Radically different
Good morning. Remember when the streets were covered in snow? The passage of time is so wild. Below we’ve got some news to start another week.
The American Diabetes Association’s annual conference in New Orleans wraps up today, after three days of data readouts, presentations, and, unexpectedly, a police interaction? Here are some highlights:
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.
Much is new about this month’s FIFA World Cup tournament. It hosts more teams than ever before. It’s the first to occur in three different host countries.
And, like every World Cup for over half a century, it will employ a football with a brand-new design.
Through wind-tunnel experiments, researchers found that long-distance kicks with Adidas’s new Trionda ball might not travel as far as they did in the past. The payoff is a more predictable flight path, something players have not always enjoyed from World Cup balls.
Find out how a few grooves and seams can change the way the game is played.
—Jenna Ahart
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 OpenAI plans to turn ChatGPT into a ‘super app’ before its IPO
The revamp would combine coding tools and AI agents. (Financial Times $)
+ The super app ambitions first emerged last year. (Fast Company)
+ OpenAI is also building a fully automated researcher. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Trump wants the US government to take a stake in AI companies
He will meet AI leaders to discuss the plan. (BBC)
+ Which would create “a partnership with the American public.” (Reuters $)
+ He wants a slice of the AI boom. (Axios)
3 Google has agreed to pay SpaceX $30 billion for AI computing power
The $920 million-a-month contract runs through June 2029. (NYT $)
+ Google will use about 110,000 Nvidia GPUs owned by SpaceX. (CNBC)
+ It comes days after Anthropic struck a SpaceX data center deal. (WSJ $)
4 AI is set to make everyday life more expensive
Its insatiable thirst for resources is likely to push up inflation. (WP $)
+ We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Europe is accelerating its withdrawal from US Big Tech
New analysis reveals dozens of moves to alternative providers. (Wired $) + Last week, the EU launched a “made in Europe” drive. (Reuters $)
6 ICE plans to give local police a new facial recognition app
It would allow them to verify a person’s immigration status. (404 Media)
+ Is the Pentagon allowed to surveil Americans with AI? (MIT Technology Review)
7 Silicon Valley’s lure is fading for India’s tech talent
Due to Trump’s immigration policies and AI-driven layoffs. (Rest of World)
8 ‘Recursive self-improvement’ has sparked fears of AI escaping control
Nobody is sure about the consequences of RSI. (The Economist $)
+ Here are five ways that AI is learning to improve itself. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Gene-edited embryos are getting closer, but a key safety gap remains
Current techniques still fail to edit every cell. (New Scientist $)
+ “Base-edited baby” is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2026. (MIT Technology Review)
10 NASA astronauts will wear high-tech Prada underwear on their moon trips
Ventilation tubes are knitted into the garments. (The Verge)
Quote of the day
—A senior OpenAI employee tells the Financial Times why the company is shifting focus from chatbots to AI agents.
One More Thing
The digitization of historical records is making it possible to study the past in new ways. Historians are now using machine learning—particularly deep neural networks—to analyze everything from centuries-old astronomy textbooks to ancient Greek inscriptions.
The technology is helping researchers uncover new patterns in the historical record. But it also introduces risks, including the possibility that machine learning will slip bias or outright falsifications into our understanding of the past.
Read the full story on how AI is transforming the study of history.
—Moira Donovan
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.)
+ Take a tour of extinct everyday objects to travel back to pre-smartphone life.
+ This a cappella cover of “I Want To Know What Love Is” nails the power-ballad drama.
+ Korea’s ingenious “one-a-day” banana packs are designed so each one ripens sequentially.
+ Casino dialogue has been synced over Looney Tunes footage in this unexpectedly perfect mashup.
BOSTON — Carlton Haynes hugged his left knee, pulling it toward his shoulder as hard as he could. He was desperate to blunt the pain shooting from an open, oozing wound on his right shin. Anahita Dua, a vascular surgeon leading an unusual clinic created by Massachusetts General Hospital that Saturday, told him he was going to the ER and then the OR, where she would remove damaged skin and treat the wound.
Without this stopgap measure, she warned him, he’d almost certainly need amputation. OK, he said, but first he wanted a smoke.
The horses in America are getting fat. They are trying to tell us something.
Fifty-one percent of mature light-breed horses in the United States are obese — a rate that ranks among the world’s highest, slightly above Britain and nearly twice that of Australia or Denmark. That figure comes from a peer-reviewed prevalence study, and it sits alongside a number that should give any clinician pause: The U.S. also leads the G7 in human obesity. The same country. The same epidemic. A completely different species.
Nature Medicine, Published online: 07 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04479-3
As presented at the American Diabetes Association Meeting, in this phase 3 trial, weekly subcutaneous injections of survodutide, a glucagon receptor/GLP-1R dual agonist, lowered liver fat content and body weight compared to placebo in adults with obesity and at-risk metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD).
You’re reading the web edition of STAT’s ADA in 30 Seconds newsletter, from the American Diabetes Association’s annual conference.
Welcome to the third and final edition of STAT’s ADA in 30 Seconds newsletter.
Elaine Chen starts us off with updates on the competitive climate for obesity drugs and I’m relaying insights on eating disorders, new word on a BCG vaccine, and a clarification from ADA on Friday’s police incident.
New data on Boehringer Ingelheim’s obesity candidate suggest the drug may be helpful in cutting liver fat, but it’s not clear how competitive the treatment would be since it appears less efficacious and less tolerable than drugs on the market.
In a Phase 3 obesity trial, patients on the highest dose of the weekly injectable, called survodutide, lost 13% of their weight after 76 weeks, compared with 5% in the placebo group, according to data presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. That’s lower than the rate of weight loss seen in pivotal trials of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound.
Patients on survodutide, which targets the GLP-1 and glucagon hormones, did lose up to 63% of their liver fat, compared with 25% in the placebo group. Glucagon-targeting drugs are thought to be particularly helpful in cutting liver fat, since there are glucagon receptors in the liver.
You’re reading the web edition of STAT’s ADA in 30 Seconds newsletter, from the American Diabetes Association’s annual conference. Sign up here
Welcome back! The American Diabetes Association annual conference is in full swing with news about old and new approaches to treating diabetes.
Buckle in for a day 2 recap.
Eli Lilly has already established that its next-generation obesity drug can lead to highly rapid weight loss. Researchers disclosed new data Saturday that provide more details on the safety and tolerability of the closely-watched therapy.
Lilly previously said that in one late-stage study, called TRANSCEND-T2D-1, retatrutide helped people with diabetes lower blood sugar and lose a significant amount of weight, which is notable since those who have diabetes tend to lose less weight on treatment than those who don’t.
New data showed that seven out of the 403 participants who received retatrutide experienced arrhythmias (irregular heart beats), and three treated participants experienced major cardiovascular complications, compared with none in the placebo group. The data were presented at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association and published in the Lancet.
An analysis of electronic health records from over 26,000 adults with obesity and at least one autoimmune disease has shown that those taking GLP-1 medication experienced fewer cardiac events, were less likely to visit the ER, and had a lower risk of death. These findings were published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association and presented at the American Diabetes Association 2026 Scientific Sessions in New Orleans.
“This is a high-risk population, and historically we’ve had limited data to guide treatment decisions,” said Amy Sheer, MD, associate professor of medicine and director of the Obesity Medicine Fellowship program at the University of Florida. “In this real-world analysis, we found a consistent signal toward fewer serious complications including blood clots and lower mortality among patients treated with GLP-1 receptor agonists. For people who are overweight or living with obesity and an autoimmune disease, this study offers a hopeful signal that medications already in use today may be beneficial in reducing their risk of cardiovascular disease.”
GLP-1 receptor agonists are commonly prescribed drugs to help patients with type 2 diabetes lose weight and manage their blood sugar levels. This study is the first to examine the potential cardiovascular benefits of these drugs in a high-risk population of patients with both obesity and an autoimmune disease—both of which are associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular and blood clot events.
Sheer and colleagues reviewed electronic health record data from 26,408 adults treated in the OneFlorida+ network from 2014 to 2024, covering 14 healthcare organizations across Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Half of the patients were taking GLP-1 drugs over this 10 year period, while the other half did not.
Across this population, GLP-1 treatment was found to reduce the risk of blood clots by 17%, of pulmonary embolism by 31%, and of death by 44%. Visits to the emergency department were also lowered by 21%, and a modest decrease in stroke risk of 13% was also found.
“The 44% reduction in all-cause mortality observed among patients with obesity and co-occurring autoimmune disease is a striking finding that demands our attention,” said Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the study. “As an obesity medicine physician scientist who regularly cares for patients with complex inflammatory conditions, this study reinforces what many of us have suspected clinically—that the benefits of GLP-1 receptor agonists extend well beyond blood sugar control and weight loss and may fundamentally alter the disease trajectory for some of our highest-risk patients.”
Although this study cannot prove a causal link between GLP-1 medication and the effects seen on the patients taking them, it opens the door to future combinations of treatments for autoimmune disease with GLP-1 drugs. More research is still needed to understand the role this medication could play as a potential preventive therapy for high-risk patients.
“Our research broadens the conversation around GLP-1 receptor agonists,” said Sheer. “For clinicians, we hope these findings may prompt a more thoughtful, individualized approach when considering these therapies in higher-risk patients who have both obesity and autoimmune disease.”
The post GLP-1 Drugs Lower Risk of Death by 44% in Obesity and Autoimmune Disease appeared first on Inside Precision Medicine.