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The cult of objectivity has broken consciousness science

With 22 competing theories and no consensus in sight, the science of consciousness is lost. In this exclusive IAI interview, Berkeley psychedelics researcher and bestselling author of a new book on consciousness Michael Pollan insists that even though consciousness lies beyond traditional forms of scientific investigation, we should resist becoming dualists who see it as something radically different from ordinary stuff in the world. Instead, he makes the case for reimagining science itself: it must stop reaching for objective descriptions of physical reality, and instead embrace subjectivity as the indispensable core of all inquiry. Alasdair Craig: How did your experiences with psychedelics get you interested in consciousness?Michael Pollan: One of the things that happens on psychedelics is that they foreground consciousness. What formerly seemed perfectly transparent and ever present—and yet, non-existent, as water is to fish—suddenly you see it. The metaphor I use in the book is that psychedelics sponge the windscreen. Suddenly you realize: wow, there’s a windscreen, there is this phenomenon that’s mediating my relationship to reality. This is not an unusual realization on psychedelics. I think a lot of people are called to think about consciousness after psychedelic experiences. So that was the proximate inspiration for A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (2026).And then there was a more specific way in which psychedelics influence the book. That was a particular experience I had on psilocybin. I had the sensation that the plants in my garden were conscious and returning my gaze, with their own point of view and agency, and I got curious as to how to evaluate an insight like that. I mean, what’s the truth quotient of insights you have on psychedelics? And I was reading William James—who, of course, wrote beautifully about mystical experience—and he said, we can’t judge the metaphysics here, but we should pay attention to two criteria: (1) How useful is it to think this is true? He was a pragmatist, of course. And (2) can we subject it to other ways of knowing to validate it? Because maybe we should treat these insights as hypotheses. And that’s kind of how I approach psychedelics, as a great generator of hypotheses, but they need to be tested against other ways of knowing. And so that led me down this long path exploring the science of plant intelligence and plant sentience.AC: I love your phrase, “smudging the windowpane of conscious experience.” So do you now start to think, actually, even when I’m not on psychedelics, I’m just seeing a screen all the time, which is not reality, but rather is my conscious experience, behind which reality is hidden?MP: Well, you know, not when I’m brushing my teeth and making breakfast! But yes, in meditation, certainly. I mean, one of the things you realize is that my experience happens to be this way now, but it could be another way. And many things can affect it. My morning coffee changes the screen in various ways, sharpens certain things.___The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness.___There’s this wonderful metaphor in Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, where he thinks we channel consciousness, and that what the brain does is edit it, and there’s a reducing valve. And psychedelics open the reducing valve wider. I don’t know that I’m ready to buy into the idea that consciousness exists outside brains, but I do love that metaphor because there are times when you are more conscious than others. I know I’ve switched from window pane to valve, but you know, a camera aperture can open wider or narrower. And I do have a sense of that. I have a sense of when I’m being less conscious, and when I’m being more conscious, by which I mean, you know, more present, taking in more sensory information. So when you start thinking about consciousness as a matter of degree, that changes things also.I think when we scroll on social media, obviously, we’re conscious. But minimally so, because we don’t have to generate our own thoughts. We’re basically taking these little hits from other people and thinking their thoughts.The process of writing this book made me kind of relativize everyday consciousness as just one type, which is exactly what William James said. Normal consciousness is one type, separated by the flimsiest of screens from the other types.AC: If we stick with the metaphor of the smudge on the window that you get when you take psychedelics, it seems like we’re saying that consciousness has become like an object that you’re looking at, right? You’re looking at the smudge and that just is consciousness. But sometimes we’ll talk about consciousness as a state that you’re in, rather than an object you can perceive. You’re either conscious or you’re not conscious. So it’s difficult to really know what sort of thing we’re talking about when we talk about consciousness, right?MP: Yeah. When you say that consciousness is an object, what’s the subject? Consciousness also? The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness. So we’re in a closed loop and when we get a perspective on consciousness, we’re not achieving any distance from it. That’s one of the problems with studying consciousness. Science is predicated on an objective, God’s eye view of things, and you never get that. There’s no such thing. SUGGESTED VIEWING The brain filters consciousness With Àlex Gómez-Marín But, yeah, there is this sense, I think, that consciousness is something you can approach. Certainly, when you’re writing and trying to recreate a conscious experience, it’s a fiction, but you’re standing back from it, and looking at it. But there’s no real subject-object distinction.AC: That’s so interesting, because when philosophers start talking about consciousness, they often talk about what they call “qualia”, which is their word for the felt experience of, say, the color red. And I think that way of speaking often makes us think of the qualia as an object, which you can see out there: the redness of red. But, as you say, we also want to collapse the subject-object distinction when we talk about consciousness. So there’s something strange going on here…MP: Oh, yeah, there are many strange things going on! *AC: Let’s talk about the varieties of consciousness. Apart from perceptions, there are, pains, emotions, thoughts, and so on. What is it that holds all this diversity together so that they all count as instances of consciousness? What is it that they all have in common?MP: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, there is sensory information, right? Which we perceive coming from the world outside ourselves. And then there’s internal information, which is what’s called interoception. And this is very important too. This is where feelings come from—what are sometimes called homeostatic feelings—that are intended to get the brain to keep us in these narrow ranges of temperature and glucose and so on. That’s a very important part of consciousness. And according to some researchers, who I think are probably right, this is where consciousness begins, with these very primal feelings, like hunger and thirst and warmth and itch, and things like that. And then there’s this third thing, which is our thinking about thinking.And what holds all this together is, I think, the sense of self. Consciousness generates a self: it is probably an organizing principle. All this stuff is happening to the self. It’s a construct, I think, but it is very useful. It can connect all these different streams of consciousness to a single being or a place, metaphorically speaking.* AC: The first half of your book is about the science of consciousness. Is consciousness just another thing, like black holes or the origin of life, which we don’t yet understand, but which we should have every hope that science will one day get to the bottom of, or is there something special about consciousness that makes this unlikely?MP: It depends how you define science. As we define science now, it’s going be very difficult. Science since Galileo has had a set of rules or assumptions, which is that the proper remit of science is to deal with the objective, quantifiable, third-person world. And the physical sciences have done amazing work under that set of limitations. Galileo—for tactical reasons, not for philosophical reasons—said science should not deal with the soul, which at the time was what consciousness was considered to be. So what is subjective, what is qualitative, what is first person, we’re going to leave to the church, he said. And this was a good agreement, and it probably kept many scientists from getting burned at the stake. But it leaves science in an awkward spot, now that it wants to venture into that territory of qualities, of first-person experience. And I don’t think it has the proper tools. I think it will have to add to its toolkit in some way, and find a way to bring in phenomenology, or lived experience and introspection, which science is usually dismissive of.The challenge—we alluded to it earlier—is that the only tool you have to study consciousness with is consciousness. And what I mean by that is, the whole scientific enterprise is a manifestation of consciousness. As much as scientists like to flatter themselves with this idea that they attain a godlike perspective on what they study, when it comes to consciousness, there’s no such thing. And it’s fine for all the things you can step outside of and study from that perspective. But two areas it won’t work are consciousness and cosmology.___It could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.___With cosmology, too, you have to study the universe from inside the universe. It’s not that cosmologists haven’t made progress. We know a lot about the age of the universe and expansion and things like that. But we can’t penetrate what happened before the Big Bang. We just don’t have the tools because we can’t stand outside.The fact that there are 22 full-scale theories of consciousness tells you all you need to know: we’re kind of lost. And I was surprised to find that we are more lost than I thought we were when I started this. I thought that there’d be leading theories, or that we had experiments that we could conduct that would nail some of this down. And the fact is, we don’t.So, I don’t know if science can solve it. But, of course, we can change the rules of science. A really influential book for me was a book called The Blind Spot, by two physicists, Marcello Gleiser and Adam Frank, and a philosopher, Evan Thompson. It’s a reminder that science is a social practice. It’s organized in a certain way and it can be organized in a different way. But it has this huge blind spot at the center of it, which is its failure to recognize that it is a form of consciousness itself, and it doesn’t have a good way of taking account of lived experience.AC: On the one hand, I think you want to resist traditional dualism, which would say that consciousness is something magical, something supernatural, right? But on the other hand, you’re accepting that there is this division in reality between the stuff that you can investigate objectively and measure, and so on—the stuff that science has been good at finding out about—and consciousness, which, for some reason, you can’t objectively measure. Some would take this to suggest that the dualism is actually right. Is there a way of reconciling these two strands of your thinking?MP: To call it magical is full of value judgement. I mean, you could just say immaterial. The interesting thing is, I think, that intuitively we’re all dualists. And I don’t know whether that’s because we’re children of Descartes and other cultures are less dualist than we are. Or it may be because that’s how consciousness feels. It feels different than the body. It feels separate from the body. But I don’t think we should trust that intuition.AC: So let’s think about ways that science might be changed to get at consciousness. I suppose the starting point would be the way that you begin the second half of your book. You have this nice line from William James, where he says, “We now begin our study of the mind from within.” Could you give us some sense of the ways of studying the mind from within? What does this involve?MP: I don’t know what that science looks like. But one of the points I’m making is that it depends on the humanities. I found that I learned as much, if not more, about consciousness, from reading novels and poetry. There is a sense of the fullness and complexity of consciousness that you don’t get in any scientific account. I interviewed this stream-of-consciousness writer and I approached her as an expert on consciousness, and she is. So I think that dialogue is really important.I’m reading Ben Lerner’s new novel, Transcription. Just read the first page of this novel: it’s a man falling asleep on a train, going to conduct an interview, and there is the experience of being in the train, facing backwards, there’s the view outside, but there’s a reflection of himself through which he’s seeing outside. There’s the memory of dropping his kids off at school. All this is going on in one moment of consciousness. Scientists aren’t going anywhere near that. But I think it’s useful for them to think about. That’s where we’re trying to go: like, how does such a layered experience happen? You know, it also makes you wonder, could a computer ever do this? And it gives you some doubt.*AC: Before we get to computers, perhaps we could talk briefly about plants. How did you come to feel that they are sentient?MP: Well, it was a psychedelic experience, and it’s not unusual on psychedelics. In fact, there’ve been studies about how people become animists during psychedelic experience. Their belief in animism arises after a single psychedelic experience.You know, most scientists would say this is all a myth. But we have only 400 years of the age of enlightenment and science. Before that, we were animists, and if you go around the world, most indigenous cultures are still animists, and children are animists, by and large, until they go to school. So it could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.As I said, I wanted to test this idea, and see whether there was conventional scientific evidence for it. And there’s fascinating work going on in a field that calls itself—in a rather cheeky way—plant neurobiology. These are people who fully realize there are no neurons in plants, but they’re trolling conventional botanists! And they’re doing experiments that are demonstrating that plants can learn and remember, which is kind of amazing: how do you store a memory without neurons? They’re finding plants that can solve problems, that can hear and see. In fact, they have 20 senses to our five or six. For example, a bean plant looking for something to twine, and given a pole within eight inches or so of it, knows where that pole is and will aim its spiraling reach at that pole. What is that about? Is it bouncing signals off of it?One of the spookiest things is the fact that the same anesthetics that put us out put plants out. You might think that plants are already out, but they’re not. They’re just slow. If you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and give it an anesthetic, it will stop reacting. So you have to ask yourself, what is lost when the plant is anaesthetized? Some state of alertness, of awareness, of its environment, of reactivity. I’m not prepared to call that consciousness, but maybe it’s sentience—which is a simpler form of consciousness, and involves the ability to sense what’s going on in your environment and assess what’s good and bad for you and act appropriately. That may be a universal quality of life.AC: Let’s turn from plants to AI. You point out that LLMs are trained on the internet rather than direct interactions with reality. You put this really nicely when you say the internet is not the world so much as a shadow cast by the world. So LLMs are living in this kind of shadow world, or in Plato’s cave, as you put it. What’s the significance of this for AI consciousness and moral consideration? And, to recall the beginning of our conversation, if we’re stuck behind a veil or screen of consciousness, are we also stuck in a kind of shadow world?MP: I don’t think they’re the same shadow worlds because our world includes nature and other people. And even if it’s mediated in some ways... There is a reality out there, and we are in relation to it, through consciousness. There’s friction with it. What’s missing from the LLMs is that friction with the real world. There’s more to the world than human representation, which is what they’re dealing with. And that means that so far, AI is a cultural technology for combining thoughts we’ve already had. SUGGESTED VIEWING Cracking the code for thought With Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, Max Tegmark, Güneş Taylor Genuine creativity is more than collage. A lot of what AI does now is tantamount to collage, putting this with that and you know, that’s part of art, certainly. But there are also genuinely new ideas that come into the world that don’t come in through manipulating the representations we already have. So it remains to be seen whether AIs can be truly creative in that more radical sense.But my arguments against AI becoming conscious have to do with the fact that the idea of AI consciousness is based on this faulty metaphor that the brain is a computer. There are dimensions in which the brain is like a computer—it certainly does its share of computation. But computers have this sharp distinction between hardware and software, and brains don’t. In a brain, hardware and software are identical. Every memory is a physical change to the brain. Brains are not interchangeable in the way computers are. So this idea that you could take the consciousness out and somehow run it on another substrate, a silicon substrate, seems foolhardy.Anyway, it’s a more extended argument, and I may be wrong. And when we move to computers that aren’t based on silicon—neuromorphic computers and things like that—all bets may be off.AC: Regarding your point about LLMs being stuck in the world of our representations—the internet or whatever—and not being able to interact with reality, are these representations, the world of the internet, themselves part of reality? We’ve created the internet, but it’s still a real thing that exists. And so while the LLMs may be trapped within that part of reality, they’re nevertheless within reality and interacting with it and so on. So it’s not obvious that there’s a barrier there to them becoming conscious and being creative.MP: Yeah, I mean, if our consciousness is built out of human culture, which is what we’re talking about with all those representations. But I tend to think consciousness comes a bit more out of nature and friction with the natural world, but...AC: So there’s a fundamental divide between the natural world and human artefacts?MP: And we lose track of that, and especially people in this computer world. You know, the people who are creating these AI systems, my guess is they’ve been into video games since the age of three, and they didn’t go outside a lot. And their own contact with nature is somewhat limited. I could be wrong, it’d be a very interesting thing to ask, all the wizards of AI, whether they like to go fishing and hiking and do things like that. Or were they on computers from a very early age? I interviewed Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who came to believe that LaMDA, the Google LLM out at the time, was conscious and deserved personhood. It was very clear that he didn’t see a distinction between this bubble in which he lived and the real world. And I think we’ve all been distanced from the natural world, and this is taking us even further away. But it’s still there, you know, and we still have bodies, and we’re still mortal, and we don’t live in a simulation.AC: I think that’s a great place to finish. Michael Pollan, thank you very much!

Jun 3 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • iai.tv

Josh Turek, a Paralympian, Wins the Democratic Senate Primary in Iowa

Mr. Turek, a state lawmaker, beat Zach Wahls in a contest that tested the party’s anti-establishment fervor.

Jun 2 • 9:43 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

How Science Works

The 2nd Weather and Climate Livestream is now underway. It is organized by a group of early-career researchers concerned about declining funding for the field and eager to demonstrate how weather and climate research makes a difference in our lives. Last year’s event was a great success, drawing terrific press coverage including a piece in the NY Times. This year features a strong lineup of talks aimed at a general audience — I highly recommend tuning in. Share I gave a talk yesterday about How Science Works in Three Steps. You can see the short presentation here (I’ve appended a transcript below): And please tune into the livestream here. It runs through tomorrow at 6 pm ET. Thanks for reading The Climate Brink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Cleaned up transcript: Thank you, and thanks to everyone tuning in. I want to talk about something I think a lot of people don’t really understand: how science actually works. Arguments over any scientific topic — climate change, vaccines, you name it — revolve around competing claims. For climate change, the claims are: Is the Earth warming? Are humans to blame? What will the impacts be? Over the last 150 years, the scientific community has developed a remarkably robust method for sorting out which claims are true and which aren’t. That method is what I want to walk through. So how does science generate knowledge? If you ask a high schooler, they’ll give you the version they learned in ninth grade: an individual scientist forms a hypothesis, runs an experiment, and draws a conclusion. That’s more or less what happens at the individual level, though in practice it’s more iterative — you design, test, and refine all at once, landing on a slightly different idea each time until you reach a conclusion about whatever hypothesis you’ve ended up with. But this isn’t science. It’s only step one. Any individual scientist can make mistakes — scientists are human. Maybe there’s a bug in the code, maybe there’s an error in the experiment. Just because someone ran an experiment and reached a conclusion doesn’t mean it’s right, and scientists don’t treat a single result as settled truth. Step two is peer review, the first layer of quality control. The scientist writes up what they did and submits it to a journal, which sends the paper to other experts in the field. Those experts judge whether the methods are sound, whether it properly references prior work, and whether the conclusions actually follow from the data. Ask any scientist and they’ll tell you peer review is miserable — the comments come back brutal, often harsh, and you have to revise and resubmit, sometimes multiple times, before an editor finally accepts the paper. Peer review catches an immense amount of bad science, but it can’t catch all of it. Reviewers get sloppy or overworked, they miss obvious mistakes, and they can’t catch hidden errors — a bug in the code, a misread instrument. So a peer-reviewed paper making it into a journal doesn’t mean the paper is right. Nobody treats a single paper as the final word. That’s where step three comes in: the crucible of science. Important results get retested by the broader community. If you publish something interesting, it gets dissected. Sometimes people try to reproduce your work directly but more often they test its implications. If someone claims X is true, and that implies that Y is also true, then scientists will go check Y. If a claim survives this gauntlet long enough, it becomes accepted. That’s how we generate knowledge. Let me give an example: the ozone hole. In 1985 — and I doubt many people watching were around then, but I remember it well — Joe Farman and his colleagues published observations from Antarctica showing that a huge chunk of ozone was disappearing every year. This was shocking because most atmospheric chemists had expected ozone loss to occur at mid-latitudes and high altitudes, not over the South Pole. When scientists see something they don’t understand, they rush to explain it, and several competing hypotheses quickly appeared in the peer-reviewed literature. One pointed to chlorine chemistry from chlorofluorocarbons. A second blamed nitrogen chemistry, possibly driven by solar proton events — meaning the sun was responsible. A third argued it wasn’t chemistry at all but dynamics: winds were carrying naturally low-ozone air from the lower atmosphere up into the stratosphere. Then the community went to work testing which theory could survive the crucible. Aircraft flew into the ozone hole and found no nitrogen, ruling out the nitrogen theory. Measurements showed the air in the polar vortex was descending, not rising — which would bring high-ozone air down, eliminating the dynamics theory. Meanwhile, those same flights measured enormous amounts of chlorine, strongly correlated with exactly the regions where ozone was being destroyed. That became known as the “smoking gun” paper, and it established that chlorine chemistry was the cause. Through this process, a consensus emerged. And it’s worth being clear that this consensus is organic. There’s no vote, no poll, no meeting where it gets decided. Scientists go to conferences, talk to one another, and independently arrived at the same answer. It’s the ultimate free market of ideas. After the consensus was established, the peer-reviewed literature doesn’t even mention the rival theories — it simply takes chlorine chemistry as given. That’s what a consensus looks like. It doesn’t mean every single scientist agrees, but it does mean there’s no longer any legitimate debate. So where can you see what scientists actually think? It’s all in the peer-reviewed literature, which contains the entire historical record of the argument: the discovery, the competing theories, the debate, the testing, and finally the community coalescing around one answer. But there’s a lot of room for misrepresentation. You can dig up an old paper claiming the ozone hole was caused by dynamics and wave it around as if there still was a debate about the cause of the ozone hole — without mentioning that the idea was disproven long ago and that even its own authors no longer believe it. There’s a bigger problem, though: the peer-reviewed literature is written in a language I call “nerd.” It’s extremely hard to read — honestly, some of it is hard for me to follow. It takes graduate students years to work through the literature in a single field, so we can’t expect policymakers or ordinary people to do it. This is where scientific assessments come in. The most famous is the IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The job of an assessment is to read and summarize the peer-reviewed literature, synthesizing what’s settled, what’s been disproven, and what remains genuinely debated. To ensure the assessments accurately summarize the peer-reviewed literature, assessments are written by large teams, which are far less prone to bias than individuals and which dilute the influence of any one scientist with an axe to grind. The teams are deliberately assembled to avoid stacking the deck, and the reports themselves go through multiple rounds of peer review. That rigorous process is exactly why you can trust them and why people consider the IPCC to be the gold standard of what we know about the climate system. An assessment produced through a different process may well not be credible. You can even watch the consensus evolve across assessments. Take the attribution of warming. The 1990 IPCC report said the observed warming was broadly consistent with model predictions but also comparable to natural variability — in other words, we don’t know whether humans are responsible. By 1995, it concluded that the balance of evidence suggested a discernible human influence — a sentence only a committee could write, and one that barely commits to anything. By 2001, most of the warming over the previous 50 years was judged “likely” due to greenhouse gases; by 2007, “very likely”; by 2013, “extremely likely.” The 2023 report says essentially the same as 2013 — there’s not much stronger language available. So, to wrap up: science is our ultimate tool for deciphering the universe — the most successful method we’ve ever developed for determining what’s true and what isn’t. Our understanding is written into the peer-reviewed literature, so if you want to know what scientists think, that’s where to look. And for those of us who don’t speak nerd, scientific assessments are the Rosetta Stone — they translate nerd into English. Let me open the floor to questions. Thank you.

Jun 2 • 10:35 AM EDT • Science • theclimatebrink.com

WATCH LIVE: Rubio testifies on Capitol Hill for the 1st time since start of Iran war

The Republican former senator will sit before House and Senate committees to make the State Department's annual budget request. But the focus is likely to shift quickly to the already unsteady ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, which has been further tested in recent days by back-and-forth attacks.

Jun 2 • 9:25 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

ASRock Radeon RX 9070 GRE Steel Legend Review

ASRock's Radeon RX 9070 GRE Steel Legend features the most powerful cooler among all the cards tested today. With its triple-slot, triple-fan design, it runs cool and quiet. The Steel Legend is also the only card with RGB lighting. Gaming performance is solid, making it a great fit for 1440p gaming, and at $550, the GRE could be a strong alternative to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5070.

Jun 2 • 8:54 AM EDT • Technology • techpowerup.com

Beaten Kentucky Derby Favorite Further Ado Returns In Matt Winn

Spendthrift Farm’s Blue Grass Stakes (G1) winner Further Ado headlines a talented field of eight 3-year-olds entered in next Sunday’s 29th running of the $500,000 Matt Winn Stakes (G3) at Churchill Downs. Contested at 1 1/16 miles for 3-year-olds, the Matt Winn shares the Sunday ...

May 31 • 7:04 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

New solar desalination breakthrough makes fresh water without toxic brine

Scientists have developed a solar desalination system that turns seawater into drinking water without creating environmentally damaging brine. Special laser-textured metal panels use sunlight to evaporate water while automatically moving salt deposits away from the working surface, preventing clogging. The process was successfully tested with water from three oceans and can recover nearly all salts as solids. Those leftover materials could even become a source of valuable lithium for batteries.

May 31 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

ARC Raiders PvE 'Rebellion' Map Condition Being Tested in China

Embark Studios appears to be testing a new PvE-focused ARC Raiders map condition in China called Rebellion Incident.

May 31 • 5:12 AM EDT • Technology • insider-gaming.com

BI editors tested hundreds of products in May, and these 19 were our favorites

BI editors tested hundreds of products in May and chose 19 favorites, including travel gear, breezy bedding, beauty buys, and summer style essentials.

May 30 • 12:00 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

The Future of Windows 11 Is Already Here: 9 Insider Features You Need to See

You don't have to wait for the next big update—these Windows 11 changes are already being tested in Insider builds right now.

May 30 • 12:00 PM EDT • Technology • pcmag.com

Tested: Windows 11's new Start menu lets you fully customize it, and it works surprisingly well

Windows 11’s new Start menu finally adds smaller layouts, removable sections, and deeper customization after years of user complaints.

May 29 • 9:47 PM EDT • Technology • windowslatest.com

Three people exposed to rabid bat in Snohomish County

In Snohomish County, six bats have tested positive over the last decade, but this week's bat is the second to test positive for rabies in Washington this year.

May 29 • 5:31 PM EDT • Health • seattletimes.com

3 receiving preventive treatment after exposure to rabid bat in Snohomish County home

Three Snohomish County residents are receiving preventive treatment for rabies after being exposed to a bat that tested positive for the virus, county health of

May 29 • 2:35 PM EDT • Health • komonews.com

‘She delivers results’: Jared Moskowitz endorses Lauren Book for SD 30

‘She's exactly the kind of experienced, battle-tested leader our community needs back in Tallahassee.’

May 29 • 10:53 AM EDT • Politics • floridapolitics.com

Waymo launches spacious Ojai robotaxi in major cities. We tested it.

Waymo introduced the Ojai robotaxi for spacious rides in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. We tested it out and brought our suitcases.

May 28 • 11:00 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Escaping the Heat? The Politics and Problems of Orbital Data Centers

What happens when digital systems outgrow the Earth that sustains them? Computing has always consumed energy and water, but the growing ambitions of the AI industry are pushing demand to an unprecedented scale. As pressures mount, data centers in orbit around the Earth have been pitched as a solution. But space is no escape, and what is framed as a technical fix risks entrenching digital dependence in an increasingly militarized, fragile, and crisis-prone environment. Orbital data centers simply relocate critical infrastructure into an already contested domain where the boundaries between civilian and military systems blur, satellites become strategic targets, and systemic disruption becomes a tool of coercion.

May 28 • 3:52 AM EDT • Politics • blog.prif.org

Can Farts Spread Bacteria? Scientists Actually Tested It

The conclusion: don't fart near food.

May 27 • 3:38 PM EDT • Science • zmescience.com

Ebola, chemical plants and health, hantavirus, common colds, heat and more

As they say, bugs have ears. Public health has had a relentless May. Chemical plant (near) explosions, Ebola, hantavirus, and that's before you even get to the usual suspects: common colds, heat, and ticks. Here’s an attempt to keep you up to speed and, more importantly, what it means for you and your community. But first, an announcement: World Cup The World Cup starts in 15 days (not like anyone is counting down), and we are hanging TVs in the Health Security Operations Center. It’s going to be a gorgeous, chaotic celebration of basically every culture on earth. And it’s going to take a team effort—from communities to individuals, from public health to health care—to keep people healthy. That’s where you come in. If you’re going to the games or live within 30 miles of a stadium, we would love to hear from you. Sign up for a weekly survey here. Thanks to the more than 1,280 people who have already signed up…you will be hearing from us soon!! Global disease “weather report” Hantavirus: Two more cases The global count of cruise ship passengers with hantavirus has now increased to 13 cases (11 confirmed), with three deaths. The two new cases are overseas and among people who were already quarantining: A crew member in the Netherlands. A Spanish national passenger who was quarantining at home tested positive through daily monitoring. They are now in a biocontainment unit. In the U.S., everyone remains negative. There may be more cases, given that the incubation period of hantavirus (the time from exposure to infection) is 45 days. But this week, we will reach a major milestone: the median incubation window is 18 days, and that will pass on May 29. What this means for you: Your risk from this cruise ship outbreak remains essentially nil at this point. Ebola rages on in Central Africa Big thanks to Dr. Craig Spencer, a humanitarian physician who has treated and survived Ebola, for jumping in to provide the YLE community with an update. Craig, take it from here… The combined confirmed and suspected Ebola cases in DRC are now more than 1,000. All signs are pointing to a very long and catastrophic outbreak in Central Africa: This is a vast undercount. We know this because the test positivity rate is hovering around 50%, only 20% of contacts are being traced (and in some areas, no contacts at all), and more cases keep popping up with no known connection. This all points to widespread and undetected community transmission. This is in only a week of detection. Compared to previous outbreaks, the growth is very fast, as the huge West Africa outbreak in 2016 was first detected at 49 cases and rose to 208 cases a month later. It took four months for that outbreak to reach the size of the current one in the DR Congo. The cases are spread out across 16 health zones. There are now multiple epicenters, making containment very difficult. Next door in Uganda, the case count is seven. While this number is low compared to DRC, a concerning development is that two health care workers recently tested positive with uncertain exposure histories. If they weren’t treating known Ebola cases, this means it’s spreading undetected in Uganda as well. On the ground, backlash, including the burning of health centers, has emerged, a pattern seen in nearly every outbreak and rooted in deep community distrust. It often stems from outside actors working in communities without fully understanding or addressing local priorities. Affected populations may recognize the severity of Ebola while still holding other concerns as more pressing, such as where their loved ones are buried. Community trust is essential to an effective response, but difficult to build during an active emergency. It is best established long before a crisis begins. U.S. priorities are made clear, and may backfire. The U.S. Administration has shown that its first priority is keeping Ebola out, with helping end the outbreak in the DRC a secondary concern. That's meant travel restrictions broader than anything we've imposed before — covering travelers from across the region, and reportedly some green card holders and permanent residents as well. For example, just these past two days, news broke that high-risk American travelers will be subject to a mandatory quarantine in Kenya before they are allowed to return. If an American is infected, the U.S. government plans to send them to a hospital it is standing up from scratch in Kenya. (Currently, Americans who were in the area are allowed to return but are diverted to three airports—Houston, Atlanta, and DC—for further screening.) Past administrations have used travel notices and stepped-up screening; this goes much further. At first blush, these strict precautions may sound prudent. But this approach could backfire in three ways: Restrictions this blunt give people every reason to hide where they’ve been and whom they’ve been near — making the people we most need to find harder to track, not easier. They also breed a false sense that this is someone else’s problem. But diseases are humbling. They find the small cracks in even the most impenetrable-seeming defenses. Lives lost. There is no treatment for this Ebola strain, which means survival depends heavily on the quality of the health system. We have that system in the States, but we are choosing not to use it for infected Americans. This is unbelievable and infuriating. (See a deeper dive from me here.) The only real way to lower the risk to Americans — and everyone else — is to end the outbreak in the DRC and across the region. What this means for you: If you have travel plans to this region, it’s time to cancel them. This is a high-risk situation in Central Africa, and CDC released a Level 4 Travel Advisory. There is also great uncertainty if and when the Administration will let you back in. To the general public in the U.S., your risk remains very, very low right now. U.S. disease “weather report” Ticks: past peak season? Good news, especially for people in the Northeast and Midwest: tick numbers continue to decline. Though we are at the peak of the season, this unusually early year is trending favorably. Heat-related illnesses in the North Heat risk is certainly not blanketing the entire country yet, but this week it will be moderate in the Midwest and the Southeast. What this means for you: Be sure to check the CDC HeatRisk tool. A red day isn’t the best day for that soccer game for a kid with asthma, and a stretch of orange days is a great time to check on your elderly neighbor. Common colds surging As far as respiratory viruses go, the only thing really going around right now is the common cold. It is higher this year than last year, but should peak very soon before returning this fall. Spotlight: Chemical plants Over the weekend, YLE California covered the serious situation that unfolded around a chemical plant in Orange County, California. Thankfully, the worst-case scenario (a chemical explosion) was mitigated, but only through luck. The health implications in a densely populated area could have been catastrophic. As the situation was winding down, another chemical explosion struck Washington State. This one was fatal. Health officials say the risk to surrounding residents from chemicals in the air and ground remains low, though the community deserves far greater clarity. Clean air and clean water consistently rank as Americans’ top public health concerns — yet when chemical disasters strike, communities are too often met with reassurances rather than transparency and accountability. Residents near the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio train derailment, for example, are still waiting to understand the long-term impact on their health, with few clear answers. What this means for you: Many are wondering if facilities processing potentially dangerous materials are in their neighborhoods. This interactive map allows you to enter your ZIP code and see all facilities monitored by the EPA, including any violations. Good news Ebola vaccines and treatment for the Bundibugyo species are in development. Two vaccine platforms are being explored, at least one of which may be deployable in as little as 2 months. One vaccine is being developed by Oxford, and the other uses the same biotechnology as the FDA-approved Zaire species of Ebola. (It may provide cross-protection, but it’s unclear at this point.) On the treatment side, two promising monoclonal antibody cocktails are likely to be deployed, though doses are limited and logistical hurdles remain significant challenges. Anni over at The Biotech Tea had a great explainer about the Ebola vaccine gap, if you want to read more. [ The Biotech Tea The Ebola vaccine gap, reading vessel damage, & the Makary exit 🗝️ Paid subscribers get the Biotech Term of the Week at $30/year (~$2.50/month). I try to keep it intentionally accessible, but if cost is ever a barrier, send me a message. A few people asked about expensing your subscription, so I put together a short email template… Read more 6 days ago · 10 likes · Annicka Evans, PhD ](https://www.thebiotechtea.com/p/the-ebola-vaccine-gap-reading-vessel?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has been officially renamed polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), following more than a decade of debate and input from roughly 22,000 clinicians, researchers, and patients worldwide. This is good because the old name was medically misleading, leading to patients without visible cysts being dismissed or overlooked entirely. The WHO estimates that 70% of people with the condition remain undiagnosed. A more accurate name should improve recognition, reduce stigma, and ultimately help the millions of people living with this condition get diagnosed and treated sooner. Poll Loading... Bottom line Public health situations are everywhere right now. Staying healthy takes public health professionals and systems working tirelessly behind the scenes and each of us showing up for our neighbors and communities. Love, YLE Big thanks to Ed Nirenberg for staying on top of the Ebola vaccines, Hannah Totte for all the figures, Dr. Craig Spencer for the Ebola insight, and Dr. Matt Willis for covering the chemical situation in CA. Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) comprises a team of experts, ranging from physicians to immunologists to epidemiologists to nutritionists, working together with one goal: to “Translate” ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. YLE suite of newsletters reaches over 475,000 people across more than 132 countries. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below: Subscribe

May 27 • 7:43 AM EDT • Health • yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

New Ebola Vaccine Reportedly Nearing Clinical Trials (Live Updates)

The vaccine, which hasn’t been tested on humans, would be the first capable of treating the deadly Bundibugyo strain of Ebola.

May 26 • 8:53 AM EDT • Health • forbes.com

US Treasury rout tests Washington's tolerance for higher borrowing costs

President Donald Trump's room to wage war while maneuvering on economic policy is being tested by a force largely beyond his control: the bond market.

May 24 • 9:07 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com

Can the new tubeless Chilipad 2.0 finally end your night sweats? Our first impressions of the $3,000 bed cooling system

I tested the Chilipad 2.0 mattress topper for a week. Its active cooling and comfortable design impressed me, but it lacks sleep tracking.

May 23 • 11:00 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

NH Business Notebook: Get ready for big takeaways

‘Leadership Unscripted’ returns June 4 with a new panel of battle-tested executives

May 22 • 11:44 AM EDT • Business • nhbr.com

iPhone 19 Pro prototypes are being tested with quad-curved screens, new rumor says

Expect Chinese Android smartphone makers to go back to curved screens too. Apple's iPhone 19 Pro and iPhone 19 Pro Max prototypes are currently undergoing...

May 21 • 3:41 PM EDT • Technology • gsmarena.com

Starting a business after both were fired tested them as a couple

A shared hobby — off-roading through the mud in side-by-sides — helps Stephanie Postell and her husband connect beyond work.

May 21 • 12:02 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Philly’s Smiles on the Square dental patients should get tested for HIV, hepatitis, health department says

The dentist's license has been temporarily suspended for unsafe sterilization practices.

May 20 • 2:18 PM EDT • Health • inquirer.com

Pennsylvania's Democratic Gov. Shapiro wins his primary, as do his endorsed candidates

Gov. Josh Shapiro was uncontested in Tuesday’s primary. He’s seeking a second term in the fall and puts his clout on the line in the battleground state ahead of a potential 2028 bid for the White House.

May 20 • 6:49 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

It’s the Most Hotly Contested Primary in America. Liberals Are Excited. They’re Getting It All Wrong.

The Epstein files, a MAGA civil war, and an alleged sex scandaled have turbocharged a House race.

May 19 • 5:40 AM EDT • Politics • slate.com

The UAE’s economy and image as Mideast haven are tested by war

The United Arab Emirates for decades advertised itself as a haven for business in the Middle East.

May 19 • 2:07 AM EDT • Business • seattletimes.com

A strange ripple in spacetime could be the first fingerprint of dark matter

Black holes crashing together may be revealing clues about dark matter hidden across the universe. Physicists created a new model predicting how dark matter could subtly distort gravitational waves produced during black hole mergers. When they tested the method on real LIGO data, one signal stood out as potentially carrying a dark matter imprint.

May 18 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Illinois resident suspected of hantavirus infection tested negative for illness

The risk for hantavirus to spread in Illinois remains very low, state health officials emphasized.

May 18 • 3:46 PM EDT • Health • chicago.suntimes.com

Suspected hantavirus case in Illinois tests negative, health officials say

Illinois health officials say a suspected hantavirus case in northern Illinois that was believed to be unrelated to the cruise ship outbreak has tested negative.

May 18 • 2:11 PM EDT • Health • fox32chicago.com

Canadian national health agency confirms 1 positive hantavirus test

Canada's national health agency confirms that one of four Canadians returning from a cruise ship with a hantavirus outbreak has tested positive.

May 17 • 4:00 PM EDT • Health • wdbj7.com

Canadian national health agency confirms 1 positive hantavirus test

Canada's national health agency confirms that one of four Canadians returning from a cruise ship with a hantavirus outbreak has tested positive.

May 17 • 2:37 PM EDT • Health • abc7chicago.com

Canadian national health agency confirms 1 positive hantavirus test

Canada's national health agency confirms that one of four Canadians returning from a cruise ship with a hantavirus outbreak has tested positive.

May 17 • 2:37 PM EDT • Health • abc7.com

Canadian national health agency confirms 1 positive hantavirus test

Canada's national health agency confirms that one of four Canadians returning from a cruise ship with a hantavirus outbreak has tested positive.

May 17 • 2:37 PM EDT • Health • abc30.com

Canadian national health agency confirms 1 positive hantavirus test

Canada's national health agency confirms that one of four Canadians returning from a cruise ship with a hantavirus outbreak has tested positive.

May 17 • 2:37 PM EDT • Health • abc7ny.com

Canadian national health agency confirms 1 positive hantavirus test

Canada's national health agency confirms that one of four Canadians returning from a cruise ship with a hantavirus outbreak has tested positive.

May 17 • 2:14 PM EDT • Health • seattletimes.com

China launches new war on deserts with technology tested on far side of the moon

Projects meant to help Xinjiang region build ecological barrier to protect its arable land from erosion and desertification.

May 17 • 12:00 AM EDT • Science • scmp.com

How outbreaks at sea have been helping to shape the global health system since medieval times

Outbreaks at sea are one of the oldest problems in public health. From medieval plague quarantines to modern times, they have repeatedly tested the ability to control infectious disease – and have played a key role in shaping the international public health framework in place today.

May 16 • 2:38 PM EDT • Health • pbs.org

CineD tested the Sony A7rVI: Highest DR ever tested (with a caveat) and promising prospects for the A7sIV :)

CineD tested the Sony A7rVI and wrote this: Sony managed to create a very attractive package with the a7R VI – rolling shutter values with or without the dual gain mode are very manageable, and the dynamic range results show the power of dual gain “ON” – we get up to 14 stops at SNR

May 15 • 10:49 AM EDT • Technology • sonyalpharumors.com

Sony Surprise Drops New Feature via May 2026 Beta Update

Sony has just added a new feature to the PS5 via a beta update for May 2026. A new social/community widget is being tested.

May 15 • 10:00 AM EDT • Technology • playstationlifestyle.net

How old do you look? Try this AI tool from Boston researchers

Could a selfie reveal clues about your health and life expectancy? A new AI tool developed by Boston researchers is using facial images to estimate biological age — and NewsCenter 5’s Jessica Brown tested it herself.

May 14 • 10:14 PM EDT • Health • wcvb.com

iPhone 17 Pro has the fastest charging speed of 33 phones tested

Of 33 current smartphones tested, the iPhone 17 Pro offered the fastest overall charging speed, when wired and wireless charging...

May 14 • 9:45 AM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com

I've tested the Motorola Razr Fold for two weeks, and Samsung has a new reason to be nervous

I love Razr flip phones, but Motorola has made me fall in love with the Razr Fold.

May 14 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • androidcentral.com

We Tested 33 New Phones to See Which Charge Fastest and Crown 2 Winners

We ran 33 phones from Apple, Google, OnePlus, Samsung, Motorola and more through our charging tests. The winners are given our CNET Lab Award.

May 14 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • cnet.com

This lesser-known cholesterol can quadruple your heart-attack risk

Heart specialists now recommend that everyone get tested for lipoprotein(a). Here’s what to know about it.

May 13 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • nationalgeographic.com

‘High-risk exposure’: Kansas health leaders confirm 3 people exposed to hantavirus

Health officials in Kansas say they are monitoring several people who had contact with a person who tested positive for hantavirus.

May 13 • 3:57 PM EDT • Health • kold.com

'Forever Chemicals' Found in 98.8% of Human Blood Samples Tested

"PFAS exposure rarely occurs as isolated compounds."

May 13 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencealert.com

Angry crowd demands County Council president's resignation

A week before facing voters in a contested Democratic primary for a state House seat, Allegheny County Council President Patrick Catena is confronting...

May 12 • 7:58 PM EDT • Politics • post-gazette.com

Kansas health officials monitoring 3 people with 'high-risk exposure' to hantavirus

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is monitoring three people who were exposed to a person who later tested positive for hantavirus.

May 12 • 3:02 PM EDT • Health • kmbc.com

American cruise ship passenger tests positive for hantavirus after evacuation

One of the 17 American passengers evacuated from the ship and flown to Nebraska also tested positive for the hantavirus but is not showing any symptoms, and another had mild symptoms, U.S. health officials said late Sunday.

May 11 • 9:46 AM EDT • Health • pbs.org

French evacuee from hantavirus-hit ship tests positive, health minister says

A French national evacuated from a luxury cruise ship linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak tested positive for the virus, the French health minister said Monday. Four other French passengers from the…

May 11 • 2:45 AM EDT • Health • france24.com

IndyCar Fans React To Danica Patrick's 'Most Disliked' Title

Danica Patrick was named the "most disliked" driver in IndyCar history. A new poll, conducted by IndyCar's official Reddit page, announced that Patrick, who retired from full-time racing in 2018, was named the most detested driver in the history of the sport. She didn't have much competition. ...

May 10 • 10:00 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Gateway sports notebook: Gators track and field athletes shine at Baldwin Invitational

Gateway track and field has had a season full of big moments and top finishes at dual meets and invitationals, and many of the top Gators athletes tested their mettle at the 52nd Baldwin Invitational on May 1.

May 10 • 3:01 PM EDT • Sports • tribhssn.triblive.com

$200 NVIDIA V100 server GPU mod beats RTX 3060 in local LLM test

Used NVIDIA V100 server GPU becomes low-cost local LLM accelerator Hardware Haven has tested one of the stranger GPU setups we have seen recently. The

May 10 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • videocardz.com

The weird travel accessory I never fly without

Can a glorified tube top help you sleep on a plane? Our travel reporter tested it on many long flights.

May 10 • 5:00 AM EDT • Technology • washingtonpost.com

Cups distributed at local restaurant contained led, health officials warn

The public health warning came after Public Health inspectors tested the cups for lead following a customer complaint.

May 8 • 2:55 PM EDT • Health • whio.com

Britain Has Entered a New Era of Multiparty Politics. It’s Messy.

A voting system created when two parties dominated is being tested by the rise of newer competitors.

May 8 • 11:30 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

Google's New 24/7 AI Agent Can Make Purchases on Your Behalf

Google is internally working on Remy, a Gemini-powered AI Agent that will have the ability to learn your preferences and take action your behalf. Currently being used and tested by Google...

May 7 • 1:55 PM EDT • Technology • droid-life.com

What Iran’s absence from the Venice Biennale reveals about art and politics

Rather than existing outside politics, the Venice Biennale has become a site where geopolitical tensions are actively staged and contested.

May 7 • 8:40 AM EDT • Politics • theconversation.com

Authorities scramble to limit hantavirus outbreak, trace contacts around globe

Dutch authorities said a flight attendant is being tested as the race is on to trace passengers who left a cruise ship and two flights linked to an ill woman.

May 7 • 6:45 AM EDT • Health • washingtonpost.com

Live: Hantavirus-infected patient hospitalised in Zurich as three more 'evacuated' from cruise ship

A former passenger on a cruise ship stricken by a deadly hantavirus outbreak has been hospitalised in Zurich and has tested positive for the virus, the Swiss health ministry said Wednesday. Three other…

May 6 • 6:04 AM EDT • Health • france24.com

After defying Trump, a Republican lawmaker hangs on by a thread

Republicans in Indiana’s Senate tested voters’ tolerance for defying the president. Most lost in primaries amid a wave of threats, campaign cash and popular backlash.

May 6 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Husted wins uncontested primary, set to face Brown in general

Husted was appointed to succeed Vice President JD Vance’s vacant seat in January and has received the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

May 5 • 7:30 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumnews1.com

The most coveted endorsement in SF politics — and why Pelosi hasn’t given it

The speaker emerita’s nod would have unlocked funding and allies in a heavily contested election.

May 5 • 5:30 PM EDT • Politics • sfstandard.com

Trump's influence tested in Indiana primaries after failed redistricting push

Indiana's primary will test President Donald Trump's enduring power over the Republican Party as he tries to dislodge state senators who refused to go along with his call to redraw the state's congressional map.

May 5 • 10:09 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

President Trump's influence tested in Indiana Republican state Senate primaries

May 5 • 10:09 AM EDT • Politics • wthr.com

Global Health & WASH: May 2026 Funding Opportunities (14 new opportunities!)

The May update for Global Health & WASH brings new calls that cluster around three distinct shifts: LMIC research leadership moving from funder encouragement into a hard eligibility constraint, pharmaceutical and corporate-linked funders running structurally independent education and use-inspired research portfolios at substantial scale, and AI adoption shifting decisively from speculative tool to operational capability across health and WASH systems alike. In LMIC Research Leadership as Eligibility, Not Encouragement, Wellcome anchors the dominant signal of the month with three separate major calls that all require or strongly center LMIC leadership in their basic eligibility architecture. Wellcome’s ESIC Hubs (£1.5-£1.9M per hub over 3-5 years) explicitly requires an LMIC-based lead applicant, treating Global South leadership as a design constraint rather than a participation goal. Wellcome’s Infectious Disease Clinical Trial Development Award funds transdisciplinary teams whose lead must be a mid-career or established researcher based at an organization in Africa, South Asia, or Southeast Asia. Wellcome’s larger Infectious Disease Clinical Trial Award (£1M-£8M for optimizing licensed interventions) requires the administering organization to be in eligible LMIC regions and at least 50% of applicants based there. Around Wellcome, the same pattern shows up at smaller scale and across funders: CHINNOVA channels $1M into West and Central African research institutions for climate-health work; IBRO’s Neuroscience Training Grants explicitly tier ceilings by region of residence with Africa receiving the highest amount ($5,000); IHME’s GBD Emerging Researcher Award reserves at least one of its two annual awards for an LMIC researcher; Sidaction’s HIV Cure call funds research teams across France, the Netherlands, and eligible African countries with a minimum two-country collaboration requirement. Taken together, these calls signal a meaningful shift in how research equity is being operationalized — not as encouragement language at the bottom of a call, but as a structural feature of who can lead, where the work must be administered, and what proportion of the team must be regionally rooted. In Pharma-Funded Independent Medical Education and Use-Inspired Research, the lineup this month is unusually deep. Pfizer alone runs four parallel calls under independent education and quality improvement frameworks: a Migraine and Women’s Health RFP (200K x 2-year, $500K pool), Migraine IME ($200K, $1M pool), JAK Inhibitor evidence-based education ($100K), and Maternal Vaccination HCP Education in Saudi Arabia ($75K), plus a separate Pediatric Pneumococcal Surveillance research call in Saudi Arabia ($400K per project). Novo Nordisk Foundation runs four parallel calls of its own at substantial scale: Infectious Diseases Catalyst Grants (DKK 60M pool, up to DKK 7M collaborative), Non-Diabetic Endocrinology Collaborative Grants (DKK 53M pool, DKK 5-10M per project), Pioneer Innovator Grant Health (DKK 1.1M), and Distinguished Innovator Grant Health (DKK 6.8M). LEO Foundation deploys DKK 2-4M per project for dermatology research excellence. Pfizer’s framing across calls deliberately separates the funding from product promotion, emphasizing measurable practice-relevant change and structural distance between scientific outputs and commercial activity. Novo Nordisk’s “use-inspired” hard filter pushes researchers toward a credible translation pathway from mechanism to deployable tool. The pattern: industry-aligned funders are running structurally independent portfolios at meaningful $ that fund implementation evidence, not promotion. In AI as Operational Capability, Not Speculation, several calls this month explicitly treat AI adoption as a near-term operational question with real evidence and governance requirements, rather than a speculative trend to be watched. Wellcome’s ESIC Hubs frames AI as “the accelerator” for evidence synthesis, asking hubs to translate technical innovation into adoption-ready workflows that can match real-world policy timelines. UNICEF Venture Fund’s new Climate Tech for Children’s Health call funds for-profit startups deploying AI, machine learning, and blockchain in low-resource environments, with a strict requirement that solutions must already have a working prototype with promising pilot results. The Water Research Foundation has launched two simultaneous AI calls treating reproducibility, cybersecurity guardrails, and human-in-the-loop deployments as core design constraints rather than nice-to-haves: one on GenAI and Agentic AI in water utilities ($200K), one on alternatives to water shutoffs that explicitly screens for implementation economics evidence. Nordic Innovation’s quantum technology call (NOK 4.5M) extends the same logic into life science and healthcare, demanding consortium-stage projects mature enough to test with real users. TEF-Health offers €300K in subsidized testing infrastructure for European healthcare AI and robotics SMEs. The pattern: funders are converting AI pilots into playbooks, requiring transfer evidence and risk controls before AI can move from experimentation to sector-wide operational practice. For LMIC-based researchers in infectious disease or evidence synthesis, the three Wellcome calls together represent the deepest concentration of LMIC-led research capital in recent memory — pair the Infectious Disease Clinical Trial Development Award (£200K, deadline May 19) as a strategic pipeline feeder into the larger Infectious Disease Clinical Trial Award (£1-£8M, deadline June 2), since the development award functions explicitly as a track into the larger trial scheme. For Nordic researchers, the four Novo Nordisk Foundation calls plus LEO Foundation and Nordic Innovation Quantum represent ~$30M in regional research capital this cycle, all with deadlines clustered in May-August. For WASH practitioners, the three Water Research Foundation calls together (each up to $200K) are a cluster worth reading across — one on AI deployment, one on shutoff alternatives, one rewarding applied innovation — and the strongest applicants will articulate how their work bridges utility operations to policy-relevant evidence. For US-based clinical researchers and educators, the four Pfizer calls plus the APF Portfolio’s 80+ programs form an unusually accessible recurring pipeline; APF’s prohibition on indirect costs is a meaningful structural feature for early-career applicants whose institutions might otherwise absorb significant overhead. Snapshot of New Opportunities Total Estimated Funding Pool: $100 Million+ USD The grants are organized into three categories: Open Calls: Current grant and opportunities with a deadline. Grants are listed by closing date. 39 open opportunities- 14 new! Rolling Applications: current grant and opportunities with rolling applications (but it’s still best to submit as early as possible). 14 rolling opportunities- 1 new opportunity! Long term planning: Grants that have closed their current rounds, but are expected to open new windows. 4 long term opportunities! A quick tip for returning readers: if you want to jump straight to the newest additions, use CTRL F to search for “New!” and navigate quickly to the latest funding opportunities This post is for paid subscribers. This helps support the time and effort it takes to curate and organize these opportunities. Subscribe To keep this accessible to everyone who needs it, we’re happy to offer pay what you can rates. You can find more details here. Open Calls: Migraine Competitive Grant Program: Migraine and Women’s Health (Quality Improvement and/or Research RFP), Pfizer.*Closing soon!* Pfizer, in collaboration with the American Headache Society, is seeking independent quality improvement and research projects that close persistent gaps in migraine care for women across the United States. The funding logic centers on measurable, practice-relevant change: proposals should generate actionable evidence, tools, or system improvements that can be shared and used widely, not just within a single site. Priority areas span menstrual migraine and screening in women’s health settings, the role of hormonal fluctuations across the lifespan, sex-specific risk factors, comorbidities and quality-of-life burden, and disparities in outcomes by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The call is structured as a two-step competitive process with an initial Letter of Intent, with the strongest concepts expected to translate scientific insight into implementable improvements in diagnosis, management, and equity. Geographies: United States. Who can apply: U.S.-based organizations (not individuals), including professional schools, healthcare institutions, professional organizations, and other entities focused on healthcare improvement. Funding amount: Up to USD $200,000 total over 2 years; total pool USD $500,000. Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Focus areas: migraine, women’s health, quality improvement, clinical research, menstrual migraine, health disparities. Deadline: LOI: May 5, 2026; Full proposal (by invitation): August 28, 2026. Learn more and apply here. This RFP rewards “shareable impact”: the most competitive submissions will pair rigorous methods with a clear plan for system uptake and dissemination beyond the originating institution. ReSSARC: Strengthening the Health Sector and Food Security in the Central African Republic (AID 013381/01/0) Call for Proposals, Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS). *Closing soon!* AICS is seeking a limited set of high-capacity humanitarian partners to deliver an integrated package that stabilizes essential health services while reducing acute malnutrition and strengthening food security resilience in priority areas of the Central African Republic. The funder’s logic is explicitly nexus-based: proposals should meet urgent, life-saving needs while reinforcing local systems, coordination mechanisms, and community-level capacity so results persist beyond the emergency window. AICS emphasizes inclusion and protection outcomes, expecting gender-sensitive design and explicit measures for groups facing compounded vulnerability, including women, children under five, internally displaced people, and people with disabilities. The call also signals a localization pathway, encouraging stronger collaboration with national NGOs and balanced partnerships, alongside clear coordination with existing cluster and humanitarian actors to minimize duplication and improve coverage. Geographies: Central African Republic (Bangui, Ombella-Mpoko, Ouham, Ouham-Pende, Lim-Pende, Lobaye). Who can apply: Non-profit organizations registered with AICS, plus eligible non-profits without an office in Italy that have a pre-existing collaboration agreement with an AICS-listed organization. Funding amount: Total pool EUR €1,800,000; max EUR €800,000 (single applicant) or EUR €1,000,000 (ATS). Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Focus areas: malnutrition prevention and treatment, maternal and child health, community health services, food security and resilience, localization partnerships Deadline: May 5, 2026. Learn more and apply here. This call is structured to reward partners who can link frontline service delivery to system durability and localization, not just short-term coverage gains. Contracts for Innovation in drug and alcohol addiction healthcare, Innovate UK. *Closing soon!* Innovate UK, on behalf of the Office for Life Sciences Addiction Healthcare Goals program, is procuring R&D to accelerate innovations that can improve treatment outcomes, strengthen recovery, and reduce harm and deaths linked to drug and alcohol addiction. The competition is positioned as a market-facing readiness push: selected projects are expected to advance solutions toward later-stage validation, generate evidence of user acceptability and UK market fit, and map credible routes through regulatory and certification requirements. Innovate UK signals a preference for innovations that can be field-tested in relevant UK settings and progressed to TRL 6 or 7, with practical plans for commercialization after contract completion. This structure favors applicants that can execute most work in-house, co-develop with service providers and people with lived experience, and translate technical progress into deployable tools for addiction healthcare delivery. Geographies: United Kingdom. Who can apply: Single organizations of any size (including EU, EEA, or international) leading delivery, with most work and key deliverables carried out in the UK; subcontractors for specialist skills only. Funding amount: GBP £200,000–1.5 million per project (inclusive of VAT); Total pool: GBP £20 million (across two strands). Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Focus areas: Mental Health, Health Systems Strengthening, Research & Development, Technology Access. Deadline: May 6, 2026 (11:00am). Learn more and apply here. This call uses procurement to pull near-market addiction innovations toward operational proof and adoption pathways in UK services.

May 4 • 3:59 AM EDT • Health • impactfunding.substack.com

Ducks bring speed to challenge the playoff-tested Golden Knights

If the first round of the NHL playoffs played out almost exactly like the opening series a year ago when the Golden Knights eliminated Minnesota in six games, their next opponent is a striking reminder to the one they just vanquished. The Golden Knights again are the more playoff-seasoned team, but the Anaheim Ducks counter with a faster team interested in more of a track meet when their best-of-seven series opens Monday night in Vegas. Much like the Utah Mammoth, a team Vegas eliminated in six games on Friday night.

May 3 • 7:52 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com

Modern Warfare 4 Being Playtested on PS4, It's Claimed

A prominent Call of Duty player on social media has claimed to have heard updates about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.

May 3 • 1:50 PM EDT • Technology • insider-gaming.com

iPhone 17 Pro Max crushed: I just tested the Oppo Find X9 Ultra's silicon-carbon battery and it's not even close

Oppo Find X9 Ultra's silicon-carbon battery obliterates the iPhone 17 Pro Max in testing

May 3 • 2:30 AM EDT • Technology • tomsguide.com

These Are The 10 Quickest Factory-Stock Porsches Ever Tested

The 918 Spyder and 991.1 Turbo S are iconic cars, but they have some serious company now. Here are the 10 quickest Porsches to ever hit the road.

May 2 • 4:45 PM EDT • Technology • jalopnik.com

The best AI dictation apps, tested and ranked

AI-powered dictation apps are useful for replying to emails, taking notes, and even coding through your voice

May 2 • 12:00 PM EDT • Technology • techcrunch.com

Behavioral health providers protest at CareSource handling of overpayments

Dozens of mental health professionals and social workers protested outside of the CareSource office building in response to the company’s recent decision to seek repayments from behavioral health providers going back up to two years.

May 1 • 6:33 PM EDT • Health • wyso.org

Yup, Oblivion Remastered Is Still Broken a Year After Release

We re-tested it to prove it.

May 1 • 11:09 AM EDT • Technology • digitalfoundry.net

The Pixel 10 Pro was my favorite phone camera — until I tested this viral Android phone

I took the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL out for a camera shootout against the new OPPO Find X9 Ultra and there's one clear winner.

May 1 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • androidauthority.com

Bat tests positive for rabies in Pasadena, health officials say

Pasadena health officials urged the public to stay away from bats on Thursday after one tested positive for rabies in the city.

Apr 30 • 8:58 PM EDT • Health • nbclosangeles.com

As artificial intelligence show off diagnostic chops, scientists reckon with the way forward

On Thursday, researchers published in Science the results of a study that tested an OpenAI model on diagnostic and clinical reasoning tasks.

Apr 30 • 2:00 PM EDT • Science • statnews.com

Incumbent Democrat resigns, leaving a vacancy in one of the Triangle's most competitive NC Senate districts

Democratic N.C. Sen. Terence Everitt announced Tuesday night that he's resigning his seat and dropping out of one of this year's most hotly contested legislative races.

Apr 28 • 9:18 PM EDT • Politics • wunc.org

OLED TVs have long trailed Mini LED in brightness, but Samsung's S95H narrows the gap

I measured the Samsung S95H at 2,780 nits, making it the brightest OLED TV I've tested. Here are my first-look impressions of its picture and design.

Apr 28 • 5:07 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

I tested ChatGPT Images 2.0 vs. Gemini Nano Banana to see which is better

I put ChatGPT Images 2.0 and Gemini Nano Banana through nine image-generation tests. The winner was clear.

Apr 27 • 10:26 AM EDT • Technology • zdnet.com

It's the best-value running watch we have tested this year

Lightweight, durable and packed with advanced tracking features, the Amazfit Active 3 Premium is a great budget alternative to Garmin and Suunto smartwatches.

Apr 27 • 9:30 AM EDT • Science • livescience.com

Intel’s Budget Wildcat Lake Chip Beats Apple’s MacBook Neo by 27% in Multi-Core, Matches A18 Pro Single-Thread Performance

Intel Core 5 320, a Wildcat Lake CPU for budget laptops, has been tested, showcasing good numbers vs competition such as MacBook Neo.

Apr 27 • 4:40 AM EDT • Technology • wccftech.com

Drug use in England spikes during heatwaves and big sports events, research finds

Project that tested traces of illicit drugs in wastewater also found higher use during Eurovision song contest

Apr 27 • 12:00 AM EDT • Sports • theguardian.com

I tried Staples' Bin Wins. Here's what I found.

Maria Johnson tested Staples' Bin Wins program, digging through Amazon returns and overstock to find deals and potential resale items.

Apr 26 • 4:08 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com

Ikea's New Blow-Up Chair Was Tested by Cats

Part of the new PS 2026 collection, it's taken the Swedish company 26 years to finally nail inflatable furniture.

Apr 26 • 6:00 AM EDT • Technology • wired.com

Bats Test Positive for Rabies Across the U.S.—Health Officials Issue Warning

Health officials in multiple states are warning residents to avoid contact with bats after several have tested positive for rabies in recent weeks. Rabies is a deadly virus that spreads through bites ...

Apr 25 • 3:09 PM EDT • Health • yahoo.com

Scientists Say They’ve Tested a Way to Get to Alpha Centauri in Just 20 Years

Scientists say they've come up with a new approach that uses lasers for propulsion, which could cut down the journey to Alpha Centauri.

Apr 25 • 6:45 AM EDT • Science • futurism.com