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- Kansas Town Settles Lawsuit with Former Reporter Over Controversial Police Raid
A small Kansas town has agreed to pay $850,000 to a former reporter at its weekly newspaper to end her federal lawsuit over a police raid of the paper’s offices in 2023 that ignited a national furor over press freedom. … [TheTopNews] Read More.6 hours ago - Healthy habits may lower hearing loss risk, study finds
Metabolic health may play an important role By Kristen Dalli of ConsumerAffairs August 14, 2026 People with an ideal lifestyle had a 14% lower risk of hearing impairment than those with a poor lifestyle.Smoking cessation and spending less time sedentary were the lifestyle factors most strongly linked to lower risk.Metabolic factors, including BMI and HDL cholesterol, appeared to explain more of the connection than inflammatory markers.When people think about protecting their hearing, avoiding loud concerts or turning down the volume on their headphones may come to mind. But new research suggests that what happens throughout the rest of the body may matter, too.A study from researchers at Fudan University found that adults with a healthier overall lifestyle had a lower risk of developing hearing impairment over more than 14 years of follow-up. The researchers were particularly interested in why lifestyle appeared to be connected to hearing health, and their findings pointed toward metabolism as an important piece of the puzzle.How the researchers studied the connectionThe researchers analyzed data from 441,844 U.K. Biobank participants between ages 40 and 69 at baseline. Participants were followed for a median of 14.22 years, during which 20,743 cases of hearing impairment were recorded.The team created a lifestyle score based on seven behaviors: smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, sleep duration, sedentary time, social contact, and dietary supplement use. Participants were grouped into poor, intermediate, or ideal lifestyle categories based on their scores.The researchers also examined biological markers related to inflammation and metabolism. Metabolic health was assessed using measures including glucose, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, and BMI. The researchers then used statistical analyses to determine how much these biological factors might explain the relationship between lifestyle and hearing impairment.What the results mean for consumersPeople in the ideal lifestyle group had a 14% lower risk of developing hearing impairment compared with those in the poor-lifestyle group. Among individual behaviors, quitting smoking appeared to offer the greatest potential benefit, followed by reducing sedentary time.Metabolic factors appeared to be particularly important. BMI and HDL cholesterol accounted for roughly 16.5% and 14%, respectively, of the lifestyle-hearing association, while individual inflammatory markers each accounted for less than 6%. Physical activity, less sitting, and healthy sleep were primarily linked to hearing through metabolic pathways.That doesn't mean lifestyle changes can guarantee someone will avoid hearing impairment. The study was observational, so it can't prove that healthier habits directly prevent hearing problems, and hearing impairment was… [TheTopNews] Read More.6 hours ago - Struggling to keep plants alive? This AI gardening tool could helpGeorgia Tech researchers created a chatbot that offers personalized gardening advice based on your experience, environment, and culture By Kristen Dalli of ConsumerAffairs August 14, 2026 A new AI system called CultivAgents is designed to make gardening less intimidating for beginners.Three specialized AI agents work together to create more personalized gardening plans.The tool considers factors such as gardening experience, local climate, and cultural background when offering advice.Starting a garden can sound wonderfully simple: Pick some plants, put them in the ground, water them and wait. In reality, there are plenty of opportunities to wonder, Am I doing this right?A new project from Georgia Tech aims to make that learning curve a little less steep.CultivAgents is a conversational AI system designed to help people plan and maintain gardens. Rather than providing the same generic advice to everyone, the system creates guidance based on a person's gardening experience, environment, and cultural background.The project was created by Diana Wang, a Ph.D. student in Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing. The idea came from looking at how AI could provide more personalized help to people who want to grow their own food but may face different environmental or cultural circumstances.Multi-agent systems provide multi-faceted support, Dr. Wang said in a news release. My interest was in how we could provide more personalized and aligned support to individuals trying to grow food themselves while facing unique environmental or cultural factors.How CultivAgents worksCultivAgents uses three separate AI agents, each with a different role:The experience agent focuses on the gardener's skill level and provides detailed instructions.The environmental agent considers factors such as the local climate and surroundings.The ethnobotanical agent takes cultural context into account.The agents then work together rather than operating independently. For example, the environmental agent can build on the experience agent's instructions to explain how someone in a particular community could grow a specific crop, such as bush beans.To understand what gardeners actually wanted from an AI tool, Dr. Wang surveyed and interviewed both new and experienced gardeners who use Georgia Tech's community garden. According to the university, many participants were interested in step-by-step instructions, recommendations about what to plant, and guidance on how to care for their gardens over time.What it could mean for home gardenersThe research doesn't suggest that AI can replace hands-on gardening knowledge. Instead, CultivAgents is designed to reduce some of the guesswork involved in getting started.That could be particularly useful when… [TheTopNews] Read More.6 hours ago
- AI could help Alzheimer’s patients get treatment soonerA new Vanderbilt project aims to cut through referral delays and help eligible patients reach new therapies faster By Kristen Dalli of ConsumerAffairs August 14, 2026 A new AI tool could help speed up the process of getting eligible Alzheimers patients to treatment.The system will review medical records, flag missing information, and help prioritize referrals.Researchers will test whether the technology can shorten the time from diagnosis to a patients first infusion.For people diagnosed with Alzheimers disease who may qualify for newer treatments, getting from diagnosis to therapy can involve several steps and plenty of waiting. Patients may need a referral, a specialist evaluation, brain imaging, and insurance authorization before receiving their first infusion.Researchers at Vanderbilt Health are now working on an artificial intelligence tool designed to make part of that process move faster. The project, funded by a grant from Eli Lilly and Company, will create an AI triage agent that works inside Vanderbilt Healths electronic health record system. The 18-month project is focused on the handoff from primary care or geriatrics to neurology.By the time a patient reaches our clinic, the clock has often been running for weeks, researcher Amalia Peterson, M.D. said in a news release.This tool will be designed to make sure that when a referral arrives, we already have the information we need to act quickly. It doesnt replace clinical judgment, but it will remove a lot of the friction that keeps patients waiting.How the AI will workWhen a clinician submits a referral because of concerns about a patients cognitive health, the AI tool will review the relevant information in that patients chart. It will summarize the information, identify details that are missing, and recommend whether the referral should be handled as a priority or through the standard process.Importantly, doctors and other clinicians will remain in control. They can accept, change, or override the AIs recommendations.Before deploying the tool, researchers will study where delays are happening now. They plan to use AI to reconstruct care timelines for more than 5,300 Vanderbilt Health patients, then work with clinicians and operational staff to identify the reasons for those delays.The team will use what it learns to develop and test the AI agent in a pilot.What this could mean for patientsThe researchers will judge the project by one key measure: whether it reduces the amount of time between an Alzheimers diagnosis and a patients first infusion.For eligible patients and… [TheTopNews] Read More.6 hours ago
- Trump ‘Energy Emergency’ Could Fast-Track Expansion of Louisiana LNG Export ...Less than two years after opening, a liquefied natural gas terminal near New Orleans is seeking a multi-billion-dollar expansion under a new Trump administration “emergency” permitting process that shortens environmental review and may weaken protections for surrounding wetlands and waterways. … [TheTopNews] Read More.6 hours ago
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A small Kansas town has agreed to pay $850,000 to a former reporter at its weekly newspaper to end her federal lawsuit over a police raid of the paper’s offices in 2023 that ignited a national furor over press freedom. … [TheTopNews] Read More.
6 hours ago
Metabolic health may play an important role By Kristen Dalli of ConsumerAffairs August 14, 2026 People with an ideal lifestyle had a 14% lower risk of hearing impairment than those with a poor lifestyle.Smoking cessation and spending less time sedentary were the lifestyle factors most strongly linked to lower risk.Metabolic factors, including BMI and HDL cholesterol, appeared to explain more of the connection than inflammatory markers.When people think about protecting their hearing, avoiding loud concerts or turning down the volume on their headphones may come to mind. But new research suggests that what happens throughout the rest of the body may matter, too.A study from researchers at Fudan University found that adults with a healthier overall lifestyle had a lower risk of developing hearing impairment over more than 14 years of follow-up. The researchers were particularly interested in why lifestyle appeared to be connected to hearing health, and their findings pointed toward metabolism as an important piece of the puzzle.How the researchers studied the connectionThe researchers analyzed data from 441,844 U.K. Biobank participants between ages 40 and 69 at baseline. Participants were followed for a median of 14.22 years, during which 20,743 cases of hearing impairment were recorded.The team created a lifestyle score based on seven behaviors: smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, sleep duration, sedentary time, social contact, and dietary supplement use. Participants were grouped into poor, intermediate, or ideal lifestyle categories based on their scores.The researchers also examined biological markers related to inflammation and metabolism. Metabolic health was assessed using measures including glucose, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, and BMI. The researchers then used statistical analyses to determine how much these biological factors might explain the relationship between lifestyle and hearing impairment.What the results mean for consumersPeople in the ideal lifestyle group had a 14% lower risk of developing hearing impairment compared with those in the poor-lifestyle group. Among individual behaviors, quitting smoking appeared to offer the greatest potential benefit, followed by reducing sedentary time.Metabolic factors appeared to be particularly important. BMI and HDL cholesterol accounted for roughly 16.5% and 14%, respectively, of the lifestyle-hearing association, while individual inflammatory markers each accounted for less than 6%. Physical activity, less sitting, and healthy sleep were primarily linked to hearing through metabolic pathways.That doesn't mean lifestyle changes can guarantee someone will avoid hearing impairment. The study was observational, so it can't prove that healthier habits directly prevent hearing problems, and hearing impairment was… [TheTopNews] Read More.
6 hours ago
Georgia Tech researchers created a chatbot that offers personalized gardening advice based on your experience, environment, and culture By Kristen Dalli of ConsumerAffairs August 14, 2026 A new AI system called CultivAgents is designed to make gardening less intimidating for beginners.Three specialized AI agents work together to create more personalized gardening plans.The tool considers factors such as gardening experience, local climate, and cultural background when offering advice.Starting a garden can sound wonderfully simple: Pick some plants, put them in the ground, water them and wait. In reality, there are plenty of opportunities to wonder, Am I doing this right?A new project from Georgia Tech aims to make that learning curve a little less steep.CultivAgents is a conversational AI system designed to help people plan and maintain gardens. Rather than providing the same generic advice to everyone, the system creates guidance based on a person's gardening experience, environment, and cultural background.The project was created by Diana Wang, a Ph.D. student in Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing. The idea came from looking at how AI could provide more personalized help to people who want to grow their own food but may face different environmental or cultural circumstances.Multi-agent systems provide multi-faceted support, Dr. Wang said in a news release. My interest was in how we could provide more personalized and aligned support to individuals trying to grow food themselves while facing unique environmental or cultural factors.How CultivAgents worksCultivAgents uses three separate AI agents, each with a different role:The experience agent focuses on the gardener's skill level and provides detailed instructions.The environmental agent considers factors such as the local climate and surroundings.The ethnobotanical agent takes cultural context into account.The agents then work together rather than operating independently. For example, the environmental agent can build on the experience agent's instructions to explain how someone in a particular community could grow a specific crop, such as bush beans.To understand what gardeners actually wanted from an AI tool, Dr. Wang surveyed and interviewed both new and experienced gardeners who use Georgia Tech's community garden. According to the university, many participants were interested in step-by-step instructions, recommendations about what to plant, and guidance on how to care for their gardens over time.What it could mean for home gardenersThe research doesn't suggest that AI can replace hands-on gardening knowledge. Instead, CultivAgents is designed to reduce some of the guesswork involved in getting started.That could be particularly useful when… [TheTopNews] Read More.
6 hours ago
A new Vanderbilt project aims to cut through referral delays and help eligible patients reach new therapies faster By Kristen Dalli of ConsumerAffairs August 14, 2026 A new AI tool could help speed up the process of getting eligible Alzheimers patients to treatment.The system will review medical records, flag missing information, and help prioritize referrals.Researchers will test whether the technology can shorten the time from diagnosis to a patients first infusion.For people diagnosed with Alzheimers disease who may qualify for newer treatments, getting from diagnosis to therapy can involve several steps and plenty of waiting. Patients may need a referral, a specialist evaluation, brain imaging, and insurance authorization before receiving their first infusion.Researchers at Vanderbilt Health are now working on an artificial intelligence tool designed to make part of that process move faster. The project, funded by a grant from Eli Lilly and Company, will create an AI triage agent that works inside Vanderbilt Healths electronic health record system. The 18-month project is focused on the handoff from primary care or geriatrics to neurology.By the time a patient reaches our clinic, the clock has often been running for weeks, researcher Amalia Peterson, M.D. said in a news release.This tool will be designed to make sure that when a referral arrives, we already have the information we need to act quickly. It doesnt replace clinical judgment, but it will remove a lot of the friction that keeps patients waiting.How the AI will workWhen a clinician submits a referral because of concerns about a patients cognitive health, the AI tool will review the relevant information in that patients chart. It will summarize the information, identify details that are missing, and recommend whether the referral should be handled as a priority or through the standard process.Importantly, doctors and other clinicians will remain in control. They can accept, change, or override the AIs recommendations.Before deploying the tool, researchers will study where delays are happening now. They plan to use AI to reconstruct care timelines for more than 5,300 Vanderbilt Health patients, then work with clinicians and operational staff to identify the reasons for those delays.The team will use what it learns to develop and test the AI agent in a pilot.What this could mean for patientsThe researchers will judge the project by one key measure: whether it reduces the amount of time between an Alzheimers diagnosis and a patients first infusion.For eligible patients and… [TheTopNews] Read More.
6 hours ago
Less than two years after opening, a liquefied natural gas terminal near New Orleans is seeking a multi-billion-dollar expansion under a new Trump administration “emergency” permitting process that shortens environmental review and may weaken protections for surrounding wetlands and waterways. … [TheTopNews] Read More.
6 hours ago
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