VARIATIONS ON A THEME

There are no secrets

1Last weekend, President Trump was dining with Japan’s prime minister at Mar-a-Lago when news of a North Korean missile test arrived. As Trump and his aides rushed to make sense of the event, retired Massachusetts investor Richard DeAgaziowatched from several tables away. DeAgazio did as onlookers now do: He took pictures of the flurry of activity and posted them on Facebook — along with a photo of himself with the uniformed aide who carries nuclear launch codes on Trump’s behalf. He later took his page down, but the photos are out there.

2Insider thieves are selling corporate secrets via the “dark Web’’ — a network of hidden Internet sites inaccessible to the average user. According to the British tech website The Register, clients pay a bitcoin a month — about $1,000 — for “access to allegedly vetted and accurate insider information.’’ How the buyers cash in on it is up to them.

3It’s bad enough that your phone, your wireless router, and even your fridge are vulnerable to cyberattack. What if hackers could tap into your brain, too? At a recent security conference in Oakland, the website Ars Technica reported, University of Washington researcher Tamara Bonaci outlined how a video game could extract information about players’ political and religious beliefs by tracking how their brains responded to subliminal images.

­— DANTE RAMOS

IDEAMOJI

germline editing

A high-level advisory panel endorses the genetic modification of human embryos, at least to prevent babies from being born with deadly diseases. Still, even supporters are nervous. Yesterday’s unthinkable is tomorrow’s “hmm, maybe.’’

CRISPR fight

Meanwhile, a bruising East Coast/West Coast biotech battle over genetic-editing patents ends, for now, in victory for the local team, Cambridge’s Broad Institute. Billions of dollars are at stake.

Cold War echoes

As Moscow’s alleged cloak-and-dagger moves rock the White House, a Russian spy ship turns up in international waters 30 miles south of Groton, Conn. A US Navy official’s description of the incident — “loitering’’ — calls to mind an unwelcome visitor hanging around and waiting for trouble.

— D.R.

PROOF OF CONCEPT

Trump and Dump

Innovator: T3, an Austin-based marketing firm

What were they thinking? President Trump’s penchant for lashing out at big, publicly traded companies on Twitter has inspired dread in many corporate executives. But unpredictability creates business opportunities. T3, which creates algorithms that can tell whether tweets are positive or negative, built a robot that automatically shorts — that is, bets against — any company the president disparages on the social media service.

How did they do? There is, apparently, some upside to Trump’s 140-character exercises in wealth destruction. T3 president Ben Gaddis told CNN recently that the company has made “excellent’’ returns on three of the four “Trump and Dump’’ shorts to date. And the proceeds? T3 has donated them all to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Gaddis asks, “Who doesn’t love puppies and kittens?’’ If the president hate-tweets PetSmart, we may have an answer. — DAVID SCHARFENBERG

REBRANDING

fin•ish•er (n.)

In sports, a finisher sounds impressive, kind of like a closer (a pitcher who can reliably nail down a win). But sometimes, it’s just an ultra-nice way to say “bench-warmer.’’ Eddie Jones, head coach of England’s national rugby team, uses “finishers’’ to describe players who usually see little playing time until their team has an unbeatable lead or is hopelessly behind.

 While every sport has finishers, most lack uplifting words for them. When an NBA game is out of hand, the meaningless last few minutes — when starters are out and benches are cleared — are called “garbage time.’’ Maybe someday this hurtful label will be replaced by “finishing time.’’

 At least one other sport already embraces the term “finisher’’ in a positive way: running. Though a race can have only one winner, there are many finishers, who sometimes receive medals, even for as short a race as a 5k. Hey, sometimes we all need a participation award.

— MARK PETERS