📰  Hot off the press

👋  Good morning. We said, GOOD MORNING! Might be hard to hear us over the din, especially if you live in Texas, the loudest state in the US, according to Alpine Hearing Protection. The analysis found that 48 states exceed the EPA’s recommended 55-decibel outdoor limit, and everything is bigger, and louder, in Texas, which came in 25 decibels above the limit. Only Connecticut and Vermont fell below the threshold, so if you crave the silent treatment, head to New England. 

NEWS FLASH 

🤖  Your Roomba is shaking in its charging dock: San Francisco startup Tau Robotics is renting out humanoid robots that can clean your home for $30 an hour. The bots are remotely monitored by humans — for now — and can vacuum, wipe counters, clean up spills, and take out the trash. Booking is invite-only, but there’s a waitlist to join if you’re interested. If the robots can successfully change a duvet cover without a breakdown, we’re in.

🍫  You’re not you when you’re hungry… and neither is AI, apparently? Snickers just launched Hungr.AI, a digital candy bar you can “feed” to your AI assistant when it starts hallucinating or being too agreeable. US residents over 18 can give their bot a digital candy bar and receive a Snickers bar delivered IRL via DoorDash for themselves. Things are getting pretty weird out there, guys.

🧠  A penny for your thoughts? Actually, make it $499 — you're worth it. Startup Atlas just launched a wearable EEG puck that adheres behind your ear and tracks brain activity throughout the day, translating the data into Presence, Stress, and Energy Burn metrics so you can see on paper you zoned out in that Zoom.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

• A stone’s throw? Fermi Explorer plans to launch a 2.2-pound cube into space aimed at Alpha Centauri — the closest star system to our solar system — but it won’t reach its destination for ~80k years, which is about how long that slide deck is taking you.

• AI plows ahead: John Deere launched JD, an AI assistant that pulls from farmers’ own field and operational data to answer questions about equipment, fuel usage, and harvest timing, and, hopefully, make farmers more money.  
  

   

• Also on the farm: Canadian startup Agrivanna is building satellite-enabled GPS collars that let ranchers track herds and manage grazing virtually from anywhere on the planet without requiring cell connectivity. 

• Bad to the bone: Bark, the company behind pet subscription brand BarkBox, and Liquid Death just dropped a limited-edition collection of dog toys featuring Ram Chop, Dogtor Death Can, Marcus the Carcass, and Murder Bird, because why the hell not?
  

FROM OUR FRIENDS AT MINDSTREAM 

AI scrubbed into the OR

London surgeons performed the world's first AI-assisted brain tumor removal in May, using the technology to color-code critical structures like nerves and blood vessels in real time while operating on an 11mm tumor.

The patient, 48-year-old Rhys Hibbert, made a full recovery with his sight intact.

👉 Read more on Mindstream.

THE BIG IDEA

Why dog food and ankle weights are suddenly front-page news

If print media ever did truly die, as many have proclaimed over the years, recent reports would suggest it has risen from its papery grave with new stories to tell.

Newspapers, ~3.5k of which have disappeared since the mid-2000s in the US, are experiencing a revival — but this time, they’re taking on new life as consumer brands’ favorite marketing tools.

A fresh-off-the-press strategy

Brand marketers are printing their own issues to “announce product launches, decorate pop-ups, and build community with their customers,” per Inc. Some are even using the physical format to drive engagement online.

• In July, D2C dog food brand Maev posted a photo on Instagram of a newspaper it created to tease its new Nordic fish formula and saw an 87% increase in social media engagement compared to its previous product launch. (It also distributed copies at dog parks, in PR mailers, and at Nordic cafes.)
  
• Last year, ankle-weight maker Bala, whose self-described “retro” vibe works well with the nostalgic format, produced its second-ever newspaper to promote a collaboration with Dunkin’ on social media…

It sold out in 48 hours, making it the brand’s fastest-selling collab to date — all for $36 and 24 hours of work, thanks to Canva and Office Depot printers.

But not everyone knows how to DIY a professional-looking periodical…

Breaking news: a printing press is actually making money in 2026

Scotland’s Newspaper Club — a small-batch, on-demand printing press — has benefited from the trend, which CMO Kaye Symington told Inc first took off in 2024, when it saw a 50% increase in business.

The company has since seen demand from brands like New Balance, Maev, Stella McCartney, and Linktree, as well as individuals looking for creative ways to announce personal news, like engagements, graduations, and births.

• Today, it has 10 staffers and has printed 40m+ newspapers since launching in 2009.
  
• Customers can print anywhere from one copy to 1k.
  
• Newspaper Club offers four different formats, premade templates, and worldwide shipping in 2-9 days.
  
• Pricing ranges from $67 for one to ~$1.2k for 1k.

Not cheap. But Newspaper Club is dedicated to making printing more affordable and sustainable — it uses eco-friendly ink and paper (and it’s working on the affordable part) — so that, hopefully, print media doesn’t return to the proverbial ditch it was recently resurrected from.

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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Fewer than 50 guests? No problem: Here’s how to plan, run, and measure ROI for micro events. 

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Illnesses linked to food-borne outbreaks in 2026 that have been confirmed by the FDA, per Wired, up from 895 cases last year and explosively higher than any year since 2020. Plus, that number only represents the outbreaks that have been formally investigated, and it’s only August.

While summer might be coming to an end, the “hot diarrhea” of it all isn’t: Some cases of the runs don’t peak until early fall, and with more warm weather ahead — and assuming food safety systems will remain underfunded — experts say this is just the beginning.

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 1928, bacteriologist Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin after he left a plate of bacteria uncovered.

🧠 Game: Can you remember past headlines that ran in The Hustle?

🐙 That’s interesting: Why are octopuses so intelligent? A unique mutation, apparently.

🐍 Whoa: Learn more about the first snake to successfully receive chemotherapy — a 15-foot python named Jodie Foster.

🐱 Aww: One pretty cat.

SHOWER THOUGHT

A saved conversation can stay exactly the same while both people remember it differently. SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Ben Berkley and Singdhi Sokpo.

Editing by: Sara "Extra! Extra!" Friedman.

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