The Santa Claus rally is on, but will it deliver? Oh, in case you didn’t hear, bitcoin had a bit of a hiccup this week after reaching all-time highs on Sunday. Enjoy your weekend and some of the obscure bowl games!

• Inner workings of poker champ AI revealed | Carnegie Mellon University 
• Our response to “A Cryptocurrency Without a Blockchain Has Been Built to Outperform Bitcoin” | MIT Media Lab
• Train your brain: How to address the mental challenges of an ultra, from training to racing | Trail Runner Magazine
• Bizarre smuggling attempts that went wrong, in pictures | Telegraph
• The 50 Best Podcasts of 2017 | The Atlantic
• Here’s why sleep deprivation is toxic and will eventually kill you | USA Today
• Data Reawakening | Science Friday
• 17 stories that defined 2017 | CBS News
• Society Hits A New Low: The ‘Selfieccino’ | NPR