🙏 Holy shroud: A blood analysis of the Shroud of Turin might back the biblical story of Jesus’ crucifixion. An engineer used modern tech on samples from the 1970s and found signs of organ failure, trauma, disease and radiation. The blood contained earthen materials typically found in Jerusalem. Isn’t this amazing?!
1.6M brain scans
Used to train an AI tool that predicts dementia risk. Researchers are using MRI and CT scans to find patterns that could help doctors spot dementia sooner and treat it better. I sure hope it works; by 2050, the number of people with dementia is expected to triple.
I’d rather watch a movie at home: Apple is rethinking its movie strategy after a string of box-office flops. The new plan: Limited theatrical runs before streaming on Apple TV+. Take “Napoleon,” which cost $200 million to make but grossed $221 million. “The Instigators,” streaming this month, pulled in about 50,000 new subs.
I got a kick out of this: Football player Travis Kelce’s dad is banned for life on X. He posted (on Facebook!) about the hypocrisy of arms dealers in Yemen selling weapons on the platform when all he really did was follow sports reporters. X hasn’t given him a clear reason — just a generic Terms of Service violation.
10M copies
Three-day sales of Black Myth: Wukong, a new action game for PC and PlayStation 5. It’s based on the Chinese novel “Journey to the West.” It’s officially one of the fastest-selling games of all time, and it broke the record for the most-played single-player game on Steam, taking out Cyberpunk 2077.
👮 AI on patrol: Cops are using AI chatbots like Draft One to write crime reports, turning 45 minutes of work into an 8-second task. An Oklahoma officer says the first draft was 100% accurate when he tried. Cool, but let’s hope it’s just a starting place. If cops testify in court, they can’t say, “The AI wrote that, not me.”
Forget EVs: Plug-in hybrids are winning popularity contests, with sales in the U.S. almost doubling since 2019. Most folks are hesitant to go all-electric, so the gas engine adds some security. In many cases, they’re cheaper than purely electric or gas models, too (paywall link).
Telegram’s founder says he has “nothing to hide”: French authorities arrested him for criminal activities on the anonymous chat app — like people videoing themselves killing cats with kitchen utensils and pedophiles sharing explicit images of kids. The CEO says the app shouldn’t be held responsible for the horrible content, citing freedom of speech. Ahem, that’s not free speech, jerkface.
Vampires keep their money in a blood bank: This is unbelievable. A dumb Kansas bank CEO got 24 years in prison after falling for a massive crypto scam. He blew through his money and his daughter’s college fund, and then he ordered $47 million in bank funds to be transferred to a secret crypto wallet, thinking he’d get rich. No word on if or when the bank’s customers will get their money.
$100M from Google
To fund propaganda surrounding the war in Ukraine. The money was taken from the tech giant’s Russian bank accounts in 2022, forcing Google’s Russian entity to declare bankruptcy. The funds went to Russian TV channels that pledged to use the funds to support the Kremlin’s war.