The Trump administration’s recent executive orders have sent shockwaves through the international public health community, leaving healthcare workers scrambling and aid programs in peril. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been put on hold, and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has suffered significant disruptions. The funding pause is set to…
health on The Soothsayer / page 5
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has taken the world by storm with its 300 million weekly active users, and the company continues to innovate with new features and products. The recent launch of ChatGPT Gov for US government agencies and the introduction of Operator, an AI agent that performs tasks autonomously, are significant developments in the AI landscape….
The biotech sector has shown remarkable resilience in 2024, with several companies recording spectacular stock performance. Regulatory approvals, breakthrough therapies, and clinical trial successes have driven investor enthusiasm, with companies like Bright Minds Biosciences, Monopar Therapeutics, and Summit Therapeutics standing out as top performers. As the industry looks to 2025 and beyond, analysts are predicting…
UnitedHealth has confirmed that the ransomware attack on its Change Healthcare unit last February affected around 190 million people in America, nearly double previous estimates. The breach, attributed to the ALPHV ransomware gang, resulted in the theft of massive quantities of health and insurance-related information, including names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses,…
Donald Trump’s second term as US President is shaping up to be different from his first, with the appointment of three key science-advisory positions. Michael Kratsios, a tech expert, has been nominated to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and serve as the President’s science adviser. David Sacks, a tech…
The recent devastating wildfires in Los Angeles have left over two dozen people dead and destroyed over 10,000 structures and homes. As survivors return to their charred homes or await permission to reenter their neighborhoods, they face tremendous uncertainty about their future. Experts warn that the emotional trauma of the disaster will have long-term effects…
OpenAI, a leading AI research company, is reportedly close to releasing its highly anticipated AI agent tool, Operator. This tool is said to be capable of autonomously handling tasks such as writing code, booking travel, and even controlling a user’s PC. According to a software engineer who claims to have uncovered evidence of the tool,…
OpenAI’s latest experimental chatbot model, o3, has achieved a high score on the Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus for Artificial General Intelligence (ARC-AGI) test, marking progress towards artificial general intelligence (AGI). The test, created by AI researcher François Chollet, assesses a system’s ability to reason and generalize. While the achievement is significant, experts caution that it’s…
A team of researchers at Newcastle University in the UK has developed a novel MRI technique that can quantify lung function, providing a more accurate and sensitive assessment of respiratory diseases. The technique uses inhaled perfluoropropane to visualize lung ventilation and has shown promising results in detecting early changes in lung function, even in patients…
A group of 58 researchers has proposed a revised definition of obesity, shifting the focus from body mass index (BMI) to excess body fat and its impact on the body. This new approach aims to improve clinical care, public-health policies, and societal attitudes toward obesity, which affects over 1 billion people worldwide and is linked…