What's on Your Mind?

As genetic testing company 23andMe heads to bankruptcy court, there is a lot of data at stake. The company, which analyses DNA through its salvia test kits and offers information about customers’ ancestry, health traits, and genetic risks, now seeks “authorization from the Court to commence a process to sell substantially all of its assets through a chapter 11 plan,” according to 23andMe’s press release. Your DNA data could be part of those assets. A close reading of the bankruptcy docket shows the company’s terms of service appear to allow 23andMe to transfer personally identifiable information in the event of “bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale …

Billy Evans, the partner of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, is currently in the process of raising money for his own startup. It’s a blood-testing company. According to reports from NPR and The New York Times, both of which spoke with anonymous sources close to the venture, 33-year-old Evans has already raised several million dollars for a new “stealth” startup focusing on diagnostics and health testing. Prior to this news, Evans first came into the public eye back in 2018 when he began dating Holmes, who is currently serving out an 11-year federal prison sentence for committing fraud through her infamous blood-testing company Theranos. Over the weekend, …

Feeling like you’ve overdone it on the scrolling? Now you can take a break from TikTok to meditate, without ever leaving the app. TikTok’s new in-app meditation feature, announced Thursday, was first tested earlier this year with a group of teen users and is now rolling out to everyone. Designed to improve sleep quality, the meditations activate during designated “sleep hours” and serve as a gentle nudge to put the phone down during a late-night scroll session. For users under 18, the feature is enabled by default. If teens are still on the app after 10 p.m., their For You feed will be interrupted by calming music and breathing exercises. If ignored, the prompt re…

When Formula 1 superstar Lewis Hamilton announced in December that he would be leaving the Mercedes team for Ferrari after 246 Grands Prix, 84 victories, and 6 drivers’ championships in 12 seasons, much of the focus was on Hamilton’s future plans. Just as compelling was the empty seat Hamilton was leaving at Mercedes. His departure triggered an intense internal process for the automaker—the search for a successor. Many of the discussions and debates that resulted in Mercedes choosing young Italian driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli played out over messaging app WhatsApp. That process is now the subject of a new one-hour documentary on Netflix called The Seat, dro…

To San Francisco chef and restaurateur Thomas McNaughton, QR codes are an efficient way to serve a crowd. Sure, the codes—and restaurants that use them—have endured much loathing. And, yes, people still love to criticize them. But at the newest location of McNaughton’s Flour + Water Pizzeria, set to open later this month, QR codes are the star. There’s good reason. The 1,800-square-foot restaurant sits a few blocks from Oracle Park, where the San Francisco Giants just opened the baseball season. It needs to handle serious spikes in business from game-day crowds and pump out pizzas fast. “We envision a scenario where, for two hours, it’s completely gangbusters befo…

In an industrial park in North Las Vegas, near an Amazon warehouse and a waste storage facility, a new carbon removal plant is beginning to pull CO2 from the air and store it permanently. Called Project Juniper, it’s the first “integrated” plant of its kind in the U.S., meaning that it handles both carbon capture and storage in one place. (As a bonus, it also generates clean water.) Clairity Tech, the startup behind it, designed the new plant after raising a seed round of funding led by Initialized Capital and Lowercarbon Capital last year. After spending the last few months setting up the facility, it ran its full system for the first time last week. Founder Glen…

A U.S. House committee on Tuesday asked 23andMe’s co-founder to testify next month as it launched an investigation into the risk of genetic data being transferred to potential buyers amid the DNA testing company’s bankruptcy. James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky and the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki, seeking her testimony on May 6 as well as documents and information from the genomics firm. The genomics firm filed for bankruptcy protection last month after struggling with weak demand for its ancestry testing kits. Wojcicki made multiple failed takeover bids for the company and re…

In the three months since Target overhauled its policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the retailer has faced an onslaught of public criticism and a boycott that has carried on for weeks. There has been a clear impact on its business: Foot traffic has reportedly dropped for the last 10 weeks, and Target disclosed that sales had dipped in February. The company’s stock price is the lowest it has been in four years. Now CEO Brian Cornell is meeting with Al Sharpton (at Target’s request) to discuss the company’s DEI stance and commitment to the Black community, according to a CNBC report. As the head of civil rights organization National Action Network, Sharpton h…

Continuing from the “year of yeehaw,” professional bull riding is having a moment on TikTok. Since the beginning of this year, Professional Bull Riding (PBR)—the largest bull riding league in the world—has gained 650,000 followers across its social media platforms, Mashable recently reported. That’s just 200,000 fewer than they gained throughout all of 2024. Mitch Ladner, PBR’s social media lead, told Mashable’s Christianna Silva that most of this growth comes from followers between the ages of 18 and 35. On PBR’s TikTok, which is nearing 3 million followers, many recent videos tap into viral trends and audio—with a cowboy twist. “Aligning our chakras,” one captio…

Real ID, the new format for driver’s licenses and state IDs in the U.S., shows how design can set federal standards while minimizing federal oversight. When Congress passed the Real ID Act in 2005 at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, it was an attempt to standardize minimum security requirements for state IDs and driver’s licenses nationwide, as well as make consistent the forms of identity recipients needed to show to get an ID. On the surface, it might seem like a simple ask, but in practice, the legislation butted up against privacy concerns and ideological opposition to federal overreach. About half of states opposed the law after it passed, and 13 pa…

The Lyrid meteor shower is one of the most well-known stellar displays, occurring once a year in April. It’s also one of the oldest meteor showers that we know of, with records dating back to 687 BCE from Chinese astronomers. Unlike many meteor showers, the Lyrids are relatively short: In 2025, the event runs a little more than a week, from April 17 to April 26. It will peak in the nighttime hours of April 21 to 22. Typically, you can expect to see 10 to 20 meteors per hour at the peak, though the Lyrids have been known to outperform and deliver up to 100 meteors per hour. If you’d like to catch the show this year, here’s what to know about the 2025 Lyrids met…

These days, when you head to a shop to buy clothes, most brands package your purchases in a recyclable paper bag, which looks more eco-friendly than plastic. But behind the scenes—in back rooms that most customers never see—every single clothing retailer has enormous piles of flimsy plastic bags (sometimes called poly bags). These bags keep clothes clean as they travel across the complex global supply chain before arriving at the store. “We need to keep clothes in good condition as they move from factories to shipping containers to trucks,” says Candan Erenguc, chief operations officer at Anthropologie. Most local recycling facilities don’t have the equipment …