Health

Were you feeling left out by the terrible economics of Musk’s Twitter buyout? Great news! xAI, which now owns Twit — I mean, X — is selling shares. Also, Neuralink, newly freed from those pesky FDA staffers overseeing its applications, raised more money. has raised $650 million. Plus, there will be a public demo in two weeks! You know, if I were a cynical person, I might think Musk was trying to publicly distance himself from his time at DOGE.

The worst wildfires in decades are tearing through Saskatchewan, Canada, and at least two people have been killed in blazes in the neighboring province of Manitoba.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” which would ban gender-affirming care for Medicaid recipients as well as those insured under the Affordable Care Act. House Republican leadership struck the phrase “for minors” with an amendment last night. Some Democrats are pushing back. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) told The Independent, “It’s horrible, and obviously the fight doesn’t end here.”

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s recent embrace of the infamously transactional US president has already secured a Huawei AI chip clampdown and a reversal of limits placed on Nvidia’s AI chip exports. Now, according to Reuters, The UAE could be allowed to import 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips per year starting in 2025. It’s all part of a US deal to build a massive artificial intelligence campus in the UAE — measuring 10 square miles with 5 gigawatts of power for AI data centers — something that wouldn’t have been allowed previously over concerns that China would gain access to the tech.

The president announced on Truth Social that he’s nominating Dr. Casey Means, who The New York Times says “frequently casts doubt on the American medical system,” for the position.

More than 90 percent of Americans rely on federal science information, from weather forecasts to food safety warnings, according to a recent poll by the Association of Science and Technology Centers. Many of those resources are in jeopardy now as the Trump administration slashes the federal workforce and funding for health and science research.

“The report reads less like a medical analysis and more like an anti-trans screed—politicized, inflammatory, and devoid of scholarly grounding,” writes journalist Erin Reed in comprehensively fact-checking the 400-page document.

Russian-born Kseniia Petrova has been detained since she was arrested at a Boston airport in February for allegedly not declaring samples of frog embryos for Harvard, which recruited her to work on cutting-edge research into aging and cancer detection.

According to The New York Times, his ring asked him if he was working out and showed that “his heart rate shot up to over 100 beats per minute.”

First announced at CES 2025 alongside a telemedicine service for Withings Plus subscribers, the BPM Vision at-home blood pressure reader is now available with FDA clearance through the company’s online store.

Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter notes Apple’s push for an AI agent-powered “Project Mulberry” upgrade for its Health app next year, and that its its long-running attempt noninvasive glucose monitoring via Apple Watch sensors is still “many years away.” (Here’s more on why that’s been so difficult).

The Trump administration announced 20,000 layoffs at the US Department of Health and Human Services, part of a drastic restructuring of the agency that includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and that oversees Medicare and Medicaid.

The SpellRing was developed by Cornell researchers and uses AI plus micro-sonar tech to track real-time fingerspelling. Right now, it can be used to input text into computers and smartphones. It’s a neat, given that the researchers say alternatives have been too bulky and impractical for Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.

“It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize research activities that focuses gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment,” says an internal NIH email obtained by Science and The Washington Post.

The program, DOSAir, monitored air quality at embassies around the world, helping to prevent hundreds of premature deaths. Now, the program is ending “due to budget constraints,” Wired reports.

The algorithm behind the smart ring’s Readiness Score — a 0-100 body recovery ranking that considers your sleep quality, body signals, and activity levels — now includes menstrual cycle fluctuations. Users need to opt into Cycle highlights to access the update.