Good Afternoon! 🌞 

It’s August 4, aka National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day—the perfect excuse to treat yourself (no justification needed).

Weird but true: This iconic treat was born from a happy accident in the 1930s when Ruth Wakefield ran out of baker’s chocolate and used chopped Nestlé bars instead. She thought they’d melt completely… but nope. They held their shape—and history was made.

Here’s a quick recipe if you want to whip up a batch today and make your kitchen smell like heaven:

Innovation

Meta’s Motion Bracelet

Engineers at Facebook’s parent company, Meta, have developed a device that turns hand gestures into computer commands. The interface is especially good at translating small movements like dotting a lowercase "i" and converting handwriting into text. Worn like a regular bracelet, the device reads electrical signals from wrist muscles and turns them into computer inputs—without requiring calibration or any invasive setup.

The technology was developed inside Meta’s Reality Labs, marking one of the division’s first notable outputs since the collapse of the “Metaverse” project, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg once said would “define the future of social connection.” That vision turned into a financial disaster, with Reality Labs losing $14 billion in 2022 and another $15 billion in 2023. During Meta’s “Year of Efficiency,” the division came close to being shut down entirely, with 10,000 layoffs preceding a shift toward more practical, sci-fi-like innovations.

Led by engineers Patrick Kaifosh and Thomas Reardon, the team used deep learning to build generalized models that decode muscle signals across different users—no customization required. Accuracy improved with more user data, and personalization boosted performance further. The Bluetooth-enabled bracelet can convert handwriting to digital text at roughly 20.9 words per minute—about 16 words slower than average mobile typing. Potential users include people with disabilities, those with paralysis, below-the-elbow amputees, or anyone managing multiple monitors or machines at once.

Good News

Heiress Funds Wellness

A new medical school has opened in Arkansas with a bold mission: train doctors in preventative medicine and whole-health care. Funded by Walmart heiress Alice Walton—one of the richest women in the world—the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) was born out of her frustrations with a healthcare system she sees as reactive and profit-driven. Her personal health struggles, combined with witnessing the shortcomings of care in rural areas, pushed her to act. The Bentonville-based school received 2,000 applications from across the country and accepted just 48 students. Its curriculum includes unconventional components like art, gardening, and cooking—lessons aimed at promoting health creation over disease management.

This confronts a harsh reality: while the U.S. excels in acute care and high-tech procedures, it falls short in preventing chronic illness. Nearly half of American adults are obese—more than any other developed country—largely due to poor diet and lifestyle. In a TIME Magazine profile, Walton said she wants to see what healthcare could look like if doctors worked to stop illness before it starts. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” as Benjamin Franklin once said. That ethos runs through the school’s foundation. Dr. Sharmila Makhija, a gynecologic cancer surgeon from Alabama chosen by Walton to lead AWSOM, shares a similar passion for improving care in underserved areas. “The foundation [of the curriculum] is traditional medicine but enhanced with the humanities and the arts to improve the delivery of care—so we improve on how we [act] with patients and how we partner with patients,” she told TIME.

AWSOM offers 50 hours of nutrition education—more than double the national average—and includes culinary training using produce from a rooftop garden and nearby farm. “If you hope to be able to keep a 40-year-old human healthy, you should be able to keep a tomato plant healthy,” sums up the school’s philosophy: build empathy and prevent illness at its root. Students will also develop community service and research projects, with applicant selection heavily weighted on how they planned to improve healthcare in their communities. Still, both Walton and Makhija stress that rethinking education is just the first step. If graduates return to broken, profit-driven systems, the mission fails. That’s why AWSOM is partnering with clinics and institutions open to testing new models. “It’s all about rethinking and re-envisioning what the education of the next generation of health care workers will be like,” says Makhija. “Alice and I are very keen on creating a sustainable model of education, both in how we deliver the curriculum that can be replicated, as well as fiscally, so that other schools can use a similar model.” The first five years of AWSOM will be funded entirely by Walton’s personal fortune.

Environment

Bucket Brigade Heroics

A beached minke whale spent six hours stranded on shore in Seldovia, Alaska, before returning to the water with the help of locals, according to a report from Alaska. The 15-foot whale, believed to have been poisoned by an algal bloom, was found on the rocks at low tide—an exposure that could have killed it in as little as 20 minutes. The Seldovia Village Tribe responded to an alert from the Alaska SeaLife Center, which asked that the whale’s exact location remain undisclosed. They sent environmental coordinator Stephen Payton, whose job includes marine mammal response. “I just went out as fast as I could, not really knowing what to expect, and it’s a long ways out there down MacDonald Spit,” Payton said. “So luckily, one of the locals that was responding was able to pick me up on a four wheeler and drive me.”

When Payton arrived, about 15 residents had already formed a bucket line, pouring seawater onto the whale’s underside, which was exposed to sun damage and scratched by the rocks. Others covered it in wet beach towels while considering next steps. Minke whales, though the second smallest baleen species, still weigh several tons. The animal thrashed occasionally, and no one attempted to physically move it. The whale had been lying on its side with its blowhole facing the sea—an especially dangerous position, since minke whales can suffocate on land in under 20 minutes. Local efforts extended its survival window from minutes to hours until the tide turned.

As the tide rose, the whale was able to right itself and swim away. It was later seen in nearby waters, alive and spouting. “We are grateful for the calm presence and respect shown by those nearby during this time,” the Seldovia Tribe wrote on Facebook. “Moments like these remind us of the powerful connection between our community and the natural world around us.”

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Mind Stretchers

⁉️ 

I’m round or square, I crumble with grace,
You’ll find me fresh or in a jar's embrace.
With chips or jam, I’m quite the treat—
Soft or crisp, I’m fun to eat.
What am I?

Yesterday’s Mind Stretchers:

I have a handle but I’m not a door,
I have teeth but I don’t roar.
I help you eat, but never talk—
What am I, with every poke and stalk? — a fork! Debbie Ettinger got this correct first! 🌞 

The first to send us the correct answer for today’s mind stretcher for a shout-out with the answer tomorrow. Just send us the answer and your name to [email protected] or reply to the email.

If you have any uplifting stories and experience you might want to share, send those over to [email protected] for the chance to be featured