Sep 21, 2026 · 5 min listen · Last updated September 21, 2026
From storyflo. This is your daily audio brief. Chloe, September 21st. Quick run through ten health stories — let's start with the longevity piece. Let's get into it. First, from crystal clear. an experiment in creating as much luck as possible.
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Daily Science Brief · September 21st
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an experiment in creating as much luck as possible
This experiment was born from the realisation that all of the most incredible things that have happened in my life, the most life-changing opportunities, were a result of me shooting an absolutely delusional shot that had no reason to work out, except sometimes it did. And we’re talking very delusional. Let me share a couple of examples to paint the picture: When I was 20 years old, I heard that my home country, Greece, had hired someone to rebrand the country.
Historic first US coast-to-coast autonomous flight completed
Joby Aviation has scored a world first, completing the first-ever fully autonomous flight from sea to shining sea across the continental United States – a distance of 3,199 miles (5,148 km) – with zero control inputs from an onboard human pilot. Tags: Joby Aviation, Autonomous flight
H5N1 bird flu jumps to marine mammals and wildlife in Australia
H5N1 avian influenza is spreading rapidly across southeastern Australia owing to infected wild bird species, including little penguins, magpies, crested terns and pelicans. Bird aggregations during breeding seasons will likely accelerate transmission to mammals, said Victoria’s chief biodiversity officer James Todd. In late August, H5N1 jumped to a mammal, a red fox (Vulpes vulpes), in Adelaide, South Australia.
The Vivid Dreams Stage of REM Sleep Is Linked With a Lower Risk of 83 Diseases
Researchers followed 95,559 UK adults for about nine years, using wrist‑worn trackers to record a week of sleep. It’s an observational study, not a trial, but the sample size and objective sleep data give it solid weight.
People who spent a larger share of the night in REM sleep—when most vivid dreaming occurs—had a lower risk of 83 different conditions, from heart failure and atrial fibrillation to Alzheimer’s disease. More deep sleep was linked to fewer diseases (about seven), while fragmented or irregular sleep raised risk for a handful.
The sweet spot for total sleep was six to eight hours. Sleeping under five hours was associated with higher risk for 37 diseases compared with the optimal range.
The authors stress this is correlation, not proof of cause, but the findings suggest that both how long we sleep and how much REM we get may matter for long‑term health.
Hey guys! It’s been about a month since I posted here, and I’m not going to apologize for it, because I want to tell you what that month was actually for. Back in May I wrote up my Confluence talk and walked through the sovereign stack layer by layer. Your website. Your email list. Your payments. Your community. And then, right there in the middle of it, I admitted something that has been nagging at me ever since: I was still using Google for my documents and storage, and Zoom for my meetings. I said at the time that it’s okay to cross that bridge slowly, and I stand by every word of it.
Why Highly Self-Aware People Can't Turn Their Mind Off
There’s something different about people who think deeply. You can spot them almost instantly. They’re the ones who stare out the window halfway through a conversation. The ones who type a message, read it five times, delete it, write it again, and still wonder if it sounds “right.” The ones who lie in bed exhausted, desperate to sleep... while their mind quietly opens another conversation from three days ago. People call it overthinking. I don’t think that’s what it is. Overthinking sounds like you’re simply thinking too much.
Still couldn’t. Tossed and turned. Tried moving the pillow. Focused on your breath. Counted back to hundred. Still no sleep. And you know what will happen tomorrow if you don’t. You’re going to be groggy and lazy all day. Irritated and tired. That thought opens another tab in the mind. So now you’re thinking about you really need to sleep. And out of the blue you start thinking about something someone said three weeks ago. You start a mental argument. Coming up with all the reasons why they were wrong and how stupid your reply was. I shouldn’t have said that, you think.
People often view Marcus Aurelius as the voice of calm, detached, serenity, but make the mistake of assuming that he was completely emotionless. The real Marcus was more interesting than that. He experienced grief, wept, and worried. He struggled with anger, fear, illness, bereavement, war, plague, political intrigue, and the moral burden of ruling the whole Roman Empire. I wrote Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor, for the Yale University Press Ancient Lives series, to tell the real story of the man behind the Meditations.
The misconception that Stoics are unemotional like a robot or, as they put it, a statue is so widespread that I’ve decided to put together some brief notes to summarise the opposing view, taken with modifications from my book Stoicism and the Art of Happiness (2013). The modern word “stoicism” (lowercase) means someone who has a stiff upper-lip, or more specifically someone who suppresses or conceals unpleasant or embarrassing emotions.
Watch this New In-Depth Interview About Stoicism and the Art of Living
I recently travelled to Topanga in California to have a conversation about philosophy with Andre Duqum for his Know Thyself YouTube channel. Andre has a beautiful studio and he’s a wonderful interviewer. We spoke for four and a half hours. On the trip from Laguna Beach, my Uber driver was a great guy, who was really into yoga and philosophy. I’d already been talking nonstop for nearly two hours when I arrived at Andre’s place, so you can probably hear by the end my voice is starting to get a little tired! But I wouldn’t change anything about it.