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Miley Cyrus receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: ‘My name is laid in gold and pink terrazzo!’
Cyrus became the 2,845th celebrity to reach this milestone.
The big Strauss Zelnick interview: GTA, AI, Roblox and building the biggest entertainment company in the world
"Technology is not going to take people's jobs, and the big tech companies who laid off people and said it was because of AI were not telling the truth"
Philly progressives taking a victory lap after Rabb win; supporters credit old-school grassroots organizing
The groundwork for Rabb’s success may have been laid over the last several years as progressives fought for control over local Democratic committees.
Laid off Meta employee shares advice for turning job loss into a win
A laid off Meta employee shares how losing her job helped her launch a successful entrepreneurial career. She shares advice for navigating layoffs.
Trail Blazers lay off large number of business-side employees
The Portland Trail Blazers have laid off a significant number of business-side employees as part of a reorganization under new owner Tom Dundon.
Trail Blazers lay off large number of business-side employees
The Portland Trail Blazers have laid off a significant number of business-side employees as part of a reorganization under new owner Tom Dundon.
Read Meta's layoff email to employees
Meta emailed thousands of employees notifying them that they'd been laid off. Read the email explaining how the layoffs will work.
Trail Blazers lay off dozens of staff members on business side of team
At least three dozen staff members with the Portland Trail Blazers were laid off on Tuesday morning, our news partners at Willamette Week report.The layoffs wer
I was laid off then founded a business with 27 AI agent employees
After being laid off from eBay, Linara Bozieva launched an AI-powered marketing agency which she runs with 27 custom AI agents.
The Practical Case for Kyler Murray as Vikings QB1
Earlier in the day on Sunday, we laid out the case for J.J. McCarthy as the Minnesota Vikings’ QB1 in […]
Village, Chelsea candidates call to cut red tape for small business
Six Democratic candidates for the Greenwich Village and Chelsea Assembly seat at a recent forum laid out measures to help small businesses.
Trump’s health cuts complicate federal messaging on hantavirus
The federal hantavirus response has laid bare the impact of the Trump administration’s cuts to U.S. and global health, renewing concerns among public health experts that the U.S. is not prepa…
East Tennessee business to lay off more than 120 employees, move to North Carolina
The workers will be laid off effective July 13, the WARN Notice said.
Canadian-based company ceases operations; dozens of people laid off in Pennsylvania
The company said its financial position has worsened significantly since 2021, and that it had faced additional pressure since 2024 due to the imposition of tariffs by the U.S. government, post-pandemic reductions in consumer demand, increased competition from offshore competitors, and ongoing cash constraints.
COSI to review science demonstrations after experts allege 'spectacle over safety'
The science museum laid off about 40% of its education team earlier this year, prompting some to criticize its mission of science education.
Axios interview: Reimagining government + business + AI
Chris Lehane laid out OpenAI's political playbook.
Learner spotlight: Vivian’s path to rights based mental health advocacy
For Vivian Anyango Aola, mental health is deeply personal. Growing up she witnessed people around her struggling with emotional distress without access to support, understanding or solutions. Those early experiences laid the foundations for her work today as a mental health advocate at St. Daniel Comboni mission in Nairobi, Kenya.“Mental health is about feelings – something we all experience every day,” Vivian explains. “Ensuring people are supported in those feelings is what drives my work.” Creating safe spaces and challenging stigmaIn her role, Vivian works closely with people living with mental health conditions and psychosocial, intellectual and cognitive disabilities. Through dialogue, listening and shared learning, she helps create safe spaces where people feel seen, heard and respected. However, stigma and discrimination remain significant barriers.“Witnessing stigma only strengthens my resolve to fight for inclusion, acceptance and equal treatment for all,” she says. Vivian enrolled in the WHO ‘QualityRights in Mental Health’ online, self-paced course available on the WHO Academy learning platform to strengthen her knowledge and advocacy skills. The six-module course provides the foundation for challenging stigma and discrimination and for promoting person-centred, rights-based approaches in mental health.“The course gave me a new perspective,” she says. “It showed me how to support people in ways that respect autonomy and promote recovery, rather than focusing only on treatment.”The importance of language and cultureSince its launch, more than 141 000 people have enrolled in the course globally, and it is now available in 17 languages on the learning platform – the highest number of languages of any WHO course. For Vivian, accessibility is key to transforming mental health systems. “Language is a bridge between professionals and communities,” she explains. “When mental health resources are available in local languages, they reduce misunderstanding, build trust and encourage people to seek help. It also empowers health workers to deliver care in ways that are culturally sensitive and relevant.”In a global evaluation of the course, which analysed data from over 3000 learners, attitudes toward people with mental health conditions improved by 22.78% overall after completing the course, with even greater shifts in low- and middle-income countries (29.18%) compared to high-income countries (20.58%)[1].“The course equips participants with the essential knowledge and skills to transform mental health into a more rights-based, inclusive and recovery-oriented system,” explains Vivian. “It reinforces that change is possible. When people understand rights, dignity and recovery, the entire system can begin to shift.”Mental Health, Brain Health and Substance Use[1] Breaking stigma, discrimination and promoting rights: global evaluation of the World Health Organization QualityRights e-training on mental health, recovery and community inclusion
I was laid off at 55 and built my own AI consultancy; what I learned
Kristinia Martinelli shares the AI tool she built to help her launch her AI consultancy after she was let go from her corporate job.
Bloody primary battle’ unfolding in California’s 40th district
Both Kim and Calvert have laid claim to the district as “theirs.”
Bloody primary battle’ unfolding in California’s 40th district
Both Kim and Calvert have laid claim to the district as “theirs.”
Five things to do in Laredo this weekend
From laid-back gatherings to community events, there’s no shortage of things happening in Laredo this weekend.
Science diplomacy lessons from a North Korean volcano
Mount Paektu, a mythic, active volcano on the border between North Korea and China, is almost the epitome of a scientific challenge that crosses political lines. In 946 CE, it erupted in one of the five biggest volcanic events of the past 10,000 years, kicking up huge quantities of ash and sending destructive mud flows down river channels for hundreds of kilometres. Should this happen again, the entire region, including easternmost Russia, South Korea and even Japan could be hit. “It’s definitely got the potential to be big,” said James Hammond, a professor of geophysics at Birkbeck, University of London. An eruption on the scale of 946 would have “huge regional impact.” For the past 15 years, Hammond has helped lead a groundbreaking collaboration with North Korean scientists to study the volcano, navigating scientific sanctions, tough export controls on scientific equipment and a long, pandemic-enforced exodus from the country. Although he seems more at home on far-flung research expeditions – before speaking to Science|Business, Hammond was camping out on a Greenland ice sheet – he has also advised the European Commission on its changing science diplomacy strategy. His long experience with North Korea has made Hammond sceptical of blanket bans on science collaboration, no matter the country.This is a live question in Europe, where in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, institutional ties with Russian universities were almost entirely severed, although some scientists fear this could undermine our understanding of climate change’s impact on the Arctic. Here, Hammond tells the story of the Mount Paektu mission and the policy lessons he takes from it. Ominous rumblingsThe genesis of Hammond’s collaboration came in 2002, when Mount Paektu began to rumble ominously. Earthquake activity picked up and the volcano began to emit unusual gases. North Korean scientists took notice. “People felt we need to know more about this volcano,” said Hammond. In 2011, North Korean vulcanologists put out a request for international expertise to help them learn more. At the time, Hammond and his collaborator, Clive Oppenheimer, were working on a vulcanology project in another sanctioned country, Eritrea, and so decided to answer the call. Within a month, they had flown into Pyongyang. “It was pretty incredible,” recalls Hammond (left). “We were made to feel like honoured guests, and invited to official celebrations.” The scientific opportunity was huge. Paektu is unusually positioned, a thousand kilometres from where tectonic plates rub against each other in the Pacific. “It was an incredibly interesting volcano, but not much research had been done, at least not in the international community,” he said. “There was so much we felt we could do. And we had these partners that were super keen to engage.”The mission received an unusual visitor in the form of volcano-obsessed filmmaker Werner Herzog, who accompanied Hammond and Oppenheimer while directing his 2016 film Into the Inferno about volcanos across the world. Four days into the trip, the German director delivered a long speech about reunification to his North Korean hosts, recalls Hammond. “He got to the heart of the Koreans and how they felt, and how they thought, in a way that I'm not sure I ever will,” he said. UN sanctionsHowever, Hammond realised he’d been “naïve” about how difficult it would be to collaborate with North Korea, which was sanctioned far more heavily than Eritrea. “We didn’t fully appreciate the all-encompassing nature of restrictions,” he said. In 2016, as tensions escalated over Pyongyang’s nuclear tests, a United Nations resolution banned all joint scientific work with North Korea. However, the UN sanctions did allow countries to request carve outs, and the UK successfully requested an exemption for Hammond’s work. Related articlesEU pushes for joint science diplomacy, but care needed to avoid gridlock, experts sayRussia severs its last ties with German scienceAnchor Greenlanders in Arctic climate research, experts tell EU ahead of policy updateExport controls have also delayed Hammond’s work. In one case, it took 18 months to get approval from the UK government to take seismometers, which measure earthquakes, to North Korea. “It was frustrating,” he said. “But they didn’t just say no.” However, one instrument, called an induction coil, used to measure how the earth conducts electricity, was blocked entirely because it can in theory be used to detect submarines. Karaoke bondingSince the collaboration started in 2011, Hammond has visited the country around 15 times, although the pandemic closed off North Korea for more than five years. A trip last November was Hammond’s first since the outbreak. Despite this lengthy interlude, Hammond has deep bonds in the country. The North Korean scientists Hammond works with are somewhat isolated, as they struggle to access the latest research papers and travel to international conferences. That said, they are “excellent geophysicists” and are “very well trained in the field,” he said. Over karaoke and chats about their families, “we’ve made friendships, for sure,” he said. The authorities have to sign-off things like the placement of seismometers, for example, but Hammond said these requests have been approved. “Everything that we've asked for within a scientific context has been delivered.”Scientific backchannels? These kind of personal links between scientists across political lines are one purported benefit of science diplomacy. During the Cold War, some historians argue, scientific contact between the US and Soviet Union laid a groundwork of trust for other cooperation, such as on arms control. Hammond agrees that backchannel contacts to North Korean geophysicists are hardly likely to defuse a military crisis on the Korean peninsula, but the simple fact of the scientific collaboration makes contacts between diplomats that little bit easier. “It creates opportunities to understand each other a little bit better,” he said. “When maybe you have those more difficult discussions as diplomats, it's coming from a slightly better place.” Cutting tiesDrawing lessons from the Mount Paektu mission for today’s links with Russian science isn’t simple. The analogy is far from exact, Hammond said, “because one is essentially a Cold War, versus a pretty hot war in the case of Russia.” But Hammond’s broader argument is that the challenges we face, such as climate change, pandemics, biodiversity loss, pollution and so on, have globalised in an unprecedented way, making blanket shutdowns in collaboration with any country unwise.He’s somewhat critical of the UN scientific sanctions imposed on North Korea in 2016, even though they did allow for exceptions. “I think a blanket halt to some of these things, when we face big global challenges [. . .] that’s quite a risky thing to do,” he said.Institutional endorsement?European academics are still by and large free to work individually with Russian counterparts. However, official, institutional partnerships have largely ended. Shortly following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian university rectors wrote a public letter endorsing the war, meaning European universities fear official collaboration could also be seen as a kind of endorsement. Hammond acknowledges there is a risk of legitimising regimes, and state-controlled universities, through scientific cooperation. “That’s the trade off you have to make,” he said. Strategic projectsWith Russia, instead of giving a green light to restart all Arctic science, a middle ground might be firing up a few carefully selected “strategic” projects, said Hammond. After all, European countries are still collaborating with Russia on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, an experimental nuclear fusion plant in the south of France. However, even if Europe did try to revive Arctic science with Russia, there’s no guarantee Russian scientists would play ball. A series of high-profile arrests of physicists in Russia accused of sharing their findings with the outside world has made collaboration fraught. Even before the invasion of 2022, “the Russian regime made it increasingly difficult, and this sort of discouraged people,” Dag Rune Olsen, rector of the Arctic University of Norway, told Science|Business last year.
Asha Sharma admits "Xbox needs to move faster", as new CEO begins "winding down Copilot on mobile" and ceases its development on consoles
Xbox's newly-appointed head Asha Sharma is sunsetting the company's Copilot initiative, which was once envisioned as an AI-driven "personal gaming sidekick".
SecureFood School: Transforming Food System Risk Science into Real-World Education
Strengthening food system resilience requires not only technological innovation, but also an improved societal understanding of food system dynamics and risks.
These Black maternal health groups laid groundwork for perinatal grants, then they were left out
The work they helped lead has garnered state dollars, legislative support and public praise, but their community-rooted organizations weren’t selected to reap any of the funds.
HHS Launches MAHA Action Plan to Curb Psychiatric Overprescribing
HHS laid out a new action plan to curb psychiatric overprescribing at a MAHA Institute summit on mental health and overmedicalization.
School of Public Health lays off lecturers, staff amid budget shortfall
Citing reduced federal research funding and declining international enrollment, the Public Health School laid off four lecturers and 15 staff
Impending layoffs at Laurel Ridge Treatment Center spark concerns about mental health care
Laurel Ridge Treatment Center announced that 648 employees would be laid off, effective June 26. Some are worried about the impact it will have on the availability of mental health treatment in San Antonio.
Plaid? For ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’? Groundbreaking
With costumes designed by Molly Rogers, "The Devil Wears Prada 2" hits theaters, very fashionably, on May 1.
Port: Is North Dakota still open for business?
Even generally popular projects can be waylaid by opposition from gadflies who sow discord into the fertile soil of our national mood of distrust.
PGA Tour lays off 4% of staff amid organizational right-sizing
The PGA Tour laid off 56 full-time employees, about 4% of its 1,300-plus staff, and froze hiring for 73 open roles as part of a right-sizing tied to its transition to a player-owned, for-profit structure.
I was laid off in 2020. My uncle's inheritance changed everything.
Steph Mahon used an $80,000 inheritance from her uncle to start a real estate business that's now nearing seven figures.
Read what Disney's brand chief said about marketing layoffs
Disney laid off employees this week across the company, including its marketing group. Read the memo from Disney brand chief Asad Ayaz.
How much severance Disney's laid-off employees are getting
Disney laid off employees for the first time under CEO Josh D'Amaro. Here's what departing staffers are getting paid in severance.
Chad J. Thompson
Chad J. Thompson has joined Nicolaides Fink Thorpe Michaelides Sullivan LLP as chief operating officer.
Multiple PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium titles for April have leaked
It looks like those on PlayStation Plus' Extra and Premium tiers can expect more blockbuster games to join the service next week.
Charlie Crist's humanity laid bare by, wait for it, the Tampa Bay Times
Crist is shown as something he’s not often been accused of: entirely relatable.
Confessions from a laid-off sports columnist: Candace Buckner is done being sidelined
Sipping lattes and watering my garden of grievances didn't fill the stadium-sized hole in my heart. Thanks, sports, for letting me back in.
Proto-mammals laid eggs, paleontologists finally confirm
Lystrosaurus fills in a major evolutionary gap.
UCI Health rehires critical care workers it laid off in March
UCI Health has rescinded the layoffs of seven of the 150 workers laid off last month as part of a restructuring of its hospitals across Orange County — and apologized” for the “oversight.”
Portland business shutting down, 106 employees laid off
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Another employer is permanently shuttering its Portland location and laying off employees. Direct Marketing Solutions will close its Portland production facility and lay off 10...
‘Seismic change’: how election wins for nationalists in Celtic nations could reshape UK
With polls suggesting Plaid Cymru, the SNP and Sinn Féin could be in power after May vote, constitutional challenges may lie ahead
Warriors' Draymond Green reveals 'ideal' outcome for upcoming free agency
It remains to be seen what the future holds from Draymond Green beyond the current campaign, but the veteran forward has an idea of how he would like it to go. Green recently laid out his “ideal” scenario for his NBA future, which would entail him declining his $27 million player option for the 2026-27 season in favor of a new extension to close out his career in Golden State. “Rich [Paul] and I discussed it a couple months ago briefly,” Green said.
Grand Theft Auto 6 publisher Take-Two have seemingly laid off their head of AI and several of the department's staffers
It's currently unclear why these layoffs have taken place.
Take-Two lays off AI team
Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of GTA developer Rockstar Games, has reportedly laid off its AI team, includin…
Take-Two laid off the head its AI division and an undisclosed number of staff
A former head of AI at game publisher Take-Two has announced that he and several members of his staff have been laid off.
Take-Two Has Reportedly Laid Off its AI Team, Including the Department Head
Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto parent company Take-Two Interactive has reportedly laid off its entire AI team, including the department head.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney apologises and seemingly rectifies life insurance situation of laid off worker with terminal brain cancer
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, has responded online to messages about an ex-employee with terminal brain cancer that was laid off last week.
Read the email Oracle is sending to laid-off employees
Oracle began global layoffs on Tuesday as it tries to curb costs. Read the email it sent to affected employees.
Deus Ex game studio Eidos Montreal cuts 124 jobs
Eidos Montreal, which worked on games from the Deus Ex and Tomb Raider franchises, stated that 124 people are being laid off.
Report: Series Entertainment subsidiary Pixelberry lays off staff
Series Entertainment-owned mobile dev Pixelberry Studios, known for Choices, has reportedly laid off staff for the second time in two years.
The list of people hit by recent Epic layoffs has been turned into a dedicated portal for recruiters
Google sheet turned into dedicated website, while Tim Sweeney steps in following outcry over laid-off worker losing cancer treatment
Epic to 'Solve' Life Insurance After Terminally Ill Employee Was Laid Off
"Sorry to everyone"
Jeff Bezos Says 'I Would Love To See A Trillion Humans Living In The Solar System' — Then We Could Have '1,000 Mozarts And 1,000 Einsteins'
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos isn't thinking small. He's thinking a trillion people big. On the "Lex Fridman Podcast" in 2023, Bezos laid out a vision that sounds more like science fiction than a business...
Corvette ZR1X Drags Three Tesla S Plaids, It's an 8-Second Crash Course in Speed and Acceleration
The hybrid sportscar ran consecutive quarter-mile passes in the high 8s, putting a bus length between its taillights and the Teslas’ front bumpers
Canadian business stalls over US trade deal jitters
STORY: The Canadian manufacturing hub of Windsor is home to thousands of small and specialized part makers and caters primarily to car companies and equipment manufacturers. The city thrives on close integration with Detroit, America's automotive capital, just across the river.That means it's also on the frontline of tariff and trade uncertainty with Canada's largest trading partner. JACKIE RAYMOND: "Even if we don't directly work with the automotive industry, we indirectly do."Jackie Raymond is co-owner of FASTSIGNS, a Canadian company that designs and installs custom business signs and graphics.The company is coming off its toughest year since the pandemic. Orders from its core automotive clients dried up.And while a new project brought some relief, the company says customers are placing smaller orders, demanding longer payment terms, and bargaining harder on prices.:: FileIt all points to uncertainty tied to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is up for review this year. It's a deal U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he could scrap.:: Washington, D.C. / December 2, 2025TRUMP: "...and we'll either let it expire or we'll maybe work out another deal with Mexico and Canada...":: FileThe agreement - known as CUSMA north of the border - exempts most Canadian goods from U.S. levies.While Mexico has started formal negotiations with the U.S. over the deal's renewal, Canada has so far only held informal talks.RAYMOND: "I think the CUSMA is very, very important because it trickles down to every little business right down to your barber shop and your nail shop, which will affect all of our customers."The situation in Windsor reflects a broader unease facing Canada's economy, which contracted 0.6% in the fourth quarter. About 90% of the city's exports cross the border, often multiple times during production.Manufacturing accounts for nearly a quarter of employment in the Windsor-Essex region.Its chamber of commerce, which represents about 750 businesses, says companies paused investments, delayed production, and cut jobs at the height of the tariff uncertainty last year. :: FileWindsor partly regained its footing as Trump exempted USMCA-compliant exports from Canada from tariffs in March last year.But uncertainty still drags on business confidence and Windsor's unemployment level remains one of the highest among major cities in Canada.Local shops complain of lower traffic and restaurants report thinner crowds.And builders say the housing market – often among the first sectors to show strain from the knock-on effects of tariff uncertainties – is near a standstill.Brent Klundert of BK Cornerstone, a local real estate builder, said he laid off 13 of his 21 staff as sales and prices slumped last year. "And you know, when people are going to make the biggest investment of their life, they really want confidence in their job, in the longevity of their job in the economy itself. And people lost that due to the tariffs.” // “If we can get through CUSMA, if we can get through our trade agreements with the US, I think that that will add a lot of confidence into the marketplace that we've been lacking.”Since January Klundert has rehired 10 of his employees, hoping homebuyers would start coming back.So far, only a few have.
Pediatric units close at Fountain Valley hospital after UCI Health layoffs, union says
UCI Health laid off 25 registered nurses at the hospital, leading to the closure of its pediatric and pediatric intensive care units, CNA said.
Fortnite developers say there will be a huge impact on development "for the rest of the year and likely beyond" following mass layoffs
Fortnite developers are still in shock following over 1,000 colleagues being laid off by Epic Games, and the game's immediate future might look dark.
Exclusive: Plaid buys media company This Week in Fintech
It's first media buy comes as Plaid seeks to extend customer relationships.
The creator of Fortnite has laid off more than 1,000 staff – despite billions in revenue
Huge cuts announced this week show that truly no developer working in games is safe from corporate whims
FEC filings reveal how Blackburn laid the groundwork for governor campaign without personal fortune
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn has used political connections and standing as a close ally of President Donald Trump to raise large sums of cash.
Employees are taking pay cuts in huge numbers
After getting laid off, many professionals are being forced to take jobs with much lower salaries than what they were earning before.
UCI Health says it will lay off 150 in 'strategic restructuring'
About 1% of the system's workforce is expected to be laid off as the county's only academic health system restructures, citing cuts at the federal level.
My husband and I were laid off at the same time. Instead of panicking, we started our own business that now has 600 employees.
We both lost our jobs. So we started a company.
After being laid off in 2020, my husband and I launched Larroudé from home. Today, the shoe brand employs 600 people and generates millions.
What’s at stake for UK in May’s local elections: six key questions
Reform, Plaid Cymru, the SNP and the Greens are all banking on big gains and nationwide repercussions
Your Thymus and Your Healthspan
Our thymus gland plays a central role in the development or our immune system, specifically for supporting T cell development (how these cells got their name, maturation and differentiation in the thymus) and discriminating between self and foreign, non-self antigen proteins with production of dendritic cells. As we age, our thymus gland shrinks—the process known as involution—with progressive change from spongy to fatty tissue, with loss of functionality. But this process, with respect to timeline and extent, markedly varies from one person to the next. And to make things even more complicated, our thymus gland anatomy and precise location in the chest also is highly variable. So the famous Frank Netter diagrams from the 1960s (such as at left below) don’t capture the remarkable heterogeneity that a random set of 12 chest CT scans (below at right). What I consider as 2 landmark papers in Nature this week (here and here) used AI to quantify health of the thymus in 2 large cohorts, and then correlate the metric to a broad array of health outcomes. In this edition of Ground Truths, I’m going to cover three questions: (1) How was thymus health determined by AI?; (2) How is thymus health linked to key clinical outcomes? and (3) Are there ways we can promote a healthy (aka rejuvenate) thymus gland in our later years? Subscribe 1. How was thymus health determined by AI? This was accomplished by extensive work developing and validating an AI pipeline for 2 stages, the first for localization and segmentation of the thymus bed, and the second to quantify a digital marker, termed the thymic health score. There’s a lot to this algorithmic development, so I won’t go into all the details, but just provide a rudimentary outline of what was done. The 1st stage used supervised learning with 2 radiologists reviewing 2,461 chest CT scans. That work trained a 3D U-Net model to automatically identify the thymic bed’s 3D cropped region using center of mass coordinates, which reached 99.8% accuracy. The 2nd stage used a foundation model that was pre-trained with SwAV (which stands for Swapping Assignment between multiple Views), a self-supervised model, that generated a high-dimensional thymus representation of 4,096 features. That compares to the radiology reductionist and subjective scoring of 0 to 3 where 0 means the thymus is fully degenerated and fatty, and 3 is considered dense, intact glandular soft tissue. Notably, the self-supervised learning (SSL) performance was superior to supervised (AUC ~0.75 vs 0.55, respectively) reflecting the shallowness of the 0-3 classifier vs SSL’s holistic, self-taught AI. The thymic health score ranged from 0 to 100, with the highest number indexed to fully preserved thymic health. The algorithmic work extended to explainability with both Shapely value distribution, meaning the model was holistic not relying on any “magic” pixel, and occlusion sensitivity, demonstrating the model’s performance was not affected by ribs, sternum, lung tissue, but rather focused on the thymic bed directly. Below are a few saliency maps from the occlusion sensitivity that indicate the thymic bed focus, not affected by neighboring structures, using the jet color scale. Now the AI was ready for processing ~25,000 CT scans, each over 30 MB files, from the 2 large participant cohorts to provide a thymic health score, it did so in less than 14 hours, which is less than 2 seconds per scan! Share 2. How is thymus health linked to key clinical outcomes? The two cohorts were the National Lung Screening Trial, NLST (N=25,031) and the Framingham Heart Study, FHS (N=2,581) each with baseline demographics and long term follow up of >12 years for health outcomes. From the NSLT, you can see below that increased age and body-mass index were correlated to reduced thymic health. And, overall, men had reduced thymic health scores compared with women. There are a lot of graphs in the paper for outcomes, for both the NLST and FHS cohorts. To simplify the major outcomes, below is a composite Figure with striking reduction of all-cause mortality and for the different causes of death. The results were consistent between the 2 cohorts. For example, the cardiovascular mortality hazard ratio average was 0.57 in NLST and 0.38 in FHS (weighted to be 0.53 for the aggregate). The reduction of mortality also extended to digestive diseases and pulmonary disease (data not shown below). Lung cancer incidence was reduced by 36% for high vs low thymic health (Figure below, with a panel -incidence and b panel-mortality, adjusted for age, sex, BMI, smoking status). Notably, there was a smoker’s paradox: lower incidence and improved survival for lung cancer in smokers who had a high thymus health score. Smoking was associated with lower thymic scores whereas alcohol was not. Higher thymic health was linked to higher HDL cholesterol, lower triglycerides, lower fasting blood glucose, and lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Inflammation biomarkers, such as C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, were elevated in the people with lower thymic health scores. In their second paper, the same team looked at the relationship between thymic score and outcomes for 3,476 patients receiving cancer immunotherapy. The non-small cell lung cancer progression-free survival was reduced in patients with low thymic health score. A parallel relationship for survival was seen for other types of cancer including melanoma, breast, and kidney with a 44% lower risk among high thymic scores (Figure). A similar pattern was seen with different immune checkpoint inhibitors. The thymus health score outperformed programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1)and tumor mutation burden (TMB) assay of the tumor and was an independent prognostic marker of progression-free survival. In this dataset, a direct connect with thymus score and adaptive immune function was noted with a correlation before cancer treatment for both T-cell diversity and thymus T-cell production (a metric known as T cell receptor excision circles). Thymus Removal Study There is a highly relevant citation about thymus function before moving onto ways to rejuvenate it. In 2023, a very important study of thymus removal during cardiothoracic surgery was published, with 1146 patients undergoing thymus removal vs 1146 matched controls (mean age 55 years). The adverse outcomes for thymus removal were striking, with a 2.9 higher risk of all-cause mortality and doubling of cancer incidence, 1.5 fold increase in cancer mortality, and 1.5-fold increase in autoimmune diseases. The immune function showed marked compromise after thymus removal, as reflected by CD4+ and CD8+ T cells (Figure below) Share Ground Truths 3. Are there ways we can promote a healthy (aka rejuvenate) thymus gland in our later years? In recent months we’ve learned a lot about the process of thymus involution and the pathways by which this may be modulated. Thymus involution is primarily due to loss to thymus epithelial cells (TECs) and there are 2 subtypes with different functions: the cortical, responsible for positive selection of T cells, and the medullary, for negative selection. When adipose tissue infiltrates the thymus, thymic adipocytes are pro-inflammatory, knocking out T-cell output. Likewise, systemic inflammation, or “inflammaging,” from smoking, obesity, and chronic stress promote thymic adipocytes. Now, from preclinical studies, we know about key pathways that account for these processes. Historically, back in 2014, FOXN1 was recognized as a single master transcription factor essential for TEC function, with studies in mice with forced FOXN1 upregulation leading to thymus regeneration. That laid the foundation for potential regrowth of quiescent thymus cells. It took awhile to find pathways to accomplish this goal and to even refute its role as the master regulator. The Liver-Thymus Axis Feng Zhang and his team recently showed that injection of an mRNA vaccine to the liver encoding DLL1, IL-7 and FLT3-L in combination, factors known to support thymopoiesis (Figure), successfully enhanced immune function in aged mice. However, the effect was transient. The FGF21 Story Two reports in 2025 addressed the thymus gland’s production of FGF21, a growth factor (fibroblast growth factor 21) and its control of thymus involution. This growth factor is also produced by the liver, but it doesn’t have impact on the thymus in aged rodent models. In contrast, The liver’s hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) has been shown to reverse senescent TEC structural changes. Growth hormone stimulates production of insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in the liver and the thymus. Two small studies in human participants (TRIIM, for Thymus Regeneration, Immunorestoration, and Insulin Mitigation) of 6 and 50 people, respectively, treated with combined human growth hormone, metformin and DHEA, suggested the potential of slowing epigenetic aging and improving thymus mass and function. But the combination of drugs, small sample, and lack of controls make conclusions murky. Increased thymus FGF21 led to increased CD8 T cells in old mice and extended healthspan and improved physical performance. Building on the previous FOXN1 data, ablation of β-klotho, the obligatory co-receptor for FOXN1, accelerated thymic aging. The benefit to FGF21 was confirmed in a companion paper using an FGF21 knock-in mouse model showing thymus enlargement and increased TECs throughout the lifespan. (schematic Figure below). The accompanying editorial for these 2 papers speculated: “The proposed link between age-associated thymus involution and organismal aging is intriguing, and suggests we might seek to achieve systemic rejuvenation by counteracting thymic involution.” Other Factors Lessons from the Axolotl (Mexican Salamander) In an elegant set of experiments of the axolotl (Figure), known for its complete thymus regeneration after total surgical removal, mediators were identified. Surprisingly FOXN1 was dispensable. But midkine, a growth factor, appeared to be the driver, the initiator of thymus cell growth, survival, and repair. Other components that contributed were Postn+ (periostin-expressing mesenchymal niches) and Ccl19, a chemokine protein from the bloodstream. RANK and RANKL RANK (receptor activator of nuclear factor κB its ligand (RANKL) have been considered key regulators of medullary TECs. In a study of both aged mice and human thymus cell cultures, their key role was confirmed, with multiple benefits of resorting TEC function, recruitment of progenitor cells, and T cell development. Subscribe Summing Up This body of work strongly supports the health of the thymus gland as a critical regulator of human healthspan, not just a correlate or link. The new landmark studies are reinforced by the regenerative biology experimental models that have shown, via an array of mediators, that healthspan of aged mice is at least in part dependent on thymus gland function and its critical role for maintaining adaptive immunity. It sure seems that we’d be better off having an immune reservoir of naive T cells instead of a profile in older adults of exhausted, low quality, memory T cells, with a senescent phenotype. It is striking that we ignored the importance of the thymus gland for many decades. A wake-up call was the results of the thymectomy matched control study reviewed here, with the opposite of high thymic health score improved health outcomes. The convergence of AI and healthspan here is notable. The exceptional and laborious work for developing and validating (no less explaining) the AI to quantify thymus health set the foundation for probing the connect the major health outcomes in two cohorts with extensive follow-up. We’ve never had a way to meaningfully quantify the thymus gland before, so this represents important leverage of supervised, self-supervised, and transformer models. The study wouldn’t have been possible without AI. And it begs the question as to whether there are ways we can maintain our thymus at a high health score. But it’s not so simple to rejuvenate our thymus. There are multiple risks including the induction of autoimmunity, increasing the risk of cancer, and inducing a pro-inflammatory state. For example, factors that increase TEC proliferation could compromise the medulllary negative selection process and leak out auto-reactive (self-attacking) T cells. Thymic cells could be induced to proliferate, but we know, for example, that growth hormone and IGF-1 are associated with an increase risk of cancer. If thymus rejuvenation doesn’t clear out the accumulated senescent cells in older adults, then inflammation within the gland could block the production of TECs. Keeping these risks in mind, we now have identified many ways to keep our thymus healthy as we age that undoubtedly will be tested in clinical trials going forward. Ultimately, the benefit-to-risk tradeoffs will be defined. In the meantime, we have desperately needed an immunome. As I’ve stressed in multiple prior Ground Truths, we have no test in the clinic to assess a patient’s immune status! It was very encouraging for me to get an email from Hugo Aerts, the senior author of the landmark papers in the days after they were published: “I also wanted to say that your Substack on “Why We Need an Immunome” was inspiring for this work. We found it a very compelling perspective and greatly enjoyed reading it.” Just having an assessment of a person’s immune status via a chest CT scan, with millions of these performed per year, might help in guiding the right immunotherapy for cancer (e.g. more intensive, combinations for those with low thymic health scores) and help define people who are increased risk for age-related diseases of cancer, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative. The main theme of Super Agers is that we now have many layers of data (genetics, proteins, biomarkers, organ clocks that can be integrated via multimodal AI) for us to define a person’s specific risk decades before one of these age-related diseases leads to symptoms, enabling prevention. From the new studies this week, we can add thymus health score as yet another way to understand a person’s risk, a window into their adaptive immune system and healthspan. And perhaps someday we will be able to safely rejuvenate the thymus, or maintain its health through one’s life, and use the thymus health score to monitor. NB: I wrote this post (No A.I.) A Quick Poll Loading... ********************************************************************* Thanks to Ground Truths subscribers (now > 200,000) from every US state and 212 countries. Your subscription to these free essays and podcasts makes my work in putting them together worthwhile. Please join! If you found this interesting PLEASE share it! Share Ground Truths Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Please don’t hesitate to post comments and give me feedback. Let me know topics that you would like to see covered. Leave a comment Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. It enabled us to accept and support 47 summer interns in 2025! We aim to accept even more of the several thousand who will apply for summer 2026.
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