👯‍♀️  Sisterhood ain’t cheap

👋  Good morning. Iceland is, by many measures, the safest country in the world, averaging around four murders annually for a population of just under 400k. Which means its residents must turn to fiction to spook themselves: crime is Iceland’s most popular literary genre. That kept Dr. Petur Gudmann Gudmannsson, the country’s only full-time forensic pathologist, busy answering questions from the country’s writers. He even taught a continuing ed course for crime novelists but had to quit — it was too gory. 

NEWS FLASH 

👂  We’re all ears: Legato emerged from stealth on Wednesday with $12m in funding and a first look at its AI hearing glasses. The Legato Frames use the startup’s patented hearing-assistance tech, an AI-powered system that helps differentiate between background noise and voices, amplifying only voices. Hearing loss affects ~50m American adults, but only ~20% of those diagnosed seek treatment — Legato is trying to change that by making hearing care more accessible.

📺  Today’s horseman of the apocalypse: Another day, another AI company acquired — except this one was acquired by children’s media company WildBrain, which owns “Teletubbies,” “Yo Gabba Gabba!,” and more. Personality AI, which makes “kid safe” conversational chatbots to allow children to interact with their favorite characters, got swallowed up by WildBrain in a $69m deal. One should assume AI Tinky-Winky is but a blink away from reality.

🐄  Wearable tech — not just for humans anymore: Agtech startup ZELP debuted ZELP Sense, a new piece of methane emission-tracking headgear for cows. The device will help livestock owners measure their greenhouse gas impact, which isn’t at all insignificant — 70% of all agricultural methane emissions are credited to livestock digestion. The cows seem not to mind the wearable and there’s a safety mechanism to detach the device if it gets caught on something.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

• More cow news, actually: Breedr just raised $27m to develop its tech that tracks individual cattle "from embryo to carcass." The platform currently tracks 2.5m+ cattle for 2k+ global ranchers, and aims to lower beef costs by reducing supply chain uncertainty. 

• San Francisco was pricey… and now it’s unaffordable in a whole new way. The city’s median home now sells for $1.7m and one-bedroom rents are up ~23% YoY. Blame the freshly minted AI millionaires who want to walk to work.
  

   

• Another teen movie: Uber has a new safety feature for teen accounts, allowing parents to commandeer the driver’s smartphone camera for a live stream of their kid. It’s both nice and a lot.  
  

• Fasten your seatbelts: An MIT startup is developing hybrid-electric planes that can take off with little to no runway (like from a soccer field), cruise at 200 mph for up to 1.2k miles, and cover that tricky “too far to drive but too short to fly” stretch of travel.

FROM OUR FRIENDS AT MINDSTREAM 

Your Roomba could never

Scientists built light-powered robots less than one micrometre wide — about 50 times smaller than a human hair — that can pick up bacteria, carry them through liquid, and deposit them somewhere else.

Researchers say the tech could one day help scientists handle cells and other microscopic materials with far more precision than current methods allow.

👉 Read more on Mindstream.

THE BIG IDEA

Top-tier sisterhood doesn’t come easy — or cheap

College admissions can be a stressful experience for teens, one riddled with high hopes and rejections, but the emotional roller coaster doesn’t always end with that acceptance letter.

For Greek life hopefuls, getting into the sorority of their dreams is of just as much consequence.

To improve their shot at top-tier sisterhood, “rush” coaches have emerged to guide them through the process.

Finding your people, for a price

Coaching services often involve: teaching them how to talk to strangers, curating their social media feeds, improving their style, helping them manage their emotions, and sometimes even performing a mock rush for real-time feedback.

Some prep as early as a year ahead, but the training is usually most intensive during the summer before.

Trisha Addicks, one of the best in the biz and a former sorority girl herself, spent ~20 years freely offering her advice to her friends’ kids before starting her consultancy, It’s All Greek to Me, in 2017. Today, she takes on ~100 clients a year at a flat rate of ~$5k each, per The Wall Street Journal.

Other ways to buy into sisterhood

The industry cropped up roughly a decade or so ago in the South, where sorority recruitment has long been treated like a sport, but it’s since spread elsewhere around the country, with demand fueled by RushTok and escalating competition.

But there are surely plenty of aspiring sorority girls who’d like the help, and even if there were enough rush coaches to go around, the services are pricey — for those whose parents aren’t willing to shell out thousands in the name of “sisterhood,” there are other options:

• Rush Ready offers ticketed crash courses during the summer that begin with seminars and end with a shopping experience featuring sorority-approved clothing brands.
  
• Consultancies like NYC-based Greek Chic offer less intensive hourlong sessions and virtual options starting at $250.
  
• And in May, Addicks published The Rush Bible, a how-to guide for all the girls looking for advice from the queen bee herself.

BTW: Future frat bros need help, too, and at least one Alabama man’s been on the job since 2017, holding their hands through the process and teaching them how to… kill it at beer pong? We’re not really sure.

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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Forget Zoom — book the flight. Here’s how one CEO uses in-person events to drive his B2B pipeline. 

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Cost to visit Stonyfield Organic’s Organic Cow Spa, a first-of-its-kind wellness experience for those curious about what it’s like to be pampered like a proper pasture-raised cow. The experience, which will be available from Sept. 10 through Oct. 3, includes cow cuddling, a massage and pedicure inspired by grooming and hoof-care practices, green juice reminiscent of grass, and some fresh air on a walk around a farm in Maine.

If a day of udder relaxation sounds like just the reset you need, well, there really is something for everyone, huh? But also, reservations are now live.

AROUND THE WEB

📅  On this day: In 1883, one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history occurred on Krakatoa.

🚨 Cool job alert: Come work with us — The Hustle is looking for a new social media producer.

📚  Game: Guess classic books from illustrated scenes.

🧊  That’s interesting: Every possible arrangement of a Rubik’s cube.

🐶  Aww: Happy birthday, bud.

SHOWER THOUGHT

A lot of new non-AI generated writing will have an anti-AI bias, which means that models that continue to train on new content will slowly become self-loathing. SOURCE

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

Editing by: Sara "In a rush!" Friedman.

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