Devil may care

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today: There might finally be an answer to nature vs. nurture; Scientists use AI to develop a new antibiotic; and remembering that time when Iggy Pop almost joined some hard-core rockers…🤘 

Let’s get into it!

For as long as anyone can remember, every discipline from anthropology to philosophy has debated the outcome of the battle between nature and nurture. Does one determine the other? Are they independent of one another?

As time’s gone on, the reality has become more clear: they’re both instrumental in the development and state of the human mind at any point in time, but when it comes down to it, one’s experiences can triumph over their innate tendencies. Nature throws the first punch, but nurture is able to strike back harder.

What this means in practical terms is that while we’re all hereditarily predisposed to certain outcomes, the human brain is flexible enough to adapt and overcome. It’s not easy, and it’s not a guarantee, but research in the field of epigenetics strongly suggests one’s experiences have the greatest influence over a person’s outcomes.

For example, a 2008 study analyzed 21,000 pairs of identical twins, and found on average, only zero to 18% of their genetic differences were inherent. That means between 82% and 100% of their genetic differences were determined by the environments they grew up in and occupied at the time of the study.

In other words, the building blocks of the human constitution themselves can be altered—both positively and negatively—by the environment a human being inhabits.

Microbes and bacteria are evolving at a pace that’s faster than science’s ability to keep up with, resulting in a growing threat of antibiotic resistance to some of the most important drugs and medicines of the last century.

Part of the reason humans can’t keep up is due to the limitations of scientific testing. Even the largest lab screens, for example, are only able to show about one million molecules at once that could potentially be synthesized to create the building blocks of the antimicrobial agents found in antibiotic medications.

Researchers at McMaster University used AI modelling to explore the potential use of 46 billion different molecular compounds. They narrowed potential candidates down to 150,000 molecular combinations and used 50 different synthetic chemical reactions in an attempt to isolate the leading candidates for new antibiotic drugs that maintain efficacy over the threat of antibiotic resistance.

“In the lab, we can build chemical compounds using a set of smaller chemical fragments, which can be stuck together like molecular Lego blocks,” said Assistant Professor Jon Stokes, whose laboratory developed the new model. “SyntheMol-RL configures those fragments in different ways, faster than humans ever could, to create new, larger chemical compounds that should—based on its knowledge—be antibacterial.”  

In other words, humans can hypothetically find a needle in a haystack if they look long enough. In the case of SyntheMol-RL, it can find specific grains of sand on a beach fairly quickly. 🤯

Money in Sport reported in February that LIV Golf has spent $5.3 billion and would reach $6 billion before the end of 2026.

A lot of that money was initially committed in order to attract the world’s top golfers. Tiger Woods reportedly turned down nearly a billion dollars to join the league. Others, including Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Tyrrell Hatton, Dustin Johnson, and eventually Jon Rahm, all joined, most of whom were offered nine-figure deals.

The Saudi Public Investment Fund initially appeared to be less interested in making LIV profitable and more interested in the integration of typically-Western cultural paradigms. Though the fund’s managers made no mention of LIV in their four-year strategy last week, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil described any speculation that followed as “clickbait.”

“I want to be crystal clear: Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” O’Neil said. “While the media landscape is often filled with speculation, our reality is defined by the work we do on the grass. We are heading into the heart of our 2026 schedule with the full energy of an organization that is bigger, louder, and more influential than ever before.”

Yesterday, the league announced the postponement of its inaugural event in New Orleans, which was supposed to take place in June. LIV will now go the entire summer without a U.S. event.

Did you know that during the brief window between Bon Scott’s passing in February of 1980 and Brian Johnson replacing him in April, Iggy Pop thought about joining the band?

“They had a manager many years ago when I hadn’t reformed The Stooges, I hadn’t moved to England, and this guy said, ‘Are you interested in joining AC/DC?’” Iggy once told the New York Times. “They were looking for a singer.”

He went on, saying, “I listened to their record, I thought, ‘I can’t fit that bill,’ I wasn’t, like, ‘Ugh, I don’t like them.’ [The album] was quite well-made. They do careful work, but I’m not what they needed.”

Iggy was somewhat in the band’s orbit when Scott was still around, and later recalled a “wonderful meeting” with him that neither could really remember (for obvious reasons). On top of that, Brian Johnson actually turned the band down twice when they offered him the gig.

“I’ve already been bitten by the music bug in Geordie, and three years in Geordie and I came away with not a penny in m​e pocket,” recalled Johnson in a 2021 interview. “I said, ‘They’re a great band, but I’m 32, and I’m past my sell-by date. They’ll not be interested. It’ll be a waste of a trip.”

At 78, Brian Johnson is currently on tour with AC/DC, still reminding everyone that rock ‘n roll ain’t noise pollution.

Top of the box office, ’80s edition

Think you know your box office hits of the ’80s? Then you’ll do just fine playing today’s trivia 😎