August 7, 2025
(Wired) – In an 18-month clinical trial of the experimental GLP-1 pill orforglipron, about 60 percent of people lost at least 10 percent of their body weight. An experimental pill made by Eli Lilly led to average weight loss of … Read More
August 7, 2025
(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) – Thirty years ago, as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, I wrote an essay on the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In that piece (which can be found here), … Read More
August 6, 2025
(Wired) – First came the idea of splitting the atom; then, a chain of events leading to a moment forever etched in collective memory—the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. On August 6, 1945, the sky … Read More
August 6, 2025
(BBC via Yahoo!) – Labour’s Mark Sewards has worked alongside a startup AI firm to create a virtual representation of himself, using his voice and allowing people to ask for help with local issues or policy queries. The West Yorkshire … Read More
August 6, 2025
(Gizmodo) – Think twice before you ask Google’s Gemini AI assistant to summarize your schedule for you, because it could lead to you losing control of all of your smart devices. At a presentation at Black Hat USA, the annual … Read More
August 6, 2025
(NPR) – China imprisoned the scientist, He Jiankui, for three years for violating medical regulations. Fast forward to today: Mainstream scientific organizations are encouraging very careful basic research to explore gene-editing and human reproduction. But they still warn any attempts … Read More
August 6, 2025
(UPI) – A group of scientists, primarily from South Korean universities, has confirmed the efficacy of an oral anti-viral treatment, called CP-COV03 or Xafty, against COVID-19 after a clinical trial. If a later-stage trial is successful and the medication is … Read More
August 6, 2025
(Axios) – Concerns over Americans turning to AI chatbots to solve mental health problems are prompting new guardrails so people don’t become too dependent on unvetted technology. Why it matters: AI’s booming popularity, the bots’ reputation for delivering emotionally validating … Read More
August 6, 2025
(Associated Press) – The NFL is banning the use of “smelling salts” during games, saying the products aren’t proven to be safe and also could mask signs of a concussion. The league sent a memo to teams on Tuesday explaining … Read More
August 6, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – A couple with ties to China say they wanted a big family. Surrogates who carried the children say they were deceived. Local authorities removed the children from the homes, placed them in foster care, and called … Read More
August 6, 2025
(Wired) – Human judgement remains central to the launch of nuclear weapons. But experts say it’s a matter of when, not if, artificial intelligence will get baked into the world’s most dangerous systems. The people who study nuclear war for … Read More
August 6, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Thaddeus has taken the title of “world’s oldest baby” from the previous record-holders: twins Lydia Ann and Timothy Ronald Ridgeway, born in 2022, who developed from embryos that were created 30 years earlier, in 1992. Before … Read More
August 6, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – OpenAI has finally released its first open-weight large language models since 2019’s GPT-2. These new “gpt-oss” models are available in two different sizes and score similarly to the company’s o3-mini and o4-mini models on several benchmarks. … Read More
August 6, 2025
The New England Journal of Medicine (vol. 393, no. 2, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
August 5, 2025
(New York Times) – In unpublished research, researchers found live virus on equipment, in wastewater and in the air in so-called milking parlors. The Department of Agriculture has said that the virus spreads primarily from milking equipment or is carried … Read More
August 5, 2025
(NPR) – Tennessee is gearing up for an execution on Tuesday that experts say would likely mark the first time a man has been put to death with a working defibrillator in his chest. Gov. Bill Lee declined Monday to … Read More
August 5, 2025
(Nature) – Eighty years after the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, it is crucial that witness accounts are saved. Here is what one man told me. By the summer of 1945, after peace was declared in Europe, Japan was … Read More
August 5, 2025
(New York Times) – A statistical analysis found that the number of fake journal articles being churned out by “paper mills” is doubling every year and a half. For years, whistle-blowers have warned that fake results are sneaking into the … Read More
August 5, 2025
(Washington Post via MSN) – Artificial intelligence tools are not just reshaping how we work, learn and live. They’re also changing what happens after we die, as families and funeral homes seek help in creating tributes and eulogies to define … Read More
August 5, 2025
(Ars Technica) – A federal jury found on Friday that Meta violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act, the state’s wiretap law, by collecting data from a period-tracker app without user consent. Plaintiffs in a class-action case proved by a … Read More
August 5, 2025
(Straight Arrow News) – A growing body of research shows intense grief can impact the body but a new study suggests those effects may last far longer than we thought. Researchers in Denmark tracked bereaved relatives and found those with … Read More
August 5, 2025
(Techradar) – A global network of more than 5,000 fake pharmacy websites has been uncovered by security experts. Designed to mimic legitimate drug retailers, the platforms sell counterfeit or unregulated medications while harvesting sensitive personal and financial data. In many … Read More
August 5, 2025
(CBS News) – As more people aged 45-49 are getting screened for colon cancer, more early stage diagnoses are being made, according to new research from the American Cancer Society. The research, published in two studies Monday in the Journal of … Read More
August 5, 2025
(The Verge) – Google dubbed an error from its Med-Gemini model a typo. Experts say it demonstrates the risks of AI in medicine. Scenario: A radiologist is looking at your brain scan and flags an abnormality in the basal ganglia. … Read More
August 5, 2025
(NBC News) – A slur for robots and AI has emerged online in recent weeks, offering some sense of growing societal anxiety with increasingly capable technology. But there’s a catch. By using a slur in a way that would typically … Read More
