🌊 This Is Your Brain on Microplastics

A tragedy over the Potomac.

Late last night, an American Airlines jet with 64 people on board collided with a Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers, sending both aircraft plunging into the Potomac River. At this time, there are no known survivors.

Our hearts ache for the loved ones of those who died in the crash, and we pray for the Wichita, Kansas, community, which must be reeling from this tragedy.

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

Reading Drop

Children’s reading levels have dropped to the lowest level in the history of a comprehensive Education Department study

• The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that just 60% of fourth graders and 67% of eighth graders were reading at a basic level in 2024

• While overall academic performance fell during the pandemic, the slide began years before and has worsened significantly since 2013, pointing to a deeper issue

• Below-basic readers are less likely to graduate high school, less likely to vote, and more likely to be incarcerated

Dig Deeper 

• Another major consequence of declining childhood reading levels is rising adult illiteracy

• One adult literacy researcher said that “socioeconomic status and parents’ literacy levels are bigger…indicators for how well a child is going to do, even more so than quality instruction”

• In December, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that 28% of adults in the US ranked at the lowest levels of literacy, compared to 19% in 2017

KEY STORY

Microplastics Study

In a recent study from Peking University, scientists tracked the real-time movement of microplastics in mice for the first time

• Microplastics are microscopic plastic bits that break off from plastic. They have been found everywhere from Antarctic ice to food and most people’s bloodstreams

• The researchers found that the microplastics resembled a “car crash in the blood vessels,” ending up lodged in the mice’s brains and impacting neurological functions

• The study’s authors found that “nanoscale plastics can breach the blood-brain barrier, but how [microplastics] cause brain functional irregularities” in humans “remains unclear”

Dig Deeper

• Scientists say that more research is needed to understand how microplastics impact humans, who have much larger blood vessels than mice

• However, the study’s authors note that the findings provide “a focused direction for understanding the potential health risks associated with microplastics,” particularly given how common plastic products and microplastics are

ROCA’S SPONSOR

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KEY STORY

Buyout Program

As part of its efforts to downsize the government, the Trump Administration has offered to pay eight months’ salary for federal workers who quit by next week

• The “deferred resignation” offers about eight months of salary to workers who do not want to become subject to in-person mandates and “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct”

• The White House said it expects up to 10% employees to accept the offer, which they argue could save taxpayers up to $100B a year

• The offer applies to all full-time federal employees, except for those in the military or national security, Postal Service, and immigration enforcement

Dig Deeper

• The memo mirrored a letter sent to Twitter employees after Elon Musk purchased the platform, which said “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade” and that to stay at Twitter, they needed to become “extremely hardcore” and work “long hours at high intensity”

• Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), posted on X saying that the deferred resignation offer was “fair & generous”

• The DOGE X account posted that federal workers “can take the vacation you always wanted, or just watch movies and chill, while receiving your full government pay and benefits”

KEY STORY

Age and Attraction Study

A study found that men and women share an equal preference for younger partners

• The researchers – at the University of California, Davis – had 4,500 participants go on blind dates via a dating app and then measure their attraction to their matches

• Among their findings was that men and women were equally likely to prefer younger partners

• The researchers said that contradicts the genders’ traditional spoken preferences: Straight men typically have relationships with younger women and say they are more attracted to them, while younger women typically say the same about older women

Dig Deeper

• Although “women generally say they prefer older partners,” the study’s author said that their preferences on the dates revealed the opposite

• The study also examined whether women with higher incomes prefer younger partners and did not find that income – either their date’s or their own – had an impact on preference or attraction

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

📨 The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the White House demanding an explanation for Trump’s firing of 18 Inspectors General (IGs)

💾 OpenAI has launched an investigation into whether Chinese AI company DeepSeek exfiltrated large volumes of unauthorized data from ChatGPT to train its recently-launched AI model R1

💰 A study of US Federal Reserve data showed that millennial wealth quadrupled in recent years, making them wealthier than previous generations at their age

⚖️ After a judge temporarily blocked it on Tuesday, The Trump administration rescinded its sweeping order freezing federal financial assistance

💬 Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba released its own AI chatbot called Qwen 2.5, which it claims surpasses DeepSeek’s V3 model

COMMUNITY
What does Roca Nation think?

🧐 Yesterday’s Question: Have you followed this Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively drama at all? If so, whose side are you on?

🧠 Today’s Question: Is it possible that America could unite behind a president in the next decade or so? Maybe not 100% support but 70%?

Reply to this email with your thoughts!

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🧀 Carnivore Diet Caution: A Florida "carnivore diet" of cheese, butter, and red meat led fat to start oozing through his skin

⚡ Copper Out, Classes Out: A California middle school had to shut down after thieves stole the school's copper wiring, causing a power outage

🛩️ Droning Under the Influence: A Swedish man became the country's first person to be convicted of a DUI for flying a drone while drunk

🚫 Virginity Blocks: Richard Branson’s Virgin Money’s AI chatbot threatened to end conversations with customers who used the word "virgin," despite that being in the company's own name

🐔 Robot Chicken Reboot?: Oklahoma lawmakers have introduced two bills to reduce cockfighting penalties – with a twist: They would allow roosters to battle robots instead of each other

ROCA WRAP
Rainbow Rights

Thailand

This country became Southeast Asia's first to legalize same-sex marriage.

A Buddhist-majority nation of 66M people, Thailand has long been known for its relative social liberalism in Southeast Asia. Yet while the nation is known for its relatively liberal attitude toward sex, its estimated 4M+ LGBTQ people were never allowed to get married.

That changed last week, as new legislation legalizing same-sex marriage took effect.

Nearly 2,000 same-sex couples got married just as the law – which changes marriage's definition from "between a man and woman" to "between two individuals" and grants equal rights in adoption, inheritance, and medical decisions – was implemented.

Thailand now joins about three dozen countries worldwide in guaranteeing equal marital rights and becomes the first in Southeast Asia to do so. The move contrasts sharply with neighboring countries like Indonesia, which bans all extra-marital sex.

Beyond human rights, industry analysts predict the change could boost Thailand's vital tourism sector: They predict the law could attract up to 4M visitors annually, generating $2B in "rainbow tourism" revenue within two years.

In Thailand, some see rainbow, while others see green.

ROCA VIDEO
How a Florida Secrety Society Overtook DC (ICYMI)

There's a new "Skull and Bones" in America, and you've never heard of it. It's called "Florida Blue Key" and was founded in 1923 at the University of Florida. For decades, it dominated Florida politics. You couldn't open the governor's mansion without the Blue Key. And now that key opens up the doors of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Here's how it got there and why its influence will only grow more

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Last night’s crash was the deadliest aviation disaster in the US since 2001 (not 9/11 but the Belle Harbor crash two months later on 11/12). Such a tragic story, and our hearts go out to all of you who know any of the victims.

Also, one correction (courtesy of Hank from Atlanta): The Bills-Chiefs AFC championship was the second most-watched non-Super Bowl* game since records began in 1988. Now to turn this error into a brag, we guessed 57.1M in Monday’s newsletter, which ended up being just .6M off the correct answer of 57.7M. But yes, we’re still dumb.

–Max and Max