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What Happened During My 5-Hour Full Body Health Assessment (and Whether It Was Worth It)
If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s more to know about your health than what you get from a typical physical, you’re not alone.

Through a complementary offering from Cenegenics, I tried a comprehensive performance health assessment designed to give an in-depth look at my metabolic, cognitive, and physical health.

This assessment digs deeper than your typical blood test or yearly check-up. It includes advanced imaging (like a full-body DEXA scan), deep-dive lab work that measures hundreds of biomarkers, functional fitness testing, vascular health screenings, and even brain performance evaluations. The goal is to give you a complete picture of your current health and help you make targeted changes that can pay off for years to come.

I’m only in my 30s, but I’ve already noticed changes in my body that don’t excite me. I wanted to know if my current habits were supporting my long-term health or if I was quietly losing ground.

Here’s how the whole process unfolded, from intake to next steps.

Health History & Lifestyle Intake

Before any testing began, I completed a detailed online questionnaire. It asked about my personal and family health history, medications, lifestyle habits, sleep, stress, and more. It took about an hour to fill out and helped set the stage for a more personalized experience when I was on-site.

In-Home Blood Draw

A phlebotomist came to my home to collect blood samples. I was a little nervous about having a stranger in my abode, but my phlebotomist was a delight. My cats were a big fan of her, too.

The blood panel was extensive, measuring more than 270 biomarkers that provide a detailed picture of my current health status. This included:
- Common metrics like blood sugar and cholesterol levels
- Hormones that regulate everything from metabolism to mood
- Inflammatory markers, or substances in your blood that can be a sign of underlying health issues
- Genetic variations that influence the way my body processes nutrients, helping determine which foods and supplements might work best for me (more on that later)
Together, these tests gave a comprehensive look at my internal health, far beyond what a typical blood test covers.

In-Person Testing

The bulk of the assessment took place during a five-hour visit to the Cenegenics office in Manhattan. I was asked to bring tight-fitting workout clothes with no metal for the scans.

Here’s the room where a bulk of the testing took place.

Health.com / Dana Ingemann

Here’s what happened, in order:

Performance health consultation: I started with a one-on-one conversation with a health coach about my current health status, lifestyle habits, goals, and concerns. This conversation framed the rest of the testing and helped build rapport with my coach. (Hi, Christian!)

Body composition and bone density scan: I changed into my workout gear for a full-body dual X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA scan). This measured my fat distribution (including visceral fat mass), lean muscle mass, and bone mineral density. It was one of the most comprehensive views I’ve ever had of what’s actually going on inside my body, and surprisingly easy—all I had to do was lie on a specialized table while a scanner slowly passed over me.

Physical fitness testing: Next, I was guided through a series of physical performance tests: max sit-ups, max push-ups, and a 3-minute plank. These tested my muscular endurance and gave me an immediate feel for where I was physically. It also made me sore the next day. (You were warned!) Fun fact: Women should generally be able to do 11 push-ups before resting. Miraculously, I did 15. Then I was promptly punished by having to hold that 3-minute plank (which I also did, but at what cost?).

Carotid artery ultrasound (CIMT): This non-invasive scan measured the thickness of my carotid artery walls, which can detect early signs of cardiovascular disease. If you’re picturing an ultrasound on a pregnant belly, you’re not far off. It was essentially that, but on my neck.

Neurocognitive testing and brain electroencephalogram (EEG): I completed a series of timed tasks on a computer to measure reaction time, memory, and processing speed. I also wore a cap with electrodes to record my brain’s electrical activity. It took a little while to hook up—and the goo got all over my hair—but it was an interesting (and entertaining) test.

Physician consultation and results review: The final and most impactful part of the day was the full results consultation with Haran Sivakumar, MD. He walked me through all of my test results and explained what each metric meant in real-world terms.

Note: VO₂ Max testing: This cardiovascular test is typically part of the program, but the equipment wasn’t working that day.

As a health editor, I’m always wading through an overwhelming amount of advice on nutrition, exercise, sleep, and more. While the assessment highlighted areas where I could improve, seeing the habits I’m already doing well was encouraging. Knowing where I’m already making a positive impact on my health was a source of positive reinforcement amid all the data.

I learned some really interesting facts about my body and health, including:
- Apparently, I have really dense bones: For years, I’ve claimed to be “just big boned”—and now I finally have scientific proof. My bones? Dense. My haters? Silenced.
- I have excellent metabolic health: As a big boned person who is consistently thirsty, I’ve worried about my risk for type 2 diabetes. Turns out, my metabolic health is in tip-top shape!
- I have a fast reaction time: In addition to being built like a brick house, I have cat-like reflexes. Well, “cat-like” might be an exaggeration, but I was pleased to see that my processing speed is pretty good.
- I’ve been slacking on my weights: I used to be an avid weight lifter, but in recent years I’ve shifted my activities to other things, like yoga. While doing yoga is great, maintaining my muscle mass through regular strength training will help protect me from osteoporosis as I age. Time to get back to the gym!
Based on my results, Sivakumar provided personalized recommendations, which I’m now working on. These included:
- Strength training: As I said, it’s time to hit the weights again. Maintaining a consistent resistance training routine can help me preserve muscle mass and support my long-term metabolic health.
- Protein intake: I should aim for 1 gram of protein per pound of lean mass daily (or per pound of total weight for a more aggressive goal). Sivakumar recommended that I use a whey protein isolate or combine pea and rice protein powders to ensure a complete amino acid profile.
- Creatine supplementation: To complement the strength training, taking 5 grams of creatine monohydrate every day can support my muscle performance and retention.
- Get some follow-up tests: Although my bloodwork didn’t show anything alarming, it indicated that I should have some follow-up tests. I’m working on getting those scheduled with my regular doctor.
These takeaways felt personalized, realistic, and easy to build into my routine. Since the assessment, I’ve been more mindful about getting enough protein and fiber, and I’ve started weightlifting again. Even after just a few weeks, I’ve noticed improvements in energy, focus, and recovery.

Before signing up for a comprehensive performance health assessment, consider the following:
- It’s a good idea to speak with your doctor: While these evaluations can provide a detailed look at your health, they aren’t a replacement for individualized medical care—especially if you’re managing a chronic condition. Your doctor can help you decide which types of testing make the most sense for your needs.
- You may already have access: Many of the included diagnostics could maybe be found through your PCP or a specialist in your network, and they may even be covered by insurance! Programs like this can be expensive. If cost is a concern, ask your doctor which tests you can access separately.
- Consider your age and risk factors: For example, neurocognitive testing is usually more helpful for older adults (typically people in their 50s and older) or for anyone who’s had a stroke or concussion. If you’re younger and haven’t had any injuries, those tests might not be as applicable. Others, like a DEXA scan, can offer valuable insights no matter your age.
- It’s a lot of info: Finally, know that the volume of information you receive can be a lot. I appreciated having my results explained in a calm, thoughtful way—but if you tend to feel anxious around medical data or metrics, give yourself time to take it all in.
Doing a comprehensive performance health assessment gave me a level of insight I’ve never gotten from a standard doctor’s visit. It showed me not just where I stand today, but what I could focus on to support long-term health and performance. If you’re a data-motivated person like me, the information can be incredibly empowering.

Would I do it again? Yes—but it’ll be a while. Since I’m in my 30s and don’t have many risk factors, I don’t think it’s as valuable for me to go as often as an older adult. I can see myself returning for a comparative round two in 10-15 years.

I found that there are many use cases, though! Whether you’re looking to optimize performance, reduce your risk of disease, or simply understand your body better, a comprehensive performance assessment could be worth considering—if the budget is right for you.
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September 17, 2025
$4M John Templeton Foundation grant funds interdisciplinary approach to unraveling cosmic mysteries

Pasadena, CA—Carnegie Science’s Drew Newman and Gwen Rudie are key contributors to a new interdisciplinary initiative that aims to unravel some of the most mysterious components of the cosmos.

Only about 5 percent of the universe consists of particles and forces that are well understood by modern physics. The rest remains a puzzle, including dark matter—an invisible substance that shapes galaxies and cosmic structures—as well as ubiquitous but puzzling particles called neutrinos, which were produced moments after the Big Bang.

With a $4 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, an interdisciplinary team of scholars from the Carnegie Science Observatories, the University of Southern California, and the University of California Riverside will establish a research hub to better understand these cosmic mysteries.

Called the Lyman-Alpha forest Research Collaboration, or LARC, the research group will develop cutting-edge computer models to simulate the birth of structure in the universe, testing different theories about how galaxies form. Comparing these computer-grown models of the universe to actual observations of the cosmos will help reveal quantum properties of its hidden constituents, including dark matter and neutrino particles.

“At its core, LARC is designed to pursue the deepest questions about our universe and the essence of human knowledge: What is the fundamental nature of matter? What forces shape physical reality? What is the meaning of ‘discovery’ when AI and simulation guide the pursuit of truth?” said USC’s Vera Gluscevic, who will lead the project along with UC Riverside’s Simeon Bird.

Added Bird: “The most exciting part is the team, experts in a vast range of disciplines, including theoretical and observational astrophysics, philosophy, computer science, and even interactive data visualization.”

As part of this groundbreaking new effort, Carnegie’s Newman and Rudie will use cutting-edge observations of hydrogen gas in space to trace dark matter.

“Thanks to new observations with large telescopes, we can now map the three-dimensional structure of intergalactic gas. With the LARC team, we’ll create new ways to use these exciting maps to learn about the hidden universe,” Newman explained.

The team also includes computer scientists Aiichiro Nakano of USC and Christian Shelton of UC Riverside. Both use artificial intelligence techniques to recognize useful patterns in computer simulations and speed them up. This will enable astrophysicists to compare simulations to real data collected by telescopes and space missions.

In doing so, they raise an important philosophical question, one which the group also plans to tackle: In modern astronomy, what does it mean to “understand” the universe when our knowledge comes from computer-generated models.

Historically, gathering scientific knowledge meant formulating theories simple enough to be grasped and explained by humans. Now, the sheer volume and complexity of astronomical data challenge this traditional approach, as many insights come from computer-generated models beyond direct human intuition.?

To dig into this conundrum, a team of philosophers, led by USC’s Dmitri Gallow, will examine how new scientific methods such as these may change our understanding of how we produce scientific conclusions and generate knowledge.

“Using AI to understand a system as complex as the universe poses significant rewards—but also significant risks,” Gallow indicated. “We need to think carefully about how to responsibly learn from AI.”

The public will also get a chance to participate in this cosmic exploration. Martzi Campos and Sean Bouchard of USC’s film school will produce an interactive visual, which will be displayed in the 3D Visualization Lab on the Carnegie Observatories campus. They will also create educational games for the public using the hub’s work as inspiration.

The wide scope of this project is in keeping with the ambitions of John Templeton himself, a maverick investor who launched the foundation with the aim of funding advances in scientific discovery and inspiring awe and wonder for the universe.

“Ultimately, it’s the collaborative nature of LARC, combining data from state-of-the-art telescopes with modern theoretical approaches – and bringing the expertise of so many disciplines – that will lead to novel understanding of the cosmos,” concluded Rudie.

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September 17, 2025
Why Are There So Many Aesop Stores?

LONDON — There are 25 Aesop stores in the city of London, and not a single reason to visit all of them; unless, of course, you are intrigued about the Australian personal care brand’s aggressive recent retail expansion, and have the time, interest and journalistic impetus to explore.

From its origin as a hair salon in Melbourne to its global blanket of stores, Aesop has become known for its highly conceptual store builds, which blend local flavour into branded retail. The Stratford City store, on the upper levels of a Westfield mall, is cast in terracotta plaster with a recessed ceiling meant to evoke a monastery built in the area some thousand-plus years ago. About 10 kilometres west, the Lamb’s Conduit is comparatively lower key, until you realise that a wall of copper shelves doubles as a water feature quiet enough to be imperceptible.

There are around 400 Aesop boutiques in the world, the vast majority of which are concentrated in megalopolises like New York (18 stores) or Tokyo (22 stores), reflecting the company’s desire to scale into a local apothecary with a global footprint.

Aesop stores in the greater New York City area. (BoF Team)

The first wave of stores, opened between 2010 and 2015, focussed on shopping districts with high foot traffic, like Tokyo’s Aoyama or New York’s Nolita. Following its purchase by Natura & Co in 2016; the next wave settled in neighbourhoods with largely local clientele, like Le Marais in Paris; most recently they’ve opened in largely Westfield malls, where its now parent company, L’Oréal’s luxury brands, frequently pop up.

“I will use this French example, but we want to be like the boulangerie on the next corner, you know?” Marianne Lardilleux, Aesop’s head of global retail design told The Business of Beauty at the Marylebone boutique earlier this week.

At a time when beauty retail has a pervading sense of sameness and “omnichannel,” “BOPIS” and “click-and-collect” are buzzwords, Aesop is a case study in owned stores first. Few other brands follow this trajectory, from makeup juggernaut MAC Cosmetics to body care imprint Lush, but to varying levels of execution. Its person-to-person in-store experience is legendary, but largely ignores digital channels where beauty purchases are increasingly made. The brand is remaining committed to terra firma — an old-hearted strategy in a brave new world.

Think Global, Act Local

Aesop’s main aim with its retail network is to make its customers feel at home, if their home was designed by the best architects in the world and stocked with an endless supply of premium body, hair and skin care.

Of the UK’s 31 Aesop stores, more than half are clustered in and around the city of London, like neighbourhood apothecaries. The earliest locations spawned on shopping streets are in proximity to other purveyors of fine bathing goods — from Malin + Goetz to Lush — but also pharmacies and grocers. More recently they’ve popped up in Westfield malls like Stratford City, on the eastern rim of London.

Aesop stores in London. (BoF Team)

All of the stores are famously different, part of the company’s fastidious and decades-long commitment to creating architectural snowflakes: Compare the stores at Regent Street and Borough Market, one a two-story flagship carved from stone and the other a creaky, cozy wooden shopfront. In terms of selection and merchandising, however, each store is identically stocked according to rigid design codes. Products are arranged in groups of three, five or seven under the belief that odd numbers are the most visually interesting. When its bottles are arranged on a shelf, the labels form an elegant continuous line.

The brand has built a muscular retail design division headquartered in Paris — 70 percent of stores are designed in-house, said Lardilleux, an architect who previously worked for LVMH on Louis Vuitton and Céline. She joined the brand 10 years ago, when the company operated just over 100 global stores. Besides its department store counters and placement at the upscale specialty retailer Bluemercury, the brand’s products are largely purchased in its own shops, Lardilleux said.

But shoppers did not initially appreciate the visuals, said Thomas Buisson, an investor at Ilyos Capital who was Aesop’s general manager in Europe between 2009 and 2020. “Customers didn’t recognise which [product] was which.”

The Aesop Knightsbridge store. (Aesop)

Though Aesop’s unique fleet strategy is easy to appreciate in hindsight, early flagship experiments failed.

Aesop initially struggled in the UK. Despite success at Space NK, its department store counters at Selfridges and Liberty underperformed — the brand was close to being the worst selling label at both stores, according to “Aesop: The Book”, published by Rizzoli in 2019. Its first flagship store on Mayfair’s ultra-tony Mount Street was intended to boost brand visibility but cost “three times as much to build as was planned, and generated less than a third of what was budgeted”; it opened in 2008 and closed five years later.

A similar experiment on Paris’ Left Bank, in 2009, was just as lacklustre. In an effort to keep costs low, the brand sought out locations that didn’t require “key money” deposits, entering younger, trendier neighbourhoods like in the Marais and in Shoreditch, where Buisson relocated the store. “Redchurch street had practically no retail,” Buisson said. “People in that neighbourhood, which were primarily working in ad agencies and creative agencies, absolutely fell in love with the brand. That was a turning point.”

A few other key events happened between then and now: Aesop’s hand soap became an if-you-know-you-know bathroom accessory; the company was acquired by Brazilian conglomerate Natura in 2016, and seven years later, L’Oréal bought Aesop for an estimated $2.3 billion (annual revenues reached around $500 million), making it the second largest beauty M&A transaction of the decade after Estée Lauder’s purchase of Tom Ford.

The brand’s most recent expansion into malls and airports follows a similar Aesop tenet by showing up in “unexpected” locations. Maybe not unexpected for the lay customer, but unexpected for Aesop. A duty-free store in China’s Hainan Airport, and two at London Heathrow, opened within the last year.

With these locations, the brand known for appealing to a cool, creative class — the same shoppers that made its hand soap a cult object — seems to hit a critical mass. Even more than its botanical recipes, Aesop’s shops are some of its most valuable creations. And an airport duty-free store, even a tasteful and unique one, is still an airport duty-free store.

The brand’s continued success depends on its ability to transplant the soul of a Shoreditch storefront into an airport terminal. Between new store openings, like a recent one in Hoboken or a forthcoming one in Chongqing, relocations and renovations, Ladrilleux said the global fleet is continuing to expand. “It’s a continuous line,” she said, drawing an upward arc in the air.

Aesop stores in the greater Tokyo-Yokohama megalopolis. (BoF Team)

The Ritual of Commerce

Another invaluable asset to the brand’s retail network is its in-store associates, referred to as “Aesopians.”

Each store lures shoppers to its door by installing testers of its hand lotions just outside the door; once they’re inside, they’re engaged in a gentle but muscular retail choreography. Associates are trained to wait until customers “settle” before approaching them. “They’ll say, ‘Can I take your coat?’ ‘Can I get you a tea?’ as if welcoming them to their home, but there’s no product conversation yet,” pointed out Paula Floyd, the founder of Headkount, a beauty retail consultancy.

Besides generating sales, every store associate’s goal is to bring customers to the basins, the nuclei of Aesop’s cellular network. Rather than talk about the benefits of balm, the associate will probably talk about the basin itself; each one is distinct, always made to exacting specifications — Ladrilleux said the distance from the edge of the sink to the tap is carefully calibrated for customer comfort — and sometimes made from found objects.

“These are from the Regency era,” an Aesopian at the Islington boutique said, tracing a finger along a corroded finger pull.

The sinks found in every store are unique and often made from found objects. The store is Islington, pictured, features hardware sourced from the Victorian era. (Aesop)

Though body care is still Aesop’s hero category, particularly its cult hand soaps, the line has augmented its skincare line for different skin types, and tripled its fragrance portfolio, which has inspired changes in its stores: many are outfitted with a “fragrance armoire” designed to accompany a perfume testing experience, and 13 stores in the world now have spaces for facial services, including the Regent Street flagship, where guests descend by elevator into a soundproof treatment room.

The brand’s apparent aversion to the digital world could be seen as a mark against it, especially when dealing with replenishment customers who may want to visit the boulangerie without getting their hands wet. But the delicate retail choreography is one of the brand’s biggest assets.

“We’re not planning to change it,” Ladrilleux said. “In terms of experience — to welcome somebody in, to offer them a drink — there’s nothing more human than this, right?”

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September 17, 2025
Apple iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max Review: Level Up

At first glance, the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max seem like a drastic upgrade over their predecessors. They have a fantastic new look—one that adds more character with a two-tone design highlighting the blend of the aluminum chassis and glass. The “Camera Plateau,” as Apple calls it, elongates the camera module and gives it a more balanced appearance and feel. (Although I have to say, Google did it first.)

The specs might not read as revolutionary on paper: a bigger battery, a brighter screen, better performance, and a new telephoto zoom camera. There’s no singular feature that’ll make you go, “Wow!” But when you actually experience these individual improvements, they combine to become more than the sum of their parts. There are no major AI features being shoved down your throat (for various reasons). It’s a better iPhone in every way.

Level Up

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

The Cosmic Orange color was calling my name, but alas, Apple provided me with the Silver iPhone 17 Pro Max and Deep Blue iPhone 17 Pro. I switched to these phones after using the iPhone Air for several days, and I yelled, “Holy crap,” after picking them up. They are heavier than the iPhone 16 Pro models, and they feel like bricks compared to the thin and light Air.

I like the Camera Plateau. The two-tone separation of glass and aluminum just makes it more visually interesting. You might say, “It’s just a phone,” but when a gadget looks and feels great, it makes using it all the more enjoyable, and I think Apple has done a nice job here. The phone also no longer rocks on a table as much as before, so, yay!

Apple switched from titanium to aluminum to make these chunky phones lighter, but the material change also improves thermal conductivity. Talking about heat dissipation isn’t sexy (it is hot), but it’s a key improvement in the new iPhones. When you’re playing a graphically intensive game, your iPhone will start to get very hot as the processor does its job. At a certain point, if things get too hot, the processor starts to throttle itself so it doesn’t overheat, but it means your performance suffers, resulting in stuttering and skips in your gameplay. With the iPhone 17 Pro models, Apple is finally using a vapor chamber cooling system to help dissipate heat.

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September 17, 2025
Belly Has a New Look! Lola Tung and Jenny Han Weigh in on ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Finale

In the first episode of the final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Jeremiah Fisher tells his girlfriend (and, later, fiancée), Belly Conklin, “Hey, don’t ever cut your hair, okay?” As if that wasn’t enough of an impetus to chop off her locks, a broken engagement and a soul-searching trip to Paris certainly got Belly over the finish line. At the end of the penultimate episode, Belly hinted at her intentions when she walked into a Parisian salon. Now, as the show draws to a close, she is beginning a new chapter with her much shorter ’do. In the words of one very wise woman, “Claire, it’s French!”

“I was excited when I learned that Belly was getting a bob,” Lola Tung, who plays Belly, tells Vogue. “It’s nice to see her make that decision for herself, almost as a physical representation of the growth and change she’s experienced.” Jenny Han, the show’s executive producer and author of the novels that the series is based on, agrees. For Han, the haircut signals Belly stepping into herself.

“I think women often cut their hair after a breakup or when they want to let go of old baggage and signal to people that they’re ready for change,” Han says. “The idea is that if you look different, then you can feel different.”

Lola Tung and Fernando Cattori, who plays her Parisian love interest, Benito.

Courtesy of Jesse Peretz

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September 17, 2025
DJI’s Mini 5 Pro is the latest must-have drone you can’t have in the US
In 2023, DJI created a massive hit with the Osmo Pocket 3, a tiny steadicam with a far bigger one-inch-type sensor that dramatically improved the quality of video you could get with so tiny a gadget. Today, the company may be doing the same with its most popular portable line of drones — and with better battery life than ever.

The DJI Mini 5 Pro is the company’s first compact drone with a 50-megapixel one-inch-type sensor, up from 1/1.3-inch in the Mini 4 Pro. At 15.19 x 11.11mm, it offers more than twice the sensor area, which could mean capturing more light; DJI claims 14 stops of dynamic range.

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DJI tells us it could deliver even slightly better results than the one in the bigger and pricier DJI Air 3S from 2024, with “enhanced portrait performance” at close range, “improved brightness in shadow areas,” and that it won’t oversharpen vegetation like the Air 3S sometimes could. Plus, DJI is quoting two extra minutes of battery life from the Mini 5 Pro over the Mini 4 Pro without increasing weight beyond the all-important 250-gram mark, at 36 minutes vs. 34.

Or, if you opt for the company’s extended battery, DJI claims you can hit 52 minutes at a go, beating the old Mini 3 for the longest longest battery life ever in a non-industrial DJI drone. DJI won’t sell that extended battery in Europe, though, to help comply with laws around heavier drones.

Image: DJI

Otherwise, the DJI Mini 5 Pro, like the Mini 4 Pro before it, is mostly a story of catching up to the high bar set by DJI’s Air line. The Mini already had omnidirectional obstacle avoidance; now it gets the Air’s upgraded low-light version with forward-facing LiDAR so it can more easily return home at night, and can “memorize flight routes, enabling safe takeoff and return even without a satellite signal.”

The Mini 5 Pro can now climb twice as fast at 10 meters per second (22mph), just like the Air, and flies slightly faster horizontally (42mph vs. 36mph) than the Mini 4 Pro too. You also get faster 4K120 shooting like the Air, plus the same expanded ISO range of 12800 in normal shooting and 3200 in HDR and D-Log M.

And like the Air, you can store 42GB of video on the drone itself, whereas previous minis required an SD card for more than a tiny 2GB clip. And though DJI’s wireless transmission range hasn’t really improved, it now offers Wi-Fi 6 for up to 100MB/s downloads.

Image: DJI

It’s even trying to ape the Air’s secondary telephoto camera with a new “48mm Med-Tele mode”; while that digital zoom likely won’t compare to the Air’s 70mm optical, we were mildly impressed with the 40mm lossless 2x digital zoom on the Osmo Pocket 3 and sometimes genuinely use it.

The Mini 5 Pro does get a couple new tricks from other drones besides the Air. Like the Mavic 4 Pro, it now offers a gimbal that can freely roll for more than just vertical filming, though here you get 225 degrees of rotation instead of 360. And like the DJI Flip, it can automatically power on when you unfold its arms, no more press-and-release-and-hold necessary. It can’t perform DJI’s QuickShots filming maneuvers without a controller, though.

As with the Air 3S, the Mavic 4 Pro, and frankly, every DJI product from here on out, the question is: will you actually be able to buy one? In the United States, the answer isn’t great. Not only will DJI not officially sell this drone in the US, it won’t even create a US product website for it, and we were not offered a review unit — though you might be able to find small batches at other retailers like previously, if US customs doesn’t block those shipments.

If you do, DJI spokeperson Daisy Kong makes it sound like the company should still honor its warranty, though it depends on “the product issue, usage, purchase details, and whether the product is within the warranty period or not.”

In Canada, the DJI Mini 5 Pro will cost $769 USD, but Kong cautions that’s not the price it would necessarily sell for in the US. It’ll also cost £689 in the UK, €798 in Europe, and ¥106,700 in Japan, all of which represent that DJI isn’t really raising the price this year — so if the Mini 5 Pro costs far more than that at US retailers like Adorama and B&H, it’s likely the result of Trump’s tariffs.

Image: DJI

As with many previous drones, the company will ship it in bundles with additional batteries, accessories, and screen-equipped controllers if you prefer. You can’t swap propellers or ND filters between the Mini 5 Pro and Mini 4 Pro, and the new batteries don’t work on the older drone. “Technically, the Mini 5 Pro can use batteries from previous drones, but we do not recommend it,” writes Kong.

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Sean Hollister
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September 17, 2025
Apple iPhone Air Review: Better Than Expected

The iPhone 17 Pro felt like a brick. I had just gotten used to the featherweight feel of Apple’s new iPhone Air after several days of use, but it was time to switch to the iPhone 17 Pro. Suddenly, I didn’t want to let the Air go.

It’s amazing how a couple of grams and a slimmer profile can drastically change the feel of a phone. There isn’t much to grab on the edges, but the Air’s design is whimsical and somewhat paradoxical. It feels like a twig that can snap in a heartbeat, but the sturdy titanium frame dispels any notion of fragility.

I was prepared to hate the iPhone Air. Why make a thin phone with lackluster battery life? A single-camera system for $999? After spending some time with it, I’m pleasantly surprised. I still don’t think most people should buy it—it’s for early adopters who want to experience Apple’s thinnest iPhone to date—but it’s a promising blueprint of what’s to come.

Thin Air

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

The iPhone Air is just 5.6 millimeters thick and 165 grams; contrast that with the iPhone 17 Pro, which has a smaller screen yet weighs 206 grams and is 8.75 mm thick. It’s a palpable difference. Initially, you might feel like the lighter weight makes the Air seem “cheap,” but that notion quickly disappears. This phone feels strong, durable, and rigid.

I watched Apple perform a bend test on the iPhone Air, and it was able to withstand more than 130 pounds of force with no damage. I gave it a good bend test myself, but it didn’t flex. We’ll need to see how this phone performs in the hands of a wider audience, but I think you can put your pitchforks away—no #bendgate here. This durability stems from the use of titanium for the frame, along with Apple’s new Ceramic Shield 2 protecting the display, and Ceramic Shield 1 layered over the back. Apple says this mixture makes the Air more durable than any prior iPhone.

I can’t imagine buying this ultrathin phone and putting a case on it, but I didn’t mind Apple’s bumper case. The phone still feels light and thin, but the slightly thicker edges of the bumper make it easier to grasp. Annoyingly, despite using a horizontal camera bar like Google’s Pixel phones, the camera still sticks out enough that the Air rocks on a table when you tap a corner—a small nitpick.

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September 17, 2025
Rising CO2 and Climate Change Reorganize Global Terrestrial Carbon Cycling

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.

Source: AGU Advances

To help project Earth’s future climate, it is critical to understand how the capacity of ecosystems to take up and store carbon is changing as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise and climate change intensifies.

Bilir et al. [2025] integrate satellite data with a model of terrestrial carbon cycling to parse regionally-specific influences of CO₂ and climate on carbon storage in living and dead plant material, and the associated residence time of carbon in those pools.

For the specified regions, changes in total carbon storage (left Y axis, solid bars) and percent change in mean residence time of carbon (right Y axis, hatched bars) that can be attributed to atmospheric CO₂ (top panel), climate trends (middle panel), and the combined, interacting effects of CO₂and climate (bottom panel). Credit: Bilir et al. [2025], Figure 6

Their work helps untangle the mechanisms driving what they and others have observed: that CO₂ increases carbon storage more than climate effects decrease it. They find greater carbon storage in living plants globally and a shift in dead carbon storage from mid- and high latitudes to the tropics. They also demonstrate a reduction in mean carbon residence times across all latitudes. The shift in carbon storage from dead to live pools underscores the sensitivity of terrestrially-mediated carbon cycling and residence times to living plant carbon uptake and storage potentials.

These efforts help us understand, at a global scale, how rising atmospheric CO₂ and climate change interact to prompt a latitudinally-specific reorganization of our planet’s terrestrial carbon cycling, and thus its climate.

Citation: Bilir, T. E., Bloom, A. A., Konings, A. G., Liu, J., Parazoo, N. C., Quetin, G. R., et al. (2025). Satellite-constrained reanalysis reveals CO2 versus climate process compensation across the global land carbon sink. AGU Advances, 6, e2025AV001689. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV001689

—Sharon Billings, Editor, AGU Advances

Text © 2025. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

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September 17, 2025
Why has this microRNA review paper been cited more than 2,000 times? – Retraction Watch

Earlier this year, Marc Halushka, a pathologist at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, came across a review titled simply “MicroRNA,” an unusually short title in a big field. Looking deeper into the review, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in 2018, Halushka found it had been cited more than 2,000 times. He thought this number “shockingly high,” given the article’s brevity and content.

Other, older reviews on microRNA from leaders in the field have been cited far more often, some even tens of thousands of times. But when searching “microRNA” on Google Scholar, the review with that single term as its title is the first result.

Halushka doesn’t think anything in the paper is wrong or out of date. But the citation was among those in a paper he was asked to review that he thought “was clearly a paper mill paper,” he told Retraction Watch. He suspects when people “who know nothing about microRNAs because they are just in the paper mill business” need to cite a review on the topic, they just use the top search result.

Such a scenario is a strong possibility. An analysis by David Robert Grimes, one of Retraction Watch’s first Sleuths in Residence, found that of the 2,046 papers citing the “MicroRNA” review in Elsevier’s Scopus database, 18 of them have been retracted. Many of the retraction notices describe recycled data and peer review concerns as reasons for the decision, which publishers often use to suggest paper mill activity. Six retractions came from Hindawi, an open-access publisher Wiley bought, then shut down, after it became clear paper mills had run amok in its journals.

In 2021, we covered the retraction of one of the papers that cited the review. “The authors stated that they published the paper without completely studying their work,” according to the notice.

The microRNA literature is a hotspot for paper mill activity, and researchers have quantified higher rates of retraction for papers on microRNA than related topics.

Marc Rothenberg, director of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio, and the corresponding author of the review, declined to comment for this story. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Grimes also analyzed the journals in which papers citing the “MicroRNA” review appeared. Most citations – 52 – came from articles in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, an MDPI title. The journal with the next most papers citing the review, 39, was Bioengineered, a Taylor & Francis title which lost its standing in Clarivate’s Web of Science index earlier this year amid struggles to purge paper mill content from its pages. The journal suspended new submissions in July.

The remaining journals in the top five titles citing the “MicroRNA” review are all from the open-access publisher Frontiers.

In Grimes’ analysis of the affiliations of the authors citing the review, he found the 20 most frequent universities were all located in China. Just over 80 percent of the citations came from authors based at Chinese research centers.

We reached out to the authors of 20 papers citing the review to ask why they had done so. Only one responded.

“We included it because it is a concise, widely-read overview of microRNA biology in the context of immune and allergic diseases, which we felt would be helpful as a background primer for readers less familiar with the field,” Bailin Niu, of Chongqing University, told us. He and his colleagues had cited it in a review of the role of microRNAs in liver damage from sepsis published earlier this year in Pharmacological Research.

Jennifer Byrne, director of biobanking for New South Wales Health in Australia and a paper mill researcher, told us entities churning out scientific papers for pay could have incorporated a citation to the review into a reusable template, but “it’s difficult to be sure.”

If a citation to the review has been included in a template, the papers that cite it may have unexpected similarities, or there could be many papers citing the review in which “the citation seems unjustified,” she said.

Because the review is “quite technical,” citations would seem more relevant “when justifying experimental methods or discussing possible limitations of results,” Byrne said, not as a general overview of microRNA research.

“That said, if authors are simply opportunistically selecting this review as an accessible example of a miRNA review, we might also expect to see tangentially relevant citations, outside of any involvement of paper mills,” she said.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].

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September 17, 2025
Overwatch 2 Season 18 midseason update: OWL Solaris bundle, competitive drives, and more – Esports Insider
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September 17, 2025