June 29, 2026

05 Sci-Tech

TikTok’s Algorithm Will Soon Be “Controlled By America” – Mother Jones– www.motherjones.com

pgnewser September 22, 2025 0

TikTok’s Algorithm Will Soon Be “Controlled By America” – Mother Jones– www.motherjones.com
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After years of bipartisan warnings about TikTok’s potential national security risks, users may soon confront a different kind of threat, perhaps even worse: an algorithm “controlled by America.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the detail on Saturday, a key aspect of the emerging agreement announced by the Trump administration last week between the United States and China. The deal could finally settle TikTok’s fate in the US following months of uncertainty with a brief ban, reversal by the Trump administration, and shifting, self-imposed deadlines for an agreement.

“There will be seven seats on the board that controls the app in the US, and six of those seats will be Americans,” Leavitt told Fox News. “The data and privacy will be led by one of America’s greatest tech companies, Oracle, and the algorithm will also be controlled by America.”

It’s unclear what exactly a US-controlled algorithm will involve. Right-wing conspiracy theories? Charlie Kirk memorials? Coupons for MAGA swag? Nor did Leavitt specify which American individuals would be involved in determining an algorithm. We also have little details on how Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a Trump loyalist, intends to approach the responsibility for managing TikTok’s data and security while the Trump administration weaponizes everything from voting data to confidential Social Security records.

CDC committee votes to change measles vaccine guidance for young children– www.livescience.com

pgnewser September 22, 2025 0

CDC committee votes to change measles vaccine guidance for young children– www.livescience.com
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An influential Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) committee has announced new recommendations for the combined measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (MMRV) vaccine.

The members of the committee, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), was recently changed under the leadership of Department of Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. All 17 previous members were removed and then replaced with a new group, which includes several prominent anti-vaccine advocates.

Meta AI Dings Kirk for Supposed Misinformation, Citing ‘Neutral’ Wikipedia– www.newsbusters.org

pgnewser September 19, 2025 0

Meta AI Dings Kirk for Supposed Misinformation, Citing ‘Neutral’ Wikipedia– www.newsbusters.org
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Meta AI went after Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk by relying on none other than Wikipedia, exposing the disturbing influence of the online encyclopedia on artificial intelligence.

On Wednesday, the chatbot was quick to accuse Kirk of promoting conspiracy theories and other purportedly false claims when asked, “Who is Charlie Kirk?” Worse still, Meta AI identified Wikipedia as its sole source, justifying its choice by stating it offers a “neutral point of view and comprehensive coverage of current events.”

 

The Download: AI-designed viruses, and bad news for the hydrogen industry– www.technologyreview.com

pgnewser September 19, 2025 0

The Download: AI-designed viruses, and bad news for the hydrogen industry– www.technologyreview.com
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Artificial intelligence can draw cat pictures and write emails. Now the same technology can compose a working genome.

A research team in California says it used AI to propose new genetic codes for viruses—and managed to get several of them to replicate and kill bacteria.

The work, described in a preprint paper, has the potential to create new treatments and accelerate research into artificially engineered cells. But experts believe it is also an “impressive first step” toward AI-designed life forms. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

Clean hydrogen is facing a big reality check

Hydrogen is sometimes held up as a master key for the energy transition. It can be made using several low-emissions methods and could play a role in cleaning up industries ranging from agriculture to aviation to shipping.

This moment is a complicated one for the green fuel, though, as a new report from the International Energy Agency lays out. A number of major projects face cancellations and delays. The US in particular is seeing a slowdown after changes to key tax credits and cuts in support for renewable energy.

Still, there are bright spots for the industry, including in China, and new markets could soon become crucial for growth. Here are three things to know about the state of hydrogen in 2025.

—Casey Crownhart

 

Are GMOs Safe? A Molecular Geneticist Speaks Out– www.truthdig.com

pgnewser September 19, 2025 0

Are GMOs Safe? A Molecular Geneticist Speaks Out– www.truthdig.com
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Are genetically engineered foods safe? In an interview with a leading molecular genetics expert, we discuss the scientific evidence behind health concerns tied to genetically modified corn and pesticides, how genetically modified organisms are changing in ways that increase health risks and how regulatory systems have failed to keep pace with modern genetics.

Professor Michael Antoniou, head of the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at King’s College London, has studied for more than 35 years how genes function and how they are disrupted. His decades of rigorous independent research into the risks of GM foods and glyphosate-based herbicides have raised serious concerns about the safety of these technologies.

In a report he prepared for the Mexican government, as the country attempted to restrict GMO corn imports for health reasons, Antoniou cited “a large body of evidence from well-controlled laboratory animal toxicity studies that show evidence of harm to multiple physiological systems” from toxic agents found in GM corn.

New Research Shows Gut Cells Communicate Directly with the Brain– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser September 19, 2025 0

New Research Shows Gut Cells Communicate Directly with the Brain– www.scientificamerican.com
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This episode was made possible by the support of Yakult and produced independently by Scientific American’s board of editors.

Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman.

People often talk about having “gut feelings,” but new research suggests there may be more to the idiom than we thought. Scientists are finding that specialized cells in our intestines can send signals directly to the brain, potentially influencing appetite and even mood.

Recent studies hint that our microbiomes could play a role in this communication system, though researchers are still trying to understand exactly how these interactions work and what they mean for our health.

Here to walk us through the emerging science of the belly-to-brain connection is Maya Kaelberer, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona in the Department of Physiology.

Genetics Can Track How Languages Mixed in the Past– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser September 19, 2025 0

Genetics Can Track How Languages Mixed in the Past– www.scientificamerican.com
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September 18, 2025

3 min read

Genetics Can Track How Languages Mixed in the Past

New research shows that wherever human populations mix, their languages blend as well

By Cody Cottier edited by Allison Parshall

PhotoHamster/Getty Images

When speakers of different languages meet, their words, sounds and even grammatical structures mingle in surprising ways. Ketchup, for example, may be an American staple today, but its name entered English via the Chinese language Hokkien around the end of the 17th century. Or consider the phrase “attorney general”: we place the adjective after the noun because that was standard word order in French when the Normans invaded England in 1066. This kind of exchange, called linguistic “borrowing,” is a big part of how languages evolve worldwide.

Because of gaps in the historical record of human encounters, it can be hard to measure exactly how contact between different populations shaped any given language over the years. But a vestige of all those past interactions persists in human DNA: whenever a person’s genes indicate their ancestors came from two separate populations, it stands to reason that said ancestors interacted closely enough for their languages to merge, too. So a team of researchers analyzed genetic data from nearly 5,000 individuals living in the last few decades, spanning every inhabited continent, and identified 126 cases where those individuals’ ancestry indicated interbreeding between two distinct populations at some point in the past. Though a person’s genetic heritage doesn’t necessarily reflect the language they speak, the researchers expected to find similarities between the languages spoken by those converging groups.

Spiders Will Hunt in Groups and Share Meals if They Have Enlarged Brain Structures– www.discovermagazine.com

pgnewser September 19, 2025 0

Spiders Will Hunt in Groups and Share Meals if They Have Enlarged Brain Structures– www.discovermagazine.com
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Most spiders are known for being loners that keep to themselves. But in rare instances, some close-knit spider communities rely on strength in numbers. From a young age, the spiders in these groups show selfless behaviors such as joining forces on hunts or sharing meals with one another.

A new study published in Integrative Zoology suggests that these spiders get along so well partly because of what’s inside of their brains. Researchers found that certain brain regions of social huntsman spiders and social crab spiders — both of which live in groups — display slight variations compared to spiders that live alone. The distinct structure of these regions may be the reason why some spiders develop strong social skills while others have a preference for privacy.

If you ever find yourself peeling back the bark of a eucalyptus tree or a dead acacia tree in Australia, you could be in for a surprise that’ll make you jump out of your shoes. Chances are, you’ll come across a hidden conclave of social huntsman spiders, which live in groups containing potentially hundreds of individuals.

Not all spiders have grand get-togethers like this. In fact, the behavior is extremely rare among spider species — only 0.1 percent of the world’s 53,000 spider species live in groups.

Most spiders are territorial and become aggressive toward others of their kind, even resorting to cannibalism at times. Social spiders, on the other hand, usually get along well with their kin.

Early humans reached Europe via an Ice Age land bridge from Turkey– www.popsci.com

pgnewser September 19, 2025 0

Early humans reached Europe via an Ice Age land bridge from Turkey– www.popsci.com
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The Aegean coast of Ayvalık in Turkey is composed of numerous islands and peninsulas today, but the region looked quite different 2.58 million—11,700 years ago during the Pleistocene Ice Age. During this epoch, expanses of coastal plains revealed themselves as sea levels dropped by around 330 feet. These climatic shifts allowed the formation of continual landmasses, including one that bridged Anatolia and Europe.

The landmass was exposed as sea levels dropped by as much as 330 feet during the Ice Age. Credit: Göknur, Kadriye, and Hande

“In all these periods, the present-day islands and peninsulas of Ayvalık would have formed interior zones within an expansive terrestrial environment,” study co-author Kadriye Özçelik said in a statement.

NVIDIA Ethernet Networking Accelerates World's Largest AI ...

Nvidia Invests $5 billion in Intel as China Bans Their Chip and U.S. Questions Chinese Involvement

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

NVIDIA Ethernet Networking Accelerates World's Largest AI ...

Intel surges 24% as Nvidia to invest $5 billion in chipmaker– www.cnbc.com
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Nvidia said it will invest $5 billion in Intel as part of a deal to co-develop data center and PC chips with the troubled chipmaker, which took on the U.S. government as an investor last month.

Nvidia is investing its stake at a price of $23.28 a share, a release from the company said. Intel shares jumped 24% to around $31 a share following news of the deal.

“This historic collaboration tightly couples NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem — a fusion of two world-class platforms. Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in a release.

Nvidia now joins Softbank and the U.S. government in supporting Intel’s turnaround.

Intel shares, which hit their lowest in more than a decade earlier this year, rebounded after finding renewed support from the Trump administration, striking a deal for the U.S. government to invest 10% in the chipmaker in August.

Softbank also made a $2 billion investment with Intel in August.

Colorado - Government, Society, Politics | Britannica

Colorado Government Forcing Social Media Warning Messages to Minors

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Colorado - Government, Society, Politics | Britannica

Sending Government-Mandated Messages to Minors on Social Media Platforms: Colorado’s Unconstitutional Experiment | American Enterprise Institute– www.aei.org
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“Attention youth: We interrupt your social media experience to bring you this government-compelled, state-sanctioned message to help you ‘understand the impact of social media on the developing brain and the mental and physical health of youth users.’ This message will be repeated.’”

That sounds like a far-fetched way to educate minors about alleged and vehemently contested problems with using social media, but something similar might soon become reality in Colorado unless a judge issues an injunction in NetChoice v. Weiser. Compelling private entities to host disputed messages they disagree with––NetChoice calls Colorado’s statements “state-compelled opinions”––raises profound First Amendment problems, but that’s what the statute in Weiser seemingly does.

Via Adobe Stock.

The US Supreme Court has “held time and again that freedom of speech ‘includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all.’” It recently added that the government generally “may not compel a person to speak its own preferred messages.” Given this principle against government-compelled expression, the better––and constitutional––method for addressing Colorado’s frets about minors’ social media usage is for the state to run its own educational and advertising campaigns––ones that don’t co-opt platforms to do the hard work for it.

Study Finds Earth's Small Asteroid Visitor Likely Chunk of Moon ...

Three Percent Chance a City-Killer Asteriod Hits the Earth in 2032

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Study Finds Earth's Small Asteroid Visitor Likely Chunk of Moon ...

City-killer asteroid 2024 YR4’s chances of hitting Earth increase; NASA releases likely impact zone list–Check if you are in danger? – MSN
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A newly discovered asteroid, 2024 YR4, has raised concerns among astronomers after NASA confirmed its growing probability of colliding with Earth. Originally detected on 27 December 2023 by the El Sauce Observatory in Chile, the space rock has a 3.1% chance of impact on 22 December 2032—the highest probability ever recorded by modern forecasting systems.

The asteroid, measuring between 130 and 300 feet wide, is comparable in size to the Statue of Liberty. Though not large enough to cause global devastation, scientists warn it could destroy a city if it strikes. With a velocity nearing 40,000 miles per hour, an impact could unleash energy equivalent to eight megatons of TNT—500 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are closely tracking 2024 YR4’s trajectory. The ESA currently places the impact probability at 2.8%, slightly lower than NASA’s estimate.

“This is not a crisis at this point in time,” said Richard Moissl, head of ESA’s planetary defence office. “This is not the dinosaur killer. This is not the planet killer. This is at most dangerous for a city.”

The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) first issued a warning memo on 29 January, after the probability of impact surpassed 1%. Since then, astronomers have been refining calculations as more data becomes available. Some experts believe further observations could reduce the risk to zero, as has happened with previous asteroids.

TikTok restoring US service as Trump promises executive order to ...

Oracle, Among Others, Prepares to take over TikTok

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

TikTok restoring US service as Trump promises executive order to ...

TikTok to be controlled by US-led group including Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz: report – New York Post
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President Trump’s potential deal to avoid a TikTok ban is taking shape – with several prominent US tech and investor firms set to take majority control of the China-owned app.

Under the proposed terms, a group including billionaire Larry Ellison’s Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz would form a new entity overseeing TikTok’s US operations, The Wall Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The US group will reportedly own a combined stake of approximately 80%, with Chinese investors holding the rest. Under the TikTok divestment law passed by Congress last year, Chinese ownership can’t exceed 20%.

UAPs: Nasa reveals long-awaited report into UFOs - BBC Newsround

U.S. Lawmaker Says Congress Exploring UFO Talks With Russian Parliament– www.themoscowtimes.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

UAPs: Nasa reveals long-awaited report into UFOs - BBC Newsround

U.S. Lawmaker Says Congress Exploring UFO Talks With Russian Parliament– www.themoscowtimes.com
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A U.S. lawmaker has said Congress is seeking to organize a meeting with members of Russia’s parliament to discuss UFOs.

“We’re looking forward to doing a bipartisan meeting with the Russian parliament here pretty soon,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, told news anchor Chris Cuomo during an interview on NewsNation last week.

Luna said she had “recently” spoken with Russian government officials and asked whether they had information to share on the issue.

She did not provide details on the possible format, date or location of the talks. Neither the U.S. Congress nor Russia’s lower-house State Duma has publicly confirmed such discussions.

Pet Mice: Guide to Caring for a Fancy Mouse - PetHelpful

Scientists grow synthetic kidneys inside mice– cosmosmagazine.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Pet Mice: Guide to Caring for a Fancy Mouse - PetHelpful

Scientists grow synthetic kidneys inside mice– cosmosmagazine.com
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While stem cell-derived kidney organoids promise to provide patient-specific models for disease research, and may even one day produce functional tissue for regenerative medicine, researchers have not yet been able to recreate the immense complexity of the organ’s patterning and functions.

Models tend to focus on either the kidney’s nephrons – functional units which filter blood and produce urine – or its collecting ducts, which concentrate urine and transport it to the bladder.

Now, researchers have brought these together in ‘assembloids’ which are the most mature and complex kidney structures grown in the lab to date.

Lab grown human kidney assembloid showing the formation of radial nephrons connected to a central collecting system. Credit: Pedro Medina, Li Lab

“This is a revolutionary tool for creating more accurate models for studying kidney disease, which affects one in 7 adults,” says corresponding author Zhongwei Li, associate professor of medicine, and stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the University of Southern California, US.

“It’s also a milestone towards our long-term goal of building a functional synthetic kidney for the more than 100,000 patients in the US awaiting transplant – the only cure for end-stage kidney disease.”

Li and collaborators grew mouse and human assembloids from kidney progenitor cells in the lab and then transplanted them into the abdomens of living mice. There, the assembloids matured further – growing larger and developing connective tissue and blood vessels.

 

How the experts use salt in their cooking – and why | Food | The ...

Harvard’s salt trick could turn billions of tons of hair into eco-friendly materials– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

How the experts use salt in their cooking – and why | Food | The ...

Harvard’s salt trick could turn billions of tons of hair into eco-friendly materials– www.sciencedaily.com
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  • SEAS researchers have discovered the chemical mechanism by which certain salt compounds break down protein waste, like wool and feathers.
  • The discovery enables a gentler and more sustainable protein recycling process.

The textile and meat-processing industries produce billions of tons of waste annually in the form of feathers, wool and hair, all of which are rich in keratin – the strong, fibrous protein found in hair, skin and nails.

Turning all that animal waste into useful products – from wound dressings to eco-friendly textiles to health extracts – would be a boon for the environment and for new, sustainable industries. But upcycling proteins is challenging: Breaking down, or de-naturing, proteins into their component parts typically requires corrosive chemicals in large, polluting facilities, keeping any cost-effective protocol out of reach.

Researchers in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have uncovered key fundamental chemistry of how proteins like keratin de-nature in the presence of certain salt compounds – an insight that could take protein recycling to the next level.

A team led by Kit Parker, the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS, combined experiments and molecular simulations to better illuminate the chemical mechanisms by which salts cause proteins to unfold. They’ve shown that a solution of concentrated lithium bromide, a salt compound known to break apart keratin, interacts with the protein molecules in a completely unexpected way – not by binding to the proteins directly, as was conventional wisdom, but by changing the structure of the surrounding water molecules to create a setting more favorable for spontaneous protein unfolding.

This insight allowed the researchers to design a gentler, more sustainable keratin extraction process, separating the protein out of solution easily and without the need for harsh chemicals. The process can also be reversed with the same salt mixture, enabling recovery and reuse of lithium bromide denaturants.

When a Generation Stays Inside: Civic Consequences of Our Digital World | American Enterprise Institute– www.aei.org

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

When a Generation Stays Inside: Civic Consequences of Our Digital World | American Enterprise Institute– www.aei.org
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A new survey reveals that Gen Z spends, on average, less than an hour outdoors on weekdays and many can go days without leaving their homes. By contrast, members of Gen X average more than an hour outside, with time outdoors still part of daily life. Nearly 70 percent of young adults say they regularly spend multiple days entirely indoors, citing bad weather, lack of time, and discomfort with being alone.

At first glance, this might seem like a lifestyle quirk. In reality, it signals how profoundly our patterns of movement, socialization, and engagement with the world have changed with serious implications for civic life.

Time outdoors has always been about more than exercise or fresh air. Parks, sidewalks, and playgrounds have historically been places where neighbors meet, children play, and civic bonds form. Athletic fields and the front porch were once shared spaces where democratic habits were practiced. When younger generations spend less time in these settings, we lose more than recreation. We lose arenas where trust, norms, and community are built.

The new report highlights that this disconnect is felt culturally as well as physically. Nearly half of respondents say there is a “nature deficit” in the media and entertainment they consume. People may stream endless content about the natural world, yet rarely experience it firsthand. Gen Z, in particular, reports a desire to disconnect from screens, but their actual time in nature is lower than previous generations. This gap between aspiration and behavior shows that younger adults are not rejecting nature outright, but face barriers—social, physical, and cultural—that make engagement harder.

Nvidia CEO Huang caught between US, China’s ‘larger agendas’– www.channelnewsasia.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Nvidia CEO Huang caught between US, China’s ‘larger agendas’– www.channelnewsasia.com
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“Jensen Huang’s diplomatic comment about ‘larger agendas’ is CEO-speak for ‘We’re pawns in a digital Cold War,’” said Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors.

Nvidia has responded to the political tumult by sharply increasing its lobbying spending in Washington. Senate disclosures show it spent nearly US$1.9 million in the first half of 2025, compared with US$640,000 for all of last year. It also hired three new firms with 21 lobbyists last month.

China’s Cyberspace Administration directed ByteDance and Alibaba to terminate RTX Pro 6000D testing and orders, the Financial Times reported, citing three sources. The new restrictions go beyond earlier guidance that focused on the H20 chip, designed specifically for the Chinese market.

“We’ll continue to be supportive of the Chinese government and Chinese companies as they wish,” Huang said in London.

Nvidia CEO disappointed after reports China has banned its AI chips– www.cnbc.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Nvidia CEO disappointed after reports China has banned its AI chips– www.cnbc.com
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has weighed in on the U.S. tech giant’s struggles in China after a report claimed the country has banned its artificial intelligence chips.

Huang said he was “disappointed” after the Financial Times on Wednesday reported that the Cyberspace Administration of China had ordered companies including TikTok parent company ByteDance and Alibaba not to buy Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D, a chip that was made for the country.

In response to a question on the FT report, Huang said Wednesday that “we can only be in service of a market if the country wants us to be.”

“We probably contributed more to the China market than most countries have. And I’m disappointed with what I see,” Huang said. “But they have larger agendas to work out between China and the United States, and I’m understanding of that.”

It comes after a tumultuous few years for Nvidia’s business in China, which Huang described as “a bit of a roller coaster.”

“We’ve guided all financial analysts not to include China” in financial forecasts, Huang told reporters Wednesday at a press briefing in London. “The reason for that is because that’s largely going to be within the discussions of the United States government and Chinese government.”

Secrets of Chinese AI Model DeepSeek Revealed in Landmark Paper– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Secrets of Chinese AI Model DeepSeek Revealed in Landmark Paper– www.scientificamerican.com
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The success of DeepSeek’s powerful artificial intelligence (AI) model R1 — that made the US stock market plummet when it was released in January — did not hinge on being trained on the output of its rivals, researchers at the Chinese firm have said. The statement came in documents released alongside a peer-reviewed version of the R1 model, published today in Nature.

R1 is designed to excel at ‘reasoning’ tasks such as mathematics and coding, and is a cheaper rival to tools developed by US technology firms. As an ‘open weight’ model, it is available for anyone to download and is the most popular such model on the AI community platform Hugging Face to date, having been downloaded 10.9 million times.

The paper updates a preprint released in January, which describes how DeepSeek augmented a standard large language model (LLM) to tackle reasoning tasks. Its supplementary material reveals for the first time how much R1 cost to train: the equivalent of just US$294,000. This comes on top of the $6 million or so that the company, based in Hangzhou, spent to make the base LLM that R1 is built on, but the total amount is still substantially less than the tens of millions of dollars that rival models are thought to have cost. DeepSeek says R1 was trained mainly on Nvidia’s H800 chips, which in 2023 became forbidden from being sold to China under US export controls.

Elon Musk announces SpaceX’s new watership ‘You’ll Thank Me Later’: The bizarre name and the mission behind it |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser September 18, 2025 0

Elon Musk announces SpaceX’s new watership ‘You’ll Thank Me Later’: The bizarre name and the mission behind it |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed on September 16, 2025, that the company is developing a new watership designed to transport its massive Starship rockets from Starbase, Texas, to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Musk first teased the vessel with a cryptic “You’ll Thank Me Later” post on September 8, which sparked speculation across social media. The watership is intended to move Starships horizontally, a strategic step ahead of SpaceX’s ambitious goal of 25 Starship launches per year from Florida. The name appears to nod to science fiction, following SpaceX’s tradition of naming vessels after Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, reflecting Musk’s playful approach to blending technology and imagination.

Why Elon Musk named the Watership ‘You’ll Thank Me Later’

The watership’s unusual name continues SpaceX’s trend of quirky, science-fiction-inspired naming conventions. Previous drone ships like A Shortfall of Gravitas and Just Read the Instructions were named after fictional spaceships in Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels. Musk’s choice of “You’ll Thank Me Later” may reflect both humor and confidence in the vessel’s importance for Starship logistics. While the name is unconventional, it highlights SpaceX’s culture of creativity and its willingness to blend technical innovation with pop culture references, a hallmark that has captured global attention.