👋 Good morning. Not that you needed another reason to avoid Antarctica’s icy waters, but here’s one anyway: A 10-plus-foot-long shark was caught on camera for the first time traversing the depths of the Antarctic Ocean. At 1,608 feet deep (with water temps near-freezing at ~34 degrees Fahrenheit), researchers previously thought sharks would avoid such extreme conditions. Sad to see other members of the animal kingdom also clock into hostile work environments.
STARTING UP
A startup emerges to mine e-waste for elements
❌ The problem: The US relies on imports for minerals like gallium and scandium, key ingredients used to make semiconductors.
💡 The pitch: SUPRA Elemental Recovery Inc. is building 3D-printed cartridges that act like molecular sponges, extracting rare elements from electronic waste and mine tailings. The cube-shaped cartridges contain receptors that bind to specific elements — gallium and scandium, for now — and can be resized, reshaped, and theoretically tuned to capture nearly any element.
🚀 The outlook: The startup launched with 11 scientists from three university labs and $2m in funding. Next up: conquering the rest of the periodic table and capturing elements needed to manufacture everything from batteries and magnets to electronics.
NEWS FLASH
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Here’s a task you shouldn’t offload to AI: Cybersecurity firm Irregular found that AI-generated passwords may seem strong, but are actually easy to guess. LLMs often repeat themselves, and thus spit out similar passwords with recognizable patterns that are weak against brute-force attacks.
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New DMs to slide into: Startup Germ Network’s end-to-end encrypted messenger is now available within Bluesky, a move, TechCrunch noted, that exemplifies how a decentralized platform like Bluesky differs from Big Tech. Germ saw its daily active users increase 5x following the announcement.
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A secondhand app bought secondhand: Etsy will offload Depop, the popular used-clothing marketplace it bought in 2021 for $1.6B, to eBay for $1.2B so it can focus on its core business. Meanwhile, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone said the acquisition will attract more young women, an “underrepresented demographic" for the platform.
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This town ain’t big enough: Nevada is suing Kalshi, alleging that the prediction market platform is breaking state law by operating a sports gambling market without a proper license and serving bettors under 21. Kalshi has exploded in popularity. While Nevada’s gambling ops saw less business this Super Bowl compared to last year, Kalshi saw a 27x increase.
GOT PLANS THIS WEEKEND?
You, the architect. AI, the builder.
We’d like you to get rich, travel the world, buy your first home (another if you’re some kind of overachiever).
And the top-trending blueprint isn’t too complex: Build AI apps that solve niche problems, and ship fast with pre-built prompts on Lovable or Bolt.
Get it done by Monday:
- YouTube learning group: Turn hours of watch-time into actionable skills.
- Study group SOS: Find partners for specific classes fast.
- Smart recipe ingredient swapper: Gluten allergy? Keto-friendly? Hate kale? Substitute foods.
- Micro-influencer matcher: Explore 500- to 5k-follower creators in your area who understand your users.
- Rare houseplant care: How to feed exotic plant pets.
THE BIG IDEA
Sit, stay, stream: TV for dogs is fetching big audiences
Dogs and cats have long been darlings of the internet. But after decades of playing the stars of myriad silly/goofy/cute videos, many of our beloved fur babies are stepping out from in front of the camera and sitting pretty in front of screens.
Relax, there are still plenty of cute animal videos littering the internet — but, now, there’s also a growing stream of content being made specifically for them, per The New York Times.
A new breed of couch pet-atos
On YouTube, numerous hourslong videos of squeaky toys, close-up birds and squirrels, and playing puppies have garnered millions of views, presumably all from this new demographic of four-legged viewers.
- One video of an animated mouse from TV BINI, a YouTube channel for dogs and cats, has amassed 152m+ views.
Streaming service DogTV, which provides a variety of “scientifically designed” canine content, offers users access to premium videos for $9.99/month or free content through a new ad-supported tier (how effective those ads are is less clear…).
Meanwhile, Roku offers apps like “Relax My Cat” and “Happy Dog TV.”
OK, but why?
Interest in the genre, which has been promoted as a way to help soothe and stimulate anxious and bored pets, has surged in the years since the pandemic, when ~23m households adopted pets, as many owners have been forced to return to the office and leave their separation-anxiety-riddled pups home alone.
- DogTV, which launched in 2012, added ~388k subscribers between mid-2020 and late 2023.
The concept sounds a bit ridiculous, until you remember that most Americans consider their pets family, and average US pet spending hit an estimated $157B in 2025.
Plus, other pet-entertainment businesses and trends, like music for pets and dog-friendly movie screenings, have also emerged in recent years.
So what’s next, dog remotes?
The idea doesn’t actually seem too far-fetched, if you ask NYT’s Emily Anthes.
Especially when considering that animal-centered tech, with interfaces designed specifically for their use, already exists.
- UK-based Joipaw makes video games meant to help aging dogs stay sharp. Using a saliva-resistant touchscreen, dogs can boop the console to play games like whack-a-mole and receive treats when they win.
- The “DogPhone” by animal-computer interaction researcher Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas lets dogs autonomously videocall their owner by approaching the sensor-embedded device.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Can you scale to $1m in revenue in 12 months? Beehiiv’s CEO thinks so — because he did it. Here’s how.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Patents held by Tide parent company Procter & Gamble for the brand’s newest offering, Tide evo, “a dry, tile-based alternative to liquids and pods,” per Axios, which called it one of the biggest laundry-care innovations in over a decade. The tiles took 10 years and 15 PhD-level scientists to make, according to Fast Company, and are designed to engage the senses: they’re visually appealing, safe to touch and smell, and packed in recycled boxes that close with an audible click — just don’t eat them.
That might seem like a given but, recounting the “Tide Pod challenge” in 2018 when multiple people were hospitalized for eating the colorful capsules, it (perplexingly) must be said.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 1985, Ireland’s government voted to allow the sale of contraceptives for the first time, against the wishes of the Catholic Church.
⛷️ That’s interesting: The history of Sun Valley, Idaho, the first ski destination in the US.
🗞️ Newsletter: Think your opinions are spot on? Poll of the Day turns your hot takes into data.
😡 Game: A corporate nightmare.
❄️ Aww: Baby’s first snow.
SHOWER THOUGHT
There must be many people who ask an LLM to rephrase the text they've written so it sounds less LLM-like. SOURCE
Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Singdhi Sokpo.
Editing by: Sara "Netflix & heel" Friedman.
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