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Measles is surging in the US. Wastewater tracking could help.

After all, wastewater contains saliva, urine, feces, shed skin, and more. You could consider it a rich biological sample. Wastewater analysis helped scientists understand how covid was spreading during the pandemic. It’s... Read more »

America’s coming war over AI regulation

With Americans increasingly anxious about how AI could harm mental health, jobs, and the environment, public demand for regulation is growing. If Congress stays paralyzed, states will be the only ones acting... Read more »

“Dr. Google” had its issues. Can ChatGPT Health do better?

Some doctors see LLMs as a boon for medical literacy. The average patient might struggle to navigate the vast landscape of online medical information—and, in particular, to distinguish high-quality sources from polished... Read more »

Dispatch from Davos: hot air, big egos and cold flexes

I’m no meteorologist, but it’s true that there is a lot of hot air here.  On Wednesday, President Donald Trump arrived in Davos to address the assembly, and held forth for more... Read more »

The Download: Yann LeCun’s new venture, and lithium’s on the rise

But lithium is worthy of a close look right now. The metal is crucial for lithium-ion batteries used in phones and laptops, electric vehicles, and large-scale energy storage arrays on the grid. ... Read more »

Why 2026 is a hot year for lithium

But lithium is worthy of a close look right now. The metal is crucial for lithium-ion batteries used in phones and laptops, electric vehicles, and large-scale energy storage arrays on the grid.... Read more »

Yann LeCun’s new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models  

You were working on AI long before LLMs became a mainstream approach. But since ChatGPT broke out, LLMs have become almost synonymous with AI. Yes, and we are going to change that.... Read more »

Rethinking AI’s future in an augmented workplace

“Our findings suggest that the continuation of the status quo, the basic expectation of most economists, is actually the least likely outcome,” Davis says. “We project that AI will have an even... Read more »

Everyone wants AI sovereignty. No one can truly have it.

Nations should track the use of AI in health care and monitor how the technology’s adoption correlates with manufacturing productivity, patent citations, and international research collaborations. The goal is to ensure that... Read more »

The Download: Trump at Davos, and AI scientists

Everyone wants AI sovereignty. No one can truly have it. —Cathy Li is head of the Centre for AI Excellence at the World Economic Forum Governments plan to pour $1.3 trillion into... Read more »