Author

Stale Plastic

Interstellar Sweet Tooth

First ‘true sugar’ molecule found in space — offering hints to life’s origins ↗ — Nature

Astronomers just detected erythrulose — a four-carbon sugar also found in raspberries and self-tanner — drifting in a molecular cloud near the center of the Milky Way. It’s the first true sugar ever found in interstellar space, formed with no star, planet, or life anywhere nearby.

The implication: some of the raw chemistry for life may have been floating around long before Earth existed, waiting for a comet to deliver it.

Bring Back Weekly Drops

Netflix invented binge watching. Now it may have outgrown it. ↗ — TechCrunch

Bloomberg’s data shows Netflix viewers abandoning shows after one season, and TechCrunch is framing it as a competitive threat from TikTok and short form content.

I say bring back the weekly release. It forces a show to live in your head between episodes — to become something you discuss, theorize about, look forward to. Notably, Netflix already knows this works, dropping “Love Is Blind” in weekly batches specifically because it makes great watercooler conversation.

The industry’s answer to shrinking attention spans should not be to make content shorter. Instead, give people something worth waiting a week for, and they’ll wait. Give them everything at once, and you’ve traded a relationship for a transaction.

Savoring requires high quality and a bit of scarcity. Apple TV knows this well with shows like Severance.