Mike M.

A weird, itchy rash is linked to the keto diet—but no one knows why

case report, dermatology, health, ketogenic, New England Journal of Medicine, rash, weight loss / Mike M. / January 24, 2026

Diet downsides

Otherwise, the keto diet is popular among people trying to lose weight, particularly those trying to lose visceral fat, like the man in the case study. Anecdotal reports promote the keto diet as being effective at helping people slim down relatively quickly while also improving stamina and mental clarity. But robust clinical data supporting these claims are lacking, and medical experts have raised concerns about long-term cardiovascular health, among other things.

There are also clear downsides to the diet. Ketones are acidic, and if they build up too much in the blood, they can be toxic, causing ketoacidosis. This is a particular concern for people with type 1 diabetes and for people with chronic alcohol abuse. For everyone else, there’s a list of common side effects, including nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, bad breath, headache, fatigue, and dizziness. Ketogenic diets are also linked to high cholesterol and kidney stones.

But there’s one side effect that’s well established but little known and still puzzling to doctors: the “keto rash” or prurigo pigmentosa. This rash fits the man’s case perfectly—red, raised, itchy bumps on the neck, chest, and back, with areas of hyperpigmentation also developing.

The rash was first identified in Japan in 1971, where it was mostly seen in women. While it has been consistently linked to metabolic disorders and dietary changes, experts still don’t understand what causes it. It’s seen not only in people on a keto diet but also in people with diabetes and those who have had bariatric surgery or are fasting.

In a review this month, researchers in Saudi Arabia noted that a leading hypothesis is that the high levels of ketones in the blood trigger inflammation around blood vessels driven by a type of white blood cell called neutrophils, and this inflammation is what causes the rash, which develops in different stages.

While the condition remains poorly understood, effective treatments have at least been worked out. The most common treatment is to get the person out of ketosis and give them an antibiotic in the tetracycline class. Antibiotics are designed to treat bacterial infections (which this is not), but they can also dampen inflammation signals and thwart the activity of neutrophils.

In the man’s case, doctors gave him a two-week course of doxycycline and told him to ditch his keto diet. A week later, the rash was gone.

A weird, itchy rash is linked to the keto diet—but no one knows why Read More »

TR-49 is interactive fiction for fans of deep research rabbit holes

computer, gaming, inkle, interactive fiction, narrative, narrative deduction, research, steampunk / Mike M. / January 23, 2026

If you’re not comfortable staring at a screen like this for hours, you’d better stop reading right now. Credit: Inkle

While the catalog contains short excerpts from each of these discovered works, it’s the additional notes added to each entry by subsequent researchers that place each title in its full context. You’ll end up poring through these research notes for clues about the existence and chronology of other authors and works. Picking out specific names and years points to the codes and titles needed to unlock even more reference pages in the computer, pushing you further down the rabbit hole. Picture something like Her Story, but replace the cinéma vérité surveillance video clips with a library card catalog.

You’ll slowly start to unravel and understand how the game world’s myriad authors are influencing each other with their cross-pollinating writings. The treatises, novels, pamphlets, and journals discussed in this database are full of academic sniping, intellectual intrigue, and interpersonal co-mingling across multiple generations of work. It all ends up circling a long-running search for a metaphysical key to life itself, which most of the authors manage to approach but never quite reach a full understanding.

Matching titles to reference codes form the most “gamey” part of the game. Credit: Inkle

As you explore, you also start to learn more about the personal affairs of the researchers who collected and cataloged all this reference material and the vaguely defined temporal capabilities of the information-synthesis engine in the computer you’ve all worked on. Eventually, you’ll stumble on the existence of core commands that can unlock hidden parts of the computer or alter the massive research database itself, which becomes key to your eventual final goal.

Through it all, there’s a slowly unfolding parallel narrative involving Liam, the unseen voice guiding you through the research process itself. Through occasional voice clips, Liam eventually hints at the existence of a powerful and quickly encroaching threat that wants to stop your progress by any means necessary, adding a bit of dramatic tension to your academic pursuits.

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Demand for Intel’s processors is apparently there, but the supply is not

18a, core ultra series 3, intel, intel 18a, panther lake, Tech / Mike M. / January 23, 2026

Yields are currently improving by 7 or 8 percent every month, according to Intel. But that could be building on pretty low initial yields—reporting from last summer suggested that just 10 percent of the chips coming off of the 18A production lines were meeting Intel’s requirements at the time. Intel predicts that its supply will have ramped up enough within the next few months to help alleviate shortages.

“I do believe that the first quarter is the trough,” said Zinsner. “We will improve supply in the second quarter.”

Intel is selling everything it can make

When Intel can start making enough chips to meet its demand, it ought to help brighten the company’s earnings reports.

“We delivered [our Q4 2025] results despite supply constraints, which meaningfully limited our ability to capture all of the strengths in our underwriting markets,” said Tan. “We are working aggressively to address this and better support our customers’ needs going forward.”

Intel has been signaling for a while now that it was selling essentially all of the chips it could get its hands on. Intel investor relations VP John Pitzer said last month that Intel would be selling more of both its Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake Core Ultra Series 2 chips for consumers, as well as its Granite Rapids chips for data centers, if it could get more of them.

As Intel seeks to improve its position in the short term, the company also says that it’s still making progress on its future manufacturing nodes, including different versions of the 18A process and the upcoming 14A process. Intel is working to engage “potential external customers” who would use the 14A process to make their own chips. If these third parties decide to use Intel’s manufacturing facilities, Intel expects to know about it “starting in the second half of this year and extending into the first half of 2027,” and then it expects to build out manufacturing capacity based on the number of external customers it finds.

On the chip design side, Intel also expects to have its first next-generation Nova Lake chips ready “at the end of 2026.” We don’t know much about Nova Lake yet, but it should be Intel’s next architecture to cover both desktop and laptop processors, while Panther Lake chips are intended mainly for laptops. At least part of the chip will also be manufactured using the 18A process.

Demand for Intel’s processors is apparently there, but the supply is not Read More »

2026 Lucid Air Touring review: This feels like a complete car now

car review, Cars, Features, Lucid Air Touring / Mike M. / January 23, 2026

It’s efficient, easy to live with, and smooth to drive.

The 2026 Lucid Air Touring sees the brand deliver on its early promise. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

Life as a startup carmaker is hard—just ask Lucid Motors.

When we met the brand and its prototype Lucid Air sedan in 2017, the company planned to put the first cars in customers’ hands within a couple of years. But you know what they say about plans. A lack of funding paused everything until late 2018, when Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund bought itself a stake. A billion dollars meant Lucid could build a factory—at the cost of alienating some former fans because of the source.

Then the pandemic happened, further pushing back timelines as supply shortages took hold. But the Air did go on sale, and it has more recently been joined by the Gravity SUV. There’s even a much more affordable midsize SUV in the works called the Earth. Sales more than doubled in 2025, and after spending a week with a model year 2026 Lucid Air Touring, I can understand why.

There are now quite a few different versions of the Air to choose from. For just under a quarter of a million dollars, there’s the outrageously powerful Air Sapphire, which offers acceleration so rapid it’s unlikely your internal organs will ever truly get used to the experience. At the other end of the spectrum is the $70,900 Air Pure, a single-motor model that’s currently the brand’s entry point but which also stands as a darn good EV.

The last time I tested a Lucid, it was the Air Grand Touring almost three years ago. That car mostly impressed me but still felt a little unfinished, especially at $138,000. This time, I looked at the Air Touring, which starts at $79,900, and the experience was altogether more polished.

Which one?

The Touring features a less-powerful all-wheel-drive powertrain than the Grand Touring, although to put “less-powerful” into context, with 620 hp (462 kW) on tap, there are almost as many horses available as in the legendary McLaren F1. (That remains a mental benchmark for many of us of a certain age.)

The Touring’s 885 lb-ft (1,160 Nm) is far more than BMW’s 6-liter V12 can generate, but at 5,009 lbs (2,272 kg), the electric sedan weighs twice as much as the carbon-fiber supercar. The fact that the Air Touring can reach 60 mph (98 km/h) from a standing start in just 0.2 seconds more than the McLaren tells you plenty about how much more accessible acceleration has become in the past few decades.

At least, it will if you choose the fastest of the three drive modes, labeled Sprint. There’s also Swift, and the least frantic of the three, Smooth. Helpfully, each mode remembers your regenerative braking setting when you lift the accelerator pedal. Unlike many other EVs, Lucid does not use a brake-by-wire setup, and pressing the brake pedal will only ever slow the car via friction brakes. Even with lift-off regen set to off, the car does not coast well due to its permanent magnet electric motors, unlike the electric powertrains developed by German OEMs like Mercedes-Benz.

This is not to suggest that Lucid is doing something wrong—not with its efficiency numbers. On 19-inch aero-efficient wheels, the car has an EPA range of 396 miles (673 km) from a 92 kWh battery pack. As just about everyone knows, you won’t get ideal EV efficiency during winter, and our test with the Lucid in early January coincided with some decidedly colder temperatures, as well as larger ($1,750) 20-inch wheels. Despite this, I averaged almost 4 miles/kWh (15.5 kWh/100 km) on longer highway drives, although this fell to around 3.5 miles/kWh (17.8 kWh/100 km) in the city.

Recharging the Air Touring also helped illustrate how the public DC fast-charging experience has matured over the years. The Lucid uses the ISO 15118 “plug and charge” protocol, so you don’t need to mess around with an app or really do anything more complicated than plug the charging cable into the Lucid’s CCS1 socket.

After the car and charger complete their handshake, the car gives the charger account and billing info, then the electrons flow. Charging from 27 to 80 percent with a manually preconditioned battery took 36 minutes. During that time, the car added 53.3 kWh, which equated to 209 miles (336 km) of range, according to the dash. Although we didn’t test AC charging, 0–100 percent should take around 10 hours.

The Air Touring is an easy car to live with. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

Monotone

I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a sucker for the way the Air looks when it’s not two-tone. That’s the Stealth option ($1,750), and the dark Fathom Blue Metallic paint ($800) and blacked-out aero wheels pushed many of my buttons. I found plenty to like from the driver’s seat, too. The 34-inch display that wraps around the driver once looked massive—now it feels relatively restrained compared to the “Best Buy on wheels” effect in some other recent EVs. The fact that the display isn’t very tall helps its feeling of restraint here.

In the middle is a minimalist display for the driver, with touch-sensitive displays on either side. To your left are controls for the lights, locks, wipers, and so on. These icons are always in the same place, though there’s no tactile feedback. The infotainment screen to the right is within the driver’s reach, and it’s here that (wireless) Apple CarPlay will show up. As you can see in a photo below, CarPlay fills the irregularly shaped screen with a wallpaper but keeps its usable area confined to the rectangle in the middle.

The curved display floats above the textile-covered dash, and the daylight visible between them helps the cabin’s sense of spaciousness, even without a panoramic glass roof. A stowable touchscreen display lower down on the center console is where you control vehicle, climate, seat, and lighting settings, although there are also physical controls for temperature and volume on the dash. The relatively good overall ergonomics take a bit of a hit from the steeply raked A pillar, which creates a blind spot for the driver.

The layout is mostly great, although the A pillar causes a blind spot. Jonathan Gitlin

For all the Air Touring’s power, it isn’t a car that goads you into using it all. In fact, I spent most of the week in the gentlest setting, Smooth. It’s an easy car to drive slowly, and the rather artificial feel of the steering at low speeds means you probably won’t take it hunting apices on back roads. I should note, though, that each drive mode has its own steering calibration.

On the other hand, as a daily driver and particularly on longer drives, the Touring did a fine job. Despite being relatively low to the ground, it’s easy to get into and out of. The rear seat is capacious, and the ride is smooth, so passengers will enjoy it. Even more so if they sit up front—Lucid has some of the best (optional, $3,750) massaging seats in the business, which vibrate as well as kneading you. There’s a very accessible 22 cubic foot (623 L) trunk as well as a 10 cubic foot (283 L) frunk, so it’s practical, too.

Future-proof?

Our test Air was fitted with Lucid’s DreamDrive Pro advanced driver assistance system ($6,750), which includes a hands-free “level 2+” assist that requires you to pay attention to the road ahead but which handles accelerating, braking, and steering. Using the turn signal tells the car to perform a lane change if it’s safe, and I found it to be an effective driver assist with an active driver monitoring system (which uses a gaze-tracking camera to ensure the driver is doing their part).

Lucid rolled out the more advanced features of DreamDrive Pro last summer, and it plans to develop the system into a more capable “level 3” partially automated system that lets the driver disengage completely from the act of driving, at least at lower speeds. Although that system is some ways off—and level 3 systems are only road-legal in Nevada and California right now anyway—even the current level 2+ system leverages lidar as well as cameras, radar, and ultrasonics, and the dash display does a good job of showing you what other vehicles the Air is perceiving around it when the system is active.

As mentioned above, the model year 2026 Air feels polished, far more so than the last Lucid I drove. Designed by a refugee from Tesla, the car promised to improve on the EVs from that brand in every way. And while early Airs might have fallen short in execution, the cars can now credibly be called finished products, with much better fit and finish than a few years ago.

I’ll go so far as to say that I might have a hard time deciding between an Air or an equivalently priced Porsche Taycan were I in the market for a luxury electric four-door, even though they both offer quite different driving experiences. Be warned, though, like with the Porsche, the options can add up quickly, and the resale prices can be shockingly low.

Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica’s automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC.

2026 Lucid Air Touring review: This feels like a complete car now Read More »

eBay bans illicit automated shopping amid rapid rise of AI agents

agentic AI, agentic commerce, AI, AI agents, AI shopping, Amazon, Anthropic, arbitration, Biz & IT, chatgpt, eBay, eCommerce, Etsy, Google, large language models, machine learning, openai, Perplexity, shopify, user agreements, Web Scraping / Mike M. / January 22, 2026

On Tuesday, eBay updated its User Agreement to explicitly ban third-party “buy for me” agents and AI chatbots from interacting with its platform without permission, first spotted by Value Added Resource. On its face, a one-line terms of service update doesn’t seem like major news, but what it implies is more significant: The change reflects the rapid emergence of what some are calling “agentic commerce,” a new category of AI tools designed to browse, compare, and purchase products on behalf of users.

eBay’s updated terms, which go into effect on February 20, 2026, specifically prohibit users from employing “buy-for-me agents, LLM-driven bots, or any end-to-end flow that attempts to place orders without human review” to access eBay’s services without the site’s permission. The previous version of the agreement contained a general prohibition on robots, spiders, scrapers, and automated data gathering tools but did not mention AI agents or LLMs by name.

At first glance, the phrase “agentic commerce” may sound like aspirational marketing jargon, but the tools are already here, and people are apparently using them. While fitting loosely under one label, these tools come in many forms.

OpenAI first added shopping features to ChatGPT Search in April 2025, allowing users to browse product recommendations. By September, the company launched Instant Checkout, which lets users purchase items from Etsy and Shopify merchants directly within the chat interface. (In November, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone suggested the company might join OpenAI’s Instant Checkout program in the future.)

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Macaque facial gestures are more than just a reflex, study finds

macaques, Science / Mike M. / January 20, 2026

Based on the video analysis, scientists identified three facial gestures they wanted to focus on: the lipsmack macaques use to signal receptivity or submission; the threat face they make when they want to challenge or chase off an adversary; and chewing, a non-social, volitional movement. Then, using the fMRI scans, the team located key brain areas involved in triggering these gestures. And when this was done, Ianni and her colleagues went deeper—quite literally.

Under the hood

“We targeted these brain areas with sub-millimeter precision for implantation of micro-electrode arrays,” Ianni explains. This, for the first time, allowed her team to simultaneously record the activity from many neurons spaced across the areas where the brain generates facial gestures. The electrodes went into the primary motor cortex, the ventral premotor cortex, the primary somatosensory cortex, and the cingulate motor cortex. When they were in, the team once again exposed the macaques to the same set of social stimuli, looking for neural signatures of the three selected facial gestures. And that’s when things took a surprising turn.

The researchers expected to see a clear division of responsibilities, one where the cingulate cortex governs social signals, while the motor cortex is specialized in chewing. Instead, they found that every single region was involved in every type of gesture. Whether the macaques were threatening a rival or simply enjoying a snack, all four brain areas were firing in a coordinated symphony.

This led Ianni’s team to the question of how the brain distinguished between social gestures and chewing, since it apparently wasn’t about where the brain processed the information. The answer was in different neural codes—different ways that neurons represent and transmit information in the brain over time.

The hierarchy of timing

By analyzing neural population dynamics, the team identified a temporal hierarchy across the cortex in macaques. The cingulate cortex used a static neural code. “The static means the firing pattern of neurons is persistent across both multiple repetitions of the same facial gesture and across time,” Ianni explains, and maintained their firing pattern till 0.8 seconds after that. “A single decoder which learns this pattern could be used at any timepoint or during any trial to read out the facial expression,” Ianni says.

Macaque facial gestures are more than just a reflex, study finds Read More »

Ocean damage nearly doubles the cost of climate change

climate change, ocean ecology, Science, syndication / Mike M. / January 18, 2026

Using greenhouse gas emission predictions, the report estimates the annual damages to traditional markets alone will be $1.66 trillion by 2100.

The study, which began in 2021, brought together scientists from multiple disciplines: Fisheries experts, coral reef researchers, biologists and climate economists. They assessed downstream climate change costs across four key sectors—corals, mangroves, fisheries, and seaports—measuring everything from straightforward market loss of reduced fisheries and marine trade to reductions in ocean-based recreational industries.

Researchers also placed a monetary figure on what economists call non-use values. “Something has value because it makes the world feel more livable, meaningful, or worth protecting, even if we never directly use it,” said Bastien-Olvera, referencing the fiscal merit of ecosystem enjoyment and the cultural loss caused by climate change. “Most people will never visit a coral reef during a full-moon spawning event, or see a deep-sea jellyfish glowing in total darkness. But many still care deeply that these things exist.”

Island economies, which rely more on seafood for nutrition, will face disproportionate financial and health impacts from ocean warming and acidification, the study said. “The countries that have the most responsibility for causing climate change and the most capacity to fix it are not generally the same countries that will experience the largest or most near-term damages,” said Kate Ricke, co-author and climate professor at UCSD’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. Including ocean data in social cost of carbon assessments reveals increased consequences for morbidity and mortality in low-income countries facing increased nutrition deficiency.

Despite the scale of the scientific discovery, Bastien-Olvera and Ricke are optimistic this data will be a wake-up call for international decision-making. “I hope that the high value of ‘blueSCC’ can motivate further investment in adaptation and resilience for ocean systems,” said Ricke, using the term of the ocean-based social cost of carbon and referencing the opportunities to invest in coral reef and mangrove restoration projects.

Meanwhile, Bastien-Olvera believes centering the framework on oceans also recognizes the longstanding conservation approaches of coastal communities, ocean scientists and Indigenous peoples. “For a long time, climate economics treated the ocean values as if it were worth zero,” he said. “This is a first step toward finally acknowledging how wrong that was.”

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

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Managers on alert for “launch fever” as pressure builds for NASA’s Moon mission

artemis, artemis II, human spaceflight, Kennedy Space Center, moon, NASA, orion, Science, Space, space launch system / Mike M. / January 17, 2026

“Putting crew on the rocket and taking the crew around the Moon, this is going be our first step toward a sustained lunar presence,” Honeycutt said. “It’s 10 days [and] four astronauts going farther from Earth than any other human has ever traveled. We’ll be validating the Orion spacecraft’s life support, navigation and crew systems in the really harsh environments of deep space, and that’s going to pave the way for future landings.”

NASA’s 322-foot-tall (98-meter) SLS rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building on the eve of rollout to Launch Complex 39B. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

There is still much work ahead before NASA can clear Artemis II for launch. At the launch pad, technicians will complete final checkouts and closeouts before NASA’s launch team gathers in early February for a critical practice countdown. During this countdown, called a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR), Blackwell-Thompson and her team will oversee the loading of the SLS rocket’s core stage and upper stage with super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.

The cryogenic fluids, particularly liquid hydrogen, gave fits to the Artemis launch team as NASA prepared to launch the Artemis I mission—without astronauts—on the SLS rocket’s first test flight in 2022. Engineers resolved the issues and successfully launched the Artemis I mission in November 2022, and officials will apply the lessons for the Artemis II countdown.

“Artemis I was a test flight, and we learned a lot during that campaign getting to launch,” Blackwell-Thompson said. “And the things that we’ve learned relative to how to go load this vehicle, how to load LOX (liquid oxygen), how to load hydrogen, have all been rolled in to the way in which we intend to do for the Artemis II vehicle.”

Finding the right time to fly

Assuming the countdown rehearsal goes according to plan, NASA could be in a position to launch the Artemis II mission as soon as February 6. But the schedule for February 6 is tight, with no margin for error. Officials typically have about five days per month when they can launch Artemis II, when the Moon is in the right position relative to Earth, and the Orion spacecraft can follow the proper trajectory toward reentry and splashdown to limit stress on the capsule’s heat shield.

In February, the available launch dates are February 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11, with launch windows in the overnight hours in Florida. If the mission isn’t off the ground by February 11, NASA will have to stand down until a new series of launch opportunities beginning March 6. The space agency has posted a document showing all available launch dates and times through the end of April.

John Honeycutt, chair NASA’s Mission Management Team for the Artemis II mission, speaks during a news conference at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 16, 2026. Credit: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

NASA’s leaders are eager for Artemis II to fly. NASA is not only racing China, a reality the agency’s former administrator acknowledged during the Biden administration. Now, the Trump administration is pushing NASA to accomplish a human landing on the Moon by the end of his presidential term on January 20, 2029.

One of Honeycutt’s jobs as chair of the Mission Management Team (MMT) is ensuring all the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed amid the frenzy of final launch preparations. While the hardware for Artemis II is on the move in Florida, the astronauts and flight controllers are wrapping up their final training and simulations at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“I think I’ve got a good eye for launch fever,” he said Friday.

“As chair of the MMT, I’ve got one job, and it’s the safe return of Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy. I consider that a duty and a trust, and it’s one I intend to see through.”

Managers on alert for “launch fever” as pressure builds for NASA’s Moon mission Read More »

This may be the grossest eye pic ever—but the cause is what’s truly horrifying

antibiotic resistance, bacteria, brain, eye, Features, health, hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae, infection, liver, lungs, New England Journal of Medicine / Mike M. / January 17, 2026

Savage microbe

Whatever was laying waste to his eye seemed to have come from inside his own body, carried in his bloodstream—possibly the same thing that could explain the liver mass, lung nodules, and brain lesions. There was one explanation that fit the condition perfectly: hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae or hvKP.

Classical K. pneumoniae is a germ that dwells in people’s intestinal tracts and is one that’s familiar to doctors. It’s known for lurking in health care settings and infecting vulnerable patients, often causing pneumonia or urinary tract infections. But hvKP is very different. In comparison, it’s a beefed-up bacteria with a rage complex. It was first identified in the 1980s in Taiwan—not for stalking weak patients in the hospital but for devastating healthy people in normal community settings.

An infection with hvKP—even in otherwise healthy people—is marked by metastatic infection. That is, the bacteria spreads throughout the body, usually starting with the liver, where it creates a pus-filled abscess. It then goes on a trip through the bloodstream, invading the lungs, brain, soft tissue, skin, and the eye (endogenous endophthalmitis). Putting it all together, the man had a completely typical clinical case of an hvKP infection.

Still, definitively identifying hvKP is tricky. Mucus from the man’s respiratory tract grew a species of Klebsiella, but there’s not yet a solid diagnostic test to differentiate hvKP from the classical variety. Since 2024, researchers have worked out a strategy of using the presence of five different virulence genes found on plasmids (relatively small, circular pieces of DNA, separate from chromosomal DNA, that can replicate on their own and be shared among bacteria.) But the method isn’t perfect—some classical K. pneumoniae can also carry the five genes.

A string test performed on the rare growth of *Klebsiella pneumoniae* from the sputum culture shows a positive result, with the formation of a viscous string with a height of greater than 5 mm. Credit: NEJM 2026

Another much simpler method is the string test, in which clinicians basically test the goopy-ness of the bacteria—hvKP is known for being sticky. For this test, a clinician grows the bacteria into a colony on a petri dish, then touches an inoculation loop to the colony and pulls up. If the string of attached goo stretches more than 5 mm off the petri dish, it’s considered positive for hvKP. This is (obviously) not a precise test.

This may be the grossest eye pic ever—but the cause is what’s truly horrifying Read More »

Ferrari doing what it does best: The 12Cilindri review

car review, Cars, Ferrari 12Cilindri / Mike M. / January 16, 2026

Retro design and a naturally aspirated V12 deliver tremendous appeal, but it’ll cost ya.

In the old days, they used to say Ferrari would sell you an engine and give you the car for free. The rest of the 12Cilindri is too good for that cliche, but it really is all about the engine. Credit: Bradley Iger

It has been nearly 80 years since Ferrari unleashed its first V12-powered sports car upon the world with the 125 S. In 1947, its debut year, the 125 S secured Ferrari’s first race victory, along with five other wins in the 14 events it competed in that season.

Although it was soon replaced by the 159 S, the success of the 125 S kick-started Ferrari’s storied history of producing some of the most desirable 12-cylinder performance cars known to man. And while the Italian automaker has come to embrace forced induction and electrification in recent years, its legacy of building stunning front-engine, rear-wheel drive machines with spectacular V12s stuffed into their engine bays continues with the 12Cilindri Spider.

Ferrari hasn’t shied away from leveraging cutting-edge technology in the development of its latest models, but the company also understands the value of a good throwback. As the successor to the 812 Superfast, the 12Cilindri boasts clever performance technologies, like a sophisticated active aero system and a four-wheel steering system that can manage each corner independently to enhance response, but it’s ultimately an homage to the heady days of late ’60s luxury grand touring. The exterior styling takes obvious inspiration from the 365 GTB Daytona, while its lack of all-wheel drive, turbocharging, and electric assistance bucks trends that have become nearly inescapable in modern performance cars.

It’s actually an easy car to drive every day, despite the width. Bradley Iger

Buy the engine, get the car for free?

Instead, Ferrari has deliberately prioritized the core principles that have defined its most enduring GT icons: elegant design, a meticulously engineered chassis, and a sensational naturally aspirated V12, the latter represented here by a 6.5 L dry-sump mill that delivers 819 hp (611 kW) and a soaring 9,500-rpm redline.

That horsepower figure might not raise as many eyebrows as it would have just a few years ago, but it’s worth noting that at a time in history when an alarming number of new performance vehicles are now as heavy as full-size pickups, the 12Cilindri Spider tips the scales at a relatively svelte dry weight of 3,571 (1,620 kg) pounds thanks in part to its focus on the fundamentals. Equipped with massage seats and a retractable hardtop that opens and closes in just 14 seconds, the 12Cilindri Spider is primarily aimed at fulfilling drivers’ fantasies of cruising along the French Riviera with the smell of the ocean in the air and the banshee wail of 12 cylinders in their ears. But it also takes on a noticeably more sportscar-like persona than its primary rival, the Aston Martin Vanquish Volante, mainly due to the 12Cilindri’s eight-speed dual-clutch transmission and more earnest performance-tuned chassis.

Sport is the 12Cilindri Spider’s default drive mode, a naming decision that helps set expectations for suspension stiffness, but you can also depress the steering-wheel-mounted Manettino drive mode dial to enable Bumpy Road mode, which softens the adaptive dampers beyond their standard tuning for more compliance on rough pavement. While the gearbox occasionally needs a second to get its act together from a standstill, and the car’s low stance makes the nose lift system an often-used feature, the 12Cilindri Spider is a remarkably civil cruiser when pressed into service for everyday driving tasks.

Crackle red paint covers the intake boxes, and maybe the cylinder heads. Bradley Iger

Still an HMI disaster

The in-car tech does tarnish this driving experience to a tangible degree, though. The liberal use of capacitive surfaces on the steering wheel and the instrument panel to control features like rear-view mirror position and adaptive cruise control, as well as the functions that are accessed via the 15.6-inch digital gauge cluster, frequently led to frustration during my time with the car, and although the high-resolution 10.25-inch central touchscreen looks great and is quick to respond to user inputs, wireless Apple CarPlay crashed on several occasions for no discernible reason and remained inaccessible until after the next key cycle. These may seem like trivial issues, but in a car with a $507,394 MSRP ($661,364 as-tested with destination fee), it’s tough to excuse problems that are so distracting and seemingly easy to rectify.

We had the same problem with the 296 GTB, and it’s time Ferrari retired its capacitive wheel and replaced them all with the version that has physical buttons. Which it will do for existing owners—for a hefty fee.

But, perhaps unsurprisingly, those quibbles always seemed to fade away whenever I found an open stretch of canyon road and set the Manettino to Race mode. Doing so eases up the electronic assists, sets up the transmission and differential for sharper response, and opens up the valves in the active exhaust system. But, in contrast to convention, it leaves the steering weight, suspension stiffness, throttle response, and brake-by-wire system alone in order to maintain predictable dynamic behavior regardless of which drive mode you’re in.

Ferrari’s capacitive touch multifunctioning steering wheel continues to let down the experience of driving a modern Ferrari. Bradley Iger

Although the exhaust is a bit quieter than I’d prefer, even with the roof stowed away, the sound that this V12 makes as you wind it out is the stuff that dreams are made of. It took me a moment to recalibrate to the lofty redline, though—with the gearbox set to manual mode, my mind naturally wanted to pull the column-mounted paddle about 2,000 rpm early. I blame this on my seat time in the Vanquish coupe last year. Aston’s decision to equip the Vanquish’s 5.2 L V12 with a pair of turbochargers enables it to best the 12Cilinidri’s horsepower figure by a few ponies while also providing a significant advantage in peak torque output (738 lb-ft/1,000 Nm versus the Ferrari’s 500 lb-ft/678 Nm), but it also relegates the Vanquish’s redline to a more prosaic 7,000 rpm while naturally muting its tone a bit.

OK, that’s enough torque

And to be frank, I don’t think the 12Cilindri Spider needs another 238 lb-ft (322 Nm), a theory that was backed by the flashing traction control light that fired up any time I got a little too brave with the throttle coming out of a slow corner. Intervention from the Ferrari’s electronic safeguards is so seamless that I rarely noticed it happening at all, though, and I can’t say the same for the Vanquish, which is undoubtedly thrilling to drive but often felt like it was fighting against its own prodigious output in order to keep the nose on the intended path. The 12Cilindri, by contrast, feels easy to trust when the going gets fast, and that sensation is bolstered by tons of mechanical grip, a quick steering rack, and a firm, progressive brake pedal.

But regardless of my thoughts on the matter, the 12Cilindri’s successor will likely be a significantly different beast with a lot more power on tap. Nearly a decade ago, we predicted that the 812 would likely be the last Ferrari to feature a naturally aspirated V12, and while this is a prediction that we’re happy to have been wrong about, this era is undoubtedly drawing to a close. A hybridized V12 will likely offer even more grunt, and enthusiasts rarely scoff at the prospect of more power, but it also opens the door to all-wheel drive, significantly more heft, and ultimately a very different driving experience. Until then, the 12Cilindri Spider serves as an important reminder that sometimes the most compelling aspects of a performance car can’t be quantified on a spec sheet.

Ferrari doing what it does best: The 12Cilindri review Read More »

Big Pharma is openly railing against RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine agenda

anti-vaccine, health, pharmaceutical, Robert F Kenned Jr. / Mike M. / January 15, 2026

Waiting for the midterms

But pharmaceutical executives don’t appear comforted by the pushback. “Today it may be childhood vaccines or mRNA, but tomorrow it’s everything,” Noubar Afeyan, co-founder and chairman of Moderna, maker of mRNA vaccines, said. “We have to say not just ‘why is this happening?,’ but ‘Where will it stop?’”

As a bad flu season is underway, Dean Li, president of Merck Research Laboratories, noted that the anti-vaccine rhetoric is hitting seasonal flu shots. “With the pressure on vaccination, I cannot foresee flu vaccination increasing in this country over the next three years,” he said in a presentation.

Sanofi Chief Executive Paul Hudson had a similarly pessimistic outlook. “It’s clear this administration has a particular sensitivity around vaccination, and indeed pediatric vaccination,” Hudson said. “I’m asked all the time ‘what are you going to do to fix this?,’ and the truth is we just need to stay extremely objective and continue presenting the evidence. There’s really very little else we can do,” except wait for the midterm elections, he said.

“We will have to maintain a steely focus on the long-term future of vaccines and deal with any uncertainty around vaccine coverage rates in the short-term based on misinformation, Facebook posts, and statements from the top,” he said.

Bourla also worried about the conditions Kennedy is creating to attack drug makers. Kennedy, who is an environmental lawyer with no scientific or medical background, has profited from lawsuits against vaccine makers, as have many of his allies and advisors. “There is also a lot of plaintiffs’ playbook there,” Bourla said. “Everybody will start litigating.”

Big Pharma is openly railing against RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine agenda Read More »

Man got $2,500 whole-body MRI that found no problems—then had massive stroke

health, imaging, lawsuit, MRI, Prenuvo, stroke, whole-body / Mike M. / January 14, 2026

A New York man is suing Prenuvo, a celebrity-endorsed whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provider, claiming that the company missed clear signs of trouble in his $2,500 whole-body scan—and if it hadn’t, he could have acted to avert the catastrophic stroke he suffered months later.

Sean Clifford and his legal team claim that his scan on July 15, 2023, showed a 60 percent narrowing and irregularity in a major artery in his brain—the proximal right middle cerebral artery, a branch of the most common artery involved in acute strokes. But Prenuvo’s reviews of the scan did not flag the finding and otherwise reported everything in his brain looked normal; there was “no adverse finding.” (You can read Prenuvo’s report and see Clifford’s subsequent imaging here.)

Clifford suffered a massive stroke on March 7, 2024. Subsequent imaging found that the proximal right middle cerebral artery progressed to a complete blockage, causing the stroke. Clifford suffered paralysis of his left hand and leg, general weakness on his left side, vision loss and permanent double vision, anxiety, depression, mood swings, cognitive deficits, speech problems, and permanent difficulties with all daily activities.

He filed his lawsuit against Prenuvo in September 2024 in the New York State Supreme Court. In the lawsuit, he argues that if he had known of the problem, he could have undergone stenting or other minimally invasive measures to prevent the stroke.

Ongoing litigation

In the legal proceedings since, Prenuvo, a California-based company, has tried to limit the damages that Clifford could seek, first by trying to force arbitration and then by trying to apply California laws to the New York case, as California law caps malpractice damages. The company failed on both counts. In a December ruling, a judge also denied Prenovo’s attempts to shield the radiologist who reviewed Clifford’s scan, William A. Weiner, DO, of East Rockaway, New York.

Notably, Weiner has had his medical license suspended in connection with an auto insurance scheme, in which Weiner was accused of falsifying findings on MRI scans.

Man got $2,500 whole-body MRI that found no problems—then had massive stroke Read More »

Author name: Mike M.