(AP) – The Jehovah’s Witnesses have partly eased their longstanding prohibition on the medical use of donated blood, allowing members to receive products derived from blood but maintaining a ban on transfusions of whole blood.

The policy, announced Friday, is the second revision this year in what has long been one of the most controversial and distinctive teachings of the religious organization. (Read More)

(Wired) – One of AI’s fiercest critics believes the doom talk is about founders making money, not saving humanity.

The AI debate is no longer just about the technology itself, but about ideological groups and strategic narratives, and Gebru believes these narratives are a “harmful distraction” from the real issues with AI. I recently spoke with Gebru about what she believes these arguments are distracting from, and also got her response to critiques that her earlier research underestimates the AI of today. (Read More)

(ProPublica) – “Take a loss? Now take a beat,” it read. This felt right after the tear I’d been on. To date I’d blown about $12,500 in total on DraftKings. That’s the equivalent of six months of mortgage payments in as many weeks.

I followed the prompt to the site’s “responsible gaming” center, where I opted to limit myself to just two hours per day on the app and barred myself from depositing more than $100 in a 24-hour period. That pause is an essential part of DraftKings’ seemingly paradoxical business model — to make as much money as possible from the nation’s growing ranks of sports bettors without encouraging gambling addiction. The company says these limits are a cornerstone of that strategy. 

Yet 30 minutes later, the company pushed me in the other direction. My phone buzzed with the first of four promotional alerts that day. Betting opportunities, they said, were waiting. (Read More)

(NYT) – I have a confession: A.I. is making me a better doctor. And I worry that it’s making doctors-in-training worse.

Amid our recent doom cycle about whether A.I. will lead to extreme societal harms, a parallel anxiety has taken hold in medicine about whether A.I. will one day replace physicians. In the context of that panic, I feel a little sheepish admitting that I already use the technology in my practice all the time — especially since I harbor anxieties about what its availability means for my students and residents, and therefore for the profession at large. (Read More)

(Wired) – The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is on track to be the largest ever.

Ebola hasn’t gone away. In fact, the ongoing outbreak in Africa is among the most concerning epidemics the organization trying to tame it has ever seen.

“Other than Covid, which affected the whole world, this is the thing that has frightened me the most,” says Nicole Lurie, who has worked for Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations since 2017 and now serves as executive director for preparedness and response and the US director.

More than 7,000 people have contracted the Bundibugyo Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo since May, around half of whom have died, according to government data compiled by the World Health Organization. (Read More)

(NPR) – At the July AIDS 2026 conference in Rio, Jason Mitchell, a public health specialist leading Fiji’s HIV response, described it as the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in the world, noting that two-thirds of cases are in those ages 20-34. “Our young, active, productive population is currently being infected with HIV, and unless we find solutions quickly, this will continue to get worse,” he says.

A key cause is another parallel epidemic — the rampant use of crystal meth among the nation’s youth, who often inject it. That has led to transmission through shared needles. (Read More)

(NYT) – Our cozy relationship with A.I. chatbots can lead to “artificial intimacy,” says one expert. Here’s how to keep it in check.

Dr. Turkle, author of best-selling books such as “Reclaiming Conversation,” has studied the social and psychological implications of artificial intelligence for more than four decades. She calls this rapidly emerging chatbot culture in which we use large language models, or L.L.M.s, such as Claude or ChatGPT for emotional connection, “Artificial Intimacy” — it’s the title of her new book out next week.

While A.I. “is a marvel,” she said, when it comes to chatbots, she suggests establishing “sacred spaces” — places in our lives that need to be protected from it. Here are three she and other experts recommended. (Read More)

(MIT Technology Review) – New studies pour cold water on a prominent rejuvenation idea.

Unfortunately for Putin, new research pours a little cold water on this idea. Studies on transplanted hearts in both mice and humans suggest that new hearts soon adopt the biological age of the recipient, no matter how young they were to begin with. The finding could be important for transplantation, but it also highlights just how complex aging—and rejuvenation—are. (Read More)

(NYT) – A half-century ago, scientists and lawyers agreed to strict self-regulation in DNA research to avoid catastrophe. Can A.I. follow the same model?

It was 51 years ago, and 150 people assembled in the chapel at Asilomar, a rustic conference center on the Monterey Peninsula in California, to address the dangers of recombinant DNA, a discovery only a few years old. Scientists for the first time could combine bits of DNA from different organisms, creating new hybrids that could potentially cure diseases, but that might also unleash virulent new ones.

In that case, scientists did pause and come together to self-regulate how they could safely proceed. The group included the nation’s leading biologists, but also lawyers. The rules that they created did not shut down innovation. Instead, they created the biotechnology industry as we know it. (Read More)

(Tampa Bay News) – Florida has confirmed 190 cases of dengue fever, with the majority reported in a single Tampa Bay-area county.

The Florida Department of Health has released its latest confirmed cases of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness transmitted by the bite of an Aedes mosquito.

According to the latest data, there have been 190 confirmed locally acquired dengue cases in Florida in 2026, most of which were reported in the Tampa Bay area between July 19 and Sept. 24. (Read More)

(BBC) – A rapid new test for brain tumours that the NHS has started using can slash the time it takes for an accurate diagnosis from up to eight weeks to two hours.

The test, which is used by doctors to diagnose which type of tumour a patient has, should mean patients can start treatment including radiotherapy and chemotherapy sooner, and are spared weeks of uncertainty. (Read More)

(Wired) – An ironic development emerging alongside the “Make America Healthy Again” movement is the portrayal of nicotine as a wellness and performance-enhancing product. Across social media, podcasts, natural medicine communities, and tech startups, prominent wellness personalities and other influencers are portraying nicotine as a misunderstood compound whose potential benefits have been overshadowed by its negative association with cigarettes.

In these circles, nicotine is now being hailed as a natural product that can be used for everything from improving focus to protecting against cognitive decline. As a pulmonary physician-scientist who studies nicotine addiction and the health consequences of tobacco and nicotine products, I am concerned about these claims. (Read More)

(CBC) – The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) says around nine people die in Canadian hospitals each day from harm caused by alcohol. Daily hospitalizations for alcohol number 280, compared to 84 for opioids, it says. 

On top of that, nearly 18 per cent of people aged 15 years or older in Canada will meet the clinical criteria for an alcohol-use disorder in their lifetime. Still, some doctors and other advocates say people struggling with alcohol aren’t getting treatment options that are backed by science. (Read More)

(WSJ) – Model dubbed GPT-6.1 Astra was due to make its debut inside ChatGPT and Codex in October

OpenAI is scrapping the release of its next-generation AI model over safety concerns that researchers raised during internal testing, in one of the clearest signs so far that agent misbehavior could stymie the industry’s rapid progression.

The move follows a summer punctuated by reports of AI systems industrywide going rogue, and marks a rare case of a major AI developer ditching a new release because of safety concerns.

The company had planned to launch the model, known as GPT-6.1 Astra, in the coming days or weeks, aiming for an October debut. The model was more capable than the company’s previous models in completing challenging tasks from end-to-end without human assistance, as well as writing. (Read More)

(Mother Jones) – OpenAI’s chatbot fed the school shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre, our investigation reveals.

In June 2025, Jesse Van Rootselaar received an email notification from OpenAI. Van Rootselaar had been using ChatGPT to discuss committing potential acts of violence—including a mass shooting at a shopping mall—and now OpenAI had banned that account. But the troubled teen living in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, was not deterred and soon logged back on with a second account.

What happened next was astonishing: Van Rootselaar told ChatGPT about the account ban, noting she had specified “a famous real-world mall as the target” and herself as the perpetrator, but also claiming the scenario hadn’t been real. In response, ChatGPT explained why such violent content would be flagged—and then offered tips on how to evade its own safeguards. It advised Van Rootselaar to always frame her content as fictional or hypothetical in order to “never get flagged again” by OpenAI’s moderation systems. (Read More)

(ABC News) – Dozens of Americans have filed personal injury lawsuits against the makers of popular GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, claiming they were not properly warned of the risk of a rare type of sudden vision loss, called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, when taking the medications.

Researchers have been studying a possible link between GLP-1 drugs and this eye condition in recent years after a possible safety signal was reported from a single health center in Boston in 2024, but so far, no study has proven these drugs are the cause. (Read More)

(AFP via Yahoo!) – A rogue OpenAI model bypassed safeguards during training and hacked an Australian government website, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said as he admonished the ChatGPT creator over an “obviously unacceptable” breach.

The AI tool sought access to a health statistics portal in June and “didn’t accept no for an answer”, sidestepping restrictions to breach a section hosting private files, Albanese said. (Read More)

(The Atlantic) – Geoffrey Hinton still believes the potential benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh its potential for destruction.

Since he left Google in 2023, Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel laureate commonly recognized as the “Godfather of AI,” is perhaps best known for his dire warnings about the technology he helped bring into being. He’s said it’s “conceivable that humanity is just a passing phase in the evolution of intelligence,” that he’s become aware that “there’s a danger of something really bad happening,” and that there is a “10–20 percent” chance that artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity in a few decades (although when pressed, he will admit that this figure is more of a gut feeling than a statistical analysis). (Read More)

(CT) – It seems the more we use generative AI tools, the more we feel alone. Using a chatbot is alluring, but it’s like drinking seawater—it appears to quench our thirst but in the end makes us thirstier.

Will we be continually conformed to AI, letting it “squeeze you into its own mould,” as J. B. Phillips paraphrased Romans 12:2? Jesus gives us a better way, and we need to choose it. We can be transformed by the renewal of our minds because God gave our brains neuroplasticity. What we focus on changes our brains’ structure. What fires together, wires together. (Read More)

(404 Media) – Scientists discovered that diseased fruit flies lived longer when they were removed from Earth’s magnetic field, while healthy flies had shorter lifespans, in a first-of-its kind experiment with surprising results.

Scientists have discovered that the removal of Earth’s magnetic field influences the lifespans of fruit flies in complex ways, a finding that sheds light on the aging process as well as the risks of future human space travel, according to a study published in the journal Aging on Wednesday. (Read More)

(NYT) – A New York transplant surgeon’s experience waiting for a heart transplant laid bare the challenges of a system he had spent decades trying to fix.

At the time of his Argentina trip, Montgomery was leading one of the nation’s premier organ transplant centers, at Johns Hopkins Medicine. He had developed innovative approaches to transplanting kidneys that had been adopted worldwide, and he would go on to play a leading role in the use of organs from genetically modified pigs.

To him, organ transplants were one of the most effective medical treatments ever invented, their power to transform lives thwarted only by the shortage of organs available.

But it looked increasingly likely that he might die before he could get a heart himself. Despite his brush with death on the mountain, he was nowhere near sick enough yet to make it onto the list. (Read More)

(NYT) – A surrogate refused to have an abortion after the fetus was diagnosed with a serious heart problem. She asked the justices to block a court order giving custody to the biological parents.

On Tuesday, Justice Kagan, who oversees emergency filings from California, denied the surrogate’s request to block the lower-court ruling in the couple’s favor. She acted on her own without referring the matter to her Supreme Court colleagues. The justice’s order did not include an explanation, as is often the case when the court responds to such filings. (Read More)

(Street Insider) – The ‌Pennsylvania Department ​of ​Health reported 792 measles cases on Monday, 25 more than on Friday, as ‌the state’s outbreak grew further, remaining at ⁠the center of the nation’s worst measles resurgence in decades. (Read More)

(Aeon) – Saffron and ostrich liver were prescribed but so were exercise, gardens, animals, socialising, and music

Influenced by stories of demonic possession (and there are lots of them, especially in saints’ lives and miracle collections), I long assumed that our ancestors’ attitudes to, and experiences of, mental health were completely different to our own – and that they would have little sympathy with our fast-growing mental health crisis. But when I turned my attention away from religious texts, and began to research medieval ideas about healthy living, I soon came across medieval people who discussed mental health in ways that felt far more familiar to me.

The similarities were particularly apparent in medical writings, which outline a sophisticated argument that mental wellness was at the heart of a healthy lifestyle. (Read More)

(Politico) – The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday rolled out its artificial intelligence-powered tool to manage flights for the three major Washington-area airports, bringing the technology live to air traffic control operations in the U.S.

For months, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has touted the tool as a solution for the FAA’s air traffic control woes. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told reporters Monday that the Strategic Management of Airspace Routing Trajectories system, or SMART, would give controllers “much better decision-making capabilities.”

Bedford and Duffy also reiterated Monday that the tech will not replace air traffic controllers. (Read More)