* Battery recycling is taking off. Humans still need, collectively, a massive amount of raw, mined material (estimates vary on exactly how much) but battery production is shifting towards lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and there may even be some shifts towards sodium batteries. Those trends auger for much less dependence on Congolese cobalt. Oh, and Lithium prices have dropped 77% in the last year. Demand goes up, new sources are found, and the price drops. The price acts as an incentive. “Shortages” of commodities rarely last.

* Some more deep background on copper.

* Why the age of American progress ended. We should try for progress again. I’m particularly interested in progress, given that medical tech progress is the only way I’m likely to live.

* On Flaubert’s letters (WaPo, $).

* Is it possible for a genetically engineered bacterium to prevent tooth decay? Is it possible that the FDA will let us find out whether it’s possible?

* “San Francisco’s old housing policy regime was a world-historical failure. What comes next?” Maybe we get more of the same? Is there a “next?”

* “Demographic Aging and Shrinking.”

* Profile of Bryne Hobart, prolific writer of The Diff, among other things.

* Most people with addiction age out of it.

* “Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Vaccine: Current Landscape and Perspectives.” Probably not of interest to most people but of tremendous interest to me. It looks like Moderna is in the lead with mRNA cancer vaccines, followed by BioNTech, and then there are a bunch of others. Moderna and Merck just announced a Phase 3 trial of mRNA-4157 for lung cancer, but there’s no announcement of phase 1b or or 2 or even 3 of mRNA-4157 for head and neck cancers, which is what I need. MRNA-4157 dropped the risk of death in melanoma patients by at least 50% compared to Keytruda alone. That’s amazing.

* “Frozen methane under the seabed is thawing as oceans warm – and things are worse than we thought.” News that’ll likely be ignored, like all other news of this type.

* The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) is very bad and, beyond merely being bad, it’s perverse in that it harms the environment more than helps.

* Be Wary of Imitating High-Status People Who Can Afford to Countersignal.

* Patagonia removing PFAS / “forever chemicals” from its clothes. I got a Patagonia “Nano-puffer” coat that can be stuffed into itself, yielding a tiny package good for travel, and, although I like it, I also used a seam ripper to remove the Patagonia label from the chest. I’m not a billboard for a company.