Weekly Dose of Optimism #90
Geothermal Energy Matters, Bacterial Motors, Cancer AI, Natural Disasters AI, Zuckaissance, America
Hi friends 👋,
Happy Friday and welcome back to our 90th Weekly Dose of Optimism.
It’s been a marathon of week over here at Not Boring HQ. Big permitting reform, AI doing a bunch of stuff better than humans, and Zuck droppin’ something. Speaking of marathons, Packy is running his first this weekend in London. Good luck big bro!
Let’s get to it.
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(1) BLM adopts categorical exclusions to expedite geothermal energy permitting
From the Bureau of Land Management
To improve permitting of geothermal energy exploration on public lands, the Bureau of Land Management today adopted two existing categorical exclusions from the United States Forest Service and the Department of the Navy. The categorical exclusions will enable the agency to expedite the review and approval of geothermal exploration proposals.
I do not usually follow announcements from the Bureau of Land Management, but when Alec Stapp posted this on X it caught my attention. In a refreshing display of permitting reform, the agency adopted two categorical exclusions that would streamline approvals for geothermal projects. Essentially, geothermal projects will not be subject to the same level of NEPA environmental review scrutiny as other large building projects. The exclusions also represent a important shift in how NEPA views geothermal, as such exclusions are only granted for “activities that as a whole have been determined to pose no significant risk to the quality of the human environment.”
As a reminder, Geothermal energy is an abundant, clean renewable energy source derived from our planet’s internal heat, which is harnessed by extracting hot water or steam from underground reservoirs in order to generate electricity. Geothermal does not produce much electricity in the U.S. today, due to high upfront costs, lack of land availability, and general environmental concerns (whether founded or not), but there’s been a renewed focus on its potential over the past couple of years from both the government and private industry. Google and Microsoft are making bets on geothermal which could eventually help power the insatiable demand for energy from their data centers. Back in November, we covered Fervo, a startup partnered with Google, that is making a big swing at geothermal and is already operational.
Geothermal is hot right now (ha) and probably the best thing the federal government can do to support it is to just get out of the way. We’re all for the inclusion of more exclusions.
(2) CryoEM structures reveal how the bacterial flagellum rotates and switches direction
My grandfather built motors that powered big machines. In a lab not so different from his workshop, my colleagues and I uncovered the assembly of the bacterial motor. (Post on X)
With a better understanding of how bacteria move and orient themselves, we can develop new ways to prevent and treat infections. This new research from Prash and team, shows how a bacterial component called the C-ring functions in flagellar movement. The team used a technique called cryo-electron microscopy to observe the C-ring in two states, clockwise (CW) and counterclockwise (CCW), which are crucial for how bacteria move towards favorable environments.
Understanding this mechanism is crucial because bacterial movement (chemotaxis) is closely related to their ability to cause diseases (pathogenicity). The work could be used to developed targeted antibiotics, new vaccines, and better diagnostic tools.
And that video is just mesmerizing to watch.
(3) AI traces mysterious metastatic cancers to their source
Smriti Mallapaty for Nature
Some stealthy cancers remain undetected until they have spread from their source to distant organs. Now scientists have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that outperforms pathologists at identifying the origins of metastatic cancer cells that circulate in the body1. The proof-of-concept model could help doctors to improve the diagnosis and treatment of late-stage cancer, and extend people’s lives.
We don’t think AI will fully replace doctors, but it will certainly make the best doctors even better at doing their jobs. Research published this week describes an AI tool that effectively identifies the origins of metastatic cancer cells, which are cancers that have spread from their initial location to other parts of the body. About 5% of cancers today are metastatic cancers whose origins are unknown. Understanding the origin helps doctors determine proper treatment plans.
The AI had an 83% chance of accurately predicting the source of the tumor based on the images tested. Additionally, the AI model included the correct source of the tumor in its top three predictions 99% of the time. These results are a significant improvement over human pathologists. Accuracy improvement is not only important because, uhh accuracy is important, but also because positive identification upfront prevents the need for additional and potentially invasive diagnostic tests.
Fuck cancer. Long live AI.
(4) Alphabet X’s Bellwether harnesses AI to help predict natural disasters
Brian Heater for Tech Crunch
Bellwether is X’s moonshot to understand and anticipate changes across the planet, so that any organization, community, or business can ask smarter and more timely questions about the natural and built environment,” project head Sarah Russell says in a social media post. “Until now, it’s been epically hard and expensive to apply AI to geospatial questions, but our team has harnessed some of the most recent advances in machine learning (plus some straight-up solid engineering) to re-think the whole endeavor.
First cancer. And now natural disasters. This AI can’t stop, won’t stop.
Alphabet's moonshot factory, X, launched Project Bellwether, a new initiative that uses AI to predict natural disasters such as wildfires and floods. Project Bellwether aims to improve disaster response times by enabling quicker and more accurate predictions, improving first responder times and potentially saving lives and property. As some one who has yet to experience a big natural disaster (unless you count the New York City Earthquake of 2024!), I’m thankful Google is getting ahead of this. The climate is becoming more extreme and less predictable, so having AI carefully watching 24/7 for what might happen next is only going to become more important. But those poor meteorologists may have to learn to code or something!
(5) Mark Zuckerberg - Llama 3, Open Sourcing $10b Models, & Caesar Augustus
When you get past this guy’s boyish good looks, you realize he’s actually saying some pretty profound stuff:
The Zuckaissance marched on this week, as a surfer-haired, chained-up Zuck went on Dwarkesh’s podcast to discuss the release of Meta AI, Llama 3, abundant energy and capex budgets, and the future of the metaverse. On top of its multi-hundred billion dollar core social media business and its infamous work on the metaverse, Meta is also quietly the potential leader in AI — at least from a strategic perspective. And with Meta’s core business humming, Zuck’s once-hated big bets starting to look in-the-money, and his personal approval skyrocketing, there’s likely not a more trending figure in the country right now than Zuck.
But why include this in the Weekly Dose? Does Zuck really need our praise, too? Well, I’ve shared this line of thinking before but I like when our biggest builders are feeling themselves. It allows them to take bigger swings — with their money, resources, and reputations. And these are the types of bets that can actually move the needle for humanity in a meaningful way. Zuck is suddenly cool? Awesome, maybe he’ll parlay those vibes into curing all diseases while also doubling down on that metaverse vision. (Actually, that’s exactly the goal of the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative’s BioHub.)
Tesla stock up 10x in 5 years? Epic, Elon’s going to dump some of those gains into space exploration, brain machine interfaces, and freedom of speech. Larry & Sergey have more money than they know what to do with? Perfecto, why don’t they sink that cash into moonshots like geothermal and weather-predicting AI. You get the idea. We want our Worldbuilders out there world building. Or at least that’s how I think about it.
Building hard things is good. We’re happy Zuck is getting the shine he deserves.
Bonus: Five things to be optimistic about in America today
From Noah Smith
Quick Spark Notes:
Crime Reduction: Violent crime rates, including murders, are decreasing across the United States.
Climate Change Progress: Clean tech such as solar power and batteries have become economically viable, leading to reduced carbon emissions and a more optimistic outlook on managing climate change impacts.
Economic Growth: The U.S. economy is outgrowing other developed nations, fueled by expansionary fiscal policies and a shift towards a more efficient allocation of resources post-pandemic.
Generational Economic Improvement: Younger generations, particularly Millennials and Generation Z, are achieving higher income levels and wealth compared to their parents, aided by increasing house prices and decreasing debt levels. Who would’ve guessed that?
Reducing Wage Inequality: Wage inequality has decreased since the pandemic, especially for low and medium-wage workers.
U.S.A 🇺🇸 U.S.A 🇺🇸 U.S.A
Double Bonus: SynBioBeta
Elliot here. I'm excited to be going back to the SynBioBeta Conference in May with Packy. Founded back in 2012 by John Cumbers, SynBioBeta has grown into the largest conference dedicated to synthetic biology in the world.
Part of the secret behind it's growth is the unabashed optimism for people taking on big challenges with bioengineering. Sustainable food production, new materials and medicines, space travel, you name it. We're big fans of that kind of bio-optimism here at Not Boring. This year's speakers include Stephen Wolfram, legendary investor Vinod Khosla, the Mayor of San Jose, a literal astronaut, and... Packy!
If you want to join us for the festivities in California this year, you can use the code notboring for a discount when registering.
We’ll be back in your inbox on Tuesday. If you have some time this weekend, check out Percent.
Thanks for reading,
Packy + Dan
Weren't Larry & Sergey working on airships since leaving Google? I'm very optimistic about that. They would unlock another wave of globalisation which would further reduce global inequality.
Disagree on solar and battery being "economically viable". Look at the total economic costs from mining, production, usage (with corresponding energy density), and disposal. There are some positive externalities from solar and electric cars, like less pollution in the local city air and less noise. But, there are plenty of negative ones too. I put solar on my roof this year. Used Tesla. I did the math and the payback is 5 years with subsidies, and expected rate increases. Without, it's ten plus years hence makes no sense. For sure a vanity project. Solar doesn't scale either. Nuclear is the only way forward for on demand information economy that will have things like AI, crypto, EVs begging for electrical power.