May 6, 2025
(New York Times) – A new wave of “reasoning” systems from companies like OpenAI is producing incorrect information more often. Even the companies don’t know why. More than two years after the arrival of ChatGPT, tech companies, office workers and … Read More
May 5, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Earlier that morning, Johnson, in worn trainers and the kind of hoodie that is almost certainly deceptively expensive, had told the audience about what he saw as the end of humanity. Specifically, he was worried about … Read More
May 5, 2025
(New York Times) – The Trump administration on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to sharply restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone — taking the same position as the Biden administration in a closely … Read More
May 5, 2025
(Unherd) – On 31 January, 2024, Wade was running out of time. He had tried everything to persuade his 28-year-old daughter, Marge, that she could get better. But Marge had been scheduled to die by assisted suicide at 2 p.m. … Read More
May 5, 2025
(Washington Post via MSN) – This time, the surgeons faced a greater challenge. A second, smaller chordoma was strangling Flores’s spinal cord near the base of the skull. After much discussion, the medical team had decided to try something that … Read More
May 5, 2025
(The Dispatch) – Multiple U.S. states have considered or are considering medical assistance in dying (MAiD) laws this year, while a yearslong debate over physician-assisted suicide is playing out in the United Kingdom too. For today’s newsletter, Dispatch Contributing Writer … Read More
May 5, 2025
(Financial Times) – As more people enter their late thirties and forties without a long-term partner, within that group is a growing demographic — mostly women — choosing to embark on parenthood alone. The number of single patients undertaking fertility … Read More
May 5, 2025
(Washington Post via MSN) – Three years after a leak revealed the Supreme Court’s thinking ahead of a decision overturning abortion rights, the issue’s preeminence has faded into the background of an American political landscape transformed by President Donald Trump. … Read More
May 5, 2025
(The Guardian) – A leading immunologist warned of a “post-herd-immunity world”, as measles outbreaks affect communities with low vaccination rates in the American south-west, Mexico and Canada. The US is enduring the largest measles outbreak in a quarter-century. Centered in … Read More
May 5, 2025
European Journal of Human Genetics (vol. 33, no. 4, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
May 2, 2025
(Medscape) – Much remains unknown about the harm linked to poor healthcare systems and lack of access to care. A survey of more than 10,000 individuals conducted by Michele Peters, PhD, senior researcher at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, … Read More
May 2, 2025
(New York Times) – Ms. Towle, 25, is now at the center of an intense social media collision that reveals the best intentions and worst instincts of the internet — where isolated strangers can become support systems in times of … Read More
May 2, 2025
(Undark) – When I was at medical school, we students loved to characterize bacteria as villains, the better to revel in how to thrash them with antibiotics. Lately, though, C. Diff has become a virtuoso at resisting treatment. As our pharmacological prowess has … Read More
May 2, 2025
(New York Times) – Scientists identified antibodies that neutralized the poison in whole or in part from the bites of cobras, mambas and other deadly species. Over nearly 18 years, the man, Tim Friede, 57, injected himself with more than … Read More
May 2, 2025
(NPR) – “We were surprised,” says Dr. Eric Rubin, the editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, one of at least four journal editors to get a letter from Martin and probably the most prominent. “Other journals … Read More
May 2, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Most pigs in the US are confined to factory farms where they can be afflicted by a nasty respiratory virus that kills piglets. The illness is called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, or PRRS. A few … Read More
May 2, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – Unexpected delays in billions of dollars of supplemental Medicaid payments have forced some hospitals across the country to cut costs including laying off staff and pausing payments to medical suppliers. Hospital associations in at least 10 … Read More
May 2, 2025
(Wired) – The data you are giving away when you use an AI image editor is often hidden. Every time you upload an image to ChatGPT, you’re potentially handing over “an entire bundle of metadata,” says Tom Vazdar, area chair … Read More
May 2, 2025
The Linacre Quarterly (vol. 92, no. 2, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
May 1, 2025
(Associated Press) – Dr. Google is often on call for worried patients, but it may not give the best advice. Doctors say internet searches for medical information should be done cautiously, especially with artificial intelligence playing a growing role. Information … Read More
May 1, 2025
(Ars Technica) – A new study analyzing the Danish labor market in 2023 and 2024 suggests that generative AI models like ChatGPT have had almost no significant impact on overall wages or employment yet, despite rapid adoption in some workplaces. The findings, detailed in … Read More
May 1, 2025
(Wired) – A research facility within the US National Institutes of Health that is tasked with studying Ebola and other deadly infectious diseases has been instructed by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to stop research activities. According to an email viewed by … Read More
May 1, 2025
(The Atlantic) – At a time when birth rates are declining across the world, techno-polygamy might sound like a good model for those who can afford it. But research on family structure has found that wealth and good genes aren’t … Read More
May 1, 2025
(Wired) – Sam Altman’s iris-scanning, identify-verification technology startup says it will begin expanding to the US starting May 1 and will launch a phone-like hardware device by next year. Those changes—and a promised World-branded debit card—signal the company’s ambitions to develop … Read More
May 1, 2025
(Boston Magazine) – When Sharon sophomore Rohan Shukla suffered a devastating brain injury during a Thanksgiving game, the small Massachusetts town had to confront a difficult question: How can we get the balance of sports culture and student safety right? … Read More
