INBOXIFY ORIGINAL's [27/October/2023]

Hello, Friday! Welcome to our weekly newsletter filled with captivating stories, exciting updates, and valuable insights. Get ready to embark on a journey of discovery and inspiration as we dive into the highlights of the week. Sit back, relax, and enjoy your Friday read!

AVIATION

Boeing’s big Air Force One problem

Francis Scialabba

Boeing’s defense unit is struggling so bad it’s making even the Denver Broncos blush.

The aviation manufacturer reported a $924 million loss for the unit in Q3, $482 million of which was lost entirely on the two 747 jets that will make up the next Air Force One fleet. That brought the total loss on the presidential planes to an estimated $2.4 billion in the last five years. Boeing blamed higher manufacturing expenses caused by engineering changes, labor shortages, and supplier negotiations.

The jets are becoming a financial sinkhole. Boeing signed a $3.9 billion fixed contract with the US government in 2018 to assuage then-President Trump after he criticized the company and threatened to cancel the order. CEO David Calhoun later admitted that agreeing to produce the new Air Force One planes was a “very unique negotiation” that the company “probably shouldn’t have taken.”

Plus…making a plane fit for a president isn’t easy. Both jets need missile-defense systems, nuclear-protected communications, and (presumably) custom bald eagle wallpaper. Boeing’s task is further complicated because in order to meet Trump’s desire to cut costs, the company had to use two planes that were originally made for a Russian airline.

SCIENCE

Excel updates feature that caused scientific errors

Microsoft

Microsoft is finally tweaking an Excel feature that has caused nearly two decades of grief for scientists. The feature, known as Automatic Data Conversion, which in the past constantly converted certain human gene names into dates and created massive errors in scientific research, can now be disabled.

If your science background is more Intro to Geology…every one of the nearly 44,000 human genes has a shortened version of its name and a symbol. So when a scientist typed SEPT1 to represent the Septin-1 gene in an Excel sheet, the program would assume they meant September 1 and change it. And if you’ve ever been the dogsbody who has to comb through an Excel file, you know it’s easy to miss a tiny error like this.

But those tiny errors amounted to big problems: A study of 10,000 scientific papers on genes published from 2014–2020 found that more than 30% contained a gene name error that was Excel's fault. It got so bad that by 2020 the governing body behind gene naming had updated 27 gene names so they couldn’t be mistaken in the Microsoft program (i.e. SEPT1 became SEPTIN1).

How to turn it off: You can now personalize Excel’s auto correcting functions under File>Options>Data.

BIG TECH

Almost all the states are suing Meta

Francis Scialabba

If Facebook customer support isn’t responding to your repeated complaints about local Buy Nothing group beef, it’s because they’re a little preoccupied. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, was slapped with lawsuits from a bipartisan group of 42 state attorneys general yesterday that allege the social media giant knowingly harmed teens and kids.

A majority of the states, including Colorado, South Carolina, and Minnesota, filed a federal lawsuit accusing Meta of targeting young people with addictive algorithms on Facebook and Instagram—and then publicly downplaying the psychological damage its apps can cause.

• AGs in the District of Columbia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and five other states filed separate but similar state lawsuits against Meta.

• Florida filed its own federal suit because it likes doing its own thing.

Meta isn’t mad, it’s just disappointed. A spokesperson for the company said it shares the “attorneys generals’ commitment to providing teens with safe, positive experiences online” but argued lawsuits are not a productive route to solve the issue.

This might finally force Meta to create guardrails

Constant scrolling on apps like Instagram could be hurting young people’s mental health, according to several reports and warnings that have surfaced in the last few years. Leaked slides from an internal Meta study revealed that teen girls felt Instagram was damaging their body image. In May, the US Surgeon General issued a public advisory that social media adds significant risk to kids’ health.

Big picture: Though teens are undoubtedly facing a rising mental health crisis, experts are still divided on the relationship between social media use and well-being.

Meta’s not the only target. AGs from some of the states involved in the Meta lawsuits are also investigating TikTok for the same issue. Earlier this month, Utah followed Arkansas’s and Indiana’s lead in suing the company, citing concerns for childrens’ mental health.