Misc

Miscellaneous is often where the gems are.

Misc

Interesting ideas

  • This is a great list of interesting ideas, from a wide range of fields, to understand how the world works.
  • Some examples.
  • Principle of Least Effort: When seeking information, effort declines as soon as the minimum acceptable result is reached.
  • The 90-9-1 Rule: In social media networks, 90% of users just read content, 9% of users contribute a little content, and 1% of users contribute almost all the content. Gives a false impression of what ideas are popular or “average.”
  • Bizarreness Effect: Crazy things are easier to remember than common things, providing a distorted sense of “normal.”
  • Second Half of the Chessboard: Put one grain of rice on the first chessboard square, two on the next, four on the next, then eight, then sixteen, etc, doubling the amount of rice on each square. When you’ve covered half the chessboard’s squares you’re dealing with an amount of rice that can fit in your lap; in the second half you quickly get to a pile that will consume an entire city. That’s how compounding works: slowly, then ferociously.
Misc

Covid Drug Development

  • Clinicaltrials.gov counts 104 active studies in the US.
  • There is also SOLIDARITY, a WHO megatrial announced on Friday.
  • Drugs in Clinical Trials:
  • Chloroquine (Plaquenil) – 70 year old treatment for malaria repurposed. Only small open label trials done so far (here, here and here) show encouraging early results.
  • Siltuximab, Sarilumab and Tocilizumab – all IL-6 inhibitors (for anti-inflammatory conditions) repurposed and being clinically tested.
  • Remdesivir – previously tested for other viruses including Ebola. Two phase III studies initiated.
  • Ritonavir/lopinavir – HIV medication repurposed. Although initial trial failed.
  • Drugs in Pre-Clinical Development:
  • Regeneron – are using their novel antibody discovery technology to find a cocktail of antibodies.
  • TAK-888 – a hyperimmune globulin that has previously shown benefit in severe acute viral respiratory infections.
  • RNAi – Alnylam are using siRNA technology pre-clinic to find a candidate.
  • WP1122 – Moleculin Biotech are testing a glucose decoy prodrug.
  • Vaccines:
  • 39 in development, 12-18 months away, full list here.
Misc

Viruses & Bats

  • Fascinating article about why viruses, like the current Corona virus outbreak, tend to come from bats.
  • Why Bats? They are mammals, so sufficiently close to us, not domesticated, and live in huge flocks
  • Bracken Cave, in Texas, is home to roughly 20 million breeding Mexican free-tailed bats, similar to the (human) population of the Mexico City urban area. In places there are 500 bat pups per square foot on the wall. To a virus that represents a tasty buffet.
Misc

Creative Idea Generation

  • This is an interesting list from Rory Sutherland’s new book.
  • The concept is how one should let go of logic in order to generate brilliant ideas.
  • An interesting exercise is to think how these ideas can help in investing.
  • “Being logical makes you predictable, and your competitors will know what you’re going to do before you do. This is because using logic will very likely land you in the same place as everyone else, and sharing a market space with competitors this way creates a race to the bottom. Instead, figure out the logic model of your competitor, find where their use of it is too narrow and exploit this.“
  • h/t The Browser.
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