What's on Your Mind?

As a woman in the United States, turning 21 means beginning a lifelong journey of getting a pap spear every three years. It’s not a pleasant experience. You’ll lie down with your legs in stirrups, while your doctor inserts a speculum inside your vagina. Then, she or he will take a sample from your cervix with a hard plastic device to figure out if you have any trace of HPV (the human papillomavirus), a sexually transmitted infection that can cause cervical cancer, or cancerous and precancerous cells. Starting today, however, there’s an easier solution. Teal Health, a woman’s health company founded in 2020, has developed a new product that allows you to take a sam…

Within my family, I’m known as the “AI Guy” so naturally, my sister-in-law excitedly told me how she took a photo of her living room, uploaded it to ChatGPT, and saw a photorealistic rendering of her room with specific couches from Kohl’s and Wayfair that she could buy. While many businesses are encouraging employees to use AI more, they are forgetting that AI doesn’t just affect productivity; it’s also changing how we shop. Had my sister-in-law searched for “mocha leather couch,” she would have seen a laundry list of options in a Google search; however, she only saw two options through ChatGPT, and this new way of shopping is having a widespread impact on businesses…

The woman behind Instacart’s successful IPO, Fidji Simo, is joining OpenAI’s C-suite. On Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced Simo’s new role as CEO of Applications. She will report directly to him after transitioning out of her current role at Instacart later this year. “In her new role, Fidji will focus on enabling our “traditional” company functions to scale as we enter a next phase of growth,” Altman said in a blog post. “Fidji brings a rare blend of leadership, product and operational expertise, and genuine commitment to ensuring our technology benefits everyone.” Before joining OpenAI’s executive team, Simo served as a member of its board of direct…

Countries around the world have been discussing the need to rein in climate change for three decades, yet global greenhouse gas emissions—and global temperatures with them—keep rising. When it seems like we’re getting nowhere, it’s useful to step back and examine the progress that has been made. Let’s take a look at the United States, historically the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. Over those three decades, the U.S. population soared by 28% and the economy, as measured by gross domestic product adjusted for inflation, more than doubled. Yet U.S. emissions from many of the activities that produce greenhouse gases—transportation, industry, agriculture, …

Around a decade ago, Chad Dale watched as some of his friends started to leave Seattle. “They wanted to stay in an urban environment, but the city was too expensive for them to have all the things that they wanted to have,” Dale says. His friends who were beginning to have kids wanted backyards and guest rooms for visiting in-laws; they looked for single-family houses in the suburbs. But Dale, a developer, wondered whether there could be a different solution. What if he and several friends joined together to build their own apartment building—and all lived in the same place? Some friends had already bought a vacation home together on nearby Whidbey Island, and…

“The gyoza needs to look a little whiter. It’s too pink.” Nigel Ng is genially micromanaging the look and feel of Fried, an animated series that will premiere on YouTube later this year. His feedback comes during an early planning session at Toonstar, the company producing the show, which is headquartered in a former furniture warehouse in downtown L.A.’s arts district. Ng has every right to be fussy about Fried’s world. The show represents the cartoon debut of Uncle Roger, the volatile middle-aged Chinese guy he has portrayed in live-action YouTube videos since 2020. They famously depict the character growing agitated as he watches western chefs—such as Gordon Ramsay, …

Precision agriculture uses tools and technologies such as GPS and sensors to monitor, measure, and respond to changes within a farm field in real time. This includes using artificial intelligence technologies for tasks such as helping farmers apply pesticides only where and when they are needed. However, precision agriculture has not been widely implemented in many rural areas of the United States. We study smart communities, environmental health sciences, and health policy and community health, and we participated in a research project on AI and pesticide use in a rural Georgia agricultural community. Our team, led by Georgia Southern University and the City …

Many of us have heard of “boomerang employees”—someone who leaves a company and later returns—but there’s a newer version showing up in the workplace: the layoff boomerang. Maybe you’ve seen it yourself. A coworker disappears after a round of cuts, only to show up again a few months later. Same desk. Same job. Sometimes even a bigger paycheck. According to research done by Dr. Andrea Derler at workforce analytics firm Visier, 5.3% of laid-off employees now get rehired by the same organization after a layoff. But the most surprising part isn’t the number—it’s that it’s been happening for years. We just didn’t know. “What surprised me the most was that …