The Checkup

GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are one of the biggest biotech breakthroughs of the last decade. But to some clinical psychologists, they can represent something more sinister—a potential trigger for eating disorders. A new report suggests that the global incidence of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa shot up between 1990 and 2023—by a whopping 71%. By 2023,

Earlier this week, I attended a screening of You Can See Everything, the buzzy new documentary about the disgraced former biotech CEO Elizabeth Holmes.  I went in not really knowing what to expect. I’d avoided spoilers (and won’t be giving anything away here, either!). I was wondering what new information this film could reveal, given

I don’t remember much about Peppy, my first and only pet cat. I can conjure the sensation of stroking her while she purred, recall how she used to get stuck in trees (just like in cartoons!), and chuckle about the time she pooed in my baby sister’s cot. That’s about it. What I do vividly

This week my colleague Antonio Regalado had an interesting update on GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. According to research presented at an aging meeting in Boston, these drugs seem to affect at least some measures of biological age. Overweight and diabetic people who take GLP-1s have a biological age around two to three years younger than similar

This week, I officially signed up for an unusual competition. One that rewards competitors for getting younger. I recently turned 40, and I don’t need reminding that both time and my chronological age only tick forward. But this game is focused on competitors’ biological ages—figures that are meant to provide a better way to measure

Around this time last year I was attending an aging conference in Manchester, listening to a talk about fly aging, when my phone started pinging. News outlets were reporting that a hot mic had caught Russia’s and China’s leaders discussing the possibility of living forever. “With the developments of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously

In recent weeks, leaders of some of the biggest AI companies have warned that the very tech they are developing is dangerous. Last weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued that AI carries serious risk and that progress should be slowed. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded on X: “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the

Every year, MIT Technology Review puts together a list of some of the brightest and best young minds working across science and technology. Our 35 Innovators Under 35 are the ones to watch—people whose research and technical work stands to shape the future of their fields. This year, the list includes nine people who are

This week I spoke to scientists who have found a way to turn male mouse embryos female. They’ve developed a CRISPR-based approach to essentially cut out the Y chromosome. It allowed them to create female clones of male mice. That’s right: female animals that are genetically identical to males, except for the missing Y chromosome.