July 20, 2026
(The Atlantic) – In the data-center age, the business of tech companies is more like oil-refining than coding. The AI boom has showered some of the nation’s most prominent companies in market value. OpenAI and Anthropic are now the two … Read More
July 17, 2026
(WSJ) – In a bulletin posted Thursday night, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said federal and state health officials were probing a multistate outbreak linked to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell … Read More
July 17, 2026
(The Economist) – They are having too much impact on young people’s lives Chinese tech firms are stripping human-like personas from their chatbots in order to comply with new government rules aimed at reducing “emotional dependence” on AI. The regulations, … Read More
July 17, 2026
(Fort Worth Star Telegram) – Nearly every modern idea about why some brains resist Alzheimer’s while others do not traces back to a group of Catholic sisters who agreed, decades ago, to let scientists follow them for the rest of … Read More
July 17, 2026
(The Guardian) – Designers say that as well as offering a degree of protection from surveillance, their clothes make a powerful fashion statement about the importance of privacy As facial recognition technology is rolled out across Britain’s public spaces, a … Read More
July 17, 2026
(The Guardian) – Keith Thomas can move arms and hands, and feel sensation of touch after ‘double neural bypass’ and months of training A man who was paralysed from the chest down in a swimming accident six years ago has … Read More
July 17, 2026
(MIT Technology Review) – Discussions of the life stage are often clouded by misinformation. Today, information about perimenopause is more prevalent and accessible than ever. If you’re a woman in your 40s and you’re not feeling 100%, chances are there’ll … Read More
July 16, 2026
(The Humanist Review) – To understand AI’s effect on moral character, ethicist Kwame Anthony Appiah goes back to John Stuart Mill, and the idea that people are shaped by their choices. Technologies that extend human powers may also, by degrees, … Read More
July 16, 2026
(AP) – When asked what conditions Hegseth was looking to address with the new policy, the Pentagon referred to Hegseth’s remarks in the video that mentioned keeping troops “strong, resilient and capable” and that the rigors of the modern battlefield … Read More
July 16, 2026
(BBC) – Some apps are sharing users’ health data. New research uncovers which apps lock down your privacy, and which don’t. Stardust is a period tracking app that combines users’ menstrual cycles with astrology and horoscopes. It also makes bold … Read More
July 16, 2026
(The New Yorker) – You can now make a virtual replica of a loved one. The question is what it can give you in return. Gaia Alari, a thirty-six-year-old artist, lives in Bergamo, Italy. In the past few years, her … Read More
July 16, 2026
(Nature) – Digital people are fulfilling roles from running hospitals to giving lectures to offering companionship. At the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Guangzhou, students can listen to lectures given by AI avatars that look and speak … Read More
July 16, 2026
(AP) – France’s National Assembly gave final approval Wednesday to a bill allowing adults with incurable illnesses to receive lethal medication, the culmination of years of debate over end-of-life care. But the 291-241 vote in the lower house of parliament … Read More
July 16, 2026
(New Yorker) – “What is it, Roschelle?” the orb asked. Cece recognized it as an Amazon Echo, often referred to as an Alexa. Roschelle had them all around the house—she bought the first ones when Cece and Zi were still … Read More
July 15, 2026
(The Guardian) – Scientists are trying to recreate the biology that lets animals survive months without food or water, in hopes of making deep-space travel possible Long-term space travel is bad for your health. Very bad. Being in space exposes … Read More
July 15, 2026
(Washington Post via Yahoo! News) – Over the past year, lawsuits have been piling up against AI companies in courts across the United States and abroad, alleging that chatbots encouraged people to harm themselves or provided advice on how to … Read More
July 15, 2026
(The Atlantic) – The expansion of genetic testing, though a success of modern medicine, nevertheless poses complex ethical questions for medical professionals. The ubiquity of genetic information has well outpaced scientific clarity about the implications, which means that a great … Read More
July 15, 2026
(New Scientist) – An experimental immunotherapy has beaten aggressive brain tumours in a handful of children, and a personalised version is now being tested on more patients The experimental treatment, called tumour-associated antigen (TAA) T-cell therapy, was given to 33 … Read More
July 15, 2026
(MIT Technology Review) – Some donor-conceived people are finding hundreds of siblings. An international cap on donations could help prevent that. Other donor-conceived people who have been able to track down siblings have found they have tens or even hundreds … Read More
July 15, 2026
(Nature) – Sci-fi procedure generates immature human sperm from stem cells, nurturing them on a mouse’s kidney. It sounds like science fiction: collecting a person’s blood cells, engineering them so they eventually transform into immature sperm, and then incubating them … Read More
July 15, 2026
(Gizmodo) – Anthropic researchers say they “aren’t yet sure how much of this variation is desirable.” If you’ve ever tried chatbots in multiple languages, you already know the languages have slightly different personalities. As part of a new report on … Read More
July 14, 2026
(ABC) – Martha Lillard had just turned 5 when she was diagnosed with polio and depended on an iron lung to live. She died June 26 in Oklahoma, the last U.S. polio patient who used the machine, her sister said. … Read More
July 14, 2026
(AP) – Cases of cyclosporiasis, an intestinal infection caused by a parasite, are currently being reported in nearly three dozen states, according to an ABC News tally. As of Friday, at least 2,944 cases have been reported in 32 states, … Read More
July 14, 2026
(Axios) – A major change to how OB-GYNs are paid is coming, bringing the potential for improved maternal health — but also higher costs. Why it matters: The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among peer countries, and obstetrics … Read More
July 14, 2026
(WSJ) – One family sold its struggling farmland for $22 million, joining a new class of multimillionaires who are cashing in on the AI data-center boom Towns and neighborhoods across the country have rejected data centers. Residents have staged noisy … Read More