From the time we are conceived and through old age, genetic mutations accumulate in all our tissues, eluding the body’s typically efficient DNA repair machinery and potentially affecting our health and well-being.
In a new project, a team of researchers from multiple institutions including Yale will catalog these changes, known as somatic mutations, more than two decades since scientists first logged snapshots of 3 billion DNA base pairs that make up the human DNA. The project will focus specifically on mutations across 19 tissue sites in 150 individuals without disease.
The project, called the Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) Network, and which will include more than 300 researchers, is described today in the journal Nature.
“We want to know how many mutations there are in as many tissues of the body we can to understand how our body changes over time,” said Flora Vaccarino, the Harris Professor at the Yale Child Study Center, professor of neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine, and co-corresponding author of the perspective paper.
There is a general belief that people are born with an immutable set of DNA sequences inherited from their parents that dictate almost all aspects of their biology. But even a few days after fertilization, cells of the embryo develop somatic mutations which can affect development. In the embryo, mutations of single nucleotides within a cell, known as SNVs (single nucleotide variants), occur at a rate of about one to five SNVs per cell division. These mutations slow after birth to two to 65 SNVs per year, depending on the tissue, and so steadily accumulate in our cells as we age. Larger structural DNA mutations are much less frequent but potentially could have a larger impact.
(Intriguingly, there are 10 times fewer mutations in germ line cells, the reproductive cells in sexually reproducing organisms, than in other post-conception cells.)
Most of these somatic mutations have little effect on our health — and some may even be advantageous. Other mutations, however, including those which occur in many forms of cancer, can be life-threatening. While cancer is the most well-known disease associated with somatic mutations, recent studies have linked these mutations to developmental syndromes, neurological diseases and inflammatory disorders.
However, there is no largescale reference database for mutations in different tissue types in a large general population that is needed to begin understanding their impact on development, aging, and disease.
For the new project, collaborators will seek to define the prevalence and types of somatic mutations in healthy individuals in order to better identify those which may cause harm.
“Until we understand what is happening in healthy people, we can’t understand what is happening in disease,” Vaccarino said.
Specifically, the research consortium will look at somatic mutations in multiple tissue types including in the skin, brain, skeleton, heart, lungs, and blood. Finding these mutations in human tissues, however, is challenging, researchers say.
“Specific mutations can be present in very small numbers of cells or even single cells, and so detecting them is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Tim Coorens, co-lead and co-corresponding author from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and currently a research group leader at the European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge, UK.
To overcome these challenges, the consortium is developing and applying state-of-the-art technological advances including sequencing approaches with ultra-low error rates and sequencing the DNA of single cells. This will allow them to track mutations of single nucleotides within a single cell and, at the same time, to monitor RNA which carry out instructions encoded within the DNA.
“It is like a super-personal genome overtime,” Vaccarino said.
Eunjung Alice Lee, of Boston Children’s Hospital and the Broad Institute, and Ji Won Oh, of Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea, are co-lead authors of the perspective paper.
The SMaHT Network, which includes more than 300 researchers from more than 50 institutions across the United States, is supported by the National Institutes of Health’s Common Fund.
India’s Rohan Bopanna suffered an early exit at Wimbledon 2025 as he and his Belgian partner Sander Gillé crashed out of the men’s doubles at the All England Club in London on Wednesday.
Up against third-seeded German duo Tim Pütz and Kevin Krawietz in the opening round, the Indo-Belgian pair were broken in the sixth game of the first set and the third in the second as they lost 6-3, 6-4 in an hour and five minutes.
However, Yuki Bhambri and his American partner Robert Galloway moved into the second round after a 7(10)-6(8), 6-4 win against Romain Arneodo of Monaco and Manuel Guinard of France.
Yuki Bhambri and Robert Galloway, the 16th seeds at the Grand Slam tennis event, squandered two set points, resulting in a tie break. However, the Indo-American duo persevered after saving a set point to gain the advantage.
Bhambri and Galloway then broke Arneodo and Guinard in the seventh game of the second set to wrap up the match in an hour and 51 minutes.
Israeli IT company Wix, which has offices in Kyiv, Dnipro, and Lviv, recently announced the acquisition of startup Base44 for $80 million. This is a project for vibe coding — based on a text request, the service creates a full-fledged application with a database, storage, authentication, analytics, and integrations. In the 6 months of its existence, the startup for non-technical users has already gained almost 250,000 fans.
Wix, which has made website creation a simple process for millions, including through the active implementation of AI solutions, continues to grow both globally and in Ukraine. According to DOU, in the second half of 2024, Wix was one of the leaders in hiring in Ukraine, attracting more than 100 new specialists.
So we talked to Andriy Mokhovyk, the manager of the Wix front-end guild in Ukraine, about vibe coding, the nuances of implementing artificial intelligence and the AI future, as well as about hiring and funny interview incidents related to the same AI.
“Intellectual” beginning and development
Wix was founded in Tel Aviv by three technology enthusiasts, Avishai Abraham, Nadav Abraham, and Giora Kaplan, back in 2006. The Wix team believed that the Internet should be open to everyone for free expression, development, and interaction, so they decided to create a platform that would allow them to build professional websites and their mobile versions.
By April 2010, the company already had 3.5 million users, and two years later Wix launched a new HTML5 website editor. This allowed the company to attract 25 million users and earn $60 million in 2012. And the company’s initial public offering of shares on the NASDAQ exchange took place on November 5, 2013 and brought in $127 million.
In 2016, long before the AI boom, Wix launched Artificial Design Intelligence — an AI-powered solution for automatic website creation. It was the first solution on the market that could create a website in minutes by generating it based on the information entered — the algorithm was based on the depths of a database of 86 million+ users, collected content from social networks and the web, and formed a website from billions of combinations.
According to Andriy Mokhovyk, Frontend Guild Manager at Wix’s Ukrainian and Polish offices, the company has since continued to improve its products to help users grow their businesses and achieve success using the numerous opportunities provided by artificial intelligence.
Andriy Mokhovyk, Wix Frontend Guild Manager in Ukraine
“Today, ADI has evolved into a new generation of website building tool called Wix AI Website Builder. This technology uses a combination of deep learning and generative AI algorithms, such as large language models (LLMs), including our own proprietary models specifically adapted to the ecosystem, to provide users with personalized solutions that meet their needs. Most of our clients don’t want to spend hours writing copy, designing layouts, or paying for professional photography,” Andriy told us.
The company views artificial intelligence as a strategic tool that enables millions of entrepreneurs to accelerate the development of their businesses.
“Our AI platform combines the most advanced and sophisticated technologies with an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making advanced tools accessible to companies of any size, regardless of technical training. What used to take weeks can now be done in minutes,” the manager explained.
Photo from the Kyiv Wix office
In addition to creating websites, Wix also currently has a developed AI infrastructure:
▪️ Astro is a business assistant that is integrated into the administration panel for effective business management: from tracking site performance and SEO optimization to managing subscriptions and creating content; it provides real-world analytics and personalized recommendations through a simple chat interface;
▪️ AI Marketing Agent — an agent for creating marketing strategies based on site data that generates personalized marketing briefs and action plans, supports content creation, SEO, and multi-channel campaigns, helping users increase visibility and stay on track with their goals;
▪️ Wix Model Context Protocol — a server for developers and power users that provides integration between Wix’s business infrastructure and compatible AI clients; using natural language commands, users can generate code, manage business operations, and build solutions with tools like Claude and Cursor without complex setup or hand coding;
▪️ Wixel is a proprietary, self-contained AI visual design platform built to democratize professional design; with an intuitive interface and powerful AI models running in the background, users can create, edit, and customize high-quality visuals, from product photos to social media content, without any design experience.
The era of Artificial Intelligence has arrived
Recently, Microsoft announced that it wants to include the use of AI tools in employee performance evaluation criteria. Vice President Julia Lewson stated that AI is now a fundamental part of work: “Just like collaboration, data-drivenness, and effective communication, the use of AI is no longer an option — it is a foundation for every role and every level.”
According to Andriy Mokhovyk, the era of artificial intelligence is no longer a matter of the distant future – it has already arrived. “AI is rapidly integrating into all spheres of life, including the field of software development. Today, knowledge and skills to work with AI tools are a competitive advantage for a developer. But tomorrow it will become a basic market requirement. Developers who ignore these changes will find themselves in a less advantageous position, because the very approach to creating products is changing. Artificial intelligence not only optimizes work processes, but also forms a new development culture. As a result, not only tools are changing, but also the role of the developer himself,” the specialist said.
Photo from the Wix Kyiv office
According to him, the company launched the Wix AI Learning initiative, which aims to explore how artificial intelligence can actually improve workflows, decision-making, and the developer experience — from engineering and product to UX and content — to rethink the entire development pipeline — from idea to result.
“Teams that use AI can move faster, build smarter, and deliver better experiences. Those that don’t risk being left behind. It’s not about replacing developers, it’s about empowering them to focus on what’s important, automate the rest, and navigate complexity with confidence. This requires not only tools, but also trust, understanding, and a new set of shared practices. We truly believe that AI is not a replacement for the developer, but their superpower. That’s why we’re exploring how to better integrate AI into our workflows, how to make decision-making more accurate, and how to make everyday work more comfortable. And we’re taking a holistic approach to this,” noted the head of the Wix Frontend Guild.
Regarding vibe coding, the manager also noted the acquisition of startup Base44, which should help the company expand its activities in this area: “This acquisition highlights Wix’s desire to push the boundaries of AI-based creation.”
Photo from the Wix Kyiv office
The specialist also shared tips that will help businesses integrate AI into their products:
▪️if your product is based on SaaS solutions, such as Wix, then you probably already have various AI tools available “out of the box” – this means that many artificial intelligence functions are already integrated and ready to use;
▪️if you develop the product yourself, the possibilities are wider – you can easily integrate modern AI models through public APIs such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini – these interfaces allow you to connect powerful artificial intelligence algorithms to your product, expanding its functionality and making it more intelligent and useful for users;
▪️at the same time, the best assistant in selecting relevant materials and resources for integration is artificial intelligence itself.
“The ability to use AI to learn how to use AI is the most important message of the entire interview, and this is where your mindset will begin to change,” said the manager of the Wix frontend guild in Ukraine.
AI tools, hiring, interviews
Andriy Mokhovyk himself also actively uses various AI tools, which, according to him, have become indispensable assistants. “ChatGPT helps me analyze information, edit texts, create short summaries of articles, and perform many other tasks. For writing, reviewing, and refactoring code, I use Claude Sonnet models via the Cursor platform. I also tried using Preplexity for Internet research, but after Google integrated its Gemini AI assistant into the search engine, I returned to the usual search. For creating and editing images, I use Wixel,” the IT professional told us.
Photo from the Kyiv Wix office
In his opinion, artificial intelligence is developing extremely quickly, and models, protocols, and tools are changing literally every week. “In the future, AI will become an indispensable assistant in many areas of human activity. Therefore, we need to change our thinking today to be ready for these changes and effectively use new opportunities,” Andriy Mokhovyk emphasized.
According to the manager, many of the company’s developers now use AI tools every day in environments such as Cursor or the GitHub Copilot extension.
They help with code writing, reviews, and refactoring. In these integrated development environments (IDEs), IT professionals have access to advanced AI models that can be used for a variety of tasks, from simple queries to complex engineering solutions. In addition, the company has its own assistant, Astra.
“We don’t just give tools and expect results. We want everyone to feel confident using AI. That’s why we launched the Engineering AI Weeks initiative. This is a series of practical sessions that help developers better understand how to effectively use AI in their daily work. The workshops were conducted by engineers themselves, who already have deep expertise and are actively applying AI in their tasks,” the specialist said.
Photo from the Kyiv Wix office
With the introduction of AI, the company has begun a global rethinking of approaches to the candidate search process. Currently, Wix is working here in two directions:
▪️analyzes the recruitment process and all types of professional assessment that currently exist for engineering positions; identifies what part of the assessment of experience and knowledge can be carried out using AI tools and consistently tests all available technologies; plans to begin implementation soon;
▪️the company looks at the description of each role (in terms of professional requirements and the essence of the tasks for which it invites engineers); analyzes what additional knowledge and tools in the context of AI it would like to add to the expectations, and also orients candidates to what tools they will need to work with when they join Wix.
“What are we already doing? We ask candidates about their experience with AI tools, and their knowledge and work experience are now considered a significant advantage. We are open to using AI tools when completing homework, and in this case, part of the conversation is devoted to analyzing the tools and logic that the candidate used if he/she performed part of the work with the help of AI assistants. We believe in core engineering education, professional experience, and technical knowledge. For us, AI is an additional skill and tool that can make a talented engineer even more effective, but will not turn anyone into an engineering genius,” Andriy Mokhovyk told us.
According to the IT professional, AI has not only opened up new opportunities for development, but also created certain challenges – the company has increasingly encountered unscrupulous candidates who try to bypass the system during interviews, using AI assistants to receive answers in real time.
Photo from the Wix Kyiv office
“Recently, a candidate couldn’t answer a fairly basic question, so we moved on to the next one. And suddenly he had an “epiphany”: he started giving an extremely detailed answer, almost verbatim from a textbook, including terms that would hardly be familiar without prior preparation. This situation looks suspicious and raises doubts about the candidate’s sincerity. We are positive about the use of AI tools in interviews, but it is important for us that it is open and honest. We are always ready to dive deeper into the experience of each AI engineer, to learn about what the candidate knows and is able to do in this context, and such experience can even become an advantage. Therefore, there is simply no point in tricks,” the specialist concluded.
It is also worth mentioning that at the end of May 2025, Wix acquired another Israeli startup, Hour One. This is a platform for generating videos with characters based on real people. This startup uses solutions for corporate training, marketing, and other business tasks where personalized video is required. Thus, Wix plans to further expand AI integrations, expanding the tools for creating professional AI videos.
When you think about the food that astronauts eat in space, lobster, haddock and foie gras probably don’t spring to mind – but that’s exactly what France’s next visitor to the International Space Station (ISS) will be dining on.
Astronaut Sophie Adenot has teamed up with award-winning French chef Anne-Sophie Pic to create a menu of gastronomic delights that will travel with Adenot to the ISS next year.
Instead of the usual freeze-dried nutrients that astronauts eat, Adenot, 42, will be choosing from the likes of “Foie gras cream on toasted brioche” and “Lobster bisque with crab and caraway”.
The menu – which the European Space Agency (ESA) has dubbed “a pinch of France in space” – includes four starters, two main courses and two desserts.
Adenot said the dishes, which also include braised beef, and chocolate cream, will not only “delight our palates” but also help her feel connected to Earth, and her home country.
“Her (Pic’s) cuisine signature is deeply influenced by the terroir. This is important to me because I grew up in the countryside, and it will remind me of my roots,” she was quoted as saying in an ESA statement.
There are strict rules for food on the ISS – it must be crumb-free, lightweight and keep for at least 24 months, the ESA says.
Therefore, most meals are canned, vacuum packed or freeze-dried, with fresh fruit and vegetables a rare luxury that can only be enjoyed when a spacecraft arrives with new supplies.
But to keep things interesting, boost morale, and help with crew bonding, every tenth or so meal is one prepared especially for each astronaut, with these “bonus meals” often made in partnership with a chef.
Famous for her haute cuisine, Pic, 55, has the most Michelin stars of any female chef in the world – 10.
She says this project is “pushing the boundaries” of gastronomy, as she worked with her team to create special food, while keeping within the technical constraints.
“Cooking for space is an exhilarating challenge,” she was quoted as saying by the ESA.
Adenot says she will share the haute cuisine with her colleagues on board – it is after all an important moment – French gastronomic culture becoming for the first time… extra-terrestrial.
Adenot, a former helicopter test and rescue pilot, has won a string of awards, including a medal honouring her actions in gender equality in the sciences.
BÖBLINGEN, Germany, July 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Today, IBM (NYSE: IBM) is announcing that Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s leading providers of telecommunications and IT services, serving millions of residential and business customers, will implement the AI-powered solution IBM Concert, enabling intelligent automation in patch management and the orchestration of security-related activities.
Patches are a necessary part of software lifecycle management. They help systems stay secured, functional, and relevant in a fast-changing IT landscape. Without patches, software would quickly become vulnerable, unstable, and obsolete. But handling patches is a challenge as well. IBM can help companies accelerate vulnerability protection in their IT systems while boosting operational efficiency. IBM Concert helps companies to reduce operational costs and the effort required for patching vulnerabilities, increasing the speed of response and the efficiency for improving the security of all systems.
One billion apps by 2028
According to an IDC study, there will be one billion additional applications by 2028 – an increase that will be driven by AI innovations. Even for minor changes and updates, complex coordination between app owners, development, security, and operations teams is necessary to ensure smooth operation for millions of customers and users. The large number of manual process steps to prepare, execute, and document the end-to-end patching process increases the risk of errors.
Deutsche Telekom turned to IBM for an approach that could scale faster and dramatically improve overall efficiency. The IBM Software Development Organization had developed a solution specifically for this purpose, IBM Concert, which IBM had initially tested on itself as “Client Zero,” after facing a similar complexity challenge.
Ten times faster patching
IBM Concert provides Deutsche Telekom with intelligent resilience for complex IT operations, with a single source of truth for vulnerability management, patching, and reporting. The solution brings together all relevant data and specializations, creating contextual information that enables end-to-end AI-powered automation.
The fully automated patching process for operating systems has been designed to reduce patching time from 90 minutes to a maximum of 20 minutes per instance. This dramatic time savings gives IT teams new freedom for strategic tasks, innovations, and optimizations.
During the successful pilot implementation of IBM Concert, Deutsche Telekom was able to achieve a 10x reduction in a key metric “Median Time To Patch,” going from 80 hours per critical vulnerabilities to eight hours. This acceleration of the rollout of patches increases IT security and also improves business risk and compliance, enabling Deutsche Telekom to manage risks for its IT operations much more effectively.
“Secure operating systems form the foundation for all applications, databases, and services that we offer our customers. When it comes to patching, the time factor has taken on a critical role in the AI era. Those who use available updates immediately and automatically can reduce security risks. We face this challenge together with our partner,” explains Dr. Peter Leukert, Group CIO of Deutsche Telekom. “We were looking for a standalone solution on the market that combines all the complex aspects of patch management and reliably automates everything.”
Steve Canepa, Global Managing Director at IBM, says: “Security and trust are the cornerstones of success for all telecommunications companies. IBM Concert incorporates modern AI and automation technologies so that Deutsche Telekom can stay ahead of the dramatically escalating number and complexity of critical vulnerabilities across their Hybrid Cloud platform.”
Dinesh Nirmal, Senior Vice President IBM Software, adds: “By intelligently orchestrating and automating security-critical processes, clients like Deutsche Telekom can not only respond faster to new threats, but also use resources more efficiently using IBM Concert. In doing so, they are creating a solid foundation for a future-proof, scalable and highly secure IT operating model with the help of AI.”
Notes to Editors
About IBM Concert
IBM Concert is a comprehensive AI-powered automation solution using IBM watsonx that provides AI-driven recommendations and workflows to automate and optimize IT operations, including the patching process. IBM Concert:
Integrates, aggregates, and analyzes existing data sources such as security scans, application and infrastructure information, and publicly available CVE databases
Uses a generative AI approach to develop an optimized and prioritized patching plan based on extensive information about system topology, dependencies, maintenance windows, and business requirements
Generates ServiceNow change requests and process documentation in the IT service management system (ITSM), ready for approval by experts
Upon approval, orchestrates fully automated installation of operating system patches for Microsoft Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and other Linux distributions within maintenance windows, integrating, for example, Ansible Playbooks in the AWS Cloud
Documents the results in the ITSM system, providing a quick overview, facilitating traceability of changes, and improving compliance for the entire hybrid cloud environment
About Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies, with more than 261 million mobile customers, 25 million fixed-network lines, and 22 million broadband customers. Deutsche Telekom provides fixed-network/broadband, mobile communications, Internet, and IPTV products and services for consumers, and information and communication technology (ICT) solutions for business and corporate customers. For more information, see https://www.telekom.com/en/company/companyprofile/company-profile-625808
About Deutsche Telekom IT GmbH
Deutsche Telekom IT GmbH (DTIT) is the IT company of choice of Deutsche Telekom Group. DTIT is responsible for the design, development and operation of all its own and transferred IT systems to support Deutsche Telekom’s business processes. DTIT creates the basis for an integrated, cross-channel customer experience with Deutsche Telekom Group.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. For more information, see www.ibm.com.
Pictures:
• Corporate headquarters in Bonn. (Deutsche Telekom, picture: Norbert Ittermann)
The motion of snakes has long fascinated humans: they undulate, they sidewind, they crawl, they even fly .
Together with herpetologists, researchers in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered and quantified a new type of locomotion in juvenile anacondas.
As adults, these large snakes are better known for their slow, lumbering gait, but the researchers discovered that young anacondas are much more spry — capable of a quick, one-off, skating movement the researchers dubbed the “S-start” due to the shape the snake makes with its body.
A team led by SEAS professor L. Mahadevan , the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Physics and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology in SEAS and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, is the first to describe this peculiar movement using a mathematical model that quantifies exactly how the snake executes it. The research is published in Nature Physics .
“This movement is the serpentine analog of the moonwalk – a fast, graceful glide that seems to defy common sense,” Mahadevan said. “We used observations to create a mathematical framework, in order to understand under what conditions movements like this are possible, and why they are lost as the snake gets older, heavier, and relatively less strong.”
Study co-author and Missouri herpetologist Bruce Young first noticed several years ago that young anacondas, when gently prodded, displayed what he could only describe as a startle reflex. “This behavior involved not only forming the body into a very characteristic shape, and moving using a gait previously undescribed from snakes, but also moving remarkably fast,” Young said, noting that anacondas are known for their mass and strength, but not for their speed. “It was clear to me that this was something new, involving different biophysics, than what had been described in snakes.”
Young had at this point never met Mahadevan but was a “big fan” of his work – “He has such a mastery of describing and modeling shape and movement” – that Young pitched to Mahadevan a collaborative analysis. The result was the Nature Physics study, co-authored by former Harvard graduate student Nicholas Young and Indian Institute of Technology Bombay researcher Raghu Chelakkot, who developed the computational model to quantify the movement, along with Mattia Gazzola from the University of Illinois.
In their computational analysis, backed up by experiment and observation, the Harvard researchers found that the S-start is present in a “goldilocks” zone of an anaconda’s weight and relative strength. An adult snake is too heavy to execute the movement, while a newborn snake is too strong and tends to either flail upward or unravel. A youthful anaconda has just the right physical attributes to perform the S-start, in which it neither flies off the ground, nor is it overwhelmed by ground friction.
In describing the S-start, Mahadevan’s team helped correct misconceptions about the better-known sidewinding – the continuous, sideways motion snakes use to slide down sandy hills. In their analysis they found that the S-starts are “non-planar,” as in, some segments of the snake are off the ground, almost as if the snake were walking. “We realized that the sidewinding motion is very similar to this S-motion, in that it consists of S-starts that are repeated again and again,” Mahadevan said.
“Perhaps, from an evolutionary point of view, this transient movement was taken up and then repeated, and this became the origin of sidewinding,” Mahadevan said. Overall, the findings seed new insights into how the S-start reflex works in snakes and could serve to inspire new robotic systems or other innovations.
The research was supported by National Science Foundation grants: BioMatter Division of Material Research 1922321, Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers Division of Materials Research 2011754, and Emerging Frontiers of Multidisciplinary Activities 1830901.
/Public Release. This material from the originating organization/author(s) might be of the point-in-time nature, and edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not take institutional positions or sides, and all views, positions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s).View in full here.
A laptop keyboard and ChatGPT on App Store displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on March 17, 2025. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto) | Image Credits:Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto / Getty Images
Referrals from ChatGPT to news publishers are growing, but not enough to counter the decline in clicks resulting from users increasingly getting their news directly from AI or AI-powered search results, according to a report from digital market intelligence company Similarweb.
Since the launch of Google’s AI Overviews in May 2024, the firm found that the number of news searches on the web that result in no click-throughs to news websites has grown from 56% to nearly 69% as of May 2025.
Not surprisingly, organic traffic has also declined, dropping from over 2.3 billion visits at its peak in mid-2024 to now under 1.7 billion.
Meanwhile, news-related prompts in ChatGPT grew by 212% from January 2024 through May 2025.
Image Credits:Similarweb
For news publishers, the rapid adoption of AI is changing the game. Visibility in Google Search results and good SEO practices may no longer deliver the value they did in the past, as search rank isn’t translating into as much website traffic as before, the firm pointed out.
At the same time, ChatGPT referrals to news publishers are growing.
From January through May 2024, ChatGPT referrals to news sites were just under 1 million, Similarweb says, but have grown to more than 25 million in 2025 — a 25x increase.
Of course, when the industry is facing even massive declines in organic search traffic, this increase is hardly enough to make up for publishers’ losses.
Image Credits:Similarweb
The report also noted that some websites are faring better than others when it comes to AI referrals.
Sites seeing the most increases in ChatGPT referral traffic include Reuters (up 8.9% year-over-year), NY Post (up 7.1%), and Business Insider (up 6.5%). Meanwhile, The New York Times, which is suing OpenAI over allegedly scraping its works without permission, is seeing far fewer ChatGPT referrals. Though still in the top 10 sites receiving ChatGPT referral traffic, it’s only seen a 3.1% increase.
Topics like stocks, finance, and sports are currently accounting for the majority of these ChatGPT news-related prompts, but Similarweb’s report notes other topics are seeing growth, too, like politics, the economy, weather, and others.
This, the firm theorizes, may signal a move away from more “reactive information” and toward deeper “issue-driven engagement” via AI.
Image Credits:Similarweb
Image Credits:Similarweb
Alongside the AI referrals growth, ChatGPT’s website and app users have also seen greater adoption.
Over the last six months, app users have more than doubled, while website visitors were up 52%, Similarweb said.
The firm is now offering a service for brands and businesses that allows them to track how and where their brand shows up in GenAI tools like ChatGPT, and how that compares to their competition.
Image Credits:Similarweb
Solutions to the news publishers’ crisis are few and far between.
Under pressure from news publishers as AI kills their traffic, Google recently launched a service called Offerwall that allows publishers using Google Ad Manager to experiment with other means of monetization beyond more traffic-dependent options, like ads. With Offerwall, publishers can instead try things like micropayments or asking users to sign up for newsletters to access their site’s content, for example. They can also customize the Offerwall screens with options of their own, Google said.
Other sites are experimenting with paywalls or other means of monetization. Many have since conducted mass layoffs or even shut down their operations.
In a recent interview with The NYT’s Hard Fork podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to a question about AI’s impact on the job market by saying, “I do think there will be areas where some jobs go away, or maybe there will be some whole categories of jobs that go away. And any job that goes away, even if it’s good for society and the economy as a whole, is very painful — extremely painful — in that moment … there is going to be real pain here in many cases.”
A new study by scientists at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus reveals that joint tissue from patients with early-stage rheumatoid arthritis often have high levels of a protein called granzyme used by the immune system to attack pathogens.
Nature In 2022-23, the world witnessed the largest recorded outbreak of monkeypox virus (MPXV). Neurological manifestations were reported alongside the detection of MPXV DNA and MPXV-specific antibodies in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients. Here, we analyze the susceptibility of neural tissue to MPXV using human neural organoids (hNOs) exposed to a clade IIb isolate. We report susceptibility of several cell types to the virus, including neural progenitor cells and neurons. The virus efficiently replicates in hNOs, as indicated by the exponential increase of infectious viral titers and establishment of viral factories. Our findings reveal focal enrichment of viral antigen alongside accumulation of cell-associated infectious virus, suggesting viral cell-to-cell spread. Using an mNeonGreen-expressing recombinant MPXV, we confirm cell-associated virus transmission. We furthermore show the formation of beads in infected neurites, a phenomenon associated with neurodegenerative disorders. Bead appearance precedes neurite-initiated cell death, as confirmed through live-cell imaging. Accordingly, hNO-transcriptome analysis reveals alterations in cellular homeostasis and upregulation of neurodegeneration-associated transcripts, despite scarcity of inflammatory and antiviral responses. Notably, tecovirimat treatment of MPXV-infected hNOs significantly reduces infectious virus loads. Our findings suggest that viral disruption of neuritic transport drives neuronal degeneration, potentially contributing to MPXV neuropathology and revealing targets for therapeutic intervention.
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) activist Sanam Javed was released from Kot Lakhpat Jail on Wednesday, two days after the Lahore High Court ordered her release in a case registered under charges of inciting unrest and raising anti-state slogans.
According to Express News, Javed was released in the presence of party workers and supporters, who showered her with rose petals as she exited the prison. She later returned home.
Javed had been taken into custody along with her husband, Professor Atiq, by police near Kot Lakhpat Jail on April 27. The arrest occurred shortly after she appeared for a court hearing related to the May 9 cases.
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The PTI activist has been arrested multiple times over the past year in connection with protests and alleged involvement in May 9 incidents, following the arrest of PTI founder Imran Khan.
Her latest arrest was made in connection with an FIR registered at Islampura police station. Police accused her of blocking a road, chanting provocative slogans, and inciting unrest against the state.
The case, registered under FIR No 486, also names PTI leaders Alia Hamza, Nazia Baloch, and Intizar Hussain Panjotha, along with 35 unidentified individuals. The FIR was lodged on February 8.
