👋 Hello friends,

Thank you for joining this week's edition of The Saturday Morning Newsletter. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring 13 articles, essays, companies, ideas, podcasts, videos, or thoughts that caught my attention this week for their potential to significantly impact our future.

Before we begin: The Saturday Morning Newsletter by Brainwaves arrives in your inbox every Saturday, a concise and casual digest of current events, optimistic news stories, and other interesting tidbits about venture capital, economics, space, energy, intellectual property, philosophy, and beyond. I write as a curious explorer rather than an expert, and I value your insights and perspectives on each subject.

Time to Read: 5 minutes.

Let’s dive in!

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#1: Valar Atomics

Description: Valar Atomics is a nuclear reactor developer.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Valar Atomics recently raised $19M in venture capital funding. Their mission: to unlock economies of scale in the nuclear energy industry. Their technology is based on helium-cooled, high-temperature gas reactors. To accomplish economies of scale, they want to build these reactors out of “gigafactories”, a mass-manufactured facility capable of producing new reactors in less time and at less cost.

#2: Resynergi

Description: Resynergi is a plastic recycling company.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Resynergi recently raised $18M in venture capital funding. Historically, plastic products have been refined in a way that isn’t productive and actually creates more waste. Resynergi aims to reduce plastic back down to its base molecules for infinite reusability. Their technology is portable, user-friendly, and produces more recycled products than other methodologies.

#3: Kapta Space

Description: Kapta Space is a spaceborne radar technology developer.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Kapta Space recently raised $5M in venture capital funding. Their technology aims to solve one of the defense sector’s most elusive challenges: continuous tracking of moving targets from orbit. The goal is to get this technology into space as quickly as possible to test its feasibility.

#4: Patlytics

Description: Patlytics is an intellectual property research product.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Patlytics recently raised $14M in venture capital funding. Companies don’t have to start drafting intellectual property claims from scratch, they can use the vast research and AI algorithms to streamline that process. Companies can reduce cycle times of litigation and find infringers faster.

BBC: Japan to Increase Reliance on Nuclear Energy

Just 14 years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan is planning a nuclear turnaround. Previously to the disaster, Japan operated 54 nuclear reactors, comprising around 30% of the country’s energy. Now, Japan only operates 14 reactors, comprising around 8.5% of the country’s energy. A new energy plan (still yet to pass parliament) calls for an increase in nuclear capacity to 20% of the country’s energy by 2040. That’s a very lofty goal, which will require a large amount of innovation and infrastructure development.

Interesting Engineering: World’s First Nailable Solar Shingle

GAF Energy’s Timberline Solar ES 2 product is the world’s first nailable solar shingle. It is capable of being installed like you would traditionally install a residential roof, acting in the same way, except it generates electricity (and it doesn’t look too bad either). We may start to see many of the new houses being built with solar panel roofs, wrapping that cost into the total home cost.

Earth: The Largest Structure Ever Found in the Universe is 1.4B Light Years Long

How long is a light year? It’s incredibly long to comprehend. Now take 1.4 billion of them. Again, even harder to comprehend how big this structure is. This new structure is called a “galaxy cluster” or a mix of galaxies which themselves are a mix of planets, stars, suns, etc. Will this impact your daily life? Absolutely not, but it’s a cool fact and shows how we’re continuing to learn and explore every day.

The New York Times: Earth’s 1st Asteroid Mining Prospector Heads to the Launchpad

After failed aspirations in the 2010s of asteroid mining, a new company is seeking to revive hopes. AstroForge is launching its space mining vessel toward an asteroid later this week, with the goal of proving the business model of space mining. “If this works out, this will probably be the biggest business ever conceived of,” says the CEO.

Futurism: Economist Warns That Elon Musk Is About to Cause a "Deep, Deep Recession"

Jesse Rothstein, a Berkeley public policy professor and the former DOL chief economist, has sounded the alarm for a potential recession. Between the hundreds of thousands of government jobs being cut and the cancellations of many federal contracts, the upcoming unemployment reports are going to look very poor. This combined with large private market uncertainty can create an environment trending towards a deep recession.

CBS: 50 Years of Tax Cuts for the Rich Failed to Trickle Down

Many politicians have long argued that tax cuts for the wealthy will “trickle down” and eventually boost jobs and incomes for everyone else. A study from the London School of Economics found otherwise.

The study covered 18 developed countries from 1965 to 2015, comparing countries that passed tax cuts to those that didn’t, finding that per capita GDP and unemployment rates were nearly identical after 5 years but the incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where the tax rates were lowered.

National Law Review: Intellectual Property 101

If you’ve ever wanted to learn the quick and easy basics of intellectual property, I would recommend this article. It goes into the basics of intellectual property and then expands into how people value intellectual property and the various ways it is protected.

Good Good Good: Tiny Homes For the Homeless Are More Effective Than Group Shelters

A study from Portland State University found that tiny homes for the homeless consistently outperform mass shelters when it came to successfully keeping people off the streets. It found that 36% of the tiny home residents in Portland moved on to permanent housing, and only 12% of shelter guests moved on to permanent housing. There could be many reasons for this, some suggested that mass shelters generally have a shorter stay, which limits the time someone has to find and support themselves in sustainable housing.

Perspective is a great thing.

Just this week, in talking with other people (hearing their perspectives), I’ve learned 2 new TV shows to watch, a couple of articles to read, a new way of thinking about politics, and much more.

Many people, myself included, travel the world A) to see new things, but also B) to experience someone else’s world. What does the world of Paris look like, feel like, smell like, taste like, hear like? The perspective gained through travel can show you entirely new worlds within our world.

Have you ever spent a good minute thinking about and looking at your ceiling? When you were a kid, did you ever see those pictures or cartoons or hear someone talking about what if everything in your room was actually on the ceiling and gravity worked the other way around? That’s a neat perspective to view the world. Simply turn everything on its head and see what emerges.

Perspective is a great thing.

See you Wednesday for Brainwaves,

Drew Jackson

Twitter: @brainwavesdotme

Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this content are my own and do not represent the views of any of the companies I currently work for or have previously worked for. This content does not contain financial advice - it is for informational and educational purposes only. Investing contains risks and readers should conduct their own due diligence and/or consult a financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Any sponsorship or endorsements are noted and do not affect any editorial content produced.