FATE V FUTURE

What you want to know in culture, tech, luxury, travel, media, marketing, and more. Our goal is to curate the best newsletter on the Internet.

FUTUREBOARD

🔺 LONDON RENTS. THEY hit a record high, with fierce competition set to persist into 2023 >>>

🔻 INTEL STOCK, WHICH dropped more than 6% on Friday, following an earnings report that was so bad, one analyst said there were "no words" to describe it >>>

💬 ‘I USE IT because it’s better’ • Why chefs are embracing the electric stove >>>

🛩 HOW MIAMI'S PELICAN hotel became a "must-stay." >>> (ALSO: IT JUST got easier to get into Manhattan from JFK >>>)

👗 SABATO DE SARNO is Gucci’s new Creative Director >>>

💎 CHECK OUT THESE 2023 watch world predictions >>>

QUICKFATES 

• EL POLLO LOCO is getting decadent >>>

• AI IS MAKING UX more important, not less >>>

• TEN RESIDENTIAL INTERIORS that make the most of narrow spaces >>>

• HERE'S A CLOSER look at the Nike x Tiffany AF1s we wrote about on Friday >>>

• DJOKOVIC WON THE Australian Open. He has now won 22 Grand Slams, the third-most of all time >>>

• A SUZUKI JIMNY EV is in the works. The cute, affordable, electric "mini G Class" might be on the road by 2030 >>>

• THE NEW RESTAURANTS making Midtown Manhattan New York's hottest dining destination >>>

• OPENAI HAS HIRED an army of contractors to make basic coding obsolete >>>

• CNN WANTS TO get into comedy. Seriously >>>

• DID YOU KNOW Brad Pitt has a cashmere brand? Its sales are surging as they plot both a wholesale and a category expansion >>>🔐

• USE NOTION? A new template called the "Ultimate Life Planner" is here help you turn your goals into reality >>> 

• ATTENTION FOUNDERS: CHECK out these successful application videos from Y Combinator-accepted startups >>>

• EVER WONDER WHAT checked bags look like inside the belly of the plane? >>>

• MARIE KONDO KIND of gave up >>>

• MERCEDES WILL START selling the most advanced self driving cars in the world later this year >>>

• TIRED IN THE morning? Try these three things >>>

• FRANCE IS GETTING ready to regulate the world of online influencers >>>

DEEPFATE 🌏 A CRISPR WORLD

The gene editing tool CRISPR is transforming medicine. But will it have an even larger impact on our planet?

HEARD OF CRISPR?

• As I've previously written, it's a pretty mind boggling medical invention:

• Imagine being able to "highlight" and then "delete" sections of DNA, in real time.

• It's commonly called a "gene editor," but CRISPR's actually a segment of DNA that can detect and destroy other DNA.

• Sidebar: CRISPR's origin story is also fantastic. It was discovered by an all-female team of doctors, who later won the Nobel Prize.

CRISPR HAS SOME incredible real world applications.

• They include curing genetic diseases, and revolutionizing pediatric cancer treatments.

• But more and more scientists are now using CRISPR to optimize our food supply.

SLICKER COWS. MORE nutritious tomatoes. 

• One edit, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, gives cows a slick coat to help them tolerate increasing temperatures.

• A more nutritious, CRISPR-edited tomato is on sale in Japan.

• Fertilizer and pesticide firms are also on notice:

• All sorts of plants could be made more resistant to common pathogens and pests.

• And scientists are even engineering crops with drought tolerance.

• Higher yields, with less fertilizer and pesticides, while consuming less water: it sounds too good to be true.

BUT WHAT'S COMING next could help slow our warming planet, benefitting billions.

• Scientists are editing the genetic code of gut bacteria in order to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by farm animal digestion.

• They're also altering the genes of plant and soil microbes, to let them capture and store more carbon in soil.

• It's estimated that 1/2 of the Earth's habitable land is used for agriculture in some way shape or form.

• The world's wheat, corn, and rice crops could soon start absorbing and storing its carbon.

THIS WAS NOT the intended use case. Good.

• Check out the progression over the past decade: it's a remarkable reminder of how new tech can be used in unexpected ways.

• CRISPR was originally considered a novel way to treat diseases, especially rare and incurable ones, and it very much still is.

• But by putting CRISPR to work editing plant and microbe genomes, the technology could end up benefitting billions —not just the very sick— through higher yielding crops, and by reducing, capturing and storing the world's carbon output.

• It’s a great reminder of how incredible medical science is. But there's a business lesson hidden in here for all of us, too.

• Can the exact same tech or systems that you already use in your day-to-day be applied to new problems in order to benefit a far, far larger audience?

Written by Jon Kallus. Any feedback? Simply reply. Thank you for reading.