Latest news with #Wozniak
Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak calls out YouTube over rampant scam videos
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak reflected on how the internet, which was once a tool for empowerment, has now become a fertile ground for fraud, in a recent chat. In an interview with CBS, Wozniak said the computer revolution he helped start was good until the internet offered new business models, in ways that companies exercise power over other people. Steve Wozniak spoke about the prevalence of internet scams in a recent interview.(Bloomberg) 'That's when some of the bad started happening,' Wozniak noted. Bitcoin scam hits close to home A YouTube scam used clips of Wozniak discussing bitcoin, falsely promising to double any cryptocurrency sent to a displayed address. Victims, including Jennifer Marion, collectively lost large sums: Marion alone sent 0.9 bitcoin, which was then valued at $59,000 and received nothing in return. Speaking about it, Wozniak's wife, Janet, said the scammers had put a frame in the video, making false claims with a bitcoin address. This, she told CBS, was a tell-tale sign of it being a fraud. Despite reporting the video repeatedly, it stayed up. 'YouTube is helping dupe people out of their money,' she said. Also read: Southeast Wisconsin weather radar: Flash flood warnings issued in Milwaukee and 5 other counties- here's what we know Taking on big tech in court The CBS report added that Wozniak sued YouTube on behalf of victims, but the case has been stalled for five years due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act: the 1996 law shielding online platforms from liability for third-party content. Wozniak told the publication that the platform has no liability at all. 'It's totally absolute,' Wozniak said. Attorney Brian Danitz added that scams generate billions annually, and platforms are not acting fast enough to curb them. Also read: Apple Got the Jump on Tariffs, Deciding Years Ago to Make iPhones in India A broader internet problem Wozniak warned about these scams being beyond a single site alone: they are everywhere on the Internet through spam, phishing, or increasingly sophisticated AI tools. "There isn't enough real muscle to fight it," he told CBS. Marion, too, warned users against assuming anything is safe because it appears on known platforms. From democratization to exploitation Wozniak reportedly still remembers the promise of internet: a place where anybody could share knowledge worldwide without gatekeepers. Wozniak admitted he loved it for that, but monetization models were introduced and changed everything. "Companies figured out how to exploit it. Google had to make money, and the only way was tracking you and selling to advertisers,' Wozniak said. FAQs Q1: What scam targeted Steve Wozniak? Scammers used edited YouTube videos of him discussing bitcoins, promising to double any cryptocurrency sent. Q2: How much did victims lose? Some lost their life savings; one victim reported losing $59,000. Q3: Why can't Steve Wozniak sue YouTube directly? Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields online platforms from liability for user-generated content. Q4: Has YouTube removed the fraudulent videos? Victims and Wozniak say many remained online despite repeated reports. Q5: What is Steve Wozniak calling for? He is calling for stronger accountability from tech platforms to combat and prevent online scams.
Telegraph
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Why the ultra-rich are investing in weird collectables
The theatre of a much-anticipated auction has traditionally played out around unearthed Turners, Renoirs or Caravaggios. Now, the drama is more likely to focus on the whirr of a 50-year-old computer slowly booting up than it is on an Old Master being revealed. An Apple I – the first product manufactured by the two maverick Steves (Wozniak and Jobs) – is one of the most talked-about items on the ticket for Sotheby's this year. Once the playthings of messy-haired visionaries in Californian garages, these clunky early computers – which have all the visual appeal of a bread bin when compared with the supermodel-like MacBooks of today – are now spoken about in reverent tones, as if they were ancient relics. Yet tracking down a usable model is a task even a young Harrison Ford might baulk at. The first 50 Apple computers ever made were sold by Jobs and Wozniak in a single consignment in 1976, to the Byte Shop in California, where they retailed at a tongue-in-cheek $666.66 each; in total, just 200 of the model were ever made. Most were bought by an entirely new type of enthusiast: the tech geek. Being geeks, they weren't content simply to own one of the first affordable home computers – they wanted to tinker until they understood exactly how it worked. By doing so, they usually ran them into the ground and as a result very few still switch on. Now, Cassandra Hatton – the Indiana Jones of weird collectables and a vice-chairman at Sotheby's New York – has in her hands the holy grail: an Apple I from that first consignment that has sat, untouched and forgotten, on a dusty backroom shelf for nearly five decades. She believes it is the most valuable model ever to have come to market – and says it was only powered up for the first or second time in her office, making it a still-functioning portal to the dawn of the industry that changed the world. 'The underside of the board of these models was coated in a green paint,' she says. 'In the 1970s, computers still ran incredibly hot, and each time the machine was powered on, the paint on the board bubbled and came off.' Most of the machines she is offered have no paint left; this one is still a pristine green. It is going on sale during Sotheby's 'Geek Week' – a programme of auctions dedicated to such objects, launched by Hatton in response to increasing demand – which will run for the first two weeks of July in New York. Sotheby's has also recently established a dedicated pop culture category, which will have sales twice a year offering items from film, music, television and comics. The Apple I's estimate is $400,000 to $600,000 – about £300,000 to £450,000 – though it could sell for 10 times that. Once the preserve of Picassos, pearls and people speaking knowledgeably about provenance over an expensive lunch, the auction world has changed. The arrival of tech barons and crypto-kings has – among other factors – forced major auction houses to shift their focus, while online auctions have become increasingly lucrative. Objects that, to the untrained eye, look like clutter brought down from the attic, have become prized possessions: rusting computers, moon rocks, figurines, Pokémon cards and geeky film props. The numbers are staggering: in November, the Marauder's Map from the Harry Potter film series sold for £239,400; earlier this year, a Star Wars prop (Chewbacca's crossbow) sold for $768,600 (£564,740); while this month a human-sized Labubu doll (toys that have recently erupted in popularity online) was bought in Beijing for £110,465. It is particularly hard to imagine how the old guard of the art world reacted when a Cheeto (the American equivalent of a Wotsit) in the shape of a Pokémon sold for $87,840 (£68,000) through Goldin Auctions in March. 'A class of people who owe their success to time spent in labs or with computers back when it wasn't the coolest thing now has more disposable income than almost anyone else,' says Hatton. 'They look back on the interests they had when they were young and realise that – while it didn't necessarily make them popular at the time – it has made them powerful in the long run. I always like to validate my clients' taste: I like to tell them they were right all along.' In this new era of collecting, James Hyslop – Christie's head of science and natural history, who launched the first dedicated live meteorite sale at the auction house in London a decade ago – feels a responsibility to ensure that such august houses retain a sense of gravitas, no matter what they are selling. 'We are incredibly selective: for every 100 meteorites we get offered – I get sent five to 10 a week – we only take one,' he says. 'We are determined to present only the very best. For us to take on a meteorite, it has to be spectacularly beautiful, spectacularly rare, or spectacularly important. Ideally, all three.' Still, appraising a meteorite, computer or dinosaur bone remains a complicated business. Unlike with a van Gogh or a tiara, there is no well-trodden path to follow, and Hyslop has had to create a value system based on the size, shape, science and story of each meteorite. 'Size is pretty easy; the bigger the meteorite, the more valuable,' he says. The story often comes down to whether it was in a notable collection in the 18th or 19th centuries, which was a time when people began to understand that meteorites weren't just omens sent down by angry gods. 'Shape is interesting,' he adds. 'The cosmic forces that created them have made some spectacular shapes, like Henry Moore sculptures.' Hyslop recalls a sale when a Giacometti sculpture was coming out of the studio just as one of his meteorites was going in – the two looked so eerily similar that the photographer was momentarily confused. And then there is the science, which is arguably most interesting in meteorites that originated on Mars or the moon. 'Aside from the small amount the Apollo missions brought back, this is the only way to analyse the surface of the moon. If you own it, you can see under a microscope how it formed – a snapshot of how the early solar system condensed,' explains Hyslop. Some of the most valuable meteorites have fetched hundreds of thousands of pounds, with one fetching more than £1 million. Today's ultra-rich – wary of being predictable, perhaps, and keen to stick to the industries they have always understood – are also seemingly less interested in cosplaying as members of the traditional cultural elite. Instead they want artefacts that help them understand the world, on their own terms – and as a result, status symbols are starting to change, with a piece of rock from Mars or Buzz Aldrin's jacket becoming the new Jeff Koons balloon animal. 'Collectors are increasingly drawn to objects that reflect personal passions and cultural resonance,' agrees Hatton. 'A space suit or a fossil can be just as compelling as a painting, not just for its rarity, but for the story it tells and the sense of nostalgia it evokes.' As a consequence, certain professions have become surprisingly lucrative. Until very recently, dusting for dinosaur bones was mostly the preserve of dutiful palaeontologists toiling in the sun in the hope of making a scientific breakthrough. Now, these bones have become must-have items for hedge-fund managers and tech bros who already own four Teslas and a private jet, and want something more exciting. The catch? Dinosaur remains are only regularly found in a few countries, and nearly all have barred their export and sale. The United States is an exception. Under US law, whoever owns the land, owns the bones. 'There are so many places – notably Mongolia and parts of Africa – that have amazing dinosaurs, but the US is the only place that allows private sales,' says Hatton. 'So we have a very narrow supply but a very broad interest.' One of Hatton's greatest coups came last summer, when she brought Apex the Stegosaurus to auction. 'We worked directly with the person who excavated it. It was the biggest and most complete Stegosaurus ever found, on someone's farm in Colorado. It sold for $45 million – a record for any dinosaur.' Billionaire Kenneth C Griffin, founder and chief executive of the hedge fund Citadel, bought the Stegosaurus, which is now on loan to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Still, the market for new collectables remains volatile and Hatton had put a lower estimate of just $4 million on Apex. 'If I'm selling a Picasso or a first-edition, I can base an estimate on past sales. That's not a luxury we have in these markets,' she says. Even trickier was bringing an NFT (non-fungible token) of Tim Berners-Lee's original source code for the World Wide Web to auction. It sold for $5.4 million (£3.9 million) in 2021, with Berners-Lee transferring the code directly to the buyer's computer. 'How do you describe something like that?' Hatton asks. 'It's wildly different from a painting or a book – but it has an impact that will stand the test of time. We'll be talking about the invention of the web for centuries.' That being said, we have never been particularly good at predicting which artefacts will fascinate future generations. In the Victorian era, for example, there was a deft and acceptable trade in post-mortem photography (portraits of the dead, often posed as if still alive) and human bones. In today's collecting world, Hatton explains, people are increasingly drawn to objects that tell a story, be it related to a scientific milestone, digital breakthrough or rare fossil. 'Recently I have noticed a clear shift toward cross-category collecting,' she says, 'with buyers looking to build intellectually and emotionally compelling collections across many different categories.' At least one of those categories is likely to include the Japanese media franchise Pokémon, whose cartoon characters have risen from pride of place on the children's lunchboxes of the 1990s to become a full-blown economic phenomenon. At London's Comic Con in May, as adult humans dressed as Snorlax and the Hulk wandered past, eBay hosted a live Pokémon-card auction with all the pomp of Sotheby's – albeit if a Sotheby's sale was being run by two Pokémon influencers shouting, 'Let's gooo!' into a ring light. Standing in the crowd, under a screen showing how many thousands of people were watching from around the world, I felt briefly like I was in a Black Mirror episode about the reshaping of culture. For Roy Raftery, 38, who sold his London Pokémon shop to join Stanley Gibbons Baldwin's auction house as an in-house expert two years ago, this kind of thing would be just another day at the office. He explains why there is so much money to be made in selling what, to the untrained eye, just looks like a small cartoon card. 'The biggest boom happened during the pandemic. Everyone was stuck at home digging out old cards and rediscovering childhood hobbies,' he says. 'Then some really good modern sets came out, and suddenly there was a whole new generation of collectors opening packs online for huge audiences.' And buying them at auction. Again, the sums involved can be mind-boggling. In 2022, a Charizard first-edition shadowless card went for £300,000. And in 2021, in a private sale, YouTuber Logan Paul purchased a 1998 Pikachu Illustrator card for £3.8 million. For traditional auction houses, this was the Wild West. Raftery recalls the time, about five years ago, when Sotheby's asked him to analyse some Pokémon cards they believed were valuable first editions. He had to explain they were worth about £10. While spending thousands on a box of cartoon cards may sound odd to most of us, this trend – like so many – is built on nostalgia. 'A collector who's 25 wants something very different to a collector who's 35 – because if you were 10 in 1999 you want the original card, but not if you were 10 in 2009,' says Raftery. 'And as for people over 38; they are rarely in it for love, it's generally just London bankers with lots of disposable income who think they have resale value.' Still, that Antiques Roadshow thrill exists. Raftery tells me about a man who, to bond with his daughter in the 1990s, collected Pokémon cards. Years later, he found the boxes in the attic and – having forgotten they were even there – sold them for nearly £65,000, allowing his daughter to buy her first home. 'People like to dismiss Pokémon, but it is a multibillion-dollar industry,' Raftery continues. 'Pikachu is now more recognised than George Washington or Ronald McDonald.' And yet for Matthew Haley – the managing director of Bonhams Knightsbridge – there is something delightfully old-fashioned about all this. 'It is a very interesting phenomenon in that it is a continuum of what has always been there: people used to collect cigarette or baseball cards, now it is Pokémon. 'The oddest things go on sale these days – someone auctioned some gum chewed by Britney Spears [it sold for about £10,000] – but really it is just a modern version of the classic cabinet of curiosities, and it is worth noting that in this very digital age, nearly everything we are talking about is a physical object.' If millennials are nostalgic about Pokémon, then baby boomers feel similarly about the first moon landings. 'For people who grew up in the 1960s, it is a core memory,' says Hatton. 'Perhaps because the moon landing was the one time when everyone in the world paid attention at the same time for a good reason.' Original astronauts and their families have been selling their collections for a few decades now. And boy, are they impressive. In the 1960s and Seventies, Nasa was too busy trying to get people to space and back to spend much time thinking about its archives, so it often allowed the astronauts to take flight plans and items of kit home. Haley tells me about going to Florida to meet Edgar Mitchell from Apollo 14. 'He was the archetypal sweet older American man – very kind and warm – and yet in the hallway of his house there are photos of him standing on the moon and in his attic the most amazing treasure trove of things.' Haley adds, 'The collectors interested in this are the biggest buyers in the world; that group that is at the intersection between tech and space exploration, like Jeff Bezos.' Hatton, meanwhile, was one of the first people to see the flown Apollo 13 flight plan since the 1970s. And in the process, she managed to correct a false piece of space history. In the Tom Hanks film, the flight-plan cover is torn off to create a makeshift CO2 filter; this was something space historians at the time widely agreed was true. 'I was the one who discovered it was wrong. I sold that flight plan, and the cover was still intact. It was incredible, I had historians saying I didn't know what I was doing; that everyone knows the cover of the flight plan was ripped off. I was able to come back and say, 'You're all wrong.'' Perhaps that is the appeal of these strange relics. They are more than just objects; they are portals into the past, offering us the chance to investigate the worlds that fascinated us as children. In an era that moves at break-neck speed, these items – whether a cartoon card, a meteorite from the moon, a dinosaur bone or an astronaut's jacket – anchor us to this other pre-internet age; one when the world was different. And when, crucially, we were young.
Miami Herald
11-06-2025
- Automotive
- Miami Herald
First look: Tesla's biggest bet in years makes street debut
It has been a long time coming, but the moment is finally here. Tesla (TSLA) has officially rolled out its robotaxi program in Austin, Texas, after years of promises and missed deadlines. Tesla has teased its robotaxi program since CEO Elon Musk first mentioned it in 2016, but its development has moved at a snail's pace. Related: Tesla takes drastic measures to keep robotaxi plans secret Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was a self-described early believer in Tesla, but in recent years, he has made it his mission to warn the world about its Full Self-Driving technology. "Boy, if you want to study AI gone wrong, and making a lot of claims, and trying to kill you every chance it can, get a Tesla," Wozniak told CNN in a 2023 interview. Wozniak was a former Tesla booster, dating back to 2016, when he said he had spent a lot of money upgrading his vehicle. The upgrade included a camera and radar in the vehicle, and Musk promised that the car would be able to drive itself across the country by the end of 2016. Musk then said, according to Woz, that a new vehicle upgrade with eight cameras and even more sensors would allow the car to drive itself cross-country by the end of 2017. Eight years later, Tesla still can't drive itself cross-country, but the company is showcasing its progress on the streets of Austin. Self-driving Teslas with no one in the driver's seat were spotted in Austin this week. The video circulating online does, however, seem to show a human inside. The car in the video, with the word "Robotaxi" written on the door, successfully yields to pedestrians legally crossing in the crosswalk. According to Musk, Tesla plans to test only about 10 vehicles during this initial pilot run. Still, the ultimate plan is to have every Tesla on the road capable of serving as a robotaxi. Related: Tesla faces new challenge as leader announces exit Earlier this year, Tesla said its FSD system has driven a cumulative total of 3.6 billion miles, nearly triple the 1.3 billion cumulative miles it reported a year ago. The company has fought to keep its robotaxi plans in Austin top secret. News organizations have requested Freedom of Information Act access to communications from the last two years between the company and city officials in February, after Musk announced in January that robotaxis were coming to Austin. The city's public information officer told the news agency that "third parties" asked the city to withhold those records to protect their "privacy or property interests." While Tesla recently killed its Cybercab concept, at least for now, the company plans to test Model Ys already on the road as part of its robotaxi program. "It's prudent for us to start with a small number, confirm that things are going well, and then scale it up," Musk told CNBC's David Faber. Once it proves its concept in Austin, Tesla plans to expand the robotaxi program to Los Angeles and San Francisco soon after. California was Tesla's old stomping grounds before Musk moved the company's HQ to Austin in 2021 due to what he said were arduous regulatory practices, which may have been related to the company's operation during the Covid pandemic. With Tesla's plan to expand in the state, Musk will be heading back into that regulatory environment, except now the rules governing autonomous driving are much stricter. In April, the California Department of Motor Vehicles announced that it is seeking public comment on proposed regulations for self-driving vehicles. Related: Tesla's robotaxi rollout is alarming the public, new report shows The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
New York Times
02-05-2025
- Science
- New York Times
Volcanic Eruption in Deep Ocean Ridge Is Witnessed by Scientists for First Time
Andrew Wozniak, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Delaware, struggled to process what his eyes were taking in. Dr. Wozniak was parked on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean beneath nearly 1.6 miles of water in Alvin, a research submersible. As far as he could see lay a mostly barren expanse of jet-black rock. Just a day before, at this same spot, a vibrant ecosystem had thrived in the sweltering waters of the Tica hydrothermal vent, about 1,300 miles west of Costa Rica. Creatures inhabited every inch of the rocky seafloor, writhing in a patchwork of life. The crimson tips of giant tube worms waggled in the current, tangling around clusters of mussels. Buglike crustaceans scuttled through the scene while ghostly white fish languidly prowled for their next kill. Now, only a single cluster of tube worms remained in the blackened terrain, all dead. A haze of particulates filled the water as glints of bright orange lava flickered among the rocks. 'My brain was trying to understand what was going on,' Dr. Wozniak said. 'Where did things go?' Eventually it clicked: He and the sub's other passengers were witnessing the tail end of a submarine volcanic eruption that had entombed the flourishing ecosystem under fresh lava rock. This was the first time scientists had witnessed a clearly active eruption along the mid-ocean ridge, a volcanic mountain chain that stretches about 40,000 miles around the globe, like the seams of a baseball. The ridge marks the edges of tectonic plates as they pull apart, driving volcanic eruptions and creating fresh crust, or the layer of the Earth we live on, beneath the sea. About 80 percent of Earth's volcanism happens on the seafloor, with the vast majority occurring along the mid-ocean ridge. Before this latest sighting, only two underwater eruptions had been caught in action, and neither was along a mid-ocean ridge, said Bill Chadwick, a volcanologist at Oregon State University who was not on the research team. 'That's a super exciting first,' he said. Observing such an event live offers a unique opportunity for scientists to study one of our planet's most fundamental processes: the birth of new seafloor, and its dynamic effects on ocean chemistry, ecosystems, microbial life and more. 'Being there in real time is just this absolutely phenomenal gift — I'm really jealous,' said Deborah Kelley, a marine geologist at the University of Washington who was not part of the research team. Dr. Wozniak and colleagues sailed on a ship, the R/V Atlantis, before setting out in the Alvin sub. Their original goal was to study carbon flowing from the Tica vent, funded by the National Science Foundation. Hydrothermal vents are like a planetary plumbing system, expelling seawater that's heated as it seeps through the ocean floor. The process transports both heat and chemicals from Earth's interior, helping regulate ocean chemistry and feeding a unique community of deep marine life. The dive on Tuesday morning started like any other. Alyssa Wentzel, an undergraduate at the University of Delaware who joined Dr. Wozniak aboard Alvin, described the enchantment of sinking into the darkness of the ocean depths on the 70-minute journey to the seafloor. As the light vanished, bioluminescent jellies and tiny zooplankton drifted by. 'It was magical,' she said. 'It really takes your words away.' But as they approached the site, a darker magic set in as temperatures slowly ticked upward and particles filled the water. The usual dull gray-brown of the seafloor was capped by tendrils of inky rock that glimmered with an abundance of glass — the result of rapid quenching when lava hits chilly water. As particulates clouded the view from Alvin, Kaitlyn Beardshear of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the pilot in command of the day's journey, slowed the sub, keeping close watch on the temperatures. As they ticked up, so too did concerns for safety of the submersible and the crew. Eventually, the pilot made the call to retreat. 'It was an incredible sight to see,' they said. 'All the life and features that I had seen just a few days before, wiped away. I can't believe we were so lucky to have been there within a few hours of eruption.' The team learned after returning to the ship that sensitive microphones, called hydrophones, aboard the Atlantis had detected the volcanic eruption earlier in the day. It registered as a series of low frequency booms and campfire-like crackle. This was the third known eruption at the Tica vent since its discovery in the 1980s. Over the decades, Dan Fornari, a marine geologist at Woods Hole, and his colleagues have closely monitored the site, tracking changes in temperature, water chemistry and more. Combining these analyses with modeling of seafloor spreading, they realized the site seemed poised for an eruption, proposing it would happen either sometime this year or last. In 1991, he and his colleagues had arrived at Tica within days of an eruption's start. It might even have still been active, he said, but they saw no flashes of lava to confirm. This time, he said, there's no doubt of what the Alvin crew saw. 'This has been the closest that we ever come to witnessing the initiation of an eruption' along the mid-ocean ridge, he said. The team is continuing to study the volcanic activity. Given safety concerns, they're collecting data and taking photographs remotely from the Atlantis. The data will help researchers unravel the mysteries of deep-sea volcanism and the role it plays in marine ecosystems. 'All of this has to do with understanding this holistic system that is Earth and ocean,' Dr. Fornari said. 'It's so intertwined, and it's both complex and beautiful.'
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Genetic testing IDs some at higher risk for colorectal cancer
DUPAGE COUNTY, Ill. (WGN) — It's a quiet day in Wheaton, and Jessica Wozniak is in her kitchen, making a cup of tea. The mother of a preschooler is taking advantage of some time to relax, read, and rest. The 36-year-old needs to save the strength she has for what's coming the next day: chemotherapy at Duly Health's cancer infusion center in Hinsdale. 'Chemo's miserable,' she said. 'It's really, really not fun.' With her husband Patrick by her side, she's undergoing her eighth cycle of chemotherapy. Her hands and feet are covered in 'cold gloves and socks' to reduce two of chemo's most uncomfortable side-effects: cold sensitivity and neuropathy. Her health ordeal started about one year ago when she came down with norovirus, an intense flu-like sickness that usually passes through the body within about 48-hours. But her abdominal pain lingered much longer. 'About a month after that, I was still having intermittent symptoms stomach pain,' Wozniak said. 'Diarrhea. Something was unsettled. But it seemed like I couldn't have a virus for that long.' At first, doctors suspected that she had developed an ovarian cyst. 'I still was just feeling – in the morning – a cramping pain,' she said. 'Doubling over. I thought this was just not normal. So, I went to my primary care doctor, and she said this doesn't sound like it's only a cyst, let's send you for a CT. Sure enough, they saw some inflammation in my colon.' Doctors ordered a colonoscopy and found she had two masses in her colon. It was cancer. 'I realized right away that everything was going to be different, especially when I had another CT that showed some lesions on my liver, and again I was told, 'oh these could just be fluid filled cysts, nothing,'' she said. 'But it was this kind of intuition that this is not good, and sure enough those came back as cancerous, too.' The cancer had advanced to stage four, meaning it had spread to other organs. 'Everything you hear about stage 4, you think this is not, this is going to be terminal for me, what am I going to do, I'm 35, I have a three-year-old, so it was pretty devastating and dark for those first few months,' she said. According to the American Cancer Society, colorectal cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in men younger than 50, and the number two cause of cancer death among women under 50. 'There were a lot of moments where I just cried,' Wozniak said. 'I sat there crying and thinking, 'why is this happening to me?'' Wozniak is one of nearly 20,000 people younger than 50 who were diagnosed with colorectal cancer last year – a dramatic increase and a medical mystery. 'A lot of the media about it is in terms of, like, the environment, what people are eating, lifestyle choices and whatnot,' said Patrick Woulfe, Wozniak's husband. 'I think in Jessica's case that's not necessarily true because hers is due to a genetic condition.' In Wozniak's case, the cause is clear. She has Lynch Syndrome, an inherited genetic condition associated with an increased risk for colon cancer. 'When I received the genetic test results that almost gave me some piece of mind because I thought, I was blaming myself a lot,' she said. 'Did I eat something that wasn't right? Did I do something to my body? What caused this? The genetic tests made me feel like, in a way, this was inevitable.' Outside of genetic testing, colorectal cancers can be detected with colonoscopies. In 2021 the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force lowered the recommended age of screenings from 50 to 45. It's still not young enough to catch many of the new cases. 'I would have rather had a million colonoscopies than deal with this,' Wozniak said. 'A colonoscopy is nothing compared to going through colon cancer.' Wozniak is sifting through a pile of medical bills, and insurance information, wearing bracelets with the words 'fearless,' 'tough kid,' and her daughter's name. She said she wants to tell her story for her daughter and for everyone else who may have a chance to get screened before they get sick. 'I wish I would have known much sooner, so I could have been screened sooner and caught this sooner,' she said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
