Favorites April 17th 2023

David Watson

Apr 18, 2023

Daniel Oto-Peralías @OtoPeralias · Mar 7 Happy to see our paper “The spatial distribution of population in Spain: An anomaly in European perspective”, with E. Gutiérrez, @emoralbenito & R. Ramos published (and open access) in the Journal of Regional Science @JRS83202671 A 🧵 summarizing it 👇 Daniel Oto-Peralías @OtoPeralias Spain is almost “empty”, as this figure shows. If we divide the country in 1-km2 grid cells, only 12.7% of them are inhabited, the lowest % in Europe. — src

This is the beginning of a thread summarizing a paper trying to figure out why spain is so sparsely populated. TL;DR: popularity of walled cities for their defensive capabilities at just the right time in human history.

Alex Melendrez @ACMelendrez “More than two months after the deadline for Bay Area cities to submit housing plans to the state, the vast majority — 85% — have not come to an agreement with California officials over how to realistically build more homes in the next eight years” — src

If you're thinking about building some multifamily housing in your city via the builder's remedy, the article has a tool to check whether your city is currently compliant.

Juan Cambeiro @juan_cambeiro Good news: we’re making progress on cancer mRNA vaccines! A phase 2 study found that the combo of melanoma vaccination+immunotherapy reduced the risk of melanoma recurrence or death by 44% compared to immunotherapy alone https://wsj.com/articles/moderna-shows-progress-toward-cancer-vaccines-27ff606 — src

This is cool, but also, did you know that melanomas aren't caused by sun exposure? Apparently they're caused by an increase in skin temperature. Weird.

Mark Joseph Stern @mjs_DC Zoning reforms allows the construction of more housing in more neighborhoods, which slows the growth of rent—saving tenants thousands of dollars every year. That's not a theory, it's a provable fact. Great new study from @pewtrusts : https://pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2023/04/17/more-flexible-zoning-helps-contain-rising-rents — src

Shouldn't be a surprise, but yes, allowing more housing construction reduces rents. Here's the key chart from the article, if you prefer charts.

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion The world just keeps getting more cyberpunk. (ht @MargRev ) jalopnik.com The NYPD Can Now Shoot GPS Trackers at Your Car The StarChase Guardian-HX uses the lower receiver from an AR-15 rifle and launches adhesive-tipped GPS trackers to allow cops to track a vehicle remotely. — src

I guess this is better than car chases?

See new Tweets Conversation AukeHoekstra @AukeHoekstra · Apr 16 EVs with cheap sodium batteries instead of lithium batteries are getting to market! Quote Tweet CATL @catl_official · Apr 16 Our first sodium-ion battery will power the Chery EV models. The award-winning technology breaks the bottleneck of limited raw materials and provides a cost-effective solution. AukeHoekstra @AukeHoekstra · Apr 16 Lithium is not scarce long term, but for a few years prices will be high due to a supply crunch and sodium is even more abundant: this is welcome news! As is news that cells are said to have reached >200Wh/kg at the cell level (~180 at the pack level). cnevpost.com Chery to be 1st automaker to adopt CATL's sodium-ion batteries In the passenger car segment, sodium-ion batteries can generally meet the needs of models with a range of up to 400 kilometers, a CATL executive previously said. James McKemey @James_McKemey Lithium pricing has been a little more promising of late. — src

Lithium really isn't that scarce a resource, if prices go up, new mining techniques become viable and the price comes back down. (And other battery technologies eat into lithium's share on the margin)