⛈️  Evacuate in style

👋  Good morning and good news! Even more of us can now enjoy Girl Scout Cookies, including our four-legged friends. Girl Scouts announced the addition of two new cookies in 2027: Sparkables, an allergy-friendly cookie created with Partake, and Patch Pals, a dog treat created with Bark. Now, everybody’s happy — people with food allergies, puppies, and those of us who can take down a box of Samoas in one sitting no problem. 

NEWS FLASH 

👁️  I spy with my little eye… a better option for glaucoma surgery recovery. Irish startup LEP Biomedical is developing biodegradable implants that release anti-inflammatory drugs directly into the eye following surgery, eliminating the need for intensive eye drop schedules that can lead to missed doses and surgical failure. The device matches its drug release to the eye's natural healing curve — heaviest right after surgery, then tapering — and is designed to help the patients who need it most, like those with genetic predispositions and barriers to consistent care.

👱  Getting to the root of the problem: Two haircare vets are launching TMPL8, a “hair longevity” brand that targets eight biological pillars that the vanity plate of a company says will promote better wellness for our hair. Well, not our hair, because a subscription to TMPL8’s “Advanced Bioactive Growth System” — which includes a serum, mask, shampoo, and conditioner — will run $190 per month, a high price to pay, even for something as important as “scalp ecosystem wellness.”

🍜  Like a microwave, but way more expensive: SoftBank is bought in on turning noodle-cooking robots into a global phenomenon. The multinational tech funder invested in STEAMA, a robotic system made by Yo-Kai Express that apparently nails noodle dishes, taking them from frozen to piping hot restaurant quality goodness in 90 seconds. Assume the product, which debuted in Japan, is being shopped to your nearest dorm cafeterias and hospital canteens right now.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

• Will the real Slim Shady please stand up? An AI-generated Eminem track titled “I’m Back” racked up 100k+ views on YouTube in one week, outranking the actual rapper’s charting singles in search results and fooling many listeners with its 12-minute imitation. 

• How polite: A “white hat” hacker stole $340m in bitcoin from Liquid Network — one of the largest crypto heists of the year — then returned most of it after the company fixed the exploited bug, leaving about $47m still unaccounted for.

   

• Oh: An Anthropic safety researcher who resigned from the AI giant this week said he believes there’s over a 10% chance AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade.” Anyway, have a good day.

• How far has Nike fallen? The struggling athletic giant has shed so much market cap that it’s getting the boot from the S&P 100 this month. Nike is currently valued at ~$60B; in late 2021, that number was $280B.
  

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THE BIG IDEA

A bougie way to escape a hurricane

It’s peak hurricane season in the Sunshine State, which means many Floridians are preparing to escape upcoming storms in the same fashion they always do:

• By sitting in hourslong traffic jams or grossly overpaying for whatever plane seat they can find, if they can find one at all, and assuming it’s not too late.

But this year, a new startup is offering an alternative escape plan: PriorityEvac, launched in June, promises to evacuate people on private flights through its new membership-based hurricane evacuation program.

The annual membership costs $1.25k per person, but the company’s founder, insurance industry vet Jason Murgio, told Forbes that what they’re really selling is “peace of mind.”

How it works

• PriorityEvac monitors storm conditions throughout the season, which runs June 1 through Nov. 30, eliminating the guesswork for members.
  
• It uses National Hurricane Center forecasting criteria to decide when to activate storm warnings, starting with call/text/email alerts to notify customers and confirm whether they plan to evacuate.
  
• Then, an agent coordinates the evacuation plan to get the member to their designated airport and on a pre-arranged flight to Atlanta — a major transportation hub just outside the hurricane impact zone — well before landfall.
  
• From there, members are responsible for figuring out the rest: accommodations, connecting flights, and getting back home after the storm.

For now, the program is only available in Florida, but the company plans to expand to other Southern states and has received inquiries from people in the Caribbean, per Forbes.

Is it worth it?

It depends what “peace of mind” is worth to you. But the company, which is capping membership capacity at ~5k, says it could especially benefit people with medical conditions, young children, or pets, who can make other evacuation options logistically challenging, as well as adults with elderly parents or parents of college students living in the state.

• Household plans are available, and pets (under 100 pounds) can also tag along for an additional fee.
  
• Plus, Murgio says one-way plane tickets can run up to $3k during hurricanes, which, by comparison, makes the membership’s price tag seem almost reasonable.

Just pray there aren’t more than two hurricanes in a given season — that’s as many evacuations as the membership covers per year — or you’ll be left scrambling to navigate gridlock and sold-out flights like everyone else.

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NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Length, in minutes, of You Can See Everything, a new documentary about disgraced Theranos founder and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes that was kept secret until Sunday, when it premiered at the Telluride Film Festival to “shock and awe,” per Vanity Fair. The film, co-created by comedian Nathan Fielder, closely follows Holmes during the weeks before her prison sentence began in 2023.

Get your popcorn ready, friends: While it won’t debut publicly until October, critics have already described it as “uneasy as hell,” “mind-bending,” and the “wildest documentary I’ve ever seen.”

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 1897, London taxi driver George Smith became the first person ever arrested for drunk driving after he ran his cab into a building. The fine: 20 shillings.

🎬 Game: Spot the fake movie tagline.

🔋 That’s interesting: Next time you use a battery, give thanks to the dead frog that inspired its invention.

🦴 For spooky season: A travel guide for seeing the world’s most impressive catacombs.

🐈 Aww: A little stretch.

SHOWER THOUGHT

Treating a bad worker the same as a good one won't make the bad worker better but teach the good worker to stop caring. SOURCE

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

Editing by: Sara "Eye of the storm" Friedman.

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