April 30, 2024
(Associated Press) – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, The Associated Press has learned, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the … Read More
April 30, 2024
(The New Yorker) – A medical technology can keep people alive when they otherwise would have died. Where will it lead? Although ECMO technology is more than half a century old, it was in some ways still considered an experimental … Read More
April 30, 2024
(Wired) – China’s brain-computer interface technology is catching up to the US. But it envisions a very different use case: cognitive enhancement. At a tech forum in Beijing last week, a Chinese company unveiled a “homegrown” brain-computer interface that allowed … Read More
April 30, 2024
(Vox) – More than half a century ago, men of science and men of faith gathered together to unlock the mysteries of female fertility. The answer: urine from the brides of Christ. And lo, those nuns gaveth. All that urine, … Read More
April 30, 2024
(TIME) – The COVID-19 lull in the U.S. may soon come to an end, as a new family of SARS-CoV-2 variants—nicknamed “FLiRT” variants—begins to spread nationwide. These variants are distant Omicron relatives that spun out from JN.1, the variant behind … Read More
April 30, 2024
(NBC News) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Monday it is collecting samples of ground beef at retail stores in states with outbreaks of bird flu in dairy cows for testing but remains confident the meat supply is … Read More
April 30, 2024
(Vox) – For many years, the effectiveness of the procedure was a bit of a black box: Not enough people had tried to use their frozen eggs for scientists to pull together reliable data. Now, however, a picture is emerging. … Read More
April 30, 2024
(Washington Post via MSN) – Postpartum depression is a leading cause of maternal death, but its diagnosis and treatment is spotty at best, negligent at worst. Now San Diego-based start-up Dionysus Digital Health is pitching a blood test to check … Read More
April 29, 2024
(Washington Post) – Most of the time, experts say, errors and accidents go unreported in the burgeoning fertility industry, which is largely self-policed. It is not mandated to report errant episodes to the government, the public, any professional organization or … Read More
April 29, 2024
(NPR) – Now at 74, Collins’ life looks very different. After helping the world navigate a health crisis, his attention has shifted to battling his own. “It’s one thing to be imagining what somebody is experiencing as you’re giving them … Read More
April 29, 2024
(Axios) – State health care plans must cover gender-affirming surgeries, a federal appeals court in Virginia ruled Monday. Why it matters: The ruling marks a major victory for transgender rights at a time when many states have cracked down on … Read More
April 29, 2024
(The Guardian) – Founded in 2005 and lauded by Silicon Valley, the Nick Bostrom’s centre for studying existential risk warned about AI but also gave rise to cultish ideas such as effective altruism. Two weeks ago it was quietly announced … Read More
April 29, 2024
(ProPublica) – Cigna tracks every minute that its staff doctors spend deciding whether to pay for health care. Dr. Debby Day said her bosses cared more about being fast than being right: “Deny, deny, deny. That’s how you hit your … Read More
April 29, 2024
(Acton Institute) – Finding better answers means asking better questions. Nowhere is this truer and more consequential than with questions surrounding matters of life and death. By asking better questions about care for the terminally ill, Dame Cicely Saunders (1918–2005)—a … Read More
April 29, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – Almost all keyboard apps used by Chinese people around the world share a security loophole that makes it possible to spy on what users are typing. The vulnerability, which allows the keystroke data that these apps … Read More
April 26, 2024
(Associated Press) – Nearly 282 million people in 59 countries suffered from acute hunger in 2023, with war-torn Gaza as the territory with the largest number of people facing famine, according to the Global Report on Food Crises released Wednesday. … Read More
April 26, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – I’m stressed and running late, because what do you wear for the rest of eternity? This makes it sound like I’m dying, but it’s the opposite. I am, in a way, about to live forever, thanks … Read More
April 26, 2024
(Nature) – Social robots that promise companionship and stimulation for older people and those with dementia are attracting investment, but some question their benefits. Robots are an increasingly popular form of therapy for older people with dementia. It’s been suggested … Read More
April 26, 2024
(Los Angeles Times via Yahoo! News) – For decades, the abortion wars have centered on whether a woman should be able to decide when and if she has a child. But with increasingly strict restrictions on reproductive rights being enacted … Read More
April 26, 2024
(The Guardian) – Doctors have begun trialling in hundreds of patients the world’s first personalised mRNA cancer vaccine for melanoma, as experts hailed its “gamechanging” potential to permanently cure cancer. Melanoma affects about 132,000 people a year globally and is … Read More
April 26, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Sam Altman of OpenAI and the chief executives of Nvidia, Microsoft and Alphabet are among technology-industry leaders joining a new federal advisory board focused on the secure use of artificial intelligence within U.S. critical infrastructure, in … Read More
April 25, 2024
(The Telegraph via MSN) – But while stem cells have long been regarded as one of the great hopes of regenerative medicine, with long-standing applications in leukaemia and ongoing clinical trials in a whole host of diseases from age-related macular … Read More
April 25, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – A month ago, Richard Slayman became the first living person to receive a kidney transplant from a gene-edited pig. Now, a team of researchers from NYU Langone Health reports that Lisa Pisano, a 54-year-old woman from … Read More
April 24, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – The frenzy to build data centers to serve the exploding demand for artificial intelligence is causing a shortage of the parts, property and power that the sprawling warehouses of supercomputers require. The lead time to get … Read More
April 24, 2024
(New York Times) – The Justice Department said on Tuesday it would pay $138.7 million to resolve claims by young women and girls, including many top female gymnasts, of sexual abuse by the former U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor Lawrence G. Nassar. … Read More
