Links: Week of Mar 15 2025
Australian man survives 100 days with artificial heart in world-first success via Nico McCarty:
An Australian man with heart failure has become the first person in the world to walk out of a hospital with a total artificial heart implant.
The Australian researchers and doctors behind the operation announced on Wednesday that the implant had been an “unmitigated clinical success” after the man lived with the device for more than 100 days before receiving a donor heart transplant in early March.
The BiVACOR total artificial heart, invented by Queensland-born Dr Daniel Timms, is the world’s first implantable rotary blood pump that can act as a complete replacement for a human heart, using magnetic levitation technology to replicate the natural blood flow of a healthy heart.
Inflation Expectations by Political Party Affiliation: Entry #3692 in "Politics makes you stupid".
Broccoli, the Man – and Vegetable – Behind the Bond Franchise: What a story.
The shift from a mindset of scarcity to one of abundance is overdue.(NYT Paywall) The article itself has a strong partisan tone. I hope the book is different.
In the time California has spent failing to complete its 500-mile high-speed rail system, China has built more than 23,000 miles of high-speed rail. China does not spend years debating with judges over whether it needs to move a storage facility. That power leads to abuse and imperiousness. It also leads to trains.
I do not want America to become China. But I do want it to be able to build trains.
Some Vegans Were Harmed in the Watching of This Movie (NYT Paywall): Even as a vegetarian, this seems over the top.
“People might think a glass of milk is innocuous,” she said. “It’s not. It’s full of violence.”
In Search of a Boring Business (NYT Paywall):
On BizBuySell, the popular listings site where the Rizzos found the Smiths, “corporate refugees” ditching the 9-to-5 have surged to 42 percent of buyers, roughly double the 2021 figure. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of American small businesses are owned by people 65 and older, making the Smiths part of a “silver tsunami” of sellers.
Cognitive security is now as important as basic literacy: Must read link of the week. Between this stuff and use of AI in scams, I am more than a little scared.
Is this good or bad? Policy can be hard.