Vivian Le's reads

Can prebiotic sodas boost your health? Fueled by marketing blitzes on social media, there is a growing interest in prebiotic sodas, which contain ingredients like inulin or apple cider vinegar. The creators have pushed several supposed health benefits of these drinks, including improvements to gut and digestive health, immunity, weight loss, and more. Writing for the Washington Post, Teddy Amenabar and Anahad O'Connor explain the supposed health benefits of prebiotic sodas and why health experts have voiced skepticism about these beneficial claims.

Why some people are leaving large social media networks. As social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok become more "corporatized," users are more likely to see ads or posts from influencers rather than people than now. Now, some people are switching to smaller, more community-oriented platforms that allow them more control over the content they see and who they interact with. Writing for the New York Times, Brian Chen explains how the return to smaller online communities may actually be the future of social networking, as well as how this change could impact users in the long run.

Lex Ashcroft's reads

ChatGPT will transform household labor. Here’s how. While ChatGPT has made headlines for altering the future of many white-collar jobs, little attention has been given to its abilities to change how we work in our main domain: our home. The use of ChatGPT in household labor is still its early stages, but people are already experimenting with new ways to put it to work, including meal planning and budgeting. Writing for The Atlantic, Kate Cray provides insight into the creative ways people are utilizing ChatGPT and other generative AI to "lighten the burden of unpaid domestic work" and presents both the potential benefits and drawbacks of using the tool for household tasks.

How replacing errors in the genetic code can treat or cure disease. In recent years, scientists have discovered that some genetic diseases might be treatable, and even curable, by using gene editing. In a breakthrough in the field, scientists successfully treated a mouse with sickle-cell disease using the technique. With roughly 280 million people living with a rare genetic disease worldwide, scientists are now in a race to develop more advanced methods. Writing for The Conversation, Harvard University professor David Liu breaks down the basics of gene editing, how the technique can be used to treat disease, and its ethical issues and implications for human health.