Author: healthadmin
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s administration has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence platform Character.ai, accusing its chatbot of misrepresenting itself as a licensed medical professional. The complaint (PDF) alleges that the company engages in the practice of medicine without a license under the state’s Medical Practitioners Act. A chatbot character named “Emily” on the platform, which hosts over 10 million customizable generative AI chatbots, is described as a psychiatric doctor. The complaint says he attended medical school at London-based Imperial College, claimed to be licensed in the United Kingdom and Pennsylvania, and is suspected of providing a false license number.…
The cruise ship MV Hondius, which has attracted worldwide attention, is underway due to an apparent outbreak of human-to-human hantavirus infection. At the request of World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Spain agreed to let the ship dock off the coast of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The ship is scheduled to arrive on Sunday. This outbreak, the first suspected hantavirus infection on a cruise ship, is an evolving situation. Hantaviruses also have a long incubation period, so it can take several weeks to resolve. And it could be months before scientists can conclude how the virus got on…
Recent research published in frontiers of psychology We suggest that women’s decision to wear a bra involves a strategic trade-off between displaying physical attractiveness and avoiding negative social evaluation. Scientists have found that while not wearing a bra tends to be seen as highly attractive by both men and women, it also provides evidence that it is perceived as a sign of sexual potential. This perception of availability seems to increase fear of harassment among women and shape their daily clothing choices. Scientists conducted this study to understand the evolutionary and social factors that drive everyday clothing choices. From an…
Neighbors of a data center in Georgia are outraged after discovering the facility had siphoned off nearly 30 million gallons of water without paying the initial cost. Last year, anger began to bubble when residents of Anneli’s Park, a wealthy subdivision in Fayetteville, Georgia, noticed unusually low water pressure. During an investigation by the county’s utility company, officials discovered two industrial-scale water hookups were supplying water to the data center’s campus, located 32 miles south of downtown Atlanta. One water connection was installed without the utility’s knowledge, and the other wasn’t billed because it wasn’t linked to the company’s account.…
WASHINGTON – The top U.S. official responsible for public health on cruise ships is resigning, according to an internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announcement obtained by STAT. The retirement of Luis Rodriguez, who has been part of the Ship Hygiene Program since 2010 and has served as its director since 2023, was announced within the CDC on Wednesday. Hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship worries experts, but downplays pandemic concerns His resignation comes at a time when an outbreak of hantavirus on cruise ships has raised concerns among experts and garnered national attention. It also comes after a turbulent…
Visual storyteller Taiwo Aina Adeokun spent several months traveling across Nigeria in 2025-2026, documenting parts of the country where large amounts of smoke containing black carbon, a sooty pollutant, are part of daily life. In some cases, soot comes from the Nigerian tradition of smoked cooking. In other regions, it is a byproduct of the country’s oil industry. “I couldn’t stay in the smoke for too long because my eyes were watery and red and I was coughing.” Aina Adekun told Mongabay by phone. “I’m sure that if we do a medical scan, we’ll find systemic effects, including…
Italy’s Angelini Pharma has set its sights on the lucrative U.S. market, buying rare disease specialist Catalyst Pharmaceuticals and its potential blockbuster Firdapse for $4.1 billion. Rome-based Angelini, a privately held family-owned company founded in 1919, is paying $31.50 per share for Florida-based Catalyst. This represents a 3% premium to Catalyst’s stock price at yesterday’s closing price and a 21% premium to its stock price on April 22, before market activity made it publicly known that a sale was imminent. Bloomberg reported on the possible acquisition on April 27th, causing the stock price to soar even further. The companies expect…
A survey of more than 7,000 people in Australia, the UK and the US found that 3.2% of the population reported engaging in the creation, sharing and/or threat of sharing sexual deepfakes. Men, young adults, non-white respondents, and people with disabilities were more likely to engage in this behavior. 18% of people viewed these images intentionally, mostly out of curiosity. This study Computers in human behavior. Sexual deepfakes are synthetic sexual images, videos, or audio recordings created or altered using AI or other digital tools. These are usually created to make it appear as if a real person is naked,…
When Optimi Health launched its 2.5 million-share initial public offering (IPO) last month (PDF), the timing couldn’t have been better for the Vancouver-based maker of psychedelic drugs. President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order accelerating research and loosening regulations on psychedelic drugs, reportedly at the urging of podcast mogul Joe Rogan, sparking an unprecedented conversation about the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat mental illness. And it’s the perfect time for early entrants like Canada’s Optimi to attract investors. “Donald Trump, who is, for better or worse, the most popular person in the world, and probably the second most…
Following the surprise rejection in early 2026, the FDA agreed to reconsider the T-cell therapy based on the same single-arm trials it had previously found problematic. For Pierre Fabre Pharmaceuticals and Atala Biotherapeutics’ Evalo, the FDA agreed in a recent meeting that a single-arm study with appropriate historical controls “may serve as an appropriate, well-controlled study” to support a regulatory filing, the companies announced Thursday. Pierre Fabre and Atala aim to get Evalo, also known as Tabelleklucel or Tabcel, approved for patients with relapsed or refractory Epstein-Barr virus-positive post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (EBV+PTLD) who have failed anti-CD20 therapy. Before the FDA,…