29th February 2020, 1 min read

Science and Technology links (February 29th 2020)

1. No one really understands how planes fly. This puts a dent in the model whereas inventions follows theory.
2. Physician salaries and diagnostic tests account for 4% of GDP in the US.
3. A supplement (NMN) available to human beings has been used in mice: it restores fertility in old female mice.
4. The investment firm Andreesen Horowitz is critical of artificial intelligence start-ups. It finds that they have low margins due to the cost of training models using many computers on the cloud. They may fail to scale due to the difficulty of generalizing use cases. And they are subject to commodification. That is, “artificial intelligence” as a business proposition may be far less profitable than typical “software” ventures.
5. The most profitable businesses tend to be started by older people who have lots of experience in a specific industry.
6. Dog can detect heat sources far away (1.6 meters) with their nose.
7. Cancer patients received genetically edited immune cells (using CRISPR). It turned out well.