The Verge spoke to EPA administrator Michael Regan about the agency’s new rules for power plant pollution.
Skip Crossrope unless you really love skipping rope.
That means breaking waves could be a major source of PFAS pollution in the air, according to a new study. For decades, manufacturers used forever chemicals (AKA PFAS) in everything from food packaging to carpet cleaners to make things water, stain, and heat resistant. We’re just starting to understand how prevalent these chemicals have become in the environment and the health risks that could pose.
Federal antitrust enforcers are working with the Department of Health and Human Services to collect examples of harm to healthcare competition through a new website. If you think your healthcare provider is keeping you in the dark about the cost of services or is using your health data unfairly, you might be able to submit a complaint.
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The Soundcore Sleep A20 are decent passive earbuds that are great for side sleepers, even if Anker overpromises.
That includes chemicals used to make rubber, sterilize medical equipment, and more. The new regulations are expected to slash releases of smog-forming volatile organic compounds by 23,700 tons annually, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This is a big deal for communities bordering industrial facilities, including Louisiana’s Cancer Alley.
The 3D X-ray startup Lumafield did a CT scan of a Stanley Quencher water bottle to show you without destroying one (but if your viral insulated cup does happen to break, you should return it).
You can see where an airhole in the stainless steel outer layer is vacuum-sealed with a small lead pellet, which appears red in the image below. That way, it never comes in contact with your beverage in the inner flask or with you on the outside.
That’s a haunting thought, but the letter outlines principles for the responsible use of AI in designing new proteins (aka the building blocks of life). The fear is that AI could be used to generate new viruses or toxins. That said, the letter doesn’t seek to ban AI use completely — in fact the scientists say the benefits outweigh the harms. Rather, they’re hoping to regulate the actual equipment used to generate new genetic materials.
[The New York Times]
Usually, the health tech I see at CES is vaporware, but good news! Dexcom’s Stelo continuous glucose biosensor just got FDA clearance, making it the first ever to not require a prescription. Stelo is meant to help folks with Type 2 diabetes who don’t use insulin better manage their condition.
It’ll be available starting this summer. We still don’t know pricing, but when I spoke with Dexcom in January they said it was meant to be an affordable.
Withings users can access the feature by pressing the “+” icon in the app’s Home tab and entering some basic questions about their period. You can also add tags for symptoms, and receive trends based on your last three cycles.
Withings is late to the game. Most major wearables started adding period tracking in 2018. That said, the timing makes sense as it recently launched its ScanWatch 2, which has temperature sensors and lets you add cycle data straight from the wrist. Ah well, better late than never.
[Withings | Support]
The largely conservative Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday for Ohio v. EPA, and it sounds like SCOTUS is sympathetic to plaintiffs fighting the agency’s Good Neighbor Plan. The plan would force states, including Ohio, to prevent smog-forming pollution from drifting downwind to other states. More than a dozen states are fighting the plan in lower courts, and Ohio wants SCOTUS to force the EPA to pause the plan entirely while those legal battles are ongoing. Whether SCOTUS sides with Ohio now likely points to how it would rule later if any of those cases in lower courts ultimately make their way to SCOTUS.
The new coating was cheaper, and much less effective. Did Vestergaard disclose the change to malaria control organizations, at least? No.
“This is a huge embarrassment,” [Tim] Freeman said. [He is a program manager for an organization attempting to eliminate malaria.] “They’ve been distributing, for 10 years, lower quality nets than in the past. No one wants to admit that.”
One reason GLP-1 drugs are tough for patients to take long-term is the cost... even without a telehealth subscription (expensive in its own right), the drugs are pricey. Doctors tell The Wall Street Journal that insurers are approving fewer patients’ prescriptions. And it’s not yet clear how to get off Ozempic and its ilk without regaining weight.
Elon Musk’s other other company, the brain-machine interface startup Neuralink, has apparently put an implant in a human, who is recovering well and seeing “promising neuron spike detection.”
As for why you’d let Musk put a chip in your brain, he says its first product, Telepathy, would bring control of a phone or computer just by thinking, as demonstrated previously with Pong-playing monkeys — read here for more on the monkey experiments.
Given the emails I’ve been receiving about my advice to Gen Z, I thought many of you might enjoy this bittersweet essay by 90-year-old Sam Toperoff. He suggests that even in the absolute twilight years, there are still things to look forward to:
Here is the paradox simply told: Even while I am moving deeper into very old age, recognizing and recording my own diminishing as time passes, my truth is that this last decade has been the happiest of my entire life.
One day I hope to find out what he means.
[The Sunday Long Read]
Stanley, the maker of the obscenely large adult sippy cups that people are going feral over, confirms that yes, one part of the cups is made with lead — but that exposure to it would be “rare.” Lead in drinking cups has been a problem with other brands’ products in the past.
Some background: people are stockpiling Stanley cups in a rainbow of colors. They’re losing their jobs at Target for these things. There are Stanley cup flippers who buy up limited edition colors and sell them for $200 on Facebook Marketplace. I have a feeling the lead will not dissuade the fans.
The NSA is buying your internet data!
Intelligence and law enforcement agencies sometimes purchase potentially sensitive and revealing domestic data from brokers that would require a court order to acquire directly.
Internet metadata can reveal sensitive information, such as whether someone is seeing “a telehealth provider who focuses on birth control or abortion medication,” Senator Ron Wyden says in his letter confirming the NSA is firmly in your business.
[The New York Times]
In a recent Bloomberg interview, Samsung executive Hon Pak says it’s actively pursuing noninvasive blood glucose monitoring and continuous blood pressure checks. Pak declined to give any concrete timeline but said he hopes to bring it to market in five years.
This is all part of a larger push toward health, as evidenced by the forthcoming Galaxy Ring. (Which Bloomberg says is unlikely to work with iOS.) Just take stories like this with a grain of salt. There’s a good reason why this tech is taking so long, and probably won’t end up in wearables the way we expect.
