Tremendous

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order.

I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

Photo: “Close-Up of the Human Eye – Primer plano del ojo humano” by Hugo Quintero is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Business, Science, Technology

ChatGPT for Medicine

February 9, 2023 tremendousblog 2 Comments

What if you could ask the best scientists on earth any question you want, any time? New chatbots are making that a reality.

Get the blog before anyone else…subscribe!

Consensus searches 200 million scholarly publications to answer questions on medicine, science, and even economics. Let’s give it a try!

I love going outside in the morning with my coffee. I get a little sun, which I vaguely suspect is good for me, and look at the sky.

On a day like today with a calendar full of meetings, is this still worth doing? Let’s find out what the science says about the benefits of sunlight:

Instantly, Consensus pulls up an answer to my question. It explains how morning sunlight can help circadian rhythms.

It also cites a specific source, and notes the quality of the journal. This result comes from a top publication.

So cool! Let’s compare that to Google Scholar:

Google Scholar just gives me the traditional page of links. I get weird, context-less snippets of text that only kinda sorta answer my question.

Better than nothing, but nowhere near as useful as Consensus. Now let’s try ChatGPT.

ChatGPT’s answer is pretty good and well-organized. But since it has no citations, we have no idea if the information is reliable.

ChatGPT simply isn’t designed to answer scientific questions.

It was trained on data including books and Reddit posts. But as far as we know, it hasn’t been trained on scientific papers.

Consensus isn’t the only chatbot for science. Microsoft recently released BioGPT, a chatbot trained on biomedical literature.

Will these bots replace doctors? I don’t think so.

Instead, doctors, scientists, and curious laymen will use these tools to make research easier. With better access to the latest data, they can make better decisions.

After all, nail guns didn’t replace carpenters.

I’m very bullish on AI chatbots trained on niche data sets. That data could be scientific papers, court cases, or computer code, just to name a few.

I’m also excited about data brokers. Someone has to collect all this data and get it to the people who need it.

If you’re working on such a company, I want to hear from you!

In just a few weeks, we’ve gone from general purpose chatbots to a profusion of tools for science, medicine, and more. We are living through a Cambrian explosion of technology.

I’m here for it!

How do you think AI will change science? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

More on tech:

GPT-Powered Search with Perplexity AI

Google is Losing the AI Race

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Get the blog before anyone else…subscribe!

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order.

I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

Business, Health, Technology

Male Contraception with One Simple Shot

August 5, 2022 tremendousblog Leave a comment

For generations, preventing pregnancy has fallen mostly on women. Men have few ways to help, aside from often ineffective condoms.

With abortion now illegal in many states, the need for contraception is the greatest in 50 years.

Get the blog before anyone else…subscribe!

So I was excited to learn today about an amazing new male contraceptive called Contraline.

Contraline is an injectable gel that blocks sperm before they’re ever released. It has no effect on hormones and ejaculation happens as normal.

The roughly 30 minute procedure happens in an outpatient clinic and remains effective for at least a year.

The gel, called ADAM, is set to enter clinical trials this year.

It works by setting up a barrier in the vas deferens. This barrier blocks the sperm from leaving the body.

When the gel has reached the end of its lifespan, it liquefies, removing the barrier.

Development of male contraceptives has long been stifled by a lack of research funding. Government grants have gone mostly to contraceptive options for women.

But as more federal dollars and venture capital pour into male contraceptive development, things are beginning to change.

University of Minnesota researchers have developed a male birth control pill that’s 99% effective in mice. They hope to begin human trials this year.

A contraceptive gel for men is also in development. But that too is likely five years or more from market.

Should Contraline or another male contraceptive come to market, couples would have more options than ever. Many women find IUD’s painful and birth control pills fraught with side effects.

What’s more, men have had to trust their partners to handle contraception. If men could do it themselves, society may look much different.

John Reynolds-Wright, a male contraceptive researcher at the University of Edinburgh, may have said it best:

“Maybe I’m overstating how exciting it is, but I always think of it like the iPhone. We couldn’t have imagined how the iPhone would impact on our lives until it was invented. And actually, this is something that’s got the potential to completely, radically change how we talk about family planning, about relationships, about sex.”

I hope the awesome team at Contraline can get their product to market and change the lives of couples worldwide. If men and women can share the contraceptive burden more equally, we’ll have a better world!

What do you think the future holds for male contraceptives? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

Have a great weekend everyone! 👋

More on tech:

Inside the Seed Funding Slowdown

The Top 5 Things I’ve Learned from Angel Investing

Get the blog before anyone else…subscribe!

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order.

I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

Business, Science, Technology

Can A Scientific Dream Team End Aging?

February 3, 2022 tremendousblog Leave a comment

Never miss a post…subscribe!

No one wants to get old. But how can we stop and even reverse aging?

Perhaps a Dream Team of the world’s greatest scientists. And a whole lot of money.

Well, that just became a reality.

For those of us who follow venture capital, the news hit like a bomb. Previously unknown Altos Labs burst onto the scene with a $3 billion seed round, likely the largest early stage fundraise in history.

To put that in perspective, a typical seed round is more like $1-3 million.

Altos will be putting that money in the hands of some of the world’s top scientists.

Noted antiaging researchers like Izpisúa Belmonte and Alejandro Ocampo are on board. Nobel Laureates Shinya Yamanaka and Jennifer Doudna have also joined as advisers.

Altos has promised salaries over $1 million, generous research budgets, and autonomy. Plus, no more constant grant writing.

So can aging be reversed? New findings suggest it may be possible.

Just last September, researchers succeeded in reversing aging in mouse hearts using Shinya Yamanaka’s Yamanaka Factors:

…after two and a half decades of fitful starts and abandoned leads, Braun and a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute showed that they could reprogram heart cells in mice and get the animals to regenerate cardiac tissue after a heart attack. The breakthrough, published in Science, adds new evidence that it will eventually be possible to help patients recover muscle lost in heart attacks and gives another boon to anti-aging researchers who want to one day apply these rejuvenation techniques across much of the body.

Heart cells are some of the hardest to reprogram. If scientists can do this, what else can they accomplish?

David Sinclair at Harvard reversed aging in mouse eyes the year before. The pace of these breakthroughs seems to be increasing.

Any investor in startups always asks the founder “why now?” Why is now the right time to raise this money and build this business?

Altos has a very compelling “why now.”

The foundation for reversing aging has been laid by Yamanaka and others. Scientists worldwide are building on it rapidly, coming up with cure after cure for previously untreatable diseases.

I’m itching to see what Altos can accomplish. Best of luck to their incredible team!

Never miss a post…subscribe!

More on tech:

Reversing the Aging Process in Mouse Eyes… and Maybe Someday, Us?

3D Printing a Human Ear

The Lost Planet of Vulcan

Photo: “Shinya Yamanaka” by Rubenstein is licensed under CC BY 2.0

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been great so far.

More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me.

Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor.

I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy!

I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

Business, Technology

Inside Mark Cuban’s Plan to “F— Up the Drug Industry”

February 2, 2022 tremendousblog 4 Comments

“I could make a fortune from this,” Cuban said. “But I won’t. I’ve got enough money. I’d rather f— up the drug industry in every way possible.”
Mark Cuban, Texas Monthly

Never miss a post…subscribe!

When you deliver something people need for less money than if they schlepped to the store, you win. See: Amazon.

That’s what Mark Cuban of Shark Tank fame is doing with his new startup. Cost Plus Drugs, which just launched two weeks ago, sells a wide variety of generic medications for less than anyone else.

Let’s see how much cheaper Cost Plus Drugs is for some common meds:

Albuterol (Proair) inhaler for asthma: $30 on Cost Plus vs. $86 on GoodRx (for pharmacies near me)

Prednisone (Deltasone) for asthma: about the same on Cost Plus vs. GoodRx

Norgestimate / Ethinyl Estradiol (Ortho Tri-Cyclen (28)) for birth control: $7 on Cost Plus vs. $13 on GoodRx

Atorvastatin (Lipitor) for high cholesterol: $4 on Cost Plus vs. $8 on GoodRx

Imatinib (Gleevec) for leukemia: $17 on Cost Plus vs $120 on GoodRx. Wow.

You don’t need me to tell you that medical care in the United States is ridiculous. Massive bills and no transparency make even me, an unusually fortunate person, hesitant to go to the doctor.

Cost Plus Drugs changes that. You know exactly what you’re paying, every time.

Even better, you know where that money is going. The website clearly breaks down the costs for manufacturing, shipping and labor.

Cost Plus also builds in a 15% profit margin. This may seem greedy, but it’s a lot less than competitors, and they have to make some margin to stay in business and expand.

You can’t disrupt the medical system if you go bankrupt!

Cost Plus has another big advantage: strong word of mouth. From Mark Cuban:

“When people save a lot of money on their medications, they often will tell others they know that have the same challenges. That word of mouth impacts our growth the most.”

This is critical for a consumer company. Consumer companies have to acquire tons of customers that may not spend very much each.

So, the cost of customer acquisition can make or break a company. Cost Plus has a great strategy here to grow organically at zero cost.

Cost Plus plans to begin manufacturing its own drugs and building distribution centers across the country. They’re going to control the whole stack, which is the best way to control prices.

As a startup investor, I’m itching to get in. A huge problem, a brilliant entrepeneur, an innovative solution….what’s not to like?

And as a consumer, you can bet I’ll be getting any meds I need from Cost Plus from now on!

Never miss a post…subscribe!

More on tech:

3D Printing a Human Ear

Why I Just Invested in Deft, the Best Way to Shop Online

Photo: “Mark Cuban” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been great so far.

More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me.

Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor.

I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy!

I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

Fun, Giving, Life, NYC Area

At the Top Dog Gala!

December 16, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

On Tuesday night, I had the joy of attending the Top Dog Gala, a benefit for the Animal Medical Center (AMC) in New York City. AMC saved my little gerbil’s life three times and helped him live to a ripe old age, so I love getting a chance to support such a great cause!

AMC is an incredible place. It feels like a high end human hospital more than a veterinary one.

There are departments of hematology, orthopedics, radiology, you name it. The imaging machines they use were bought from human hospitals, just a couple years old.

There’s nowhere better to take your pet. And despite the very high level of care, you’d be surprised how reasonable their prices are!

On Tuesday night, we filed into the beautiful Cipriani 42nd Street in the heart of Manhattan. I had passed the building a million times but never been inside.

It’s a beautifully converted bank with some of the teller windows still intact! I admired the massive windows and velvet curtains while munching on delicious snacks.

As the dinner was about to start, a very funny older lady came from the bar:

I’m getting a double. It’s going to be a long night with a lot of speeches.

Chuckling to myself, I sat down at a table replete with flowers and the presentation began. AMC President Kathryn Coyne introduced us to Sadie, a very special German Shepherd who saved her owner Brian’s life when he was having a stroke.

She licked Brian’s face to keep him awake after the stroke, then helped drag him to the phone to call for help. Without Sadie, Brian wouldn’t be here.

They may not be able to speak, but it’s amazing how animals touch all our lives.

We also met the canine officers of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) police! I was struck by their bravery.

Humans sign up for that job. Dogs don’t. But they do it all the same, risking their lives to keep us safe.

The Top Dog Gala made it clear how animals support us. But how can we support them?

By supporting AMC! AMC gives away a fortune in free care every year for those who cannot afford it.

But they can’t do that without our help! Please consider joining me in donating to this wonderful cause today.

The cute doggies, kitties, birds and rodents will thank you!

3D Printing a Human Ear

December 2, 2021 tremendousblog 3 Comments

What would it be like to not have ears?

Unfortunately, for patients with microtia, this is no hypothetical. Microtia, or lack of a fully developed ear, is a congenital condition affecting about 1 in every 6-8,000 people.

Some patients have a malformed outer ear. Others have almost no ear tissue at all.

The only treatment is taking cartilage from the rib and fashioning a new ear. This requires multiple painful surgeries and tends to produce an unsatisfying outcome.

But now, an incredible NYC startup called 3D Bio can use the patient’s own ear tissue to 3D print a new ear! The patient’s sample is expanded in a cell culture and printed.

The ear can be attached in a simple outpatient procedure.

This treatment is now in early clinical trials. If it works, it could change medicine forever.

What if we could print new hearts, lungs, or livers? Imagine making a new, functional eye for a blind person.

Such technology could alleviate enormous suffering and greatly expand human life expectancy. And I’m extremely excited about it.

Best of luck to the incredible team at 3D Bio!

More on tech:

How Tech Could Stop Wildfires

Why I Just Invested in Kippo, Where Gamers Find Love

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

Health, Science, Technology

A Vaccine for Breast Cancer?

November 2, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

Breast cancer killed 685,000 women worldwide last year. But the Cleveland Clinic has a new drug that could change that:

Cleveland Clinic researchers have opened a novel study for a vaccine aimed at eventually preventing triple-negative breast cancer, the most aggressive and lethal form of the disease.

Triple negative breast cancer only accounts for 12-15% of cases, but it’s unusually deadly.

Unlike most vaccines, the breast cancer vaccine could even help people who already have cancer:

“We are hopeful that this research will lead to more advanced trials to determine the effectiveness of the vaccine against this highly aggressive type of breast cancer,” said G. Thomas Budd, M.D., of Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute and principal investigator of the study. “Long term, we are hoping that this can be a true preventive vaccine that would be administered to healthy women to prevent them from developing triple-negative breast cancer, the form of breast cancer for which we have the least effective treatments.”

Dr. Vincent Tuohy, inventor of the breast cancer vaccine, thinks vaccines may also work against ovarian and endometrial cancers:

“If successful, these vaccines have the potential to transform the way we control adult-onset cancers and enhance life expectancy in a manner similar to the impact that the childhood vaccination program has had.”

The idea of a vaccine for cancer isn’t as crazy as it may sound. BioNTech, producer of the first COVID vaccine approved in the United States, was working on cancer vaccines when the pandemic hit.

BioNTech currently has a colorectal cancer vaccine in Phase 2 clinical trials. That drug is even customized to each person’s body for maximum effectiveness.

We may be headed toward a world where if you have cancer, a few injections could stop the tumors in their tracks. And if you don’t have cancer, a preventive vaccine could ensure you never develop it.

The breast cancer vaccine’s Phase 1 trials should wrap up in September of 2022. I can’t wait for the results!

More on tech:

How Tech Could Stop Wildfires

What if Everyone on Earth Had Super Fast Internet for $1?

Photo: “Breast Cancer Cells” by National Institutes of Health (NIH) is marked with CC PDM 1.0

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

Science, Technology

Male Contraception With an Ultrasound Device?

September 29, 2021 tremendousblog 7 Comments

A fascinating new device could one provide the elusive male contraceptive:

German design graduate Rebecca Weiss has won a James Dyson Award for a male contraceptive device called Coso, which uses ultrasound waves to temporarily halt sperm regeneration.

Weiss’s Coso device is designed to be a reversible contraceptive solution. To use it, a person would fill the device with water up to the indicated mark, turn it on so it heats to operating temperature, and sit for a few minutes with their testicles dipped into it.

Coso looks like it could be the newest Alexa. It even comes with an app to show where you are in the process.

Right now, this device is just a prototype and is not available to the public. Its technology is based on a published study in the journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology.

This study successfully used ultrasound currents on rat testes in order to reduce sperm count. It will take a lot more research to determine this is safe and effective in humans.

If it works, I think this innovation could be transformative. Most, if not all, of the burden of contraception is generally on women. Those methods often have significant side effects.

Perhaps there is a better way!

I think a startup like this would make a wonderful candidate for Y Combinator, which backs startups from all over the world in areas including biotech and medical devices.

Best of luck to the amazing Rebecca Weiss!

More on tech:

What if Everyone on Earth Had Super Fast Internet for $1?

Robot Hands, Vertical Farms, and the Future of Food

Why I Just Invested in Capbase, The Startup in a Box

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

iHerb

The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

Use this link to save 5%!