Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Pregnant women’s exposure to wildfire smoke — particularly in the third trimester — may increase the risk of autism in their children, according to new research, which looked at hundreds of thousands of births in Southern California.The study, published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, is the first to examine a potential link between prenatal wildfire smoke exposure and autism. Earlier research has suggested that pregnant women’s exposure to air pollution more broadly, including smog spewed by vehicles, smoke stacks and lead, may be linked to the developmental disorder.The new research focused on exposures to PM 2.5, tiny…

BEIJING (AP) — China’s one-child policy, one of the harshest attempts at population control the world has seen, forced abortions on women, made sterilization widespread and led to baby daughters being sold or even killed, because parents wanted their only child to be a male.Now, experts say, the question is whether it was all necessary. China’s birth rate fell to record lows last year and its population has fallen for four years in a row, official statistics showed this week. Authorities, alarmed by the prospect of a shrinking workforce and an aging population, scrapped the policy in 2015.“It’s hard to…

It was not long ago that building a sophisticated app required a team of experienced programmers hovering over their keyboards. Now, AI has made it possible for a novice with no coding knowledge to whip up high-quality apps from scratch.Emergent, founded out of Y Combinator’s startup class of 2024 by twin brothers Mukund Jha and Madhav Jha, is one of the fastest-growing so-called “vibe coding” platforms, already boasting 5 million users and seeing annual recurring revenue soar from $50 million to $5 million in a little over a year.The company recently raised $70 million in Series B funding from Khosla…

One year ago, health officials confirmed that cases of measles were cropping up in a small town in western Texas.Soon, the virus had spread to neighboring counties in Texas. Other states began reporting their own measles outbreaks, including Utah and South Carolina.By the time 2025 ended, more than 2,200 cases had been confirmed, the highest number reported in the U.S. in 33 years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.New map shows how to spot the measles risk level in your ZIP codeThe U.S. also saw its first measles deaths in more than a decide including…

Gig workers turn to apps like Uber and DoorDash to make money by offering rides and making deliveries.Some independent contractors have come up with another way to make money using the apps: Selling access to those apps to other people, according to a new survey.Forty-five percent of gig workers surveyed by TransUnion said that they had either rented or sold access to a gig work account on a gig work platform, the company said in a report released last week.Gig work apps such as Uber, DoorDash, and Walmart’s Spark have told Business Insider that they don’t allow users to share…

For years, Amazon was cast as Walmart’s great disruptor. Now, it’s borrowing from the retail giant it once sought to upend.The company is rolling out Walmart-inspired ideas, including “Supercenter” warehouses, a new distribution layer known internally as the “1DC” network, and microfulfillment centers within Whole Foods stores, according to internal documents obtained by Business Insider.The shift reflects a hard lesson: Mastery of e-commerce does not translate into dominance in groceries, particularly perishable items that drive frequent shopping. Walmart’s dense network of stores and distribution centers, designed to move everyday goods quickly and cheaply, has proved difficult to replicate.Nearly a decade…

I’m reporting from Davos, Switzerland, where thousands of business leaders and politicians have arrived at the World Economic Forum to shake hands, talk shop, and maybe even eke out a few ski runs.Some executives I’ve spoken to this week had some big concerns about AI, but none of them had anything to do with a potential bubble.Raj Sharma, EY’s global managing partner of growth and innovation, said there’s not enough talk about AI security — specifically, the management of AI agents and their lifecycle.”It has access to your data. It has no name, so there is no identity or anything…

Vinod Khosla has his eye on one AI metric, and it’s not stock prices.On an episode of OpenAI’s podcast released on Monday, the famed venture capitalist shared how he’s gauging whether we’re in an AI bubble — or not.”People equate bubble to stock prices, which has nothing to do with anything other than fear and greed among investors,” he said. “So I always look at, bubbles should be measured by the number of API calls.”API, or Application Programming Interface calls, refer to the process in which one software application sends a message to another application to request data or to…

Advertising could become a $25 billion business for OpenAI — and pose a threat to Google, according to new estimates on Monday from a top tech analyst.Evercore ISI’s Mark Mahaney sees the startup generating that level of annual ad revenue by 2030 if it executes well on rolling out this new business.OpenAI said on Friday that free and Go users of ChatGPT would start seeing ads “in the coming weeks.” OpenAI also laid out its advertising principles, such as clearly labeling them and not sharing user conversations with advertisers.”A path to generating several billion dollars in ad revenue in 2026,…

Cases in the nation’s largest current measles outbreak are still ticking up after officials said infections have spread from the South into the Pacific Northwest.Washington state health officials on Jan. 16 confirmed an outbreak connected to a contagious family traveling from South Carolina. The Southern state has a major outbreak of the highly contagious viral disease, with nearly 250 new cases documented in a week’s span.The three cases in Washington are all among unvaccinated children in Snohomish County, just north of Seattle, according to the state’s health department. The children had fever, cough and rash, all common indicators of measles.…