CRISPR gene-editing therapy has shown great potential to treat and even cure diseases, but scientists are now discovering how it can be used to prevent them as well. A team of researchers found a way to edit a single gene in a mosquito that prevented it from transmitting malaria, according to a paper published in Nature. These genetically modified mosquitos could eventually be released into the wild, helping prevent some of the 600,000 malaria deaths that occur each year.
Mosquitos infect up to 263 million people yearly with malaria and efforts to reduce their populations have stalled as late. That's because both the mosquitos and their parasites that spread malaria have developed resistance to insecticides and other drugs.
Now, biologists from UC San Diego, Johns Hopkins and UC Berkeley universities have figured out a way to stop malarial transmission by changing a single amino acid in mosquitos. The altered mosquitos can still bite people with malaria and pick up parasites from their blood, but those can no longer be spread to others.
The system uses CRISPR-Cas9 "scissors" to cut out an unwanted amino acid (allele) that transmits malaria and replace it with a benign version. The undesirable allele, called L224, helps parasites swim to a mosquito's salivary glands where they can then infect a person. The new amino acid, Q224, blocks two separate parasites from making it to the salivary glands, preventing infection in people or animals.
"With a single, precise tweak, we’ve turned [a mosquito gene component] into a powerful shield that blocks multiple malaria parasite species and likely across diverse mosquito species and populations, paving the way for adaptable, real-world strategies to control this disease," said researcher George Dimopoulos from Johns Hopkins University.
Unlike previous methods of malarial control, changing that key gene doesn't affect the health or reproduction capabilities of mosquitos. That allowed the researchers to create a technique for mosquito offspring to inherit the Q224 allele and spread it through their populations to stop malarial parasite transmission in its tracks. "We’ve harnessed nature’s own genetic tools to turn mosquitoes into allies against malaria," Dimopoulos said.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/crispr-can-stop-malaria-spread-by-editing-a-single-gene-in-mosquitos-133010031.html?src=rss
Three years after the Supreme Court opened the door to state abortion bans, most U.S. adults say abortion should be legal — views that look similar to before the landmark ruling.
The June 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door to state bans on abortion led to major policy changes.
Most states have either moved to protect abortion access or restrict it. Twelve are now enforcing bans on abortion at every stage of pregnancy, and four more do so after about six weeks’ gestation, which is often before women realize they’re pregnant.
Last year, an AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that 7 in 10 U.S. adults said it should be available in all or most cases, up slightly from 65% in May 2022, just before the decision that overruled the constitutional right to abortion, and 57% in June 2021.
The new poll is closer to Americans’ views before the Supreme Court ruled. Now, 64% of adults support legal abortion in most or all cases. More than half the adults in states with the most stringent bans are in that group.
Similarly, about half now say abortion should be available in their state when someone doesn’t want to continue their pregnancy for any reason — about the same as in June 2021 but down from about 6 in 10 who said that in 2024.
Adults in the strictest states are just as likely as others to say abortion should be available in their state to women who want to end pregnancies for any reason.
Democrats support abortion access far more than Republicans do. Support for legal abortion has dropped slightly among members of both parties since June 2024, but nearly 9 in 10 Democrats and roughly 4 in 10 Republicans say abortion should be legal in at least most instances.
Fallout from state bans has influenced some people’s positions — but not others
Seeing what’s happened in the aftermath of the ruling has strengthened the abortion rights position of Wilaysha White, a 25-year-old Ohio mom.
She has some regrets about the abortion she had when she was homeless.
“I don’t think you should be able to get an abortion anytime,” said White, who calls herself a “semi-Republican.”
But she said that hearing about situations — including when a Georgia woman was arrested after a miscarriage and initially charged with concealing a death — is a bigger concern.
“Seeing women being sick and life or death, they’re not being put first — that’s just scary,” she said. “I’d rather have it be legal across the board than have that.”
Julie Reynolds’ strong anti-abortion stance has been cemented for decades and hasn’t shifted since Roe was overturned.
“It’s a moral issue,” said the 66-year-old Arizona woman, who works part-time as a bank teller.
She said her view is shaped partly by having obtained an abortion herself when she was in her 20s. “I would not want a woman to go through that,” she said. “I live with that every day. I took a life.”
Support remains high for legal abortion in certain situations
The vast majority of U.S. adults — at least 8 in 10 — continue to say their state should allow legal abortion if a fetal abnormality would prevent the child from surviving outside the womb, if the patient’s health is seriously endangered by the pregnancy, or if the person became pregnant as a result of rape or incest.
Consistent with AP-NORC’s June 2024 poll, about 7 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favor protecting access to abortions for patients who are experiencing miscarriages or other pregnancy-related emergencies.
In states that have banned or restricted abortion, such medical exceptions have been sharply in focus.
This is a major concern for Nicole Jones, a 32-year-old Florida resident.
Jones and her husband would like to have children soon. But she said she’s worried about access to abortion if there’s a fetal abnormality or a condition that would threaten her life in pregnancy, since they live in a state that bans most abortions after the first six weeks of gestation.
“What if we needed something?” she asked. “We’d have to travel out of state or risk my life because of this ban.”
Florida’s law has exceptions, including to save the life of a pregnant woman or prevent irreversible impairment of bodily functions. But some patients, advocates and health care providers across the country have often said that restrictions still limit access to emergency care.
Adults support protections for seeking abortions across state lines — but not as strongly
There’s less consensus on whether states that allow abortion should protect access for women who live in places with bans.
Just over half support protecting a patient’s right to obtain an abortion in another state and shielding those who provide abortions from fines or prison time. In both cases, relatively few adults — about 2 in 10 — oppose the measures and about 1 in 4 are neutral.
More Americans also favor than oppose legal protections for doctors who prescribe and mail abortion pills to patients in states with bans. About 4 in 10 “somewhat” or “strongly” favor those protections, and roughly 3 in 10 oppose them.
There have been legal challenges to telehealth abortions, including a lawsuit filed this week by a Texas man claiming a California physician violated state and federal law by sending pills to the plaintiff’s girlfriend.
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The AP-NORC poll of 1,437 adults was conducted July 10-14, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
Abortion-rights activists demonstrate against the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade that established a constitutional right to abortion, on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 30, 2022.
With Mexican cattle again barred this month from entry to the United States over fears of spreading a flesh-eating parasite, ranchers and veterinarians in Mexico hundreds of miles from the border are fighting what has U.S. agricultural authorities so on edge.
In the southern state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, the New World screwworm fly’s rapid spread appears to have caught most ranchers off guard, despite memories of previous outbreaks in the 1980s and 1990s.
Mexico is building a plant with U.S. support in Chiapas to produce sterile flies, which have proven effective at stopping the spread, but it won’t be ready until next year. Meanwhile, the price of medicines used to treat livestock infected with the screwworm have soared in price.
That has led some to fall back on home remedies like applying gasoline or lime to open wounds to coax out the worms.
In addition to the cost of the medicine, treatment requires careful monitoring and usually involves multiple courses. Any open wound, even very small ones, are an invitation to the fly to lay its eggs.
Veterinarian Alfredo Chávez left Chiapas to study in 1989, so he says he missed seeing the effects of that outbreak, but now he’s seen cases multiply in his corner of the state over the past month.
He’s heard of dozens of cases in the area now and treated about a dozen himself. It’s not just cows either — sheep, pigs, cats and dogs are targets as well.
Armed with a pair of blue tweezers and an aerosol spray that helps draw the maggots out, Chávez moves from animal to animal. He puts maggots in plastic tubes as samples, which he provides to agricultural authorities.
But beyond providing the tubes and encouraging ranchers to report cases, he said that the government hasn’t provided much help.
U.S. officials worry that if the fly reaches Texas, its maggots could cause large economic losses, something that happened decades ago.
Ranch caretaker Edi Valencia Santos said that Mexican government officials have come to his community to talk to people with livestock, but so far without resources. He has had five infected animals on the ranch.
Despite cattle in this region going to domestic consumption rather than to the U.S., the presence of the screwworm in Mexico has frozen cattle exports to the U.S. nationwide.
Valencia said that he remembers the small planes distributing sterile flies during those earlier outbreaks, so is optimistic they will eventually help, but for now the costs are piling up on ranchers.
A lawyer who represents Children's Health Defense—the rabid anti-vaccine organization founded by the equally fervent anti-vaccine advocate and current US health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—has filed a lawsuit against Kennedy, alleging that he has failed to set up a task force to promote safer childhood vaccinations.
The task force's creation is outlined in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which is mainly known for setting up the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The program provides compensation to people who have credible claims that they were injured by a vaccination, such as experiencing a very rare, severe side effect. It acts as a no-fault alternative to costly lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies. Otherwise, those lawsuits could deter pharmaceutical companies from marketing and developing vaccines, which would create a grave threat to vaccination rates and public health.
Tucked into the 1986 law is also a provision that states the US health secretary "shall establish a task force on safer childhood vaccines." The task force is intended to "promote the development of childhood vaccines that result in fewer and less serious adverse reactions than those vaccines on the market on the effective date of this part and promote the refinement of such vaccines." The task force is supposed to provide progress reports to Congress, which are to be submitted every two years.
Bryan Johnson is stepping back from running his longevity company, Blueprint, to focus fully on his personal mission: advancing his “Don’t Die” ideology aimed at human survival in the age of superintelligence. Calling the business side a distraction, Johnson is hiring new leadership and expanding Blueprint into clinics, certification programs, and personalized biomarker tracking, teasing investment into the longevity company.
When Bryan Johnson launched his business, Blueprint, the mission was fairly simple: Extend the lifespan of humanity, using the entrepreneur as a guinea pig.
Blueprint has become a one-stop shop for all things longevity—from olive oil to supplements—while Johnson himself is spearheading what he calls the ‘Don’t Die’ ideology. Leading the former is detracting from the work he can do on the latter, he said this week.
Writing on X, the centi-millionaire said the business aspect of his project had become a “pain in the ass.”
He’s hiring a new CEO and CTO, he added, “who can lead the business while I focus on Don’t Die.”
Blueprint has “kept me from not focusing on the single thing I’m consumed with: how does the human race survive the rise of super intelligence,” Johnson explained. “Every minute spent dealing with problems like ‘why a supplier shipped us something out-of-spec’ (now stuck on a boat) is a minute not spent figuring out how to make Don’t Die the fastest-growing ideology in history, increasing our odds of survival and thriving.”
He continued: “After my team and I built a protocol for myself, my friends and family asked if they could get access too. Then their friends and family asked and I said yes again. The circle kept on expanding until we stumbled into Blueprint becoming a company.
“My goal was never to sell nutrition. It’s the last thing in the world I ever imagined doing. I don’t need the money.”
Blueprint’s next phase
Johnson’s activities have been viewed with some skepticism. After all, as the saying goes, the only certain things in life are death and taxes.
The notion of making mortality optional, as Johnson previously told Fortune, has led critics to question the credibility and the motives for expanding Blueprint commercially. How much could a $50 bottle of olive oil or an $135 bag of ‘longevity protein’ really extend customers’ lifespans, spectators argued.
“I started Blueprint and people began calling me a grifter,” Johnson said. “Whatever. They don’t understand.”
But Johnson added he has been grappling with the “tension” of his longevity project and questions of its links to commercial gain, adding selling or shutting down the company might address the issue.
The tech founder of Braintree—which was sold to PayPal for $800 million a little over a decade ago—instead decided to “go all in” he added, and is raising investment as well as recruiting what he called “hard core builders.”
Next in the pipeline for Blueprint are clinics offering “access to cutting-edge longevity technologies, protocols, and therapies,” as well as a ‘quantified’ certification program for food purity, and a tracking biomarker platform for users to measure their progress over time alongside peers.
‘Blueprint Nourish,’ he added, is an extension of existing supplements which will cover “50-100% of your daily nutrition, hair care, skin care, oral care, etc.”
Blueprint has been a pain in my ass.
It's kept me from not focusing on the single thing I’m consumed with: how does the human race survive the rise of super intelligence.
Every minute spent dealing with problems like ‘why a supplier shipped us something out-of-spec’ (now… pic.twitter.com/1x4yXJvSV6
Since them, blue zones have been identified in Ikaria, Greece, Loma Linda in California, Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa in Japan, and Nicoya in Costa Rica.
The reasons for longevity in these regions are, in some parts, loosely aligned with Johnson’s findings. The diet of people living in Okinawa has been the basis of some research into their lifespans, for example, while the physical activity and family networks of Nicoya have been credited as potentially leading to longer lifespans in that area.
The fertility rate in the U.S. dropped to an all-time low in 2024 with less than 1.6 kids per woman, new federal data released Thursday shows.
The U.S. was once among only a few developed countries with a rate that ensured each generation had enough children to replace itself — about 2.1 kids per woman. But it has been sliding in America for close to two decades as more women are waiting longer to have children or never taking that step at all.
The new statistic is on par with fertility rates in western European countries, according to World Bank data.
Alarmed by recent drops, the Trump administration has taken steps to increase falling birth rates, like issuing an executive order meant to expand access to and reduce costs of in vitro fertilization and backing the idea of “baby bonuses” that might encourage more couples to have kids.
But there’s no reason to be alarmed, according to Leslie Root, a University of Colorado Boulder researcher focused on fertility and population policy.
“We’re seeing this as part of an ongoing process of fertility delay. We know that the U.S. population is still growing, and we still have a natural increase — more births than deaths,” she said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the statistic for the total fertility rate with updated birth data for 2024.
In the early 1960s, the U.S. total fertility rate was around 3.5, but plummeted to 1.7 by 1976 after the Baby Boom ended. It gradually rose to 2.1 in 2007 before falling again, aside from a 2014 uptick. The rate in 2023 was 1.621, and inched down in 2024 to 1.599, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
Birth rates are generally declining for women in most age groups — and that doesn’t seem likely to change in the near future, said Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina.
People are marrying later and also worried about their ability to have the money, health insurance and other resources needed to raise children in a stable environment.
“Worry is not a good moment to have kids,” and that’s why birth rates in most age groups are not improving, she said.
Asked about birth-promoting measures outlined by the Trump administration, Guzzo said they don’t tackle larger needs like parental leave and affordable child care.
“The things that they are doing are really symbolic and not likely to budge things for real Americans,” she said.
Increase in births in new data
The CDC’s new report, which is based on a more complete review of birth certificates than provisional data released earlier this year, also showed a 1% increase in births — about 33,000 more — last year compared to the prior year.
That brought the yearly national total to just over 3.6 million babies born.
But this is different: The provisional data indicated birth rate increases last year for women in their late 20s and 30s. However, the new report found birth rate declines for women in their 20s and early 30s, and no change for women in their late 30s.
What happened? CDC officials said it was due to recalculations stemming from a change in the U.S. Census population estimates used to compute the birth rate.
That’s plausible, Root said. As the total population of women of childbearing age grew due to immigration, it offset small increases in births to women in those age groups, she said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Current and former members of the FDA told CNN about issues with the Elsa generative AI tool unveiled by the federal agency last month. Three employees said that in practice, Elsa has hallucinated nonexistent studies or misrepresented real research. "Anything that you don't have time to double-check is unreliable," one source told the publication. "It hallucinates confidently." Which isn't exactly ideal for a tool that's supposed to be speeding up the clinical review process and aiding with making efficient, informed decisions to benefit patients.
Leadership at the FDA appeared unfazed by the potential problems posed by Elsa. "I have not heard those specific concerns," FDA Commissioner Marty Makary told CNN. He also emphasized that using Elsa and participating in the training to use it are currently voluntary at the agency.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told Engadget that "the information provided by FDA to CNN was mischaracterized and taken out of context." The spokesperson also claimed that CNN led its story with "disgruntled former employees and sources who have never even used the current version of Elsa." The agency claims to have guardrails and guidance for how its employees can use the tool, but its statement doesn’t address that Elsa, like any AI platform, can and will deliver incorrect or incomplete information at times. We have not yet received a response to our request for additional details.
The CNN investigation highlighting these flaws with the FDA's artificial intelligence arrived on the same day as the White House introduced an "AI Action Plan." The program presented AI development as a technological arms race that the US should win at all costs, and it laid out plans to remove "red tape and onerous regulation" in the sector. It also demanded that AI be free of "ideological bias," or in other words, only following the biases of the current administration by removing mentions of climate change, misinformation, and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Considering each of thosethreetopics has a documented impact on public health, the ability of tools like Elsa to provide genuine benefits to both the FDA and to US patients looks increasingly doubtful.
Update, July 24, 2025, 6:35PM ET: Added a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/fda-employees-say-the-agencys-elsa-generative-ai-hallucinates-entire-studies-203547157.html?src=rss
FILE PHOTO: Signage is seen outside of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in White Oak, Maryland, U.S., August 29, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
The author (right) learned a lot about money from her grandmother.
Courtesy of Ashley Archambault
My grandmother had 10 children, but they were always well-fed and had a happy home.
She loved to go thrift shopping and never wasted any food.
She taught me how to make a great life for my son as a single mom.
I often think of one sentence from my late grandmother's obituary: "She kept her 10 children fed and clothed."
Yes, she had 10 children, but what's mesmerizing about this statement is that she always made sure her children had what they needed. As a former single mom of just one boy, I know firsthand that keeping your children fed, clothed, and taken care of is no small feat.
Once I had my own son, I was blessed to spend a lot of time with my grandmother, as we both lived in the same area for the first time. I saw her several times a week, often for lunch or dinner visits. On Sundays and holidays, she typically had our family over for dinner.
I observed all of the ways in which she made these daily meals, visits, and holidays special without having a lot of money.
She showed me that buying secondhand could help stretch a small budget
My grandmother loved frequenting thrift stores and yard sales so that most of her clothes and furniture were found items. In retirement, she volunteered at the local thrift store and always bought things for her children and grandchildren, frequently asking us if there was anything we needed.
The toys she found for my son often became his favorite, while the gently used clothing she picked up for him helped me always keep my son in well-fitting clothes. When I moved into my own home, we scoured yard sales together and found my dining room table and even a lawn mower for my new yard.
I had a handful of Christmases as a mom that were tough money-wise. I found myself using my experience thrifting with my grandmother to find unique gifts, such as a vintage Coca-Cola snow globe and a collector's Batman and Joker set. My son didn't know they weren't brand new. To him, they were just treasures that he still has.
She fed us all well with so little in her kitchen
When it came to putting a meal together, I still marvel at the way my grandmother could create something cozy and plentiful with very little on hand. Dinners were adorned with plates of pickles and olives, saltines and butter, and linen napkins.
These small things helped meals feel more like an event and also gave the impression of an abundance of food.
She earned a reputation for never letting anything go to waste, a habit she developed growing up on a farm during the Great Depression. Leftovers were reworked into meals the next day, and there was never anything too small to save, whether half of an apple or just one clove of garlic.
I saw that it didn't take much money to make a house feel like a home. Even the ordinary day felt special if you were visiting with her. Sure, her decorations were small acts of love, but she was also attentive. She really made the point to see how you were doing and was hospitable, always offering a cookie or another cup of coffee.
I found myself resorting to her secrets when money got tight
As a single mom on a small budget, I caught myself using the same tricks I had picked up from my grandmother. My son's birthday parties, for instance, were often decorated with found items around the home — tablecloths, flowers, and decorative dishware.
For holidays, I focused on the traditions we could build that cost next to nothing but emphasized togetherness, such as making festive cutout cookies or taking Christmas light drives around the neighborhood.
I ensured holidays were never about the quantity of gifts, but the thought put into them. My grandmother always got me one present for my birthday or Christmas, but it would be something special, often useful, and timeless.
Because of her, I knew how to provide my son
I struggled with wanting to provide for my son without having a lot of money. I never wanted him to feel like he was lacking in anything.
In many ways, my grandmother showed me how to create an illusion of plenty. It didn't matter that I relied on used goods or had to find ways to spread the groceries out because my son never noticed. He was always fed and clothed well.
Most of all, he felt safe. His home was warm, welcoming, and decorated to cheer up our day-to-day lives. I was always there for him, offering to be a Lego buddy or seeing if he needed a snack. My grandmother's ways showed me that I didn't need a lot of money to take care of my son. I just needed to be there for him, with the right attitude and creative ingenuity.
As mental health continues to take center stage in the workplace, employers have made strides in offering support, but we can still improve in understanding who, exactly, needs help and how to reach them. Too often, mental health strategies overlook the people quietly carrying layered responsibilities outside of work: caregivers, older employees, and women navigating pivotal life and health transitions.
These groups aren’t niche. They make up a large share of the workforce, and their needs are shaping the future of employee well-being.
Mental health doesn’t have a retirement age
Workers aged 55 and older now comprise over 20% of the U.S. labor force, yet they remain an afterthought in many workplace mental health programs. While older workers may report better self-rated mental health than their younger peers, they’re also more likely to be navigating chronic pain, grief, or caregiving, and less likely to use digital tools that could help.
According to a recent Calm Health study—the “Work-Life-Health Balance Report,” a survey of 1,500 adults across the U.S. and U.K.—half of all workers reported at least one mental health concern.Furthermore, a study by the Aging Society Research Network found the impact of mental health on older workers in the lower income bracket is even more pronounced, with users aged 50 to 59 reporting nearly five days a month where their mental health is impacted. This is noticeably worse than even just 20 years ago.
Unfortunately, usage of workplace mental health resources among older workers remains low. Importantly, the issue isn’t unwillingness: Over 80% of workers overall said they would be open to using digital tools if offered, provided those tools are trustworthy, simple, and relevant. However, just 23% are actually aware they are offered this kind of tool.
To truly support older employees, employers must design for inclusion. That could mean creating low barriers to entry for support or framing support in ways that resonate with goals like independence and longevity. These small changes can boost digital engagement, reduce absenteeism, and help retain some of an organization’s most experienced talent.
The ‘sandwich generation’ of caregivers needs attention
One of the most overlooked experiences impacting employee mental health is caregiving. In Calm Health’s study, one in three workers reported a caregiving event in the past year. These experiences, whether related to aging parents, children, or partners, don’t stay neatly outside work hours.
The impact is profound: 65% of caregivers said they had to take time off or use leave due to caregiving responsibilities, and more than half reported reduced productivity, difficulty focusing, or needing coworkers to cover for them.
And yet, caregiving benefits remain rare. While these programs are rated among the most helpful of any workplace mental health resource, they are also among the least offered, representing a major gap in employer support.
With more workers falling into the “sandwich generation,” caring for both children and aging parents, addressing this need isn’t just compassionate, it’s strategic. Employers can start by offering flexible scheduling, mental health counseling, and content tailored for caregivers, or assistance navigating elder care. These investments not only improve employee well-being, but they also protect retention and productivity among a critical slice of the workforce.
Women shouldn’t have to suffer in silence
Another blind spot: women’s health. Experiences like pregnancy, perimenopause, and menopause aren’t just physical; they carry emotional and psychological impacts that ripple into how women show up at work.
In the U.K., 56% of women said reproductive health events interfered with their ability to perform at their best, compared to 37% of women in the U.S. Yet, most employer mental health programs don’t address these transitions directly.
What’s needed in addition to evolved benefits is recognition. Training managers to respond with empathy, including supportive content or tools specific to women’s health stages—or normalizing conversations around the intersection of women’s health and mental health—can make a measurable difference in how supported employees feel.
Life doesn’t pause for work
In the past year alone, 78% of workers experienced at least one major life event, such as caregiving, illness, or a significant unexpected expense. And 44% said these events negatively impacted their work performance.
What’s more, many of the events with the greatest impact, like the death of a loved one or the illness of a family member, often go unsupported by workplace programs. Three in 10 workers report wanting mental health resources that their employers simply don’t offer.
If employers want to build resilient, future-ready teams, they must move beyond generic wellness programs, supporting the full spectrum of life experiences across age, gender, and caregiving status. Make sure you actually know your workforce and the unique needs they have. This requires tailored tools, empathetic leadership, and benefits that meet people where they are.
The mental health conversation is expanding. Workplace strategies have to do the same.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
The author's father is a retired FDNY firefighter.
Courtesy of Heather Mundinger
My dad is retired but stays busy, chaperoning events at the local high school and playing softball.
It's not surprising to me — even before he retired, he never had just one job.
His version of retirement has shaped my own relationship with work and hustle.
On a recent Saturday morning, my retired parents texted me, the resident family foodie, for restaurant recommendations in Raleigh, North Carolina. I don't live there, but they figured I'd know where to look. They're not on vacation, exactly — they're there for one of my dad's 60-and-over softball league tournaments.
This is just part of what retirement looks like for my dad, a retired FDNY firefighter. Rather than settling into a life of golf courses or cruise ship decks, he's just as busy now as he was when he was working — he's simply doing different things.
After more than 20 years fighting fires in New York City, with his pension secured, my dad could have easily slowed down. He could have embraced the kind of stillness most people dream about. Instead, he picks up shifts chaperoning events at our hometown high school a few times a month, everything from school dances to football games.
During his FDNY days, he spent years as captain of the department's softball team, and these days, he still hits the field for regular batting practice and travels around the country to compete in senior leagues. This is his idea of taking it easy.
It doesn't surprise me at all that he hasn't slowed down
Some people might ask: Why keep "doing" when you don't need to? But that question has never really made sense to me. My dad never had just one job. He was running into burning buildings, yes, but also running a small sunroom business he had built from the ground up while making sure he never missed my brother's hockey games or my dance recitals.
His own parents had grown up in Queens with very little and worked hard to move the family out to a house in the suburbs. I think, on some level, he felt he owed it to them to make good on that effort. The way I saw it growing up, slowing down almost felt selfish — movement wasn't just a habit, it was a way of honoring where we came from.
It's no surprise, then, that I find myself replicating that rhythm. I work full-time as the Head of Marketing at a music tech startup, which means that on evenings and weekends, I'm rarely truly "off." And, still, I pitch articles like this one, and I take on freelance clients when I can. The idea of being satisfied with just one job — even if it's a stable one — has never quite taken root in me, and that's not because I fear stillness, but because ambition has always looked like staying in motion.
Watching my dad retire taught me that effort doesn't stop being meaningful once the paycheck becomes optional; it just becomes far more personal when you're not just doing it for money. He does it because he likes being part of something that's larger than himself, whether that's in the hallways of his alma mater or trash-talking in the dugout with guys he's known for decades. There's an inherent purpose in that rhythm.
And sure, I know what the headlines say: older Americans are working longer, and it's often framed around worries about economic uncertainty, about disappearing pensions, and sometimes that is why. But, sometimes, it's a value system passed down — whether we asked for it or not.
I'll likely have a similar version of retirement
My dad's version of retirement is not about refusing to rest but rather about refusing to disappear. His life now is proof that being mentally, socially, and physically active can be its own kind of joy, that usefulness and community don't have to be casualties of aging.
He's still ordering new bats and gloves, booking travel to tournaments, and texting me for restaurant recs in whatever city he's landed in. Meanwhile, I'm working from home in San Juan, Puerto Rico, laptop open, pitching another story while practicing my Spanish and planning my next salsa class. Clearly, neither of us seems interested in sitting still.
When I think about my own future, I'm not sure I'll ever want the version of retirement where I just vanish into leisure, either. Maybe that's the gift my dad gave me: a model for what aging could look like — one where I don't lose sight of myself, but I refocus. Not a stop point, but an entirely new chapter to start — one where your time is still yours to shape in whichever way you see fit.
If I ever do retire, I hope it looks a lot like his. Full of play, purpose, and enough momentum to keep me in motion.
The author, left, and her husband lived with her sister, right, when they were newlyweds.
Courtesy of Melissa Noble
I was two months pregnant when my sister asked to move in with my partner and me.
At first, our dynamic was great, and we loved living together. Then, it got a little tense.
We were in different places, and she eventually moved out, but we're now as close as ever.
When I was two months pregnant with my first child, my older sister called and asked if she could move in temporarily with my partner and me. She needed a fresh start and had decided to move interstate from the Gold Coast, Australia, where we grew up, to Melbourne, where I had been living for about a year.
At the time, my partner Sam and I were living in an old 1950s two-bedroom flat. I'd lived with my sister before in my 20s, so I knew she was easy to live with. After chatting with Sam about it, he said he didn't mind her crashing for a while until she got on her feet.
And so, a few weeks later, my sister arrived on our doorstep.
At first, living together was great
Luckily, my partner and sister have always got on well. Years ago, the three of us traveled through Laos and Thailand together, then later we backpacked around Cuba with my sister, so there was a lot of shared history between us.
Those first couple of months living together were really fun. My sister landed a corporate job in the city and quickly settled into Melbourne life. Melbourne is a cosmopolitan city that's known for its vibrant festival scene, which we embraced wholeheartedly. Every weekend, we would head to an international festival or cultural celebration together.
When the author, right, was two months pregnant, her sister, left, moved in with her.
Courtesy of Melissa Noble
The household dynamic worked really well to start with. My sister paid rent, which helped us financially. We took turns cooking, and everyone got along. I remember coming home to find my partner squeezing my sister's blackheads on the couch one night and thinking, "Wow, this has taken their bond to a whole new level."
It was a time of transition, and things became a little tense
But it was also a really hectic time for Sam and me. I was battling the trials and tribulations of the first trimester of pregnancy and working full-time as a journalist, while Sam was trying to build his remedial massage business.
Within a few weeks of my sister living with us, Sam proposed to me. We'd been together for about eight years by that point, and with a baby on the way, marriage seemed like the logical next step. Suddenly, there was a wedding to arrange, which added to the stress levels.
After the wedding and honeymoon, I started to feel like the living arrangement wasn't really working out. My pregnancy was getting further along, and my hormones were raging. My sister was in a different phase of life. She was in party mode, while I wanted to nest, decorate the baby's nursery, and relish that so-called newlywed bliss that everyone talks about.
After a while, things became a little tense in the household. I began to feel like we needed our own space. I'm not very good at being direct with people, so I'd discreetly ask my sister how the house hunt was coming along. She eventually got the message and found a flat for herself after five months of living with us.
The author, right, and her sister have always been close.
Courtesy of Melissa Noble
My sister moved out, and our relationship returned to normal
As soon as she had her own place, our relationship went back to the way it had been before. Sam and I were able to spend some quality time together alone before our son was born and our lives changed forever, while my sister could party guilt-free at her own digs.
Our son is 10 now, and my sister and I live in different states. She has a beautiful little girl of her own and has left the partying days behind. We're still as close as ever despite the eight-year age difference between us, and we often reflect on the happy memories we made in Melbourne together all those moons ago.
This story was originally published by ProPublica.
Five months after taking over the federal agency responsible for the health of all Americans, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to overhaul an obscure but vital program that underpins the nation’s childhood immunization system.
Depending on what he does, the results could be catastrophic.
Nearly 800,000 doses of mpox vaccine pledged to African countries working to stamp out devastating outbreaks are headed for the waste bin because they weren't shipped in time, according to reporting by Politico.
The nearly 800,000 doses were part of a donation promised under the Biden administration, which was meant to deliver more than 1 million doses. Overall, the US, the European Union, and Japan pledged to collectively provide 5 million doses to nearly a dozen African countries. The US has only sent 91,000 doses so far, and only 220,000 currently still have enough shelf life to make it. The rest are expiring within six months, making them ineligible for shipping.
"For a vaccine to be shipped to a country, we need a minimum of six months before expiration to ensure that the vaccine can arrive in good condition and also allow the country to implement the vaccination," Yap Boum, an Africa CDC deputy incident manager, told Politico.
In 2011, when Ella Mills was 20, chronically ill, and bedridden with fatigue, migraines, and heart palpitations up to 190 beats per minute, she nearly passed out when standing. As a student at St. Andrews University, she had to sleep between 16 and 18 hours a day because the fatigue was unbearable.
“You’re so dizzy, it’s like your head’s disconnected from your body,” Mills recalls, who had to go home to manage the symptoms.
Mills, now a mother of two who lives in the UK, saw a dozen doctors and underwent over 40 procedures, including visits to endocrinologists and gastroenterologists. Several months later, she was finally diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a disorder involving the autonomic nervous system that causes rapid heartbeat, nausea, brain fog, fainting, and fatigue.
There’s no official cure for the disorder, which primarily affects women between the ages of 15 and 50—although it has now been tied to post-COVID symptoms. At one point, Mills was on 25 medications a day. None of them worked.
“I very much hit rock bottom, and I think it became really clear that I wasn’t doing anything to help myself either,” she says.
Like many at a place of hopelessness, Mills turned to the internet. She read stories of countless women who have her disorder, many of whom felt desperate for any way forward and have since turned to medications and a combination of diet and other lifestyle changes.
“I just felt I had nothing to lose but try to kind of overhaul my diet and overhaul my lifestyle, but I couldn’t cook and I didn’t like vegetables,” she tells Fortune.
In 2012, although not a self-proclaimed unhealthy eater, Mills made a change to her diet, opting for natural ingredients and cooking at home. In a desperate plea for help and to keep herself accountable, she posted her cooking trials and tribulations on a blog.
Over a decade later, the $20 WordPress blog account named Deliciously Ella transformed into a business that brings in $25 million in revenue yearly, with a cookbook that has sold over 1.5 million copies, and a social media following of over 4 million (a reach far surpassing other plant-based snack competitors in the field).
It has become the fastest-growing snack brand in the UK and is now expanding globally with the launch in the U.S. at Whole Foods in May of this year. In 2024, the brand was acquired by Hero Group, a Swiss manufacturer. While the company won’t disclose the deal, Mills and her husband share that “we have had numerous approaches to sell or partner with other food companies over the years, but only this one felt right.”
The company is currently valued around $35 million, according to estimates from S&P.
“I taught myself to cook, and I did it on a blog, as I’m a very all-or-nothing person. I was like, I know I need to hold myself accountable,” she says. “It’s taken us a decade of experiments and trials and errors to get to the point where we know how to create genuinely, really good tasting products using only kitchen cupboard ingredients.”
The ‘accidental founder‘
Within two years, Mills tells Fortune her site garnered 130 million hits and reached people in about 80 countries.
While she was still weaning off medications, Mills’s minimalist and home-cooked diet improved her illness. Two years later, she was not on any medications, and her business was growing in step.
She began posting more on social media about the recipes she was making and what she was learning. In 2014, she compiled all the recipes into an app, and in 2015, she published a cookbook that sold out before its release, instantly becoming an Amazon and New York Times bestseller.
Mills describes herself as an “accidental founder,” who doesn’t have an entrepreneurial brain or the experience scaling a business. “I’m not trying to pretend to be what I wasn’t,” she says. It’s no surprise that she wasn’t a professional chef or nutritionist, but she marketed herself as a self-proclaimed “home cook” who wanted to—simply put—feel better.
A month after the cookbook’s release, Mills met her now-husband and business partner, Matt—a finance nerd at heart with the eagerness to scale a brand. Two weeks after she met him, he quit his job to work alongside her, helping her scale her business and build products that aligned with her mission.
“He can’t cook. I can’t build an Excel spreadsheet,” she says, adding that she never wanted to license the brand to a third party to manufacture products either. “I put two really obvious skill sets together, and neither of us had any interest in the other person’s job.”
Deliciously Ella’s first product, a cacao and almond energy ball, was released in 2016, followed by a line of other products. As of print, the brand has sold over 100 million products, and the company’s membership, available for $2.74 a month, provides access to thousands of recipes, along with meal plans and blog posts.
“It really kind of coincided with this world of wellness starting to form, and the industry taking shape, and people starting to think, ‘oh, there’s actual commercial value in this,’” she says. “I felt almost evangelical, just so passionate, about trying to get this to as many people as possible. I didn’t really care how many obstacles there were. I didn’t care about the fact that it took over my life completely.”
Over a decade later, the importance of lifestyle changes, including diet, exercise, and sleep, in impacting both physical and mental health has become much more mainstream.
The craze to limit ultra-processed foods has been featured in headlines, opening up a lane for brands promoting the use of minimal ingredients. Limiting ultra-processed foods has been shown to reduce the risk of chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and early mortality. According to the Cleveland Clinic, diet is an integral pillar, albeit not foolproof, in treatment plans for improving those with POTS.
And wellness and lifestyle brands have surged. Companies specializing in healthy eating, nutrition, and weight loss account for $1 trillion of the over $6 trillion wellness industry, a marketplace poised to grow to nearly $9 billion by 2028, according to the Global Wellness Institute.
“I think you have that naive optimism when you start a business. It’s so critical because you’ve got to believe you can do the impossible. But we both just felt like, this is going to be a giant experiment,” she says. “It was like, how do we create something of meaning, of scale, that’s genuinely disruptive to the food industry, but keeping that 100% natural, and never using ultra-processed foods?”
Building a brand beyond fads
Mills recognizes that if you don’t iterate and evolve your brand to meet the demand, you can lose relevancy. However, she didn’t want to give in to the latest wellness fads as a way to stay ahead.
Deliciously Ella was strategically simple in scope.
“We had a moment where turmeric was everything, where Beyonce wore a kale jumper, and the meat minute boom where the whole world was going to eat Impossible burgers,” she says. “We’re just going to stay in our lane. We’ve never jumped on any of them.”
Mills admits there was a lot of luck to being on the lifestyle train at a time when social media wasn’t as noisy and brands were less focused on the harm of ultra-processed foods than they are today. But she credits her success to hustling to create a community of loyal followers and being consistent.
“There are 1,000 more trends that we could jump on, but to me, that isn’t a long-term way to build the brand, or actually shift the dial on health,” she says. “If it doesn’t taste good or is way too expensive, it’s just not going to stay a part of someone’s life.”
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