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  • Reddit Changed Andrew Garfield’s Return Scene

    Reddit Changed Andrew Garfield’s Return Scene

    “Spider-Man: No Way Home” director Jon Watts recently revealed to Collider that Reddit helped shape one of the blockbuster’s defining moments: The long-awaited returns of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. Watts saw fan-created concept art on Reddit that aligned with his original idea of bringing the former Spider-Man actors back onscreen when Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is at his lowest following the death of Aunt May. The director knew in that moment he’d need more of a surprise.

    “There had been rumors that Tobey and Andrew were going to be in the movie, and this is while we’re shooting,” Watts said. “We were writing the script, and we were working on where we wanted to reveal the guys, and it always seemed like Peter’s going to be sad because Aunt May has just died, and that the portals are going to open, and the two Spider-Men are going to step out. It’s probably a rooftop somewhere. It’s all sort of hazy. You’re still trying to figure it out.”

    “Then I was on Reddit, and I was looking at people who had already made fan art of, ‘This is probably what it’s going to be like when the two Spider-Men get revealed.’ It was on a rooftop. It was sad, two Doctor Strange portals were open and two Spider-Men are stepping out,” Watts continued. “I was like, ‘Well, we can’t do that. If that’s exactly what everyone thinks we’re going to do, we absolutely can’t do that.’”

    That’s when Watts came up with the scene that made it into the movie. As he remembered: “I was like, ‘Probably having the two Spider-Men appear at Ned’s Filipino grandma’s house in Queens.’ I don’t think anyone was doing fan art of that on Reddit. It made perfect sense in the story because it’s kind of the first time we leave Peter’s narrative. We don’t know what’s happened to [Tom’s Peter]. We’re with Ned, we’re with MJ. They have to lay low. Where are they going to go? Ned’s grandma’s house. So, we built this whole scene around that.”

    The returns of Maguire and Garfield helped power “Spider-Man: No Way Home” to $1.9 billion at the worldwide box office, a record sum for the post-COVID era until James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” came along and earned $2.3 billion. Maguire has already expressed interest in returning again, saying: “If these guys called me and said, ‘Would you show up tonight to hang out and goof around?’ or ‘Would you show up to do this movie or read a scene or do a Spider-Man thing?’ it would be a ‘yes!’ Because why wouldn’t I want to do that?”

    The same goes for Garfield, who has said on multiple occasions since “No Way Home” opened in theaters that he would love to play Spider-Man again under the right circumstances.

    “It would have to be very weird,” Garfield said at Middle East Film & Comic Con earlier this year. “I would like to do something very strange. Something very unique, and offbeat and surprising, kind of like the creative freedom they have with the animated ‘Spider-Verse’ movies.”

    Garfield added in a separate interview with Esquire: “For sure, I would 100% come back if it was the right thing, if it’s additive to the culture, if there’s a great concept or something that hasn’t been done before that’s unique and odd and exciting and that you can sink your teeth into. I love that character, and it brings joy. If part of what I bring is joy, then I’m joyful in return.”

    Holland is confirmed to be coming back as the web-slinger in Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which is set for release in July 2026.

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  • ‘Treasure Tail Zoshigaya’ quest walkthrough in Persona 5 The Phantom X

    ‘Treasure Tail Zoshigaya’ quest walkthrough in Persona 5 The Phantom X

    As part of the “Treasure Tail: Zoshigaya” quest in Persona 5: The Phantom X, you’ll need to help the Orange Tabby Cat find their Orange Tabby Treasures around Zoshigaya. After the first time you interact with the Finding each Orange Tabby Treasure can be fairly difficult as they aren’t marked on the map and a few of them require a couple extra steps. However, once you do, you’ll receive valuable rewards and another treasure hunt.

    Here’s where to find every Orange Tabby Treasure in Zoshigaya in Persona 5: The Phantom X.

    All Orange Tabby Treasure locations in Zoshigaya

    To complete the “Treasure Tail” side quest, you’ll need to find seven Orange Tabby Treasures. Luckily, you’ll get the first one in a cutscene immediately after you start the quest, so you only need to find six more. To help you in your search, we’ve made a map of Zoshigaya that is marked with the location of each treasure.

    Additionally, you can find a more detailed description of each location in the sections below.

    Orange Tabby Treasure #1 — In blue bucket behind man on phone

    The first Orange Tabby Treasure can be found almost immediately after you start the Treasure Tail side quest. When facing the Orange Tabby Cat, turn around to spot a person on their phone and look behind them to find the first treasure inside of a blue bucket.

    Orange Tabby Treasure #2 — On top of condenser unit

    The second Orange Tabby Treasure can be found near the station on top of a condenser unit, which is an outdoor AC unit.

    Orange Tabby Treasure #3 — In blue garbage bin

    The third Orange Tabby Treasure can be found in a blue garbage bin inside a fenced bike parking area. As you cannot enter the fenced area, walk up to the fence to interact with the treasure.

    Orange Tabby Treasure #4 — Beside bushes near home

    The fourth Orange Tabby Treasure is right beside your own home. Interact with the bush beside the two people talking to retrieve it.

    Orange Tabby Treasure #5 — Flower pot in alleyway

    The fifth Orange Tabby Treasure is found inside a flower pot in an alleyway across the street from the capsule machines. To get this treasure, you’ll need to visit the Flower Shop in the Shibuya Underground Mall and purchase the Extra-Strength Nutrients.

    Once you have the nutrients, return to the flower pot and interact with it to get the treasure.

    Orange Tabby Treasure #6 — Under table

    The sixth Orange Tabby Treasure is located under the table at the northern end of the map.

    Treasure Tail Zoshigaya rewards

    Now that you have all of the treasure, return to the the Orange Tabby Cat and complete the quest to receive the following rewards:

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  • Boeing recruits new CFO amid turnaround campaign – Financial Times

    Boeing recruits new CFO amid turnaround campaign – Financial Times

    1. Boeing recruits new CFO amid turnaround campaign  Financial Times
    2. Boeing Announces Chief Financial Officer Transition Plan  Boeing Newsroom
    3. Boeing appoints former Lockheed Martin CFO Jay Malave as new finance chief  Reuters
    4. Boeing Names Ex-Lockheed Martin Executive to Succeed CFO Brian West  WSJ
    5. Ex-Lockheed CFO Malave Heads To Boeing For Top Financial Job  Defense Daily

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  • What We Know About ‘Project Hail Mary’ Starring Ryan Gosling

    What We Know About ‘Project Hail Mary’ Starring Ryan Gosling

    He’s got a job to do.
    Photo: Amazon MGM Studios

    Project Hail Mary, full of grace. Blessed art thou among sci-fi, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, long-haired Ryan Gosling. Ken’s next gig follows a charming white guy on a solo mission through space to save the Earth, and it’s based on a Hugo Award–nominated book by Andy Weir, but it is not 2015’s The Martian. Does The Martian have Sandra Hüller as a commanding boss trying to save the world? Directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, the team behind 21 Jump Street and the Spider-Verse franchise, the trailer signals an apocalypse movie that is, paradoxically, a little silly and fun — certainly more than both The Martian and Gosling’s last trip to space, as Neil Armstrong in First Man. Below, everything we know about Project Hail Mary. 

    Ryan Gosling awakens to find himself with no memory and long hair “several light-years from my apartment.” From there, the trailer reveals that a slew of stars, including our sun, are dying, and Hüller believes that only Gosling’s character, Ryland Grace, a middle-school science teacher, can solve the problem. He, meanwhile, claims he’s “not an astronaut,” saying “I can’t even moonwalk.” Why he was chosen to go on the mission is unclear. Hüller’s character explains that Ryland has a degree in microbiology, but lots of people have degrees in microbiology. Either way, Grace gets sent to space, where he meets an alien whom he teaches to give a thumbs-up.

    Gosling will star as the main character, Ryland Grace, with Anatomy of a Fall breakout Hüller as his imposing German superior, Eva Stratt. They’ll be joined by The Bear’s resident baker, Lionel Boyce; Industry’s baseball bat–wielder, Ken Leung; and AT&T-commercial star Milana Vayntrub.

    Project Hail Mary comes out on March 20, 2026. Yes, that does feel like light-years away.

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  • Nanopore sensor paves the way for fast, low-cost DNA sequencing

    Nanopore sensor paves the way for fast, low-cost DNA sequencing

    Researchers from the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have created a new nanopore sensor for single-biomolecule detection. Their findings were published in the journal PNAS. 

    The new nanopore sensor was created using 2D materials. Image from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    Nanopore sensors detect and analyze individual molecules by measuring ionic changes as the molecules pass through openings in the device. Nanopore sensors can be made from biological materials or inorganic solid-state materials. Biological nanopores are commercially available, but solid-state nanopores “offer a significant advantage over biological nanopores for massively parallelized, low-cost sequencing,” said Sihan Chen, an Illinois Grainger postdoctoral researcher and the lead author of the paper.

    However, the sensor has to be small enough to have base-by-base resolution as single molecules pass through and to electrically read out the translocation of the molecules. This poses significant challenges in fabricating ultra-thin metal films encapsulated in dielectric layers. 

    An innovative 2D design

    This team brought together a nanopore sensor expert, Rashid Bashir, and a 2D materials expert, Arend van der Zande, to overcome the barriers presented by using ultra-thin 3D materials. 

    The team integrated a 2D heterostructure into the nanopore membrane, creating a nanometer-thick out-of-plane diode for the molecules to pass through. This diode allows them to simultaneously measure the changes in electrical current during DNA translocation and apply out-of-plane biases across the diode to control the speed of the DNA translocation. 

    Looking forward: important applications 

    This device has potential applications in the future of precision medicine, a concept that dates back to the early 2000s but whose applications have lagged behind the initial enthusiasm. Also called personalized medicine, this approach to disease prevention and treatment is based on an individual patient’s genes, environment, and lifestyle. Creating tailored medicine and therapy regimens will require fast and affordable sequencing techniques such as this nanopore sensor. 

    “In the future, we envision arrays of millions of 2D diodes with nanopores inside that could read out the sequences of DNA in parallel, reducing sequencing time from two weeks to as little as one hour,” said Rashid Bashir, Dean of The Grainger College of Engineering and an author of the paper. This could have important implications for precision medicine, making it easier and less expensive to create treatments tailored to a patient’s genetic makeup. 

    The researchers anticipate further studies to improve on their design, particularly its single p-n junction, which limits the quality of control of DNA translocation. One possibility for future investigation is to use a three-layer structure to enable opposing electric fields to stretch the DNA and achieve base-by-base translocation control. 

    “This work represents an important step towards base-by-base molecular control and opens doors to more advanced DNA sequencing technologies,” said Arend van der Zande, a professor of mechanical science and engineering and materials science and engineering. 

    Precision medicine: a growing market 

    According to Global Market Insights, the global precision medicine market is estimated at $79.9 billion in 2023, and is projected to reach $157.1 billion by 2032. 

    Innovations in technology, like the new nanopore sensor, as well as the rising prevalence of cancer, are both factors that are expected to contribute to this growing market. Rising investments in human genome research will also contribute to market growth. The National Institute of Health provided $5.2 billion in funding for genome research in 2024. 

    Personalized medicines accounted for 25% of the new drugs approved by the FDA in 2019, an increase from 5% in 2005, according to Global Market Insights. The number of personalized medicines on the market grew from 132 in 2016 to 286 in 2020.

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  • Astronomers Find Universe’s “Missing” Matter – SciTechDaily

    1. Astronomers Find Universe’s “Missing” Matter  SciTechDaily
    2. The universe is enormous: astronomers have finally found the missing matter of the universe  futura-sciences.com
    3. Almost certainly I’m going to be sick before this ride is over  Real Change
    4. Top Comments: Filaments of Hot Matter Between Galaxy Clusters May Account for “Hidden” Matter  Daily Kos
    5. Scientists found some of the “missing matter” in the universe after searching for decades  Earth.com

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  • Summer Game Fest ends when I say so

    Summer Game Fest ends when I say so

    Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday, broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who’s covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget.

    Please enjoy — and I’ll see you next week.

    June has passed me by in a haze of air travel, mild illness, protests and Pride, and it’s now officially time to close the book on Summer Game Fest 2025. around this year’s show and they’re all worth a read, but before moving on for good, I wanted to highlight a final batch of games that I can’t stop thinking about. This week, I present three mini previews straight out of SGF 2025 — and only two of them are horror games, which is a stupendous display of growth on my part.

    Crisol: Theater of Idols wasn’t on my radar until I sat down and played it at the Blumhouse booth, but now it’s pinging loud and clear, as if the booms were emanating directly from the blood-soaked bowels of Hell. It’s a first-person survival-horror action game set in a demented version of Spain that’s filled with monsters of modern folklore. Murderous marionettes and giant, ornately adorned skeletons hunt you through dark streets and towering gothic buildings, lamplight glinting off of every gross 3D detail. The whole demo felt like getting lost in a terrifying, nightmarish carnival, and I enjoyed every bit of it.

    In Crisol, blood is your source of ammunition, and you drain the corpses of humans and chickens to refuel your health bar as well as your guns. Crisol is tense and gorgeous, reminiscent of Dishonored or Resident Evil Village, and enemies are both robust and tricky to evade. Crisol is the debut game from independent Spanish team Vermila Studios, which received an for the project in 2020. It’s being published by Blumhouse and is due out this year on , PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

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    There’s something deeply wrong in Ashenridge, the idyllic rural village where Grave Seasons is set. At first glance, Grave Seasons is a cute, narrative-based farming sim with detailed pixel art, juicy romance options and layers of home-maintenance mechanics. You spend time planting, watering, harvesting, crafting items, picking up trash and chatting with villagers — and then you dig up a severed hand. Pilar, your flirty neighbor who runs the tailor shop down the road, says something ominous about the fate of your house’s previous owner. The vibe shifts; the shadows start to look sinister. Night falls and the real horror is unleashed, sudden, violent and all the more shocking in such a peaceful setting. A supernatural serial killer is on the loose in Ashenridge and, in between planting crops, it’s up to you to investigate (and maybe date) the murderer.

    Grave Seasons is a game that will live or die by its tone, and so far, developer Perfect Garbage has absolutely nailed the vibe of nefarious, creeping dread. Ashenridge is a beautiful little town with tons of people to meet and activities to complete, and the character avatars are sexy, sweet and super intriguing. A paranormal murder investigation is simply the cherry on top of a competent farming and dating sim, and I’m eager to take a bite out of the full game. At SGF 2025, developers said the complete Grave Seasons experience should take about 20 hours. Grave Seasons is being published by Blumhouse, and it’s scheduled to hit and consoles in 2026.

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    Escape Academy is of the past five years and I am inordinately stoked for the sequel, which turns the school into an open world of puzzles, riddles and cringey puns. With Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School, developer Coin Crew is going all-in on the student roleplaying vibe, and the entire campus is littered with mysteries. It’s also playable as a split-screen, couch co-op experience, which is one of the series’ greatest strengths. Frantically screaming solutions at your friend just feels better in person than over a Discord call, you know?

    I played the original Escape Academy with a local partner, so that’s how I tried out the sequel at SGF 2025. I dragged Engadget EIC Aaron Souppouris to the iam8bit booth and we dove in, starting in a classroom covered in sneaky environmental clues. In Escape Academy 2, the assignment is simple — get out — but the execution is complex, and we were soon throwing out names, dates and math problems, trying to solve a series of tricky, interconnected puzzles and leave the room. After getting just one hint from the developers, we made our way to the hallway, which was lined with locker-based riddles, and eventually reached the headmaster’s office, which was a contained playground of puzzle gaming. We had to use a pen and piece of paper to keep track of a few sections, and overall, our interactions felt fresh. Coin Crew isn’t just rolling out the same problems with different solutions for the sequel, and the new riddles were clever, innovative and super satisfying. (The same can’t be said about all of the puns, but that’s part of the charm.)

    Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School features both local and online co-op, so you’ll be free to yell at your friends in whichever format you prefer. Coin Crew is still working on the game and there’s no release date yet, but it’s available now to .

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    The only thing worse than not disclosing AI use in the creation of a video game is not disclosing it and then deploying it so sloppily that players immediately notice. Indie developer and publisher 11 Bit Studios learned this lesson firsthand with The Alters, a futuristic base-building game starring an astronaut and his alternate-reality clones. Within a week of the game’s release on June 13, posts started and showing AI-generated text in the game, across multiple languages. On June 30, 11 Bit released a statement confirming its use of AI in developing The Alters, saying it was utilized only in background text and to help with last-minute localization efforts. “No matter what we decided, we should have simply let you know,” the studio wrote.

    I’d really love to stop writing headlines like this. Microsoft is preparing to lay off a large number of Xbox employees this week, as part of a planned 3 percent reduction in staff across the company. That’s a loss of roughly 7,000 jobs in total, and according to , Xbox leaders are expecting “substantial cuts across the entire group.” The firings follow a round of at Xbox in January 2024, another , and last year’s of Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog Games and Tango Gameworks (the latter of which lives on under Krafton). Meanwhile, Microsoft reported a net revenue of $25.8 billion in the first three months of 2025, with an 8 percent yearly increase in revenue from Xbox content and services. Congrats?

    Netflix started beefing up its video games division around 2021, with the Night School and the rollout of an in-app gaming library offering popular mobile titles at no extra charge to subscribers. Netflix currently supports more than 100 games, including Death’s Door, Hades, The Case of the Golden Idol, The Rise of the Golden Idol, Braid Anniversary Edition, Katana ZERO and the Monument Valley series — but these are disappearing in July. A total of 22 games will be deleted from Netflix at various times in July, and the culling follows similar cutbacks in the company’s interactive division, including the recent closure of an .

    Because we know you’re going to get something — what are you picking up at the Steam Summer Sale this year? Share your spoils in the comments! If you’re overwhelmed, allow me to humbly suggest , , or .

    On a related note, don’t forget to check out (the nearly complete) Playdate Season 2.

    … but it’s definitely not any more. Resident Evil: Requiem producer Masachika Kawata and director Koshi Nakanishi clarified that their new game is an offline single-player experience, but they said that early in development, the team seriously considered making it online and open-world. This experimentation fueled rumors about Requiem introducing a new direction for the Resident Evil franchise, but it turns out the final product will be a with the ability to swap between first- and third-person views. Spooooky.

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  • Still Want a Nintendo Switch 2? Best Buy Will Have Them In Stores on July 1 – PCMag

    1. Still Want a Nintendo Switch 2? Best Buy Will Have Them In Stores on July 1  PCMag
    2. Nintendo Switch 2 restocks — live updates and retailers to check now  Tom’s Guide
    3. 9to5Toys News Weekly recap – Upcoming Switch 2 restock, new Resident Evil Requiem details, Prime Day details, more  9to5Toys
    4. Nintendo Switch 2 Console Bundles Are In Stock Tonight (June 25)  GameSpot
    5. The Switch 2 is coming to Walmart tonight at 9PM ET — but there’s a catch  Engadget

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  • How a glucose monitor can help tame blood sugar spikes and crashes

    ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

    Have you ever noticed a few hours after a meal, you start to feel a bit moody, less alert, maybe anxious or even angry? If so, you’re not alone. Scientists have been studying this phenomenon in a lot of people. As Michaeleen Doucleff explains, the fix involves learning how to tame your blood sugar.

    MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE: At age 76, Judy Freeman is in great health. She’s a well-known potter in Alpine, Texas. She doesn’t have diabetes or heart disease. She’s not overweight, and she’s super active.

    JUDY FREEMAN: I work maybe 20 hours a week out in the studio, and I try to walk at least four or five times a week.

    DOUCLEFF: But in the past year or so, Freeman hasn’t felt like herself. She’s been more tired, and she’d like to shed a few extra pounds. So today, Freeman decided to try a new strategy. She’s going to wear a continuous glucose monitor for a few weeks.

    FREEMAN: Arrow points up, glucose is rising.

    DOUCLEFF: The monitor estimates your blood sugar every few minutes and sends the value to your phone, so you can keep track of your blood sugar throughout the day and see how various foods affect it.

    FREEMAN: I’m interested in finding out how the glucose levels might affect my ability to lose weight and just how it affects my overall energy level.

    DOUCLEFF: She’s ready to insert the device. It contains a needle that goes into your skin.

    OK, you ready? One, two, three.

    (SOUNDBITE OF GLUCOSE MONITOR CLICKING)

    DOUCLEFF: Did it hurt?

    FREEMAN: I didn’t feel a thing – just a little pressure.

    DOUCLEFF: Today, anyone can go online and buy a continuous glucose monitor. It costs about $50 and lasts a couple of weeks. Studies have shown that these devices really help people with diabetes, but they’re still trying to figure out if they can help people without diabetes, like Freeman.

    Sarah Berry is one scientist leading this effort. She’s a nutritionist at King’s College London and chief scientist at the company Zoe, which sells nutrition plans that use these monitors. She and her colleagues have analyzed data from thousands of people wearing glucose monitors. What they found is that many people are what she calls…

    SARAH BERRY: Dippers.

    DOUCLEFF: That’s right – dippers. Basically, after eating carbohydrates, their blood sugar rises quickly, and then about two hours later, dips low – way low.

    BERRY: So you’ll have this big increase followed by this big crash.

    DOUCLEFF: In one study, Berry and her colleagues showed that these dips can trigger people to overeat.

    BERRY: If you are a dipper, those people feel more hungry more quickly. They tend to, on average, eat 80 calories more at their next meal and 320 calories more over a whole day.

    DOUCLEFF: Berry and her team published their findings in the journal Nature Metabolism. They also found that dips correlate with moodiness and fatigue, which brings us back to Judy Freeman in Alpine, Texas. The first day she wore the monitor, guess what her blood sugar did a few hours after lunch?

    FREEMAN: Sure enough, it had shot up at some point, and then it plummeted down to the lowest point.

    DOUCLEFF: Freeman had a huge dip, and during it, she felt anxious – even depressed.

    FREEMAN: It’s a sinking feeling, like, if I don’t get up, I’m just going to stop breathing and die. It was so overpowering.

    DOUCLEFF: She says she’s had this feeling from time to time, but she never connected it to what she ate. So how can Freeman keep these dips from occurring? Dalia Perelman is a research dietitian at Stanford University. She says, No. 1 – avoid meals and snacks that consist mostly of carbohydrates.

    DALIA PERELMAN: Don’t eat naked carbs. Eat them with some proteins, some healthy fats.

    DOUCLEFF: And with more fiber. So for example, add beans to breakfast, canned fish and nuts to lunch, lentils and seeds to dinner.

    No. 2 – don’t eat all your carbs for the day at one meal. Sprinkle them across several meals.

    PERELMAN: It doesn’t matter at the end of the day how many carbs you ate. It matters at the end of the meal.

    DOUCLEFF: Finally, nutritionist Karen Kennedy says, at meals, eat the protein and fat first – carbs last.

    KAREN KENNEDY: Let’s say you have a steak and a salad and a baked potato. If you were to eat the salad and the steak first, then you will see that you don’t have as much of a spike or as much of a drop afterwards.

    DOUCLEFF: And here’s the great part. You don’t need to buy a glucose monitor to figure this out. Simply pay attention to how you feel about two hours after a meal. If you get moody, anxious or super hungry, you’re probably a dipper.

    For NPR News, I’m Michaeleen Doucleff.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

    NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.


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  • IT minister avoids PTCL-Telenor merger comments

    IT minister avoids PTCL-Telenor merger comments


    ISLAMABAD:

    Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja on Monday declined to comment on the PTCL-Telenor merger deal, currently under review by the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP). She said the matter was being handled by the CCP, and she could not comment on it.

    She further stated that telecom companies had refused to provide free public Wi-Fi for the entire city of Islamabad but added that free connectivity would be made available at selected public locations. Addressing the media after a Senate Standing Committee on IT & Telecommunication meeting, the minister announced that Islamabad would be transformed into a model digitally smart city.

    She said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had directed officials to accelerate this transformation. The goal is to improve education, healthcare, and connectivity through an integrated digital strategy. The minister said the IT ministry has already funded fibre connectivity for all public schools, basic health units (BHUs), and healthcare facilities in the capital. Within six to eight months, all schools, hospitals, and police stations in Islamabad will be connected to high-speed internet.

    She added that free public Wi-Fi would be installed at select spots, with ongoing efforts through public-private partnerships to expand internet access to metro buses and other public areas.

    Khawaja noted the Ministry of Education’s support for these efforts and said the government was deploying EdTech solutions to extend education to remote and underserved areas. “We are introducing AI and emerging technology education from kindergarten to grade six,” she said, adding that the prime minister wants every child in Islamabad to have access to quality education.

    This model, she added, would be extended to Gilgit-Baltistan and other remote regions to promote equitable digital access.

    The minister also said the ministry is working with the Ministry of Health on a ‘One Patient, One ID’ system. All BHUs will be connected through telemedicine to provide online consultations with specialists.

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