between 800 and 1,600 nanometers into visible light. While not as powerful as night vision goggles, these non-invasive lenses have shown promise in human tests.

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3D Printer filament
Vintage computer collector Joe Strosnider spent $900 to recreate the "Platinum" color of the original Macintosh. He then teamed up with a company to make 3D printer filament from it! So now you can 3D prints parts that match the vintage Apple computers. It's available now in the US, and I desperately need someone to make this available in Europe as well. Hello Prusa?

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How much airspace do you own?
Who owns the air above your house? With drone deliveries booming, are low-flying drones allowed to zoom over your house? The answer is actually unclear. This article explores the challenge of balancing homeowners' rights with the public interest. It proposes solutions like defining the height of private property airspace and creating "air corridors" to prevent drones from flying all over. Interesting discussion!

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⏳ On this day...

1618: Joris Vaseler prints the first Dutch newspaper in Amsterdam. This marks a pivotal moment, laying the groundwork for modern media.

1777: The Stars and Stripes becomes the official flag of the United States

1822: Charles Babbage announces his difference engine, an automatic mechanical calculator.

1919: John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown depart from St. John's, Newfoundland on the first nonstop transatlantic flight

1949: Albert 2, a rhesus monkey, becomes the first mammal in space

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🧠🤖 Artificial intelligence

OpenAI hits $10 billion in revenue
OpenAI's revenue has nearly doubled in a single year, going from $5.5 billion to $10 billion this year. The company is serving 500 million weekly users and has 3 million paying business customers. Let that sink in: $10 billion in revenue, just 2.5 years after ChatGPT launched. The company is targeting revenue of $125 billion by 2029.

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McKinsey lets AI make presentations
McKinsey & Company has introduced Lilli, an AI platform used by over 75% of its 43,000 employees. Named after the firm’s first female hire, Lilli can create presentations, draft proposals, and research trends while maintaining company standards. The AI assistant saves workers 30% of time spent on information gathering and synthesis, but McKinsey doesn’t plan to reduce hiring.

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Apple reveals limits of "thinking" models
While OpenAI believes reasoning models will propel us towards artificial general intelligence, Apple researchers challenge the notion. In their study, they found that simulating thought processes still has fundamental limitations in their problem-solving capabilities. It raises questions about the effectiveness of current AI reasoning approaches and their potential for achieving general artificial intelligence.

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🏥 Health & Medicine

The Surprising Link Between Cat Litter and Male Infertility
Male fertility rates have been declining globally, and the parasite Toxoplasma gondii might be partly responsible. It’s incredibly common and has infected half the world’s population. You get infected by handling cat litter or from contaminated foods. New research has shown it can reach male reproductive organs and decapitate 20% of sperm cells! Yikes.

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Cereals becoming less healthy
This study looked at 1,200 different cereals that launched or changed between 2010 and 2023. The result? On average, cereals now pack more sugar, fat, and salts than they did before. Fat went up by 34%, salt by 32% and sugar by 11% over the last 13 years. That’s a big deal because many people eat cereal daily.

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⚡ Energy & Environment

Reviving dead lithium-ion batteries
What can you do with dead lithium batteries? Chinese researchers used AI to find a solution, and it did not disappoint! The model came up with a lithium-ion salt that, when injected, restores a battery’s capacity. Early tests showed batteries regaining 96% of their capacity after 12,000 charging cycles. This could significantly affect battery recycling and waste management.

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Solar surpasses nuclear
In April 2025, solar power achieved a historic milestone by generating 10% of global electricity, surpassing nuclear energy for the first time. This makes solar the fourth largest source of global electricity.