Spy agencies brief people in power. We brief you. Each week we’ll bring you one story that matters, plus a few that don’t!
Your Brief for December 12, 2024: A whale's tale, expensive movie memorabilia, a suppressed comic strip and more!
News
The Willow Quantum Chip
On Monday, Google revealed a new quantum chip, Willow, that could reshape the race between quantum and traditional machines. Pushing the boundaries of what quantum computers can achieve; Willow tackles a decades-long challenge: reducing error rates as qubits increase. Quantum computers use qubits, which can represent both 0 and 1 simultaneously. This allows them to tackle problems far beyond the reach of traditional machines—but qubits are notoriously unstable. Willow navigates this by combining over 100 qubits into a single, stable, qubit. Could Willow pave the way for a commercially viable quantum computer?
Image Credit: Google/Willow
True Spies
The Mole
Could you become a mole? An undercover agent who maintains a fake persona—covering up who they are from friends and closest family.
Just over a decade ago, Ulrich Larsen was a happily married chef living in Denmark with a wife working in advertising and two kids. His life was following a conventional path in the Copenhagen suburbs until a medical diagnosis brought it to a screeching halt.
When health issues ended his career in the kitchen, the chef embarked on a more dangerous livelihood—spying on North Korea! After gaining the trust of the Korean Friendship Association in Denmark, he was sent to the isolated dictatorship as an envoy, where he gathered evidence of sanction-busting deals in arms and narcotics. With no formal military or espionage training, Ulrich went looking for evidence of illegal international trade, by actors, in an undercover op that would require nerves of steel to carry out.
The Danish cook was determined to expose Korea’s illegal arms trade and set out with a video camera, a cover story as a billionaire’s chef, and a travel visa to one of the most dangerous places on earth.
How did Ulrich go from chef to spy? Join him in this week’s podcast selection, ‘The Mole’, to find out, and discover what skills you need to succeed as a mole!
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Nature
A Whale's Tale
Why did one Humpback make a 13,000 km journey?
A Humpback whale has made one of the longest migrations, traveling an incredible 13,000 kilometers between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. First spotted off Colombia in 2017, the same whale later appeared near Zanzibar, surprising researchers with its extraordinary journey. Humpbacks are known for their long-distance migrations, moving between tropical breeding grounds and cooler feeding areas. This male’s journey spanned two distant breeding grounds. Scientists believe climate change may be a factor. One theory is that warming oceans are depleting krill stocks—the tiny shrimp-like creatures Humpbacks rely on—pushing the whales to venture further for food. Another possibility is that the whale was on an odyssey to find a mate.
Quirky
Expensive Movie Memorabilia
How much are Dorothy’s slippers worth?
A pair of ruby red slippers that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz sold for $28 million at a U.S. auction. One of four surviving pairs from the 1939 film, the iconic sequined shoes were expected to fetch around $3 million—a figure dwarfed by the final bid! The famed slippers have a storied history; once stolen from a Minnesota museum, they resurfaced years later, adding to their mystique. Garland was just 16 years old when she starred as Dorothy in the musical adaptation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. While Baum’s original book described the magical shoes as silver, the filmmakers opted for ruby red to showcase the vibrant possibilities of the then-new Technicolor technology.
Comics
A Suppressed Comic Strip
When the CIA finally declassified the 1950 comic strip Donovan of Central Intelligence, much of the intrigue swirled around one question: Why did the agency suppress it at all, let alone for fifty years?
Sure, the hero resembles ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan - head of the CIA’s forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Yes, Donovan of Central Intelligence chases women, enjoys a drink, and writes atomic bomb intel on his bald head, but why would a cartoon character concern the Director of the real-life CIA and the agency’s Yale-educated lawyer Walter Pforzheimer?
According to the now-declassified minutes, the CIA discussed the comic strip in at least two ‘Top Secret’ meetings in April 1950. And seemingly the agency was irked that the comic strip boasted it was "based on the files of Central Intelligence"—a claim that touched a nerve whether it was true or not! Uncover the mystery in this SPYSCAPE article.
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OpenAI has launched Sora, an AI-powered video generation tool that is now available to paying customers in select regions but is currently unavailable in Europe. Like ChatGPT transforms text prompts into written responses, Sora turns prompts into short videos. The tool has limitations, struggling with physics simulations and extended complex actions, but Sora might be a major leap forward for creative AI tools. Still in its early stages, the technology showcases the potential to redefine how we produce visual content.
Image Credit: OpenAI/Sora
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