🌎 Galaxy Brain

Good morning. Today, we’ll go over Mexico’s water debt with the US, the largest brain map in history, and Blue Origin’s all-female space crew.

Sit back, have a snack, and enjoy today’s edition.

— Chase Goepfert, Founder

Mexico owes the US 423 billion gallons of water

I think it’ll be a little more than a handful. After tariff threats from the US, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum promised to deliver 1.75 million acre-feet of water to US farmers, clearing part of its massive water debt with the United States.

Water debt?

You heard me right. According to a 1944 treaty, Mexico is required to send 1.75 million acre-feet of water from the Rio Grande to the US every five years, while the US sends 1.5 million acre-feet from the Colorado River to Mexico every year.

• Today, Mexico owes around 1.3 million acre-feet of water to Texas alone… enough water to power a mid-sized city for three decades.

How much water is an acre-foot? Roughly 326,000 gallons (see visual), enough to cover an acre of land in one foot of water. Doing some quick math, this means Mexico’s debt to Texas amounts to ~423 billion gallons of water.

Meeting demands

While the obligations from the 81-year-old treaty may seem like a chore from a bygone era, the water shipments are critical for US farmers to keep growing crops and for Mexico, particularly its capital, to face its multiyear drought.

• Since Mexico wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain, the US denied its request for water delivery to Tiajuana for the first time ever.

• Shortly after, Mexico agreed to deliver an immediate shipment of water.

Despite that, US officials say Mexico’s water deliveries are still extremely low. The nation argued that extremely dry conditions are affecting its ability to send consistent shipments of water to the US.

• With the current cycle set to end in October, Mexico has delivered less than 30% of its required share, according to International Boundary and Water Commission data published on Friday.

It’s an important agreement: The treaty allows Mexico to better adapt to warming temperatures and replace its critically low water reserves, while the US needs shipments to sustain its agricultural production.

Meta defends itself against monopoly allegations

The hearing began over a decade after Facebook (now Meta) bought Instagram and WhatsApp. Yesterday, the social media giant opened its defense in the landmark case against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is accusing Meta of using monopolistic practices.

The case could result in Meta $META ( ▲ 0.86% ) being forced to sell several of its key platforms, including Instagram or WhatsApp.

Monopoly money

The case against Meta was built nearly five years ago when federal regulators uncovered emails from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said that it's more effective to "buy than compete" with possible rivals.

• Meta purchased Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion and WhatsApp for $21 billion in 2014.

• Instagram accounts for nearly half of Meta’s total revenue in the US this year, while WhatsApp boasts an impressive 2.7 billion users worldwide.

Full 180: Somewhat ironically, the FTC allowed Meta to buy those platforms over 10 years ago. Now, the agency has reversed its stance, calling Meta’s acquisition of the then-startups part of a “buy-or-bury strategy,” leading the company to illegally form a monopoly in the social media space.

Trials and tribulations

Yesterday, lawmakers grilled Zuckerberg as he attempted to defend Meta’s alleged monopolistic practices. He is the star witness in the trial that could make or break the company’s prospects, and he’s well-versed in intense questioning.

Zuck is not new to the stand: The Meta CEO has appeared before Congress eight times and testified in court twice, giving him valuable experience that allows him to “craft the message” in a favorable way, Adam Sterling, associate dean at Stanford Law School, told the NYT.

If Meta should lose the case… selling its properties would be a huge blow to the company. WhatsApp and Instagram not only provide huge streams of revenue but also allow Meta unfiltered access to large pools of data, which is critical for developing AI assets.

Scientists created the largest (mammalian) brain map in history

It seems like every week we get a scientific breakthrough. Last week, scientists unveiled a colored 3D reconstruction of the biggest mammalian brain map ever, giving groundbreaking insights into our knowledge of how the brain works.

Galaxy brain (literally)

The new map, which captures just a tiny part of a mouse’s brain, will help scientists study brain function in great detail, possibly leading to important discoveries about how brain activity affects behavior, how things like consciousness develop, and what it means to be human.

• Just one cubic millimeter of neural tissue from the mouse was mapped, which is roughly the size of a grain of sand.

Using that minuscule piece of tissue, scientists laid out 523 million neural connections, along with the behavior and layout of 200,000 neurons and other kinds of brain cells.

While that might sound like a whole lot of mumbo jumbo, those connections produced so much data that the total cache was equal to over two decades’ worth of nonstop HD video.

How did they do it?

First, the researchers hooked up complex imaging equipment to the mouse so they could monitor the rodent's brain activity patterns in its visual cortex. Next, they played short, stimulating video clips (sounds like a Gen Z’s dream) to collect the data needed.

• The mouse watched over two hours of clips, including some from the film—get this—The Matrix.

Then, they took that one cubic millimeter of tissue we mentioned earlier and sliced it into thousands of different segments, each about one four-hundredth the width of a human hair.

• Finally, they mapped each individual slice and compiled them together to get the map (that kind’ve looks like a galaxy) that you see above.

The research could be groundbreaking: The map could help scientists better understand how the brain’s wiring affects things like vision, memory, and thinking. Researchers also hope it leads to new insights and treatments for brain disorders like autism and schizophrenia.

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Blue Origin’s all-female crew (including Katy Perry) returns from space

The historic mission involved a star-studded crew. The Blue Origin crew completed their trip into space yesterday morning, marking the first time a crew of only women has gone to space since 1963.

Pop star Katy Perry was joined by journalist Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, filmmaker Kerianne Flynn, and Lauren Sánchez, a former TV host and Jeff Bezos’s fiancée.

A brief trip

The six ladies enjoyed a short moment of weightlessness (see video) during the roughly 11-minute trip, which carried them more than 62 miles above Earth and crossed the universally accepted border of space.

• The capsule returned to Earth with a parachute-assisted soft landing, while the rocket booster also landed back in Texas.

• Videos of the crew disembarking the capsule shortly after landing happened to spawn memes, given some of the members’ reactions.

Perhaps the most important part of the trip were the all-time quotes uttered by some members of the crew that will surely live on in memory:

• Katy Perry, who kissed the ground upon returning, notably had a few (including the one above), saying the experience showed her “how much love is inside of me,” and the trip was part of “a collective energy.”

• Sánchez, fiancée to Blue Origin founder Bezos, wisely said, “[Earth] was quiet, but really alive.”

• Flynn yelled at the sky, “I went to space!”

• And Gayle joked that she can finally “get my ears peirced.”

They had a fun time: According to members of the crew, Perry sang Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" during the flight, in what I can assume was an ethereal experience (or not).

Ghislaine Maxwell is asking the US Supreme Court to overturn her sentence

Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator is looking for a way out of prison. Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, asked the US Supreme Court to overturn her sex-trafficking conviction on Friday.

Get-out-of-jail-free card?

In December of 2021, Maxwell was convicted on five counts of aiding her former lover Jeffrey Epstein in the sexual abuse and trafficking of underage girls between 1994 and 2004.

• Maxwell recruited and groomed minors for the disgraced financier, transporting them to his various properties and often participating in the abuse.

What’s her argument? The British socialite’s lawyers claim that she's protected by a non-prosecution agreement federal prosecutors in Florida made with Epstein in 2007.

• In March of last year, Maxwell’s attorneys made the same argument to a federal appeals court, which swiftly rejected it.

In the 159-page petition to SCOTUS, Maxwell’s lawyers argue that the case is “the perfect vehicle” to resolve similar disputes in which plea agreements made by different prosecutors in separate jurisdictions are still legally binding.

She got a second chance: Maxwell initially only had until February 23rd to make the petition; however, a few weeks before the filing was due, a Supreme Court justice extended the deadline after Maxwell hired a new lawyer just days before.

FAST FACTS
Catch up on this week’s weird news

CEO Scuffle: The CEO of First American Financial Corporation was accused of strangling an individual after a brawl broke out on the dance floor of a Caribbean cruise ship. It was reportedly because the man wouldn't put his shoes on.

Tiny Tortoise: Mommy, a Santa Cruz Galápagos tortoise, recently gave birth to four hatchlings, becoming the oldest first time mother of her species at 97-years-old.

Chimp Chatter: According to a recent examination of more than 700 recorded bonobo noises, the chimps can engage in intricate conversations by merging their own versions of root words and phrases.

Vocal Vacuum: Samsung developed a cordless vacuum that will alert you when a text or phone call comes through, making it easier for doom scrollers to put down their phone and get their chores done.

Pocket Watching: Boasting over 41 complications, Swiss luxury watch-maker Vacheron Constantin broke the record the world's most complicated wristwatch, called the “Solaria Ultra Grand Complication.”

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