Brandon Sanderson’s record-breaking Kickstarter campaign ends with $41.7 million

Appropriately enough, the famously fast writer Brandon Sanderson took no time at all to break Pebble’s record for the most-funded Kickstarter project ever. The fantasy and sci-fi author’s project, which is funding the self-publication of four secret novels, topped the $20.3 million that the Pebble Time smartwatch raised in 2015 within just three days. After 30 days, Sanderson’s campaign has now wrapped and, buoyed by his fervent fanbase, he has raised $41,754,153.

Sanderson plans to release all four books next year, three of which are set in his Cosmere universe. His backers will receive them as e-books, audiobooks or physical editions based on their level of backing. The campaign rewards also include eight boxes of swag that backers will receive throughout 2023.

To celebrate his success, Sanderson and his team have donated to all literary projects on Kickstarter that aren’t too unsafe for work and don’t break the platform’s terms of service. As noted by The Mary Sue, they donated to more than 300 projects altogether and highlighted some of them in a video, which should direct some more backers their way. One project the team backed is a parody of Sanderson’s record-breaking campaign called “Surprise! Four secret books NOT by a famous fantasy author!” — Sanderson backed it with $1.

Amazon spent $4.3 million on anti-union consultants in 2021 alone

Amazon spent around $4.3 on consultants last year in an effort to prevent unionization of its warehouses, according to company filings with the US Department of Labor. Workers were required to attend meetings led by the consultants who discussed anti-union talking points ahead of key union votes in Bessemer, Alabama and Staten Island, New York, HuffPost has reported.

Companies are required to disclose financial details when consultants speak directly to workers about unionization. Very few have spent even $1 million on union avoidance over several years, according to a recent report, while Amazon spent multiple times that in just 2021 alone. Some consultants were paid up to $3,200 per day.

The meetings are legal and usually held when employers discover efforts to organize unions. They’re called “captive audience meetings” by labor organizers because attendance is normally non-optional. Typically, the consultants will focus on union dues and potential loss of wages due to work stoppages. They also help company’s come up with strategies to defeat unions.

Amazon workers recently voted in two union drives in Bessemer and Staten Island. At Bessemer, workers voted 993-875 against unionizing, but 416 votes have been challenged, so the final result is far from established. However, as it stands now, the Staten Island union is currently ahead 1,518 to 1,154 (a margin of 364) votes, with counting set to resume today.

An engineer just made the world’s first Android phone with a working Lightning port

Back in 2021, engineer Ken Pillonel did what Apple refuses to do when he made the world’s first iPhone with a working USB-C port. Now, Pillonel has flipped the script with his latest project: the first Android phone with a Lightning connector.

Admittedly, an Android phone with a Lightning port doesn’t have nearly the same sort of cross-over appeal as a USB-C iPhone, but that’s OK. In his initial video, Pillonel says the device was meant to be more of a fun project created to “balance the chaos” unleashed by his previous device, with the release deliberately timed for April Fools’ Day.

However, putting this thing together was no joke, because while the concept might be silly, the Lightning port on the Android phone (in this case a Samsung Galaxy A51) is fully functional for both charging and data transfer. “[This] was a complex modification that required some out-of-the-box thinking,” said Pillonel. And when I got the chance to ask about the project’s biggest challenges, Pillonel told Engadget the hardest part was figuring out how to make everything actually work together.

“The Lightning cables sold by Apple are not ‘dumb,’” he said. “They will only charge Apple devices. So I had to find a way to trick the cable into thinking it was plugged into an Apple device. And the whole thing needs to fit inside the phone, which is another challenge in itself.”

Thankfully, Pillonel has learned a thing or two since his previous project, which helped lay the groundwork for his latest device. “I would say it was easier to do than the first USB-C iPhone for two reasons,” he said. “The first is that I’m getting better at it because I’m learning new things every day, so hopefully I can finish these mods faster and faster. The second reason is that the quality of the finished product is nowhere near what it was for the iPhone.”

And while I would posit that an Android phone with a Lightning port is a definite downgrade in terms of usability compared to a standard USB-C port, that doesn’t seem to bother Pillonel. “I don’t expect anyone in their right mind wanting to do this to their device,” he said. “It was for fun, I just wanted to see if I could do it.”

So what’s the next move for this unique gadget? For those looking for more details about what went into the project, Pillonel says he’s working on a full-length explanation video coming soon to his YouTube channel. As for the phone itself, Pillonel says he’ll probably just keep it after running into issues when he put the original USB-C iPhone up for auction on eBay, which ended up garnering fake bids in excess of $100,000.

“I didn’t want to force trying to sell it because that’s not really who I am. I want to focus on my engineering and science projects,” Pillonel said. And while these custom mods might not be everyone’s dream device, they’re a great example of what can be done even without the help of the companies that originally made them.

Scientists sequence the most complete human genome yet

A team of almost 100 scientists part of the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium has successfully sequenced the most complete human genome yet. If you’re thinking “Wait a minute — didn’t scientists produce the complete human genome sequence almost two decades ago?” Well, you wouldn’t be wrong. The Human Genome Project finished sequencing 92 percent of the human genome back in 2003, but the techniques available at the time left the remaining 8 percent out of reach until recent years. Thus, 200 million DNA bases remained a mystery for the longest time. 

In a series of papers published in Science, the T2T Consortium has reported how it managed to fill in almost all of the missing spots except for five, leaving only 10 million and the Y chromosome only vaguely understood. After the papers went out, the consortium’s scientists have revealed on Twitter that they have figured out the correct assembly for the Y chromosome and that they will publish another paper with the latest results.

Research lead Evan Eichler from the University of Washington likened sequencing a DNA to solving a jigsaw puzzle. Scientists have to break the DNA into small parts and then use sequencing machines to piece them together. Older tools could only sequence small sections of DNA at once, so it’s like solving those unnecessarily tough puzzles with tens of thousands of repetitive, almost identical pieces. Newer tools can sequence longer segments of DNA, which makes finding the correct sequence much more achievable.

To make the process less complicated, the team used a cell line from a failed pregnancy called a mole, wherein the sperm enters an egg that doesn’t have its own set of chromosomes. That means the team only had to sequence one set of DNA instead of two. Then, they used a technique called Oxford Nanopore to complete assemblies of centromeres, which are dense knobs in the middle of chromosomes. Oxford Nanopore has a relatively high error rate, however, making it less than ideal for sequencing sections with repetitive DNA. For those regions, the team used another technique called PacBio HiFi, which can sequence shorter sections with 99.9 percent accuracy. 

Eichler said the previously unknown genes include ones for immune response that help us survive plagues and viruses, genes that help predict a person’s response to drugs and genes responsible for making human brains larger than other primates’. “Having this complete information will allow us to better understand how we form as an individual organism and how we vary not just between other humans but other species,” Eichler said. 

The consortium’s work cost a few million dollars to achieve, but sequencing is getting cheaper and cheaper with new technologies. Adam Phillippy, another lead author for the studies, said the hope is for individual genome sequencing to cost as little as $1,000 within the next decade. That could make DNA sequencing a part of routine medical tests, which might help doctors create tailor-made treatments for individuals.