Radically different
Nature Medicine, Published online: 12 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04385-8
A phylogenetic analysis examined the origins of the first mpox outbreak in Sierra Leone and found evidence of an emerging lineage (G.1) that has likely descended from the Nigerian epidemic and emerged in Sierra Leone months before first detection.
Nature Medicine, Published online: 12 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04363-0
Announced in this Comment and in collaboration with Nature Medicine is the convening of the Data-Driven Decision Support in Obesity Management Commission, to promote adequate scientific evidence to support obesity management across global populations.
Nature Medicine, Published online: 12 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04362-1
In a first-in-human trial combining the transplantation of CD33-negative CRISPR-edited hematopoietic cells with the CD33-targeted antibody–drug conjugate gemtuzumab ozogamicin, all transplanted patients achieved primary engraftment, and the treatment was well tolerated.
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 12 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02292-2
La Greca and colleagues show that by witnessing a conspecific’s actions, mice learn how actions can lead to shared food, forming flexible social action–outcome associations that require dorsal CA1 and bias future prosocial or selfish behaviors.
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 12 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02293-1
The authors developed an optics-free spatial genomics method to map mouse brain aging, revealing region-specific inflammation and showing that lymphocytes promote harmful interferon signaling, whereas their loss preserves ependymal cells and reshapes glial states.
“Under-babied.” Dr. Oz said that’s the name for a condition that affects one-in-three Americans. I guess that means over-babied is the condition of having too many kids, but then what do you call having the right number of babies? Baby-neutral? Balanced-babied? Send news tips and your favorite lines from Raising Arizona to John.Wilkerson@statnews.com or John_Wilkerson.07 on Signal.
Patient groups are jockeying for exemptions from Medicaid work requirements, but the unusually fast implementation timeline for states is causing headaches.
Advocates for people in Medicaid would prefer that the federal government exempt specific patient populations from new requirements that able-bodied adult Medicaid beneficiaries work at least 20 hours a week, or be in school or volunteer for community service. Otherwise, it’ll be difficult to help people navigate a state-by-state patchwork of rules.
Top of the morning to you, and a fine one it is. Sunny skies and mild breezes are enveloping the Pharmalot campus once again. Who could ask for anything more? Actually, we could. Specifically, we would like another cup of stimulation. So off we go to the Pharmalot cafeteria to fire up the coffee kettle. Our choice today is maple cinnamon French toast. Please feel free to join us. Meanwhile, we have assembled a few items of interest for you to peruse. We hope you have a smashing day and conquer the world. And of course, do stay in touch. …
The 17 pharmaceutical companies anchoring TrumpRx, the White House’s new prescription drug-pricing program, poured more than $130 million into federal lobbying in 2025 — a nearly 23% surge that outpaced the broader industry as the plan was being shaped behind the scenes, according to OpenSecrets, the nonprofit that tracks campaign financing and lobbying. Those companies accounted for more than a quarter of the record $457.3 million spent on lobbying last year across the pharmaceutical and health products industry. And while newly filed 2026 first-quarter reports show no slowdown — industry-wide spending topped $131 million, a 5.7% year-over-year increase — the most consequential lobbying push came in 2025, ahead of TrumpRx’s February launch.
Eli Lilly paused its obesity awareness campaign in India after the nation’s drugs regulator warned the company it could violate rules against advertising prescription medicines to consumers even indirectly, Reuters reports. The campaign titled “We Know Now” was launched in mid-2025, shortly after Lilly introduced its Mounjaro diabetes and obesity treatment in India. Its message focused on reframing obesity as a chronic disease rather than a personal failing. The campaign featured newspaper ads, social media posts, billboards, collaborations with Bollywood celebrities, and posters in a few residential communities. Lilly’s corporate logo appeared on the messages, but Mounjaro was not mentioned. In a 16-page letter dated April 10 and sent to the Drugs Controller General of India, Lilly said it had halted the campaign “out of an abundance of regulatory caution” following a March advisory from the regulator.
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
A few months before he won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2024, Daron Acemoglu published a paper that earned him few fans in Silicon Valley. He argued that AI would give only a small boost to US productivity and would not eliminate the need for human work.
Two years later, Acemoglu’s measured take has not caught on. The technology has advanced quite a bit since his cautious predictions, but the data is still largely on his side.
MIT Technology Review spoke with him to understand if any of the latest developments have changed his thesis. Here are the three things Acemoglu is paying closest attention to in AI right now.
—James O’Donnell
This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.
Stewart Brand, the counterculture icon and tech industry legend, considers maintenance a “civilizational” act. His new book argues that taking responsibility for maintaining something, whether a motorcycle, a monument, or the planet, can be radical.
Brand argues that maintainers haven’t gotten the laurels they deserve—and he’s right. Yet his vision of maintenance often feels solitary: profound, but more about personal fulfillment than tending to a shared world or making it better.
Read the full review of his handsome new book, Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One.
—Lee Vinsel
Lee Vinsel is an associate professor of science, technology, and society at Virginia Tech, a cofounder of The Maintainers, and the host of Peoples & Things, a podcast about human life with technology.
This story is from the latest edition of our print magazine, which is all about nature. Subscribe now to read the full issue and receive future print copies once they land.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The first zero-day exploit built by AI has been discovered
Google spotted and stopped the attempted “mass exploitation event.” (CNBC)
+ The hackers used AI to discover an unknown bug. (NYT $)
+ AI-powered hacking has exploded into an industrial-scale threat. (Guardian)
+ New tools are simplifying online crime. (MIT Technology Review)
2 OpenAI just launched its answer to Claude Mythos
Daybreak patches vulnerabilities before attackers find them. (The Verge)
+ Sam Altman said it will “continuously secure software.” (Gizmodo)
+ It will rival Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, which arrived a month ago. (BBC)
+ OpenAI is allowing wider access to its cyber models than Anthropic. (CNBC)
3 Trump is heading to China to spread the gospel of American tech
While taking cues from Beijing’s more stringent approach. (Guardian)
+ But investors want Trump and Xi to stay out of AI’s way. (Reuters $)
+ Elon Musk and Tim Cook are joining him on the trip this week. (BBC)
4 Ilya Sutskever has testified on Sam Altman’s “pattern of lying”
OpenAI co-founder Sutskever took the stand in the Altman v. Musk trial. (BI)
+ He said he spent a year gathering proof of Altman’s dishonesty. (Reuters $)
+ But he also added to OpenAI’s defense. (Wired $)
+ While Satya Nadella called attempts to remove Altman “amateur city.” (FT $)
+ Here’s what happened last week in the trial. (MIT Technology Review)
5 A new hantavirus vaccine is in the works
Moderna and Korea University are developing an mRNA vaccine. (Wired $)
+ Here’s what you need to know about the cruise ship outbreak. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Texas has sued Netflix over alleged data harvesting and “addictive” design
AG Ken Paxton accuses Netflix of secretly collecting and selling user data. (Quartz)
+ And spying on children while deliberately fostering addiction. (Guardian)
7 A data center guzzled 30 million gallons of water—and no one noticed
The curious case serves as a warning for other data center projects. (Ars Technica)
8 Europe is reportedly selling spyware to human rights abusers
EU states allegedly sold the tech to countries violating rights. (Bloomberg $)
9 The US government’s AI vetting announcement has mysteriously vanished
It had detailed a security test agreement with Google, xAI, and Microsoft. (Gizmodo)
10 Amazon staff are using AI for pointless tasks just to inflate usage scores
In a bid to impress managers. (FT $)
+ An AI expert says we should stop using AI so much. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
—Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown Law School, tells the New York Times that Elon Musk’s hypocrisy over OpenAI becoming a for-profit company will undermine his courtroom battle with Sam Altman.
One More Thing
For decades, astronomy has relied on visual information to make sense of the cosmos: images, charts, and graphs. Now, some researchers are trying something different: listening to the universe.
Using sonification, the process of turning information into sound, they’re helping blind and visually impaired researchers explore the cosmos—and even uncover patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed. The approach is spreading beyond astronomy into fields like climate science, navigation, and education.
Discover how sound could make science more accessible—and even more revealing.
—Corey S. Powell
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.)
+ This musical mashup beautifully blends LCD Soundsystem with Twin Peaks.
+ Match your speculative ideas to sci-fi stories with the Extrapolated Futures Archive.
+ A live-action animation Coyote vs. ACME is coming soon—and the first trailer just dropped.
+ Want to surf elsewhere in the galaxy? Here’s what it would be like to catch waves on distant planets.
Capsida Biotherapeutics said Tuesday that it still had no answers in its investigation into the death of a child in a gene therapy trial last September.
Its scientists’ efforts, it said, have been stymied because the hospital where the study was conducted has declined to share tissue samples from an autopsy.
The therapy, known as CAP-002, was the first of a wave of new gene therapies designed to deliver genes deep into the brain. Scientists around the world engineered viruses that could slide through the blood-brain barrier that walls off our most vital organ from the rest of the body. Companies spun up promising treatments for devastating rare genetic diseases and common conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Five years ago, the bottom fell out of sepsis prediction software. Hundreds of hospitals had adopted an algorithm from electronic health record company Epic that promised to alert physicians to predicted cases of sepsis, a life-threatening reaction to infection that kills more than 350,000 people in the United States every year.
The AI was a technical flop. Despite its results on paper, the technology failed to perform in the real world, and sent so many alerts that doctors tuned them out or hospitals turned them off.
Half a decade on, new sepsis models are hitting the scene. Epic released a retooled version of its own algorithm. Startups are testing their models in health systems. A team uses large language models to mine clinical notes for signs of sepsis. And on Tuesday, a sepsis flagging device from Bayesian Health, with origins at Johns Hopkins, announced it has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration.