For the first time ever, OpenAI has released a rough estimate of how many ChatGPT users globally may show signs of having a severe mental health crisis in a typical week. The company said Monday that it worked with experts around the world to make updates to the chatbot so it can more reliably recognize…
Assistance with fertility care, a stated priority of President Trump, is an urgent need for many people. Rarely considered a “medically necessary” health service by health plans, only a minority of employers offer fertility benefits; and IVF is typically never covered by Medicaid or Medicare. The nationally representative KFF Women’s Health Survey finds that one…
With Medicare’s annual open enrollment period underway, a new KFF analysis finds that Medicare Advantage enrollees, on average, had access to just under half (48%) of the physicians in their area who were available to people enrolled in traditional Medicare. The finding illustrates a key tradeoff for beneficiaries in choosing Medicare Advantage. Such plans can…
I. The Founder Sol Kennedy used to ask his assistant to read the messages his ex-wife sent him. After the couple separated in 2020, Kennedy says, he found their communications “tough.” An email, or a stream of them, would arrive—stuff about their two kids mixed with unrelated emotional wallops—and his day would be ruined trying…
To be human is to yearn for a Sky Daddy. Something that explains the unexplainable, someone to blame. No wonder, then, that in the ZIRP-fueled 2010s, when a new gospel of creation was being spread, some people started to see technology as a kind of religion. And on the eighth day, He made a mobile…
I recently heard that a former friend was now heavily into an S/M relationship with Pedro Pascal. This was moderately surprising, as she’s a lesbian and he’s an AI chatbot, but what is fluidity for if not to explore previously untapped facets of ourselves? Let’s not get all rigid about identities. I decided I wanted…
UK health officials are encouraging gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men to make sure they are vaccinated against mpox, as a strain called ‘clade Ib’ shows early signs of local spread in some European countries. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) says it is aware of small numbers of cases of…
Enrollment in Medicare Advantage, the private plan alternative to traditional Medicare, has increased steadily over time. The growth in enrollment has been accompanied by an increase in the number of Medicare Advantage plans, with the average beneficiary having the option to choose among 42 plans in 2025, including 34 with prescription drug coverage. Most Medicare…
In his day job, Ed Zitron runs a boutique public relations firm called EZPR. This might surprise anyone who has come to know Zitron through his podcast or his social media or the newsletter in which he writes two-fisted stuff like “Sam Altman is full of shit” and “Mark Zuckerberg is a putrid ghoul.” Flacks,…
Two PhD students from Sydney have helped restore the sharp vision of the world’s most powerful space observatory without ever leaving the ground. Louis Desdoigts, now a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and his colleague Max Charles celebrated their achievement with tattoos of the instrument they repaired inked on their arms —…
