Fossilized penis worm suggests Grand Canyon was an evolutionary hotbed
After eons fossilized inside a rock, the newly identified species was unveiled in a study Wednesday, and the worm's sophisticated eating apparatus shows that the Grand Canyon was once an evolutionary 'Goldilocks zone,' its authors say, where conditions were so abundant that animals like this one could afford to take risks as they evolved.
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Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Exclusive-Trump administration to expand price support for US rare earths projects, sources say
By Ernest Scheyder and Jarrett Renshaw (Reuters) -Top White House officials told a group of rare earths firms last week that they are pursuing a pandemic-era approach to boost U.S. critical minerals production and curb China's market dominance by guaranteeing a minimum price for their products, five sources familiar with the plan told Reuters. The previously unreported July 24 meeting was led by Peter Navarro, President Donald Trump's trade advisor, and David Copley, a National Security Council official tasked with supply chain strategy. It included ten rare earths companies plus tech giants Apple, Microsoft and Corning, which all rely on consistent supply of critical minerals to make electronics, the sources said. Navarro and Copley told the meeting that a floor price for rare earths extended to MP Materials earlier this month as part of a multibillion-dollar investment by the Pentagon was "not a one-off" and that similar deals were also in the works, the sources said. U.S. critical minerals firms, which complain that China's market dominance makes investing in mining projects risky, have long sought a federally backed price guarantee. Rare earths, a group of 17 metals used to make magnets that turn power into motion, and other critical minerals are used widely across the electronics sector, including the manufacture of cell phones and weapons. The officials detailed Trump's desire to quickly boost U.S. rare earths output - through mining, processing, recycling and magnet production - in a manner that would evoke the speed of 2020's Operation Warp Speed, which developed the COVID-19 vaccine in less than a year. Navarro confirmed the meeting to Reuters. He said the administration aims to "move in 'Trump Time,' which is to say as fast as possible while maintaining efficiency" to remedy perceived vulnerabilities in the U.S. critical minerals industry. Navarro did not comment on whether he mentioned the price floor at the meeting. "Our goal is to build out our supply chains from mines to end use products across the entire critical mineral spectrum, and the companies assembled at the meeting have the potential to play important roles in this effort," Navarro said. China - the world's largest producer of rare earths for more than 30 years - halted exports in March as part of a trade spat with Washington that showed some signs of easing late last month, even as the broader tensions remain. Beyond the price floor, Navarro and Copley advised attendees to avail themselves of existing government financial support, including billions of dollars worth of incentives in Trump's tax and spending bill approved on July 4, the sources said. Copley did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Apple signed a supply deal with MP after the Pentagon's investment this month. At the Washington meeting, Navarro and Copley said Trump would like to see more tech companies invest in the rare earths sector, either through seed investing or by making buyouts, all of the sources said. Apple and Corning did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Microsoft declined to comment. EXPORT BAN REQUEST While the attendees asked Navarro to support a ban on exports of equipment containing rare earth magnets to spur domestic recycling, Navarro told them he would push for that only after the U.S. rare earths industry is more developed so as not to prematurely give China leverage in the ongoing trade spat, according to the sources. When asked about a potential ban, Navarro told Reuters: "All policy options are on the table. As President Trump loves to say, 'Let's see what happens.'" Attendees included Phoenix Tailings, which is building a rare earths processing facility in New Hampshire, Momentum Technologies, which developed a modular battery and magnet recycling system, Vulcan Elements, which has built a pilot facility for rare earth magnets, and rare earths recyclers REEcycle and Cyclic Materials. "These guys are serious about fixing the problem," said Vulcan CEO John Maslin. "They want companies to partner." Redwood Materials and Cirba Solutions, two of North America's largest battery recyclers, also attended. TechMet, which invests in mining projects across the globe and in which the U.S. government holds a minority stake, also attended the meeting, as did Noveon, a Texas-based rare earths magnet company. Phoenix, Momentum, Cirba, TechMet, Noveon, Cyclic, ReElement and REEcycle, all of which are privately held, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Redwood declined to comment. The administration officials plan to meet again with the companies in roughly four to six weeks, a truncated timeline aimed at underscoring the administration's desire to quickly support a U.S. minerals industry, the sources said. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
17 minutes ago
- Forbes
Labcorp Unveils AI Tool To Simplify Lab Test Selection
Labcorp announced yesterday a new AI tool called Test Finder to help doctors speed up their ability to locate the right lab tests. Built with Amazon Web Services, the system lets clinicians type or speak their questions and then shows a ranked list of the best-matching tests or assays. Instead of navigating through more than 5,000 test items, doctors can now find what they need in a matter of seconds. "Clinicians are under increasing pressure to do more with less," said Dr. Brian Caveney, Labcorp's chief medical and scientific officer. "Test Finder is designed to ease that burden by providing a faster, more intuitive way to navigate complex test menus, conduct research and identify the right tests, so clinicians can focus on what matters most: their patients." Fixing Complicated Processes Nearly 70 percent of all medical decisions depend on lab results. Yet finding the right test often requires sorting through pages of similar-sounding options. The wrong choice can mean delays, added costs, or a misstep in treatment. The system provides access to thousands of lab tests across many areas including oncology, women's health, neurology, autoimmune diseases, and other requested assays. The use of this AI assistant aims to cut the time spent placing complex orders by up to 70 percent. For example, it might have taken navigation across 15 to 20 screens to track down a rare endocrine test. Now, the natural language-powered assistant will allow you to locate it in seconds. That time savings matters. A primary care doctor may see thirty or more patients a day, each with a different set of lab needs. The minutes add up quickly. How the Tool Works Test Finder runs on AWS Bedrock and draws on a language model trained for clinical terms and Labcorp's catalog. When a doctor enters a query, the AI looks at the patient's symptoms or suspected conditions, links them to diagnostic pathways, and lists the most relevant tests. Each option shows the name, purpose, specimen type, and the code needed to order it. The software runs on AWS infrastructure that meets HIPAA security standards. Labcorp says patient data remains encrypted end to end. An Industry Rush Toward AI Labcorp isn't alone. Quest Diagnostics recently partnered with Google Cloud on similar AI projects in research and customer support. Academic hospitals are testing AI agents in pathology and radiology to spot anomalies in scans faster. These experiments all chase the same goal: give clinicians better information in less time. Labcorp processes more than 700 million tests a year and supports most newly approved FDA therapies, so the company's rollout is likely to draw attention from other large diagnostic networks. The Test Finder team plans to keep tuning the software. Labcorp says it will judge success by how much time doctors save, how satisfied they are with the experience, and whether diagnoses speed up. "Test Finder is a powerful example of how we're using technology to simplify complexity," said Bola Oyegunwa, Ph.D., Labcorp's chief information and technology officer. "By integrating generative AI, we're not only improving the provider experience, we're laying the foundation for smarter, more connected healthcare solutions that scale with the needs of our customers." AI Spreading Through Healthcare AI is showing up almost everywhere in hospitals and clinics. A McKinsey survey from late 2024 found that 85 percent of healthcare executives were already using or actively testing AI systems for tasks ranging from insurance claims to patient scheduling. In radiology, image-analysis platforms now scan for lung nodules and tumors before a radiologist ever opens the file. Some can flag suspicious findings in minutes, which can shave hours off the time to diagnosis. In drug discovery, tools like DeepMind's AlphaFold are helping scientists map protein structures faster than they could in the lab, cutting years off early-stage research. On the administrative side, AI models handle coding and prior authorization paperwork. Health systems using these programs have reported review times dropping by 50 to 60 percent. That allows billing staff to focus on patient-facing tasks rather than combing through forms. Patients are beginning to interact with AI, too. Chatbots now handle routine questions about medications or symptoms. Digital mental-health tools use conversational agents to track mood swings and suggest coping strategies, particularly in rural areas with few therapists. Balancing AI Interest With Caution Some clinicians have raised questions about the increasing use of AI, especially on private health data. Labcorp intends that the tool is meant to support, not replace, human judgment. Doctors and regulators agree that AI needs strong guardrails. Algorithms can reflect the biases in the data they learn from, and mistakes in a medical setting can carry serious consequences. AI powered systems such as Test Finder are increasingly adding multiple checkpoints and ongoing audits as tools are rolled out. Still, the appeal of using AI is clear. By making it faster to match a patient with the right test, the company hopes Test Finder will do more than ease paperwork. It could help doctors get to answers sooner, and that can change lives.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Mary K. Gaillard, Physicist Who Probed the Subatomic Universe, Dies at 86
Mary K. Gaillard was 16 and still known as Mary Ralph when a boy in her neighborhood asked her what she wanted to do with her life. She told him that she wanted to be a physicist. 'A singularly unfeminine profession,' he replied. Decades later, that remark would inspire the title of Dr. Gaillard's memoir, 'A Singularly Unfeminine Profession: One Woman's Journey in Physics' (2015), in which she recounted a career spanning a golden age of particle physics, when the outlines of how nature behaves at subatomic scales were just beginning to emerge. Dr. Gaillard contributed key insights to what is now known as the Standard Model — scientists' best theory about the properties and interactions of elementary particles — while overcoming discrimination as one of the few women in her field and inspiring other female physicists to do the same. Physics was 'her life,' her son Bruno said. 'She was consumed by it.' Known to many as Mary K, sans period, Dr. Gaillard, who died on May 23 at 86, was the first woman hired by the physics department at the University of California, Berkeley, and later became a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. But much of her groundbreaking work occurred earlier, during a long stint as an unpaid visiting scientist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, a laboratory on the Franco-Swiss border. She was 'brilliant at doing calculations,' said John Ellis, a physicist at King's College London, who collaborated with Dr. Gaillard at CERN. 'If she calculated something, you could be sure that it was correct.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
