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- The top 25 stories curated by editors and fellow readers!
Editor's Pick |
Editor's Note: When you take a sip of a sugary drink, your brain processes the sensory information - the taste, bubbles on the tongue, and so on. But it doesn't stop there. Once you've swallowed, your digestive system tells the deep reward structures of the brain - via the vagus nerve again - that what you've eaten has calories. You also register that it's hydrating. These signals reinforce your behaviour: they tell your brain to pursue that particular drink again in future.
| Work JJ to buy Intra-Cellular Therapies for 146B picking up mental health drug  J&J is paying $132 a share in cash for its fellow New Jersey-based company, a 60% premium on Intra-Cellular’s closing price on Friday. Bloomberg reported the companies were in talks on Sunday. |
| Work In defence of productivity crap I was reading through the top Bear blog posts last night and found this at the very top: Stop wasting time on productivity crap. Just shut up and work. They're right, to a certain extent. |
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| Work FEMA administrator says L.A. officials were "very prepared" for wildfires, but "they have never seen 100 mile an hour winds"  Washington -- FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said Sunday that L.A. officials were "very prepared" for devastating wildfires, noting that the area is prone to fires. But "they have never seen 100 mile an hour winds that are fueling the fire," she said. |
| Work AI is changing the way we grieve and perceive death  Imagine attending a funeral where the person who has died speaks directly to you, answering your questions and sharing memories. This happened at the funeral of Marina Smith, a Holocaust educator who died in 2022. |
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| Work A Deep Sleep Clears the Mind at Night Like a Dishwasher Cleaning-But Beware of Sleeping Pills  A good night's sleep clears your mind, suggests new research, like turning on a dishwasher before you go to bed and waking up with a clean brain. The international team of scientists describes the process as washing away waste that builds up in the brain during waking hours. |
| Work Millions of Americans Are Tired All The Time. These 2 Factors Could Be Why.  Feeling drained and lethargic is common: A 2022 national survey found that 13.5 percent of US adults said they felt "very tired" or "exhausted" most days or every day over a three-month period. Women ages 18 to 44 had the highest rate of fatigue - just over 20 percent. |
| Work Demi Moore Teaches Hollywood a Lesson  Demi Moore has said that before she got the script for "The Substance," she thought that maybe her days in the movies were done. |
| Work 'Frankenstein Fraud' Is Quickly Becoming the Most Dangerous Form of Identity Theft  Criminals stitching parts of people together sounds like something out of a horror movie. Unfortunately, it's happening every day with fragments of people's identities. |
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| Work The US Clean Energy Manufacturing Revolution Is Real  The country has made major gains in solar panel and battery cell manufacturing over the last four years, but self-sufficiency remains far away. |
| Work The world's first saber-toothed cat mummy has been found in Siberia  The ancient cat's coloration is another longstanding question. Modern cat coat colors tend to be associated with their hunting environment. Lions, cougars, and cats that live in open, grassy habitats often have light and relatively uniform coats. |
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| Work Cuffing Season: Why People Want to Settle Down for the Winter Months  Another reason could be men's testosterone levels increase over the winter months. |
| Work The Good Guy/Bad Guy Myth  Pop culture today is obsessed with the battle between good and evil. Traditional folktales never were. What changed? |
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| Work Meet the oversavers: Older Americans who have plenty for retirement but wish they'd worked less and vacationed more  Joshua Winston, 70, did a pretty good job preparing for retirement: He ran two successful veterinary clinics, made smart investments, and lived frugally. But a week after he retired in May, he was diagnosed with cancer. |
| Work Just make people come in on the second Thursday of the month workspace provider Mark Dixon on the WFH debate  Working from home isn't generally a success for Mark Dixon. "I'm too easily distracted," he says. "You have to be quite disciplined to be a successful home worker, whether that's for one day or five days." |
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| Work After a Great Run for Stocks, Be Ready for Something Different  Financial markets have been choppy since the November election, and for good reason. With the next presidential administration promising sharp policy changes on a broad range of economic issues, there is plenty to be nervous about. The new proposals are dizzying. |
| Work Dutch Central Bank Restores Amsterdam's 'Ugliest Building'  Following a EUR320 million renovation by Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo, the once-ridiculed De Nederlandsche Bank building is more open and sustainable. |
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| Work Amazon is 'winding down' some of its DEI programs  Like Meta, Amazon is ending some of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. |
| Work Meta built a global fact-checking operation. Will it survive?  Meta's announcement it will end professional fact checking on Facebook and Instagram in the U.S. has left fact checkers elsewhere around the world uncertain about their futures. Meta said the rollback is "starting in the U.S." but does not apply to other countries "at this time. |
| Work Why Honda is merging with Nissan: factories, SUVs, and China  Honda's potential merger with Nissan would represent one of the largest shake-ups to the industry since the creation of Stellantis in 2021. But there are huge risks involved, too. |
| Work A Los Angeles Teen Started a Recovery Fund for Wildfire Victims. Now It's a Movement  Avery Colvert, 14, never imagined her recovery fund for the teenage victims of the Eaton Fire, one of multiple blazes raging in Los Angeles County, would go viral, but less than 24 hours after its creation, it did just that. Paris Hilton posted about Altadena Girls on her Instagram story. |
| Work Pharmalittle We're reading about JJ and GSK deals a departing FDA official and more  J&J agreed to buy Intra-Cellular Therapies in a deal worth $14.6 billion, another sign of reentry into neuroscience by large drugmakers |
| Work Eli Lilly acquires cancer program from Scorpion Therapeutics in 25B deal  Allison DeAngelis is the East Coast biotech and venture capital reporter at STAT, reporting where scientific ideas and money meet. She is also co-host of the weekly biotech podcast, The Readout Loud. |
| Work Eli Lilly scientific chief Skovronsky says Scorpion deal 'checked all the boxes'  Lilly, flush with cash from the booming sales of its obesity and diabetes drugs, has recently acquired startups including Morphic Therapeutics, DICE Therapeutics, Versanis Bio, and POINT Biopharma. |
| Work Jonathan Kanter on health care monopolies and a new MA rule boosts payments  Bob Herman covers health insurance, government programs, hospitals, physicians, and other providers — reporting on how money influences those businesses and shapes what we all pay for care. He is also the author of the Health Care Inc. newsletter. |
| Work Cytokinetics is not looking to be acquired CEO says  Adam Feuerstein is a senior writer and biotech columnist, reporting on the crossroads of drug development, business, Wall Street, and biotechnology. He is also a co-host of the weekly biotech podcast The Readout Loud and author of the newsletter Adam’s Biotech Scorecard. |
| Work Truveta enlists health systems drugmakers to launch ambitious new genomic database  Pharmaceutical company Regeneron has invested $119.5 million in Truveta’s project, and its laboratory subsidiary the Regeneron Genetics Center will sequence the exomes of the first 10 million volunteers for the program. DNA sequencer manufacturer Illumina has also invested $20 million in the project, which builds on a 2021 investment and partnership from Microsoft, which will provide the cloud infrastructure for the project. |
| Work Let's talk about JPM Day 1  Adam Feuerstein is a senior writer and biotech columnist, reporting on the crossroads of drug development, business, Wall Street, and biotechnology. He is also a co-host of the weekly biotech podcast The Readout Loud and author of the newsletter Adam’s Biotech Scorecard. |
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| Work What Ignited the Deadly California Wildfires? Investigators Consider Array of Possibilities  LOS ANGELES -- Investigators are considering an array of possible ignition sources for the huge fires that have killed at least 16 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in the Los Angeles area. |
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| Work 78000 and 650 Monthly How to Decide Between a Lump Sum and Annuity Payments  Are you a financial advisor looking to grow your business? SmartAsset AMP helps advisors connect with leads and offers marketing automation solutions so you can spend more time making conversions. Learn more about SmartAsset AMP. |
| Work Texas sues Allstate for collecting driver data without consent  Paxton filed a similar lawsuit last August accusing General Motors of installing technology on more than 14 million vehicles since 2015 to collect driver data, which it later sold to insurers and other companies without drivers' consent. |
| Work Researchers Have Found a Way to Help Erase Bad Memories  Being able to erase bad memories and traumatic flashbacks could help in the treatment of a host of different mental health issues, and scientists have found a promising new approach to do just this: weakening negative memories by reactivating positive ones. |
| Work IRA expert Why traditional retirement accounts have become the worst asset for estate planning  Slott also noted that the income tax exemption for life insurance is the single biggest benefit in the tax code and is not used nearly enough. And life insurance can help people achieve three financial goals: larger inheritances for their beneficiaries, more control, and less tax. |
| Work Airline and Cruise Stocks Slide as Oil Prices Surge to 5-Month High  Travel stocks finished the year strong as oil prices trended lower and consumers showed few signs that higher prices have dented robust post-pandemic travel demand. United Airlines was one of the S&P 500’s best-performing stocks in 2024. Its shares have more than doubled in value in the past year. Delta has gained about 69% over the same period. Royal Caribbean (RCL) stock was little changed Monday but has risen more than 87% in the last 12 months. |
| Work Float Financial which aims to be the Brex of Canada lands US485M Series B | TechCrunch  Want to reach out with a tip? Email me at [email protected] or send me a message on Signal at 408.204.3036. You can also send a note to the whole TechCrunch crew at [email protected]. For more secure communications, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop and links to encrypted messaging apps. |
| Work eBay acquires Caramel to reduce risk and complexity of online car sales | TechCrunch  While eBay already offers some guidance and services to ease online car sales, such as escrow for holding funds, bringing Caramel in-house will enable it to expedite the process by taking care of a huge chunk of the stressful post-sale administration. |
| Work Moody's agrees to acquire Cape Analytics which develops geospatial AI for insurance providers | TechCrunch  Cape is Moody’s first acquisition in 2025 — and its 23rd acquisition to date, according to funding database Tracxn. Cape adds to Moody’s other property-insurance-related mergers and acquisitions, including Praedicat, a provider of casualty insurance analytics, and RMS, a climate and natural disaster risk modeling firm. |
| Work Zelensky offers exchange of North Korean soldiers  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he is willing to hand over two captured soldiers from North Korea back to their home country in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia. Ukraine said on Saturday that the men were captured on 9 January. |
| Work Raspberry AI raises 24M from a16z to accelerate fashion design | TechCrunch  While Liu acknowledged that Raspberry competes with other AI image generators like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Adobe Firefly, a key reason why professional designers choose her company’s product is its ability to understand and accurately interpret industry-specific terminology. |
| Work The first AI chip startup to go public in 2025 will be Blaize | TechCrunch  “All of the AI hype is happening in the data center. Interestingly, they’ve totally neglected and forgotten about real physical world use cases that are very real, that are touching people’s lives and are happening now and making money,” Munagala told TechCrunch. “We’re focused on the practical use of AI in the physical world.” |
| Work Meta moderators were already in Texas before Zuckerberg announced move say ex-workers  Thousands of full-time employees work for Meta in Texas in several different departments. More than 220 workers were laid off in the state in 2022, however, as part of a large restructuring of the social media company. In all, Meta laid off more than 11,000 employees worldwide with Zuckerberg deeming it the “year of efficiency”. Meta’s trust and safety teams were some of the hardest hit. |
| Work Biden says Trump administration officials adead wronga on climate threat a as it happened  Florida judge Aileen Cannon's decision lifts an order blocking the report's release she had placed last week. However, Cannon also maintained a pause she had placed on releasing to senior members of Congress Smith's report on his investigation of Trump for hiding classified documents. |
| Work Where thereas fire thereas smoke Los Angeles blazes raise fears of asuper toxica lung damage  "In addition to the heartbreak of all of the property loss and devastation to human lives, which obviously is the biggest concern right now, we are seeing these wildfires as this setback to all these years of progress in clearing the air in LA," Kaufman said. "It's disheartening." |
| Work FBI warns of potential acopycat or retaliatorya New Orleans attacks  Cities often use physical barriers to prevent vehicle ramming attacks, but in New Orleans on New Year's Day, the road-blocking, cylindrical columns known as bollards were down for repairs at 11 of 16 locations, including at the foot of Bourbon Street where the attack occurred. |
| Work Dangerous winds expected to amplify California wildfires as death toll hits 24  Edison said in a filing with the California Public Utilities Commission that “a downed conductor was discovered at a tower” near the start of the Hurst fire, which broke out in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Sylmar. But the utility added it “does not know whether the damage observed occurred before or after the start of the fire”. That fire burned more than a square mile and is now mostly contained. |
| Work Surrey councillors ask ministers to awrite offa Wokingas A1bn debt  "The government has a framework to support councils in financial difficulty, and we will continue to work with best value commissioners to support financial recovery in areas where statutory interventions have been made." |
| Work Girl airlifted to hospital and horse put down after hit-and-run in Devon  A 61-year-old man has been arrested and remains in police custody after incident on Sunday |
| Work Reliance on fertility apps on rise in England and Wales study shows  Trend away from hormonal contraception corresponds to rise in abortion rates, say researchers |
| Work MI5 files suggest queen was not briefed on spy in royal household for nine years  The files are being released before the opening in spring of an exhibition focusing on the work of MI5 at the National Archives in Kew, south-west London. Exhibits will include a vivid report of Blunt’s interview and a first-hand account of Philby’s confession in 1963. |
| Work Actor Dirk Bogarde was adisturbeda by KGB sting warning declassified files reveal  MI5 told Bogarde in 1971 that he had been identified as 'practising homosexual' of interest by Russian spies |
| Work Fifteen months of Israeli bombardment leave conditions in Gaza aunimaginablea The Israeli army said Friday it had identified the body of a hostage recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza as the son of Yosef al-Ziyadnah, another hostage whose body was recovered last week. |
| Work Joe Biden says Israel and Hamas on the brink of sealing ceasefire deal US president says agreement that could pause more than 14 months of fighting matches a proposal he made months ago |
| Work Ryanair calls for limit of two alcoholic drinks at airports in Europe  “Ryanair is therefore taking a civil proceeding against this passenger in the Irish courts to recover these costs, which were incurred wholly and exclusively as a result of the disruptive passenger’s behaviour, which caused not just a diversion, but an overnight in Porto of over 160 passengers and six crew member and the operating aircraft,” said the airline. |
| Work Will the EU fight for the truth on Facebook and Instagram “What has happened in the US is just the beginning,” the Filipino site Rappler, founded by Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, concluded. “It is an ominous sign of more perilous times in the fight to preserve and protect our individual agency and shared reality.” |
| Work Spain proposes 100 tax on homes bought by non-EU residents  “We are facing a serious problem, with enormous social and economic implications, which requires a decisive response from society as a whole, with public institutions at the forefront,” he added. |
| Work Biden insists US is awinninga on world stage a what would losing look like  The president defended his record on Ukraine, Gaza and Afghanistan but foreign policy successes have been few |
| Work Matthew Flindersa lead coffin plate completes voyage from underground London to South Australia  "There's a little bit of awe ⦠for historians, Matthew Flinders is a really important character, but for the rest of the population, they should know who he is," Kanellos says. |
| Work Calls to halt kangaroo culling in Victoriaas Grampians after bushfires  Australian mainland states permit killing of nearly 5 million annually as part of industry supplying meat and leather products |