A theatrical Central Park sunset.

A perfect Central Park cardinal.

In the spring, Ms. Brous said she asked on the chat group if anyone was giving up something for Lent. The women didn’t miss a beat. “The answers were, ‘Yeah, the use of my arms!’” Ms. Brous said. “‘Feeding myself.’ ‘Walking.’ ‘Talking.’”

Another gorgeous rainy day in Central Park.

“This should definitely be an episode of ‘Silicon Valley. Reboot the show!”

😶 PSA: Reading this op-ed is time you can’t get back.

“The worst advice people get when they're being interviewed is to show up with these 3 points that they're supposed to repeat over and over and over again. But the best interviews, the ones that you like the most, are the ones where it feels like the person is actually grappling with the question.”

My kind of longevity story:“somewhere where every subject in the world can come up, and any type of person in the world might walk in.”

NYC Marathon Sunday countdown…

“The vast majority (96%) of investors believe AI will have a net positive impact on worker productivity. However, only 47% of the public say AI will result in a net positive impact on productivity.”

Just out: @wsj.com op-ed I wrote on why I see such hope in the longevity movement, despite often dubious science & frequently exaggerated claims; in short: we're embracing agency, recognizing that we have a measure of control over our long-term health. wsj.com/opinion/nobo... (gift link).

“It is a head trip to think that this very sentence you are reading, and maybe even my willingness to share personal medical details, may, in some minor way, be informed by demyelination in my frontal lobe, an area believed to affect planning, decision-making, and memory.”

Fall games. Washington Square Park.

“Women must now live in a world in which phone manufacturers think we have hands the size of bears and jeans manufacturers think we have hands the size of pixies.”

“Mismanaging HHS endangers America’s health, undermines national security and damages our economic resilience and international credibility.”

When you search the Anthropic database on a lark and find your great aunt’s novels along with a relative’s math books. 😶

Same. “She has developed a habit of texting her daily Wordle score to a selection of friends, including Allison Janney, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Charlize Theron. Burnett doesn’t use a regular starting word, as many players do, but plucks a new guess each day ‘from the universe.’”

Great Q&A with Lisa Suennen, managing partner at AHA Ventures, which oversees $200M in assets: “Inherent in the mission is to reduce barriers to care and to try to make things more accessible. If this is going to make it a lot more expensive to get the same outcome, that is not a good investment.”

“There will be preventable deaths that result from these decisions,” said Dr. Panagiotakopoulos, who oversaw the CDC’s work group on the Covid vaccine before she resigned in June. “Having people without vaccine and clinical expertise having the power to harm so much of the public is unbearable.”

Sunday’s NYT cooking newsletter is always a comfort read, including Sifton’s listening and reading recs — like this Dorothy Parker piece in the London Review of Books.

Central Park edit bench. Bright-winged flyer.

“We are great in science. Why would we want to destroy one of our greatest assets?” -Harold Varmus, former NIH director and Nobel-winning cancer researcher

Just remarkable: “Recorded life expectancy of a person with CF was generally months to a few years when Dorothy Andersen first described the disease; today, the estimated median age of survival for persons with CF who were born between 2020 and 2024 and have access to treatment is 65 years.”

“You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now. You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it.”

Central Park: New Yorker with a strong sense of personal space.

Dealbook on cancer research megamerger: Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation & Mark Foundation for Cancer Research (founded by the hedge fund billionaire Alex Knaster) “create a new initiative to research how aging affects cancer risk.”

The photographer Gilles Peress reached the World Trade Center just before the second tower collapsed. @pgourevitch.bsky.social reflects on Peress’s photograph of first responders at the scene. “There it is: ashes to ashes, dust to dust, no metaphors.” #NewYorker100

“I’m like, you’re 8 years old,” he said. “What are you talking about, ‘I’m not a math person?’”

David Baltimore, in his own words (2019).

Sad news. “Admired and envied, lionized and attacked, Dr. Baltimore spent most of his life in the scientific limelight, a towering figure of modern biology.”

Just look at this gorgeous creature. A veteran guest star of the Dylan movie, Mrs. Maisel and other NYC productions.

“It’s all confusing, and I think that’s the point. I think Kennedy’s point is to make it confusing.”

Central Park.

A bit of a personal intro on today’s show. The stakes of what’s being done to cancer research right now are tangible for me. slate.com/podcasts/wha...

“I think it is the role of companies to talk about the future in ways that aren’t just glibly positive.” -Nick Foster, author of “Could Should Might Don’t”

Goldfish may love an open-plan glass pod office. Humans not so much. “The architects reversed the scheme, elevating the experience of nature over privacy…They arranged the modular workstations in an open plan, interrupted only by occasional glass-walled office pods…(goldfish & water not included).”

“I’ve been thinking of this Labubumatchadubaichocolate phase as IRL Brain Rot, a culture that exists physically but is incomprehensible without the internet, a set of artifacts and beliefs that adhere to the post-digital self.”

Central Park August.

“A majority of Americans (59%) say journalists are extremely or very important to the well-being of society…But about half of U.S. adults (49%) say journalists are losing influence in society.”

“Describe the voice you use to talk to Tango? High-pitched with a New York accent and a touch of baby talk.”

“Kutler said that in initial conversations with a limited group of people who learned the MS NOW brand early, she noticed ‘a little trepidation’ at first, but then their enthusiasm grew.” 🤔

MS NOW MAX AI

“By recalibrating rather than severing support, we can keep this powerful tool ready for the time it is needed most. The next crisis will not wait for us to rebuild what we have thrown away.” -Rick Bright, BARDA’s director when the US made the decision to invest heavily in mRNA

“When Nature polled American scientists recently, 75% said they were considering leaving the United States. A Chinese VC told me that if the ethnically Chinese among those 75% came back to China, it could supercharge the country’s efforts.”

“‘Tactical urbanism’ is the term of art. It describes a whole universe of homegrown, under-the-radar architecture contrived to fix everyday problems in a city, like entering a grocery store whose entrance sits a step above the sidewalk.”

What’s old…a mere two weeks later is new again.

One big challenge the writers of The Pitt are going to have: Republicans backloaded the Medicaid cuts, so most of the changes won't happen until after season 2. variety.com/2025/awards/...

“We lack the ability to connect the research environment with the markets to commercialize innovations emerging from academia. There should be a structural, long-term plan in Europe.” -Mario Mariniello, fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based economic think tank, on EU competition for research talent

“Had we not used these lifesaving mRNA vaccines to protect against severe illness, we would have had millions of more Covid deaths.” -Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health