All posts tagged: craze

Why Some People Hate the Wellness Craze

Why Some People Hate the Wellness Craze

Published by Jenni Sidey

It’s no secret that we live in a time of rapid change. Struggling to use AI? Frustrated by generational or political divides? Feel like your social life is slipping? Can’t make time for self-care? Phew. There’s a lot to keep up with. Yet some shifts feel more consequential than others. Let’s take the wellness craze. While so many things feel outside of our control, wellness culture promises to help us improve our lives. If we can’t fix the world, at least we can fix ourselves—right? “From what we eat and how we sleep to how we age, move and think,” describes journalist Tonya Mosely, “wellness promises to optimize every corner of our lives.” Wellness culture’s reach is growing: It now includes our pets and has even gone global. The French, long famous for decadent cuisine and long lunches, now scarf down midday salads at their desks and request olive oil instead of butter when dining out. While wellness culture is influencing people near and far to change their behaviors, some are pushing back. Wellness today …

Google Shakes Up Its Browser Agent Team Amid OpenClaw Craze

Google Shakes Up Its Browser Agent Team Amid OpenClaw Craze

Published by skeptic

Google is shaking up the team behind Project Mariner, its AI agent that can navigate the Chrome browser and complete tasks on a user’s behalf, WIRED has learned. In recent months, some Google Labs staffers who worked on the research prototype have moved on to higher-priority projects, according to two people familiar with the matter. A Google spokesperson confirmed the changes, but said the computer use capabilities developed under Project Mariner will be incorporated into the company’s agent strategy moving forward. Google has already folded some of these capabilities into other agent products, including the recently launched Gemini Agent, the spokesperson added. The change comes as Google and other AI labs rush to respond to the rise of highly capable agents like OpenClaw. While these tools are mostly used by developers today, Silicon Valley believes they could soon power general-purpose assistants for people and businesses. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang compared the buzzy tool to a new operating system for agentic computers. “Every company in the world today needs to have an OpenClaw strategy,” he said …

What’s behind the injectable peptide craze? – podcast | Science

What’s behind the injectable peptide craze? – podcast | Science

Published by Sam Flores

Grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names such as BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimisers. To understand how these unregulated substances have become mainstream and what they could be doing in our bodies, Madeleine Finlay hears from journalist Adrienne Matei and from Dr Anna Barnard, an associate professor at Imperial College London who researches peptides Source link

A Distinctly Nordic Sensibility Ignites a Quiet Craze

A Distinctly Nordic Sensibility Ignites a Quiet Craze

Published by José Betancourt

“I’ve been living … a great deal in my memories lately,” the Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck wrote in 1937.  Hers was a nostalgia perhaps born from relief. That year, the success of Schjerfbeck’s second solo exhibition had won her a loyal gallerist and, at last, a steady income. At the age of 75, she was still busy painting, and her work was on view, not for the first time, in a major Parisian exhibition—this one bearing the ignominious title “The Women Artists of Europe.”  Related Articles It was still two years before war would force Schjerfbeck out of home, and eventually out of country, and then into the hotel outside Stockholm where she would die of stomach cancer in 1946. For now, for the first time in centuries, Finland was free. Schjerfbeck, for her part, was flush, and despite the toll of decades spent teaching and caregiving, she found her place as the first female artist whose self-portrait graced the walls of the Finnish Art Society. It was a good view from which to look …

The Download: Early adopters cash in on China’s OpenClaw craze, and US batteries slump

The Download: Early adopters cash in on China’s OpenClaw craze, and US batteries slump

Published by skeptic

Feng is among a small cohort of savvy early adopters making serious cash from China’s OpenClaw craze. As users with little technical background want in, a cottage industry of installation services and preconfigured hardware has sprung up. The rise of these tinkerers shows just how eager the general public in China is to adopt cutting-edge AI—despite huge security risks. Read the full story.  —Caiwei Chen  Brutal times for the US battery industry  Another battery business has fallen: 24M Technologies, once worth over $1 billion, is reportedly shutting down.  Just a few years ago, the industry was hot, hot, hot. Countless companies were popping up, with shiny new chemistries and huge funding rounds. But now, the tide has turned. Businesses are failing, investors are pulling back, and batteries, especially for EVs, aren’t looking so hot anymore.   There are bright spots. China’s battery industry is thriving, and US stationary storage remains resilient. But it feels as if everyone is short on money these days, and as purse strings tighten, there’s less interest in novel ideas.  This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.  —Casey Crownhart  …

The Download: Early adopters cash in on China’s OpenClaw craze, and US batteries slump

Hustlers are cashing in on China’s OpenClaw AI craze

Published by skeptic

Lobsters are indeed popping up everywhere in China right now—on and offline. In February, for instance, the entrepreneur and tech influencer Fu Sheng hosted a livestream showing off OpenClaw’s capabilities that got 20,000 views. And just last weekend, Xie attended three different OpenClaw events in Shenzhen, each drawing more than 500 people. These self-organized, unofficial gatherings feature power users, influencers, and sometimes venture capitalists as speakers. The biggest event Xie attended, on March 7, drew more than 1,000 people; in the packed venue, he says, people were shoulder to shoulder, with many attendees unable to even get a seat. Now China’s AI giants are starting to piggyback on the trend too, promoting their models, APIs,  and cloud services (which can be used with OpenClaw), as well as their own OpenClaw-like agents. Earlier this month, Tencent held a public event offering free installation support for OpenClaw, drawing long lines of people waiting for help, including elderly users and children. This sudden burst in popularity has even prompted local governments to get involved. Earlier this month the …

The Air Fryer Is a Once-in-a-Lifetime Kitchen Craze. Here’s How Popular They’ve Become

The Air Fryer Is a Once-in-a-Lifetime Kitchen Craze. Here’s How Popular They’ve Become

Published by skeptic

It’s Wednesday, around 6 p.m. It’s been a busy day, but I’m already carving a perfectly roasted chicken on my favorite ebony cutting board, the bird’s juices spilling out from under crispy skin and filling up the board’s reservoir like a moat.  For years, Ina Garten’s roasted chicken — or some variation of it — has been a Sunday tradition for me. It’s not particularly decadent or overly involved, but it’s reserved for Sundays because of its roughly 2 hours of total cooking time. Now, the same recipe, adapted for the air fryer, hits the table in under an hour.  After months of owning an air fryer and experimenting mostly with versions of traditionally fried foods, such as wings, fries and chicken cutlets, I made my first air fryer roast chicken on a whim. Stunned by the speedy cooking time — 25% faster than traditional roasting — tender meat and impossibly crispy skin without the usual tablespoon of butter, I haven’t put a bird in the oven since. Of all the kitchen tools I’ve collected, …

Weight loss patches are the new craze but experts aren’t so sure about the science

Weight loss patches are the new craze but experts aren’t so sure about the science

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the Well Enough newsletter with Harry Bullmore for tips on living a healthier, happier and longer life Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Could a simple patch, inspired by the weight-loss drug Ozempic, really help you shed excess kilos without the pain and effort of an injection? Promotions of these Ozempic-style, weight-loss patches are popping up online, promising dramatic results with little evidence to back their claims. Personal recommendations for the patches are common. This includes from some “doctors” on social media. But independent fact checkers have shown these endorsements are AI-generated. So, before you spend your money, here’s why you should think twice about buying a weight-loss patch. What’s in them? Do they work? Ozempic-style patches are also known as GLP-1 patches. But they do not contain any pharmaceutical ingredient from Ozempic (semaglutide) or related drugs such as Mounjaro (tirzepatide). Instead, the Ozempic-style patches contain a mixture of herbal extracts including berberine, green tea (Camellia sinensis), the tropical fruit Garcinia cambogia and bitter …

‘People are turning themselves into lab rats’: the injectable peptides craze sweeping the US | Well actually

‘People are turning themselves into lab rats’: the injectable peptides craze sweeping the US | Well actually

Published by Sam Flores

Here’s a new trend that sounds unwise: buying unregulated substances from dealers in foreign countries and injecting them into your body. And yet, grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names like BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimizers. Across platforms like Discord and Telegram, users are claiming these peptides help with everything from injury recovery, athletic performance, weight loss, mental function, better sleep and younger-looking skin. Among the risk-tolerant tech workers of the Bay Area, peptides have become akin to a status symbol. The founders of the startup Superpower store vials of peptides in their office fridge for convenient, lunchtime backside injections, and at least one San Francisco “peptide rave” has seen partygoers entertained by a lab-coated man demonstrating how to inject liquid peptides. What are injectable peptides, exactly? Peptides are short chains of amino acids – smaller versions of proteins – that play a role in regulating hormones, releasing neurotransmitters and repairing tissue, explains Adam Taylor, director of the Clinical Anatomy …

Fiber is coming for coffee’s protein craze

Fiber is coming for coffee’s protein craze

Published by Sam Flores

In an August podcast episode of The Daily, titled “How America Got Obsessed With Protein,” food journalist Elizabeth Dunn delves into what was undoubtedly the biggest food trend of 2025: protein-maxxing. Everyone, it seemed, was scrambling to load up on the humble macro. Influencers gleefully showed off their high-protein diets, complete with eggs, cottage cheese, poultry and red meat. Many also touted their high-protein snacks, which ranged from slices of cold cuts to homemade chicken chips made from seasoned, ground meat. Major food companies were even hellbent on following the bandwagon. Protein was added to classic buttermilk pancakes, courtesy of IHOP. Protein was sprinkled onto popcorn, thanks to Khloud by Khloé Kardashian. And protein was steeped in our favorite beverages, thanks to both Starbucks and Dunkin’. Protein’s sheer prevalence prevails in the new year, especially in the wake of new dietary guidelines that place red meat at the very top of the food pyramid. But it’s slated to face some competition from yet another macronutrient. That’s according to Oatly’s first-ever Future of Taste report, which …