Edouard Chazal

Watching the Birth of a New Breed: the Werewolf Cat

They look so frail and adorable. Long life to Lykoi kitten :

Humans have been manipulating animal mating for eons, but it’s by no means a primitive task. Breeding is, in one view, a years-long assembly line for turning out increasingly finely tuned products. As in any complex production process, care and attention are required to prevent defects. In breeding animals to be larger or smaller, faster or stronger, hairier or balder, humans manipulate the stuff of life itself, but we are never able to fully control the devilishly complex processes that have evolved over billions of years.

→ Nautilus

VW Emissions Probe Zeroes In on Two Engineers

The cheaters :

Two top Volkswagen engineers who found they couldn’t deliver as promised a clean diesel engine for the U.S. market are at the center of a company probe into the installation of engine software designed to fool regulators, according to people familiar with the matter.

→ The Wall Street Journal

Apple, Amazon, Tesla and the Changing Dynamics of the Car Industry

The baby boomer generation romanticizes cars. Most boomers can recite the horsepower and other engine specs of every car they have ever owned. For the tail end of Gen X (my generation) and Millennials, a car is an interruption between Facebook and Twitter. We know the brand of speakers in our car, but if asked would have to google its horsepower. We feel little romanticism for our cars and have much higher brand loyalty to Apple and Google than to GM or Ford.

→ Institutional Investor

The Crash of Trump Air

“The bathroom was a work of art,” joked Nick Santangelo, who ran maintenance and engineering at the shuttle. “They used ideas from the hotel business, which wasn’t bad, but they didn’t always work.” Older jets in particular guzzle fuel and airline executives are obsessed with saving even a few ounces of weight. Not so Trump: “At first they wanted to put in a ceramic sink, that was too heavy,” said Santangelo. “Then one of his henchman decided they were going to put brass handles on the doors you use to get out in an emergency. Normal handles weigh a few ounces, and these things probably weighed five pounds each… you’d kill to save one pound, and they wanted to add 20 to 30 pounds to each plane.”

→ The Daily Beast

The Decline of ‘Big Soda’

This piece is a good reminder that I need to drink more water —and a lot less French wine and beers. Cheers :

Even as anti-obesity campaigners like Mr. Nutter have failed to pass taxes, they have accomplished something larger. In the course of the fight, they have reminded people that soda is not a very healthy product. They have echoed similar messages coming from public health researchers and others — and fundamentally changed the way Americans think about soda.

→ The New York Times