Coats Footwear unit launches ‘Insole Solutions’ portfolio
Coats Group’s Footwear division has launched a comprehensive ‘Insole Solutions’ portfolio – describing it as…
Chinese ‘Virtual Human’ Salespeople Are Outperforming Their Real Human Counterparts
The salesperson hawking Brother printers on Taobao works hard—like, really hard. At any time of the day, even when there’s no audience on the Chinese ecommerce platform, the same woman wearing a white shirt and black skirt is always livestreaming, boasting about the various features of different office printers. She has a phone in one…
A Look at the New Executive Order and the Intersection of Homelessness and Mental Illness
President Trump recently signed an executive order on homelessness, mental health, and substance use that leverages federal funding priorities and other administrative tools to encourage states to ban public drug use, remove unhoused people from public spaces, and broaden civil commitment laws to permit involuntary psychiatric civil commitments in more circumstances. It also instructs the…
Overview of President Trump’s Executive Actions on Global Health
Initial Rescissions Of Harmful Executive Orders And Actions, January 20, 2025 PURPOSE: Initial rescissions of Executive Orders and Actions issued by President Biden. Among these orders are several that addressed the COVID-19 pandemic and global health security, such as Executive Order 13987 (Organizing and Mobilizing the United States Government To Provide a Unified and Effective…
U.S. Foreign Aid Freeze & Dissolution of USAID: Timeline of Events
Starting on his first day of his second term in office, President Trump and his administration have taken several executive actions that directly impact U.S. global health efforts. This timeline, which is a companion resource to components of KFF’s Overview of President Trump’s Executive Actions on Global Health, provides a detailed overview of actions, including…
After 70 years, the Sun’s explosive mystery is finally solved
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has directly observed magnetic reconnection in the Sun’s atmosphere for the first time, confirming decades-old theories about solar explosions. This discovery bridges small-scale events near Earth with massive solar eruptions that shape space weather. The data provides crucial insights to improve predictions of solar storms that can impact our technology. Source…
Scientists unlock the gene that lets bearded dragons switch sex
August 19 marks the publication by two different studies presenting the near-complete reference genomes of the central bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps), a widely distributed species of dragon lizard common in central eastern Australia and popular as pets in Europe, Asia, and North America. This species has an unusual trait for an animal species: whether this lizard…
Pine nuts can make the list, say experts
Michelle Roberts Digital health editor, BBC News Getty Images Pesto often contains pine nuts Allergic reactions to foods such as pine nuts and goats milk happen frequently enough they may need warning labels, say experts. Food packaging in the UK and EU already lists the most common allergens for people to be aware of, such…
Hubble just snapped the clearest-ever picture of a rare interstellar comet
A team of astronomers has taken the sharpest-ever picture of the unexpected interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS using the crisp vision of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble is one of many missions across NASA’s fleet of space telescopes slated to observe this comet, together providing more information about its size and physical properties. While the comet poses…
Scientists may have finally found the Universe’s missing sulfur
For decades, astrochemists have been looking for sulfur atoms in space and finding surprisingly little of the element that is a key ingredient to life. A new study could point to where it has been hiding. An international team of researchers including Ryan Fortenberry, an astrochemist at the University of Mississippi, and Ralf Kaiser, professor…
Tiny microbes may secretly rewire the brain before birth
Microbes, or microorganisms, are all around us and play an important role in bodily functions. MSU researchers found that microbes can also impact brain development. This work is significant because modern obstetric practices like peripartum antibiotic use and Cesarean delivery disturb the microbiome of mothers and newborns. New research from Michigan State University finds that…
