Weekly Media Update

Week of August 29, 2025

Labubunomics: The Economics of Pop Mart’s Labubu Craze

Pop Mart’s “ugly-cute” elf Labubu has exploded from niche art toy to global craze, driving revenues to nearly $2 billion in 2024 and pushing the company’s market cap past $20 billion. Yet risks like regulatory scrutiny, counterfeits, and the possibility that hype fizzles still loom. Whether Labubu becomes a lasting cultural icon or a fleeting fad, Pop Mart has built a powerful model of scarcity, spectacle, and surprise that could outlive its star mascot, writes Gad Allon.

AIRFoundry: AI for RNA Discovery and Synthesis

The NSF-AIRFoundry is a National Science Foundation-funded BioFoundry that aims to transform how RNA is designed, synthesized and delivered in order to democratize their use in all areas of biotechnology. In this ASSET Center seminar, Zack Ives describes AIRFoundry's early experiences and innovations in developing AI question answering and “lead discovery” tools for promising candidate RNAs and LNPs — even as collaborators build out tools for RNA and LNP optimization, and robot-driven synthesis.

From Crisis to Confidence: Navigating Turbulent Times With the Global Push for Regulatory Reform to Boost Efficiency
8/27: NRCoP 2025 National Conference | Cary Coglianese

What Does AI Hold for the Future of Regulation?
8/27: NRCoP 2025 National Conference | Cary Coglianese

NRCAM Variant Defined by Microexon Skipping Is a Targetable Cell Surface Proteoform in High-Grade Gliomas
8/26: Cell Reports | Yoseph Barash

Neuroscience Leadership Training: Happiness, Success, and Great Science
8/23: Kingston, ON, Canada | Konrad Kording

CausalMesh: A Formally Verified Causal Cache for Stateful Serverless Computing
8/21: arXiv | Sebastian Angel

Cosmology From a Joint Analysis of Second and Third Order Shear Statistics With Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Year 3 Data
8/19: arXiv | Bhuvnesh Jain

Dark Energy Survey Year 3 Results: Cosmological Constraints From Second and Third-Order Shear Statistics
8/19: arXiv | Bhuvnesh Jain

The Assessment of Psychological Richness, Meaning, and Happiness With Social Media Text Data: Predictive Accuracy and Distinct Behavioral Correlates
8/15: PsyArXiv | Lyle Ungar

Systems and Methods for Detecting Corrupt or Inaccurate Sensory Representations
8/14: United States Patent | Konrad Kording

Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues at the Intersection of National Security, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Performance Enhancement
7/22: PhilPapers | Jonathan Moreno

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