Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
The same chemicals found in pipes, pesticides and floor tiles are also present in some wigs, braiding hair and hair extensions, a new study published Wednesday in the journal Environment & Health found.Researchers at the Silent Spring Institute, a scientific research nonprofit organization based in Massachusetts, tested 43 hair extension products purchased online and from local beauty supply stores and identified 169 chemicals present overall, including dozens of harmful substances such as flame retardants, pesticides and compounds used to stabilize plastics.A dozen of the compounds found are listed under California’s Proposition 65, known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic…
Tim Spencer realized just how complicated manufacturing procurement can be while running Markai, an e-commerce startup in Asia, during the pandemic. “We had thousands of suppliers, and we were distributing products into dozens of countries around the world,” Spencer (pictured left) told TechCrunch. His staff was overwhelmed by the manual complexity of sourcing suppliers, negotiating pricing, tracking orders, and managing payments. “I found myself running this big team that was not really set up for success,” he said. He sold Markai in 2023, just as it was becoming clear that generative AI could streamline the most time-consuming procurement hurdles for…
Anthropic has just concluded a $30 billion Series G fundraising round, the company announced on Thursday. The company’s new value is $380 billion — a huge jump from its previous Series F valuation of $183 billion. Some details of the round were reported earlier this week by Bloomberg. The new round was led by Singaporean wealth fund GIC and investment management firm Coatue, with a number of other prominent firms — including D. E. Shaw Ventures, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX — co-leading the round. Other significant investors listed include Accel, General Catalyst, Jane Street, and the…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Colorectal cancer is a threat not just to older adults but increasingly to young men and women, too. It’s now the top cancer killer of Americans younger than 50.The deaths of “Dawson’s Creek” actor James Van Der Beek at 48 this week, and a few years ago “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman at 43, highlight the risk for younger adults.“We’re now starting to see more and more people in the 20-, 30- and 40-year-old range developing colon cancer. At the beginning of my career, nobody that age had colorectal cancer,” said Dr. John Marshall of Georgetown University’s…
Feb 12 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday it has approved labeling changes to six menopause hormone therapies to remove references to risks of cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and probable dementia.The FDA had initiated the removal of the strictest “black box” warnings in November in a move to boost access to these treatments long shunned by patients and doctors over safety fears.The agency said 29 drug companies have submitted proposed labeling changes.The first group of six hormone therapies includes estrogen-only and progestogen-only products such as Prometrium, Divigel, Cenestin and Enjuvia, along with the combination therapy…
Mexico could be at risk of losing its measles elimination status as the virus continues to spread across the country.As of Wednesday, more than 9,100 measles cases have been confirmed since the beginning of last year with at least 28 deaths, according to Mexico’s Secretariat of Health.The majority of cases have occurred in children between ages 1 and 9, accounting for more than 2,400 infections, health agency data shows.Amid growing Texas outbreak, how contagious is measles?A measles outbreak began in Mexico on Feb. 1 in the northwestern state of Chihuahua. It’s unclear if Chihuahua’s cases are linked to those in…
The Trump administration took a major step in its efforts to unravel America’s climate policies on Feb. 12, 2026. It moved to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding, a formal determination that greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide and methane from burning fossil fuels, endanger public health and welfare. But the administration’s arguments in dismissing the health risks of climate change are not only factually wrong, they’re deeply dangerous to Americans’ health and safety.As physicians, epidemiologists and environmental health scientists, we’ve seen growing evidence of the connections between climate change and harm to people’s health.Here’s a look at the health…
Has AI coding reached a tipping point? That seems to be the case for Spotify at least, which shared this week during its fourth-quarter earnings that the best developers at the company “have not written a single line of code since December.” That statement, from Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström, came alongside other comments about how the company is using AI to accelerate development. Of note, Spotify pointed out it shipped more than 50 new features and changes to its streaming app throughout 2025. And, most recently, has rolled out more features, like AI-powered Prompted Playlists, Page Match for audiobooks, and…
On Thursday, OpenAI announced the release of a light-weight version of its agentic coding tool Codex, the latest model of which OpenAI launched earlier this month. GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark is described by the company as a “smaller version” of that model, one that is designed for faster inference. To power that inference, OpenAI has brought in a dedicated chip from its hardware partner Cerebras, marking a new level of integration in the company’s physical infrastructure. The partnership between Cerebras and OpenAI was announced last month, when OpenAI said that it had reached a multi-year agreement with the firm worth over $10 billion.…
2026-02-12T16:59:16.696Z Share Copy link Email Facebook WhatsApp X LinkedIn Bluesky Threads lighning bolt icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. Impact Link Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. Software engineers have voiced burnout concerns in a world of vibe coding and frequent model launches. Engineers say AI is making them more productive, but ultimately draining them. Do you use AI tools at work and feel AI fatigue? Take our survey. Software engineers are in the AI hot…