Peter Piper picked a peck of purple planets

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Alien planets might teem with purple — yes, purple — life

“NASA has already spotted a diversity of rocky, Earth-like worlds in the cosmos. But unlike our verdant planet, many of these worlds may flourish with purple life — if life exists out there, that is. It's easy to imagine organisms elsewhere resembling the colors of trees, algae, grasses, and beyond that dominate our Earthly reality. This green life soaks up certain light waves from the sun to fuel energy-creating photosynthesis, and the green-pigmented compound chlorophyll helps drive this profoundly successful process. New research from astrobiologists and microbiologists, however, suggests life elsewhere may likely make energy with different types of light from the sun, and use compounds with purple pigments rather than green.”

// Mashable »

Stop whining and start wine-ing

You’ve just worked your butt off, and all you want to do is come home to a nice glass of wine. But alas, you have none. And even worse, the local shop has too many options and you don’t know which one to pick. You want to try something new, but you also don’t want to spend an hour reading labels. Firstleaf is the remedy to all of that. It’s a membership that chooses wines for you based on your preferences and ships them right to your door. Their algorithm is 96% accurate, meaning you’re almost guaranteed to get a bottle you love. And if you don’t, you’ll get store credit back for any bottles you didn’t vibe with. Join today and get your first box of six world-class wines for only $44.95 with free shipping. Future you will be glad you did. [Ad]

// Drink good wine »

We used to make fun of fool's gold. Now, it might fuel our future

“Lithium is one of the most important elements on the periodic table. Because it’s lightweight and easily gains and loses ions, the material is central to the batteries that power almost everything in our technological world. … The world is hungry for more sources of lithium, and a new study from the Isotopic and Biogeochemical Characterization of Geological Materials (IsoBioGeM) laboratory at West Virginia University recently stumbled across another kind of ‘gold’ that could be an ‘unheard of’ source for this precious mineral — pyrite, or known by its more derogatory nickname, ‘fool’s gold.’”

// Popular Mechanics »

How 4/20 became the cannabis industry’s biggest day

“Like other proprietors, cannabis retailers promote sales around holidays like Labor Day and Halloween, but its biggest holidays are all its own. Green Wednesday, which falls on the day before Thanksgiving and is the industry’s answer to Black Friday, is widely considered to be the industry’s second-biggest sales day annually. … But the biggest one falls on April 20, with the holiday known as 4/20, like the ubiquitous cannabis term 420.”

// Retail Brew »

Can you automate hospitality?

The short answer is yes, but it’s gotta leave you wondering: how? Like all things these days, through AI. Jurny’s platform is taking the labor out of hospitality and replacing it with AI. But not the shoddy kind of AI (à la GPT-3) — the good kind that’s brought them a 5x increase in customer base in 2023 alone. The kind that lets a single person manage dynamic pricing, listing optimization, customer service, and the workload of an entire team all by themselves. The result? Streamlined services, which means happier guests, which means more profit. Triple win. Add AI to your portfolio today at just $1.61 per share with a $499 minimum investment. [Ad]

// Automate hospitality »

Anyone for a mini Titanosaur? New species is one of the smallest ever found

“A new species of titanosaur has been described from Argentina. Found in rocks dating back almost 70 million years, the mini job has been named Titanomachya gimenezi and was 10 times smaller than its largest titanosaur relatives, making it one of the smallest ever described. The fossils were retrieved from Chubut Province in Patagonian Argentina where scientists have been digging in La Colonia Formation. There, they uncovered forelimbs, hindlimbs, and fragments of ribs and vertebrae of the mystery titanosaur species – marking the first sauropod from La Colonia Formation ever to be recognized.”

// IFLScience »