What's Not the News: April 16
Hello again from Not the News! Maybe you want to take a break from screens after a day inside—but just wait until after you’ve read the newsletter, OK?
What to Read
Xenobots
They’re probably not as creepy as the name suggests? Xenobots are at the intersection of robotics and biology: tiny machines made from clumps of frog cells that are built in different shapes to complete different tasks. Oh, and an algorithm lets them evolve to be better at whatever task they’re meant for.
From The New York Times:
What it does during its short life is decreed not by the ineffable frogginess etched into its DNA — which has not been genetically modified — but by its physical shape.
Sweep up ocean microplastics into a larger, collectible ball? Deliver drugs to a specific tumor? Scrape plaque from the walls of our arteries? The xenobots would biodegrade after using up the yolk inside their cells. And whatever their intended purpose, their bodies would be designed not by an engineer but by a simulacrum of real evolution built to encourage the right behavior in the target environment.
“What if your machine was alive? And biodegradable? And programmable?”
It seems like we’re a ways away from seeing these things outside a petri dish, but we should be glad the scientists are talking to ethicists.
How a Recipe Goes Viral on Instagram
It has to photograph well, to be sure. But millenials love Instagram recipes—and when millenials are involved, well, you’ve got yourself a thinkpiece.
This one makes the newsletter because there actually is a deeper story here. It’s about simple recipes that people can learn with as they spend more time cooking from home.
From Vox:
“The recipes that do go viral have to be perceived as cookable. If you look at the cookies or the stew, people see those and they think, oh, I can do that. I can cook that. That’s imperative, that the recipe seems like something the home cook can make.”
“As a recipe writer, you have to think: What is something that is actually achievable? Or if it is more complicated, then the payoff has to be much bigger. It has to be way more attractive, or really exciting-looking.”
Next week: Millenials are killing the restaurant industry!
Prepping for Parole
It takes a lot of inside knowledge to become good at job interviews. Prison inmates talking to parole boards need a lot of the same skills. In New York, a group called Parole Prep—whose volunteers include Harvard Law grads and school teachers—coaches up long-term inmates.
From The New Yorker:
“The hardest thing that you’re going to have to do if you become a volunteer is you sit down with the guys and you have to pull [their stories] out of them. It’s like pulling teeth, especially when someone carries a lot of guilt and shame,” [a former inmate said].
The success rate for lifers appearing before the board in the past three years has been thirty-six per cent. The rate for people going before the board after assistance from a team of Parole Prep volunteers is about sixty per cent.
What to Stream
“The West Wing” (Netflix)
This is a no-politics newsletter, but a) this show is fiction and b) it won 26 Emmys. With 156 45-minute long episodes over seven seasons, you won’t need another recommendation for a while.
“Jack Ryan” (Amazon Prime)
John Krasinski, who pulled a Mark Zuckerberg on us by creating a YouTube show for non-Covid news, is now buff and playing an up-and-coming CIA agent who breaks open a terrorist scheme.
What to Listen To
Revisionist History
As much as white guys in their 20s love to recommend Malcolm Gladwell, this one is from Meital. Revisionist History re-examines something from the past—an event, a person, an idea, even a song—and asks whether we got it right the first time.
Start with: Season 1 Episode 8—Blame Game. Toyota cars were recalled when everyone agreed there was something wrong…but was this really true? A fascinating deep dive into common sense vs. hysteria.
Modern Love
Actors read essays from The New York Times’s Modern Love column. The stories are moving, and the actors bring them to life.
Start with: Just for Tonight, Pretend You Don’t Know Me
What to Cook
Brown Butter and Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
My favorite go-to cookie recipe (that I honestly prefer to eat in dough form before even baking them)
Kimchi Udon with Scallions
Delicious and comforting, and honestly super easy to make if you have the ingredients.
That’s it!
We’ll be back in your inboxes next Thursday.
—Charlie, Meital & the North American Board