This Week I Learned - Week 45, 2026
This Week I Learned -
* GitHub Copilot app for Beginners - 7 Chapter course by Dan Wahlin
* An analysis of 5 lakh peer-reviewed papers in physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, and computer science published in 2023-26 has revealed 1,135 fake references in 619 papers. These fictional citations often stem from the unchecked use of AI tools or misconduct.
* Felony Bench monitors the rogue behavior of AI agents. It counts unique instances where AI agents inadvertently compromise or affect third-party entities.
* Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Uber are restricting AI access for employees.
* Dario Amodei is an atheist who believes in utilitarianism (people should maximize happiness for the most living beings). He was influenced by Ray Kurzweil’s idea that advanced technologies would let humans exist beyond natural limits, a belief known as transhumanism.
He was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2014, underwent chemotherapy and made a full recovery.
Prior to founding Anthropic with his sister Daniela Amodei, Jared Kaplan and Christopher Olah, Dario worked at Baidu, Google Brain, OpenAI (starting from 2016 when it was a nonprofit). In 2018, Daniela Amodei joined OpenAI, eventually becoming vice president of safety and policy. In 2018, Dr. Amodei and Ms. Amodei took over a company project called GPT, short for generative pre-trained transformer. In December 2020, Dr. Amodei, Ms. Amodei and other colleagues quit OpenAI. Four weeks later, they started Anthropic. - NYT
* Tathyakosh is a catalogue of open datasets from India: census, agriculture, public health, climate, governance, and more. It doesn’t host data. Each entry describes a dataset (publisher, format, coverage, how to access it) and links back to the source.
* The urban population across India is now 36%.
* 99% of India’s over 35 crore vehicles are not built for ethanol blends of more than 20%.
Vehicles sold after April 2023 have been certified only up to E20.
Assuming a 10% mileage loss at ₹100 a litre, the hidden loss to consumers would amount to around ₹62,000 crore. - Rizwan Arshad, Karnataka Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs
* Indian law under the Motor Vehicles Act requires private two-wheelers' RC to be valid for 15 years initially, then renewed every 5 years after a fitness test; driving with an expired RC violates Section 192 and attracts fines of ₹2,000–₹5,000.
* By the end of October 2026, Groww, Angel One, and Zerodha made up nearly 60% of the active clients on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
* On Dhanteras, the price of a tola of 24-carat gold in Hyderabad was ₹1,43,460, dropping from a peak of ₹1,75,231 on January 29, 2026, and hitting a low of ₹1,33,880 on November 1.
* The strength of Telangana Police is 90,000.
* Honasa Consumer, co-founded by Ghazal Alagh and Varun Alagh in Gurugram, is the parent company of popular brands like Mamaearth, The Derma Co, Aqualogica, Dr Sheth's, BBlunt, and Staze.
* Deepinder Goyal, founder of Zomato, is facing controversy with his new startup Temple, following allegations that its wearable device’s claims of measuring blood flow to the brain lack scientific evidence. Goyal mentioned that Temple had already poured $30 million into developing the product, with $20 million coming directly from his own pocket.
* Various causes of seborrheic dermatitis, including the overgrowth of an oil-loving yeast called Malassezia, which naturally lives on the skin, as well as increased oil production and inflammation. All three components can alter the scalp’s microbiome. They can weaken and damage the skin barrier and cause flaking, itching and greasy, scaling skin. Dandruff is limited to the scalp, while other forms of seborrheic dermatitis can occur elsewhere on the body,
In most instances, dandruff can be treated — and prevented — with an over-the-counter dandruff shampoo containing selenium sulfide, pyrithione zinc or ketoconazole. These ingredients target the yeast, oil and skin cell buildup on the scalp.
* An unvaccinated child in upstate New York died after contracting measles, the first death in the state from the viral disease in 30 years.
* Florida is fighting a dengue outbreak - NYT
* There are more than 1.5 million known zoological species on Earth, with at least as many enigmas.
Every year, millions of monarch butterflies undertake a 3,000-mile journey across North America to the warm forests of central Mexico, where they spend the winter. As they return north, they lay their eggs and, eventually, die, passing the baton to the next generation to finish the circuit. It takes about four generations to complete the entire round-trip journey.
Body size and life span tend to be correlated in animals; the smaller the species, the shorter its life. But birds generally live at least twice as long as nonflying mammals of the same size. Bats, the only mammals capable of true flight, also live roughly 3.5 times longer than terrestrial mammals of the same size.
In many mammals, including humans, the cerebellum accounts for just 10 percent of the brain’s volume but roughly 80 percent of its neurons. In African elephants, the figure is even more astonishing: the large, lumbering mammals somehow manage to pack 97.5 percent of their 257 billion neurons into the cerebellum.
Every year, deer shed their antlers. And every year, they grow back. - NYT
* As of November 2026, NASA's Voyager 1 is still operating and communicating with Earth, more than 49 years after its launch on September 5, 1977.
* A “lateral thinker” is someone who tackles problems in creative, unconventional ways, often by making surprising connections instead of sticking to step‑by‑step logic. It’s basically another way of saying “thinking outside the box.” The term was coined by Edward de Bono in 1967, who contrasted it with “vertical thinking,” which follows a logical and sequential approach.
* There is a misapprehension that Winston Churchill said it, but actually the saying “Never waste a good crisis” is not a quote from the big man. It is an example of “Churchillian drift”, the phenomenon where aphorisms from obscure people, or of unknown origin, are misattributed to major historical figures.
* "If you want to be wealthy, think of saving as earning." — Benjamin Franklin
* "Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth." — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
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