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A Shorter Apple Pencil Was Supposed to Launch Alongside iPhone Duo
A shorter Apple Pencil for the iPhone Duo was in development, but Apple scrapped it due to "technical problems ahead of mass production," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. A shorter Apple Pencil for the iPhone Duo was in development, but Apple scrapped it due to "technical problems ahead of mass production," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
US proposes AI incident notification mechanism before Trump-Xi summit
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent proposed an AI notification mechanism for national security ahead of Trump-Xi talks.
Bessent: US proposes AI incident alert system in talks with China
The U.S. is proposing a new notification system with China for artificial intelligence incidents that could threaten national security. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the plan on Sunday after talks
Wake county, state leaders weigh in ahead of Atrium-WakeMed merger vote
The Wake County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to vote Monday on proposed merger between WakeMed and Atrium Health. Some Commissioners tell WRAL they're still skeptical, while others say the deal will serve North Carolinians.
Union calls for halt to graded Ofsted inspections over health concerns
The National Association of Head Teachers says inspections in England may pose a "risk to life" for school leaders.
As deadline approaches for comment, Ward joins critics of Health Department proposal
Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward joins others who question proposed new state Health Deparment regulations.
Stein won’t oppose deal to combine WakeMed, Atrium Health
The governor said hospital system leaders have made changes to the terms of their proposal, including capping price increases for five years.
Stein won’t oppose deal to combine WakeMed, Atrium Health
The governor said hospital system leaders have made changes to the terms of their proposal, including capping price increases for five years.
LSU Loss to Ole Miss Reveals Truths About Team
We learned a lot during the latest Magnolia Bowl. Thanks to Lane Kiffin, we expected the stage in Mississippi to rank among the peak game backdrops in the sport, and it delivered. The raucous environment in Oxford, Mississippi, exposed the college football world to the raw energy of hatred and the passion that accompanies a …
Three Norman Powell Trade Ideas Proposed for Chicago Bulls
The veteran All-Star guard is very likely to be traded during the next year.
California tightens disclosure rules for influencers who post political ads
A new law will allow authorities to impose administrative, criminal and civil penalties on social media users who don’t make clear when they’re paid to post.
Elizabeth Hurley, 61, Poses in Peach Bikini and Shares Sunset Kiss With Billy Ray Cyrus in New Update
Fans were in awe of her ageless beauty as she flaunted her ongoing romance.
Elizabeth Hurley, 61, Poses in Peach Bikini and Shares Sunset Kiss With Billy Ray Cyrus in New Update
Fans were in awe of her ageless beauty as she flaunted her ongoing romance.
Elizabeth Hurley, 61, Poses in Peach Bikini and Shares Sunset Kiss With Billy Ray Cyrus in New Update
Fans were in awe of her ageless beauty as she flaunted her ongoing romance.
Brookfield Business (BBUC) Joins Reliance Deal. What Returns Can it Capture?
Brookfield Business Corporation (NYSE:BBUC) will participate in Brookfield’s proposed acquisition of Reliance Worldwide Corporation, announced September 15. The transaction values the plumbing-products manufacturer at approximately US$2.8 billion in enterprise value, excluding lease liabilities. The investment group plans to acquire 100% ownership. Funding will come through the Brookfield Capital Partners strategy and Brookfield Business Corporation (NYSE:BBUC). […]
Face the State | Diving into the politics of measles, healthcare in Pennsylvania
In this week’s edition of Face the State, one politician shares why he believes a proposed amendment by the Department of Health is unconstitutional.
Ebola outbreak update: Cases and deaths; Dungu health zone, Haut-Uélé province now affected
A total of 73 new confirmed cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) were reported on September 18, 2026, including 25 community deaths. Of these confirmed cases, 46 were from Ituri province, 18 from North Kivu, 6 from Haut-Uélé, and 3 from Tshopo. A new health zone, Dungu, in Haut-Uélé province, was affected during the day. As this zone borders South Sudan, strengthening cross-border surveillance is necessary. During the day on September 18, 2026, 12 deaths within Ebola Treatment Centers (ETCs)—10 in Ituri and 2 in North Kivu—were unfortunately recorded, bringing the total number of deaths for the day to 37. However, 41 patients were declared recovered (30 in Ituri, 6 in Haut-Uélé, 3 in North Kivu, and 2 in Tshopo) after testing negative for EVD twice. Since the start of the epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a cumulative total of 7,614 confirmed cases, including 3,676 deaths, has been recorded, representing a case fatality rate of 48.3%. The epicenter remains Ituri province, which accounts for 77.2% of the confirmed cases reported across the seven affected provinces and also accounts for 63.0% of the new confirmed cases. A new health zone was affected on September 18, 2026. Consequently, 63 out of 167 health zones (37.7%) across 7 provinces are affected. Subscribe to Outbreak News TV on YouTube Response measures feature 97% traveler screening at entry points, surveillance expansion to new area Dungu, and community outreach sensitizing over 110,000 people in one day. The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s health system faces deep, structural constraints that predate the current Ebola outbreak and make epidemic response far harder. These problems are most acute in rural areas and the conflict-affected east. Outbreak News Today is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Eastern provinces have seen health facilities damaged, looted, or abandoned. Insecurity delays patients, blocks supply deliveries, and exposes staff to attacks. Millions of displaced people live in camps with poor water, sanitation, and health services, increasing outbreak risk. Vast distances and poor roads mean many people walk hours or days to reach care. These same weaknesses explain why Ebola has continued to spread into new, under-prepared health zones even as some original hotspots show improvement: surveillance, laboratory turnaround, contact tracing, and infection control remain thin outside the best-supported sites. The Ministry of Health and partners have scaled up treatment centres, laboratories, and vaccination in the current outbreak, and some digital surveillance systems (DHIS2) provide a useful backbone. However, the underlying gaps in staffing, basic infrastructure, reliable funding, and logistics have not been closed. Without sustained investment in those foundations, the system will remain vulnerable to both routine disease burden and the next large outbreak. If you like the reporting on Outbreak News Today, please consider a paid subscription for $5/month or $30 a year. Help support the cause of this niche journalism. It is appreciated.
Tennessee Democrat to propose bill to ban corporations from political spending
A Tennessee Democrat is set to push for new restrictions on corporate campaign spending, following the seminal steps of a movement to limit dark money in politics.
Anchorage Assembly members float new campaign requirements for local political offices
The proposed change could require would-be candidates to submit a minimum number of signatures gathered from qualified voters in order to appear on municipal ballots.
Vocci's ring adds a new form factor to meeting note-taking
Vocci's lightweight ring costs $249, and might pose some privacy questions
D.C. to BC: The Politics of Voting From Your Dorm
While the 2026 midterms will not see Trump’s proposed changes, the problem for college students goes well beyond the role that the Postal Service ought to play in elections. Navigating voting from college is an arduous task. Out-of-state students face three deceptively simple questions: Where do I live? Where should I vote? How do I vote?
Man City win surprising thriller but Sunderland expose growing problem
Man City 5-3 Sunderland: Brian Brobbey ran City’s defence ragged and scored a hat-trick, leaving Enzo Maresca plenty to ponder – even in victory
Arsenal Women Weekly Roundup: Man United draw exposes attacking concerns
It has been another frustrating week for Arsenal Women, although Smilla Holmberg ensured it ended with at least something to celebrate after her dramatic stoppage-time equaliser against Manchester Uni...
Prop 40 would create a first-in-the-world tax on billionaires
California voters will decide this November on Proposition 40, a proposal to impose a one-time, 5% tax on billionaires living in the state.
Trump says his planned arch would become a 'military complex' able to host drones and snipers
Trump has also been calling the new White House ballroom a “military complex” and arguing it is necessary for national security purposes.
Mobile to look at expanding entertainment districts
The proposed expansion would include the new Regions Arena
Trump says his proposed arch will include a military complex housing drones and snipers
The announcement marks the second time the president has tied a controversial construction project to national security.
Bernie Sanders is right about the four-day workweek – but wrong about how to get there
The senator proposed a federal overtime rule mandate, but incentives can better spur employers to reshape the workweek
Trump says proposed DC arch will double as military complex
President Donald Trump on Sunday provided a new reason behind his proposal to build a 250-foot triumphal arch directly across Arlington National Cemetery, saying the structure would double as a “top grade Military Complex.”
Mount Vesuvius Buried These Scrolls for 2,000 Years – Now Scientists May Read Them
Researchers recreated a damaged ancient scroll to test a new way to study the past. Lead in ancient ink could help researchers read the Herculaneum papyri, Roman scrolls buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. Many are now too brittle to open, and reading them with X-rays poses its own problem. The ink and
Billionaires abound in California. Why not tax their wealth?
No state may be a more natural fit for a tax on billionaires than California. It leans left and its 250 billionaires are worth nearly $2 trillion. But a ballot initiative to impose a one-time 5% tax might not pass.
I taught my daughter to prioritize purpose. Now I question the cost.
I modeled a life of service for my daughter. I'm proud of her, but I worry about the financial and personal costs we both face.
Deco outlines Barcelona’s three-player renewal plan
Barcelona sporting director Deco told the club’s General Assembly that agreements are close to being finalised on new contracts for Raphinha, Marc Bernal and Xavi Espart. Raphinha’s proposed exten...
I'm a CEO and I hired a board member to argue with me
RiseGuide's CEO said he purposefully hired outspoken employees and a board member to challenge his decisions and provide the feedback leaders lack.
A.I. Gone Rogue? Trump Proposes Not New Rules but an ‘A.I. Force.’
The president proposed a follow-up to his Space Force but continued to dismiss worries about A.I.’s pace or potential for harm.
Nurses sound alarm on proposed healthcare cuts during Bangor bus tour stop
On Saturday, National Nurses United (NNU) made a stop at Bangor’s Cascade Park as they travel the country on its “Red Alert” bus tour, joined by the Maine State Nurses Association (MSNA).
LA Union Station travelers may have been exposed to measles by infected passenger, officials warned
L.A. County health officials warned Friday that people who were at Union Station during a 4-hour period last weekend may have been exposed to measles.
Three Things We Learned From Brighton 3-0 Arsenal
Fabian Hürzeler’s high-intensity press dismantled the champions at the Amex as standout new signings and tactical fluidity exposed rare vulnerabilities in Mikel Arteta’s previously impenetrable defense.
Rabies Cases Prompt Nationwide Health Advisory: What VA Residents Should Know
Reports of people exposed to rabid or possibly rabid animals are rising across the country. Here's where Virginia cases stand.
Gophers take care of business, beating Akron 41-7
It was a gloomy day in the Twin Cities and a lethargic crowd supported a Gopher team that moved to 2-1 as they head into Big Ten play. After a deflating loss to Mississippi State last week, the Gophers came out and did exactly what they were supposed to do, beating the Akron Zips 41-7. […]
M6 Pro Chip Result on Geekbench is Likely Fake
A supposed Geekbench result for an unreleased M6 Pro chip surfaced this week, but it is likely fake. Geekbench creator John Poole informed MacRumors that he uncovered "internal inconsistencies" that lead him to believe that the M6 Pro result might not be legitimate. Geekbench creator John Poole informed MacRumors that he uncovered "internal inconsistencies" that lead him to believe that the M6 Pro result might not be legitimate.
California warns of measles exposure in six counties from unvaccinated train passenger
Health authorities work to notify people who were exposed to person who traveled through at least six counties
Trump vows to create ‘AI Force’ and appoint czar amid calls to regulate technology’s development
President Donald Trump said Saturday he plans to create an “AI Force” and name an AI czar as the government faces growing calls to impose guardrails on the rapid development of artificial intelligence.
Telehealth companies keep exposing their customers' medical data. What should they do?
The Federal Trade Commission recently filed a lawsuit alleging that telehealth company Hims & Hers secretly exposed customers’ health data.
The Big Holes in Wearable Heart Rate Variability And Readiness Scores
On September 9th, Apple announced it was revamping its Apple Watch Health Sensing System, rolling out a Readiness score (0 to 10), and increasing the frequency of heart rate variability (HRV) outputs 24-fold. This can be viewed as upping its competition with various other consumer wearable sensors. These “readiness scores” as a composite of multiple metrics, with heart rate variability (HRV) being front and center for most. The majority of Americans are now using wearable sensors, which equates to well over 100 million adults. HRV and Readiness scores are increasingly being marketed as a measurement of autonomic nervous system health, a digital marker for future disease, a clock for biological age, and a holistic metric to promote healthspan and even longevity. (Apple also introduced a new longevity tab and “Health Age”.) None of this has been proven. In this edition of Ground Truths I am going to review what we know about heart rate variability and readiness scores. Heart Rate Variability HRV is the variation in normal heart cycle timing. The variability of the heart rate, the barely perceptible millisecond changes in time between consecutive heart beats (see R-R intervals in the Figure below, left panel), is due to interplay between the sympathetic and parasympathetic (vagal nerve) inputs. Distinct from heart rate, individuals with the same heart rate can have very different HRVs. It is a rough reflection of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity, inadequate to say whether a person’s ANS function is abnormal. For more than three decades, heart rate variability (HRV) has been measured and several studies have found an association of low HRV and clinical outcomes, particularly a link with higher all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. There have also been less well established links of low HRV to risk of early cognitive impairment, dementia, mental illness, Type 2 diabetes and substance abuse. An important reminder is that HRV is a surrogate marker without any established cause-and-effect relationship. If you increase your HRV, that doesn’t mean it will improve health outcomes. In fact, there is no hard evidence for that. All that work linking to health outcomes was done with electrocardiogram (ECG) derived HRV. Now, in the era of consumer wearables, this is getting assessed differently, by optical pulse (yes, the lights you see) plethysmography (PPG) or what is called pulse rate variability (PRV). They are not the same, as shown below (right panel) and only concordant when the delay between the ECG and pulse is kept constant, which basically means at rest. I should mention there’s also what I will call MPV, a mattress mechanical movement sensor, a derived heart rate variability, that companies like Eight Sleep use, even further away from directly measuring HRV. HRV has not one uniform measurement but many different types of quantification, such as RMSSD, the magnitude of difference between successive R-R intervals of normal sinus beats (N-N) or SDNN, the standard deviation of NN intervals, both in milliseconds. SDNN is one of the so-called frequency domain HRVs (others are LF, HF, LF/HF). Different wearable sensors use different metics; Apple has relied on SDNN and nearly all of the others use RMSSD, which is generally considered the more accurate metric. There’s also the different length of time measured, such as for a matter of minutes, all day, or an overnight’s sleep. Short measurements are especially problematic since they don’t capture enough of respiratory modulation and other factors that influence HRV. Share Ground Truths How well does HRV correlate with PRV? There are very limited studies, especially independently done. One that is commonly cited was conducted by Air Force researchers in only 13 healthy adults assessing Oura ring 3 and 4, Whoop 4.0, and Garmin Fenix 6 and showed a correlation coefficient of 0.88 to 0.97 and a mean absolute percentage error from 6 to 10%. The correlation is not a perfect 1.0, but there’s at least a fairly high level of correlation. HRV is supposed to increase during the night due to takeover of the parasympathetic nervous system, and higher during deep sleep. A recent example of my 1 week, all day “HRV,” and one during sleep is shown below. As you can see, the N of 1 data are inconsistent for the same days from different sensors (Oura, AppleWatch, Fitbit Air, and Eight Sleep) by patterns, absolute numbers, and comparison with prior days and weeks. The largest study in over 8 million Fitbit users (the old version, not Google Fitbit Air, introduced in May 2026) gives you a sense of the effect of age, sex, and the 2 different main HRV (here PRV) metrics, with RMSSD on the left and SDRR (=SDNN) on the right below. That study, from data collected in 2018, is a major outlier, since all the more recent ones are tiny with respect to sample size. Many of the companies have not had independent evaluation of their HRV, such as Eight Sleep, but have published a low standard error on their website. There are some other published studies on the correlation between HRV and PRV, but they are all small and only in healthy adults. A scoping review emphasized the lack of study in underrepresented individuals, including the aged, people of color (which affects the PPG signal), and individuals who are underweight or obese. Add the typical adult age 60 plus with one or more chronic diseases. For example, one study in over 900 adults found poor correlation of HRV and PRV, non-uniformly underestimated across many chronic diseases (cardiovascular, endocrine, neurological, respiratory, and others), concluding PRV is “an invalid surrogate for HRV.” A recent systematic review of 43 studies comparing HRV and PRV found reasonable pooled absolute standardized error (HRV as gold standard) but only 10 of the studies provided quantitative synthesis in ideal conditions. Their main conclusion was similarly cautious: “PPG-derived HRV [PRV] should not be regarded as universally interchangeable with ECG-derived HRV across all devices, populations, and recording contexts.” Factors Affecting HRV and PRV That gets me to the long list of factors that affect HRV (and PRV) besides the device, the type of measurement (RMSSD, SDNN or others), the person’s signal, the sensor site, the duration of data capture, if weighting by sleep stage is used, how artifact is processed and corrected. And this list is not complete!: Oura puts out data from their community of users (who input data) on what affects their overnight HRV. The factors currently provided are: no alcohol (increase 8%), melatonin (increase 2%, float tank (increase 2%), wine (decrease 4%), and party (decrease 14%) in overnight HRV. Must be some big parties! Subscribe What is a PRV measurement good for? It has been falsely characterized as an index of “autonomic balance” and a specific indicator of stress. A 2018 review of the studies available for HRV and its relationship to stress, not using any of the current wearables, found that stress can lower HRV. But so can many other factors. The non-specificity of the signal, indexed to the table above, is striking. Evidence from a UK Biobank study of over 46,000 participants with actual HRV looked at genetically predicted HRV, a genetic risk score, that failed to show the expected HRV-mortality link, indicating that _HRV is likely not causa_l, but rather a reflection of person’s physiologic state. A review of consumer wearable HRV data from 5 longitudinal studies showed that nighttime PRV was not associated with perceived stress, and surprisingly higher HRV, in the largest cohort (N=717 participants), was correlated with higher stress. An Oura ring cohort of 525 first-year college students found a link between overnight PRV and perceived stress, but that was also seen with resting heart rate, sleep, and respiratory rate. Several very small studies have examined the relationship of HRV and athletic injuries or guiding training with mixed, and predominantly negative results. HRV biofeedback training with paced breathing had no significant effect on reducing stress or raising HRV, as demonstrated with sham controlled trials. When HRV for multiple days showed a decline in conjunction with body temperature, the Oura ring published data for prediction of Covid. The WHOOP company sponsored an observational study, published in 2026, of 30,000 users for 72 weeks, without a control group, that reported reduced alcohol intake (5.8 % points) by self-report. That doesn’t tell us much, and particularly about the merits of HRV for behavioral change. If you use the same device and conditions as longitudinal trends for multiple (at least 2-3) weeks that may be the one way to get something useful from the measurements. Data for overnight sleep with minimal motion and using RMSSD is the best proxy for real HRV. The reason to look at trends rather than any given night is that it more likely represents something, even though you won’t know with certainty what the “it” is. Keep in mind there are no data, no peer-reviewed evidence, to show that HRV fluctuation in-person has any correlation with health outcomes. Share Readiness Scores These are proprietary scores that integrate different metrics for each of the wearables: no algorithms have been disclosed. They are unvalidated against health outcomes. In a review of 14 composite health scores of readiness and recovery, HRV contributed 86% to the scores, followed by reading heart rate (79%), physical activity and sleep duration (both at 71%). That review noted the substantial variability in measurement protools and lack of standardization. Sleep staging is notoriously inconsistent and inaccurate by these sensors, which adds further to the HRV uncertainties for what the scores, which use sleep stage data, mean. Only resting heart rate has been shown consistently across devices to be extremely accurate. I’ve made a Table to summarize what we know about which metrics are included, the scores, any peer-reviewed studies that compared the readiness score with health outcomes, and the corresponding (if any, NA-not available) citation. You will note that some companies do not use the term “readiness," such as WHOOP for recovery, and Garmin, which has 2 different scores, one of which is Body Battery. Eight Sleep uses the term “Fitness Score.” They all include HRV; Apple includes a new metric they call “Recovery HRV” which among other components uses 7-days of sleep, but it is unclear what this means or how it is differentiated from other scores (there are clearly no data for outcomes). We have no knowledge of how the different components are weighted or whether any of these scores are better than resting heart rate, HRV alone, physical activity, or any other single metric. Since none of these are standardized, they are not interchangeable, so if you get a 90 for Oura that has no relationship to a 90 on a Google Fitbit Air. Notably, the company can update its algorithm for readiness score at any point without notification to device users. Without any useful evidence of actionability for these scores or established relationship with health outcomes, it is hard to make a case for their value. At the Apple recent announcement they showed their Readiness score (0-10) on the watch (Figure below) but there are no published data on this score, not even on their website. It’s available only on their new Watch Series 12 or Ultra 4 [of course, ;-)]. That exemplifies the problems with these scores, lack of data and evidence for being meaningful to promote health. Perhaps the best study (which isn’t saying much) is the WHOOP Recovery for golfer performance, because it did correlate with an objective outcome, even though there was no control group and the authors were all from the company. Among the 389 pro golfers, an absolute 10-per cent point increase in Recovery score was associated with about 0.5 fewer strokes per round. But that’s hardly a health outcome! WHOOP is also conducting a study in over 2,700 runners to see if their recovery score will be linked to less injuries and improved performance, but that is not yet published and has no control group or randomization. Putting This in Context For two decades I’ve been enthusiastic about the potential for digital health and particularly wearable biosensors. Over the years, we’ve seen some great progress for their ability to promote physical activity and accurately detect atrial fibrillation (the first FDA cleared deep learning AI for consumers). That work was the subject of rigorous research. But there are holes in the data and evidence for other metrics. One notable one is the “VO2 max” story that I wrote about earlier this year. At that time many subscribers asked me to cover heart rate variability, which I finally got to here. When I dived into the research and publication for HRV and readiness scores, I expected to find at least some that were of high quality and demonstrated their utility by linkage to health outcomes. To my surprise, I found none. The wearable sensor measurements for HRV (PRV) are, for the most part, accurate, but that validation work has only been done in small studies of healthy adults and does not take into account the long list of factors, from the device, software side, and the user side, that affect HRV measurements. Moreover, this metric chiefly relies on optical sensing and, as we have learned for heart rate PPG sensing, may be less accurate in people of color. Keep in mind that all of the health outcome association evidence comes from ECG-derived HRV; none are from wearable sensor data. I will repeat the key point: there's no peer-reviewed evidence to show that in-person HRV fluctuation—or efforts to raise your HRV— has any correlation with health outcomes. For those of you who look at your HRV on awakening, or even 2+ week trends of it being low, I hope this context helps to relieve any anxiety. Yes, low HRV (not PRV) has been shown to increase risk of some diseases as summarized above. But efforts to raise your HRV—a surrogate metric— has not been established for improving any health outcomes. HRV does not have any evidence of causality (the genetic evidence actually goes against this possibility). In this summary, I have not included data for other wearable sensors such as Polar, Samsung, Withings, Suunto, Amazfit, Coros, Ultrahuman, or additional mattress sensors. These are beyond my first-hand experience, and as far as I know from my in-depth review none have any peer-reviewed published data that differ from the 6 sensors I’ve reviewed here. From the points I’ve gone over above, we’re not ready for readiness scores. Besides being proprietary, they are predominantly based on metrics that have their own issues. It’s compounding the problem, like building a house without a solid foundation that has never undergone a rigorous inspection, and then selling it. Like I mentioned for PRV, you can look at trends over weeks rather than any single day, to get a handle, but even that may not be helpful. There’s simply no evidence that these scores meaningfully relate to health outcomes. I’d emphasize they might, but that requires doing prospective or randomized studies to prove it. None exist. There’s great promise for HRV/PRV utility_. For example**,**_ Prof Maiken Nedergaard, who discovered the brain glymphatics that are essential in eliminating metabolic waste products from the brain during sleep, has posited that HRV could be a non-invasive marker for neuromodulator oscillations, brain-body regulatory circuits, and brain clearance. That would be extremely useful, but like everything else on HRV and readiness scores it requires solid research and validation. The lay media isn’t helping much to get the story straight. Earlier this year The Economist published a piece entitled “The most useful indicator of your overall health” which ordained HRV as an “accumulated stress score.” That’s akin to the false assertion about VO2max: “V02 max is the singular most powerful marker for longevity.” As I’ve summarized here, that is not established. The fact is that so many things can lower HRV, including physical exercise (especially an intense workout), reduced sleep quality, stress, the list above, no less the device, signal, and software. Whatever fluctuations observed have not been correlated with any health outcome. Sadly, “datamaxxers” are widely using HRV and readiness scores that have never been validated to mean anything. We already know that for some people using the sensors for sleep metrics, it can induce “orthosomnia,” an obsession to get high sleep quality, with associated high levels of anxiety. In an experiment done by a company to promote sleep quality for its employees, “For those employees who did use the trackers, many reported feeling perfectly rested until their tracker told them they had had a terrible night. Others were told that they had slept like a baby when they had actually been lying awake worrying about the quality of their sleep. “ The same problem can result from preoccupation with HRV or readiness scores, with anxiety that would lead to further reduction in both. It you are using a wearable like >100 million American adults, it’s OK to look at these data, but contextualized with the major caveats reviewed here. If you are one to require evidence that HRV or readiness scores are linked to health outcomes, you may not even want to look. The companies make it hard to turn them off! Let me end with the companies that make and sell wearables. Apple’s doubling down on HRV (24-fold more reporting and heart rate very 5 seconds) and introduction of a Readiness score tells us that consumers have bought into these metrics and they are joining the club. However, all of this is occurring with a backdrop of tens millions of users, claims about the data that are not backed up by adequate evidence, marketing way out in front of whatever limited data exists, and not being transparent about their readiness score algorithms. The companies can well afford to do the research that is needed to connect these metrics with health outcomes show, once and for all, that increasing HRV or using readiness scores promotes our health. If they believed and invested in the products they are selling, we’d not be in this position of not knowing. That’s essentially where we are with HRV and readiness scores. Perhaps someday this will change and we’ll have good reason to embrace them. NB: I wrote this post. No AI. I have no conflicts of interest with any of its content. Loading... Ground Truths has 215,000 subscribers from every US state and 214 countries. There are over 300,000 followers of Ground Truths so more than 90,000 folks who can easily convert to be free subscribers. Your subscription to these free essays and podcasts makes my work in putting them together worthwhile. If you’re not a subscriber, please join! If you found this interesting PLEASE share it! Share Ground Truths The proceeds from all voluntary paid subscriptions go to support our summer internship program. It enabled us to accept and support a record number of 62 summer interns that joined us in 2026! These are high school, college and medical students selected from thousands of applicants. We couldn’t do this expanded program without the funds coming in through Ground Truths. Thank you!
The Watch: Drought-Flood Whiplash Intensifies As Climate Warms
Frequent extreme shifts in weather challenge communities’ preparedness…lagging protections pose health risks as data centers boom…nearly half of all young Medicaid users could lose coverage under new policies…and more
Clearwater OKs street handovers for entertainment center
The proposed $50 million entertainment center is backed by the Church of Scientology.
An 'impossible' black hole merger may finally be solved thanks to Einstein's relativity — but it raises an even bigger mystery
New research suggests that a perplexing signal created by a pair of colliding black holes may have been warped by a space-time phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. This theory could finally explain the "impossible" size of the merging singularities, but it also poses a new problem.
World’s largest economy joins Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel in battle for Red Sea influence as it lifts sanctions on Eritrea despite its role in Ethiopia war that killed 600,000
The United States has lifted sanctions on Eritrea imposed over its role in the deadly war in neighbouring Ethiopia, as Washington seeks to “advance US regional interests” in a country strategically positioned along the Red Sea
Science Vs on the 49ers Substation: Anatomy of a Hatchet Job
In August, Pablo Torre Finds Out and Science Vs released an episode about my theory that electromagnetic fields from the electrical substation beside the 49ers facility may be contributing to the team’s run of soft-tissue injuries. As the originator of the theory, I was also a subject of the episode. I sat was interviewed by Wendy Zukerman and Rose Rimler of Sciene Vs. I sent them research, connected them with scientists, and spent hours digging through the City of Santa Clara’s and Silicon Valley Power’s records to help clarify critical details. Both Wendy and Rose came off as affable and professional, showing curiosity during the interviews, with Wendy going out of her way to question the “conspiracy theory” framing itself. Then they titled the episode We Solve the 49ers Viral Conspiracy Theory. I was familiar enough with their catalog that I never expected them to agree with my theory, but I did expect them to give it a fair hearing and to deliver their findings honestly. On both counts they came up short. They were not directly dishonest in anything they said, but rather in what they left out, in how what remained was cut, and in the picture painted by those two things in combination. They asked me to recorded the interview on my phone for better audio quality, and I held on to my copy for reference later. That turned out to be a fortuitous decision. Here is the raw audio of my first interview, unedited*. Only my side was recorded, so their questions aren’t on it, but you can generally infer them from the answers, and every claim I make below about what I said can be checked against my statements in this clip. (Note: Wendy had connection trouble at the beginning of the interview and was cutting in and out, which accounts for the false starts.) 0:00 -1:19:13 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Science Vs is a fun show. It is pitched at roughly a high-school understanding of science, for an audience that is skeptical, Snopes-oriented, and worried about misinformation. Take a claim circulating online, interview a supporter of the claim, interview consensus scientists, and then tell people which side of the line it lands on. I have listened to their episodes on raw milk, seed oils, 5G and other contested issues in the wellness space. I have problems with all of them, but each at least made an honest attempt to represent the actual range of scientific opinion by talking to credentialed scientists with differing perspectives. Dissenting researchers were heard from, answered, and often given a chance to respond. This episode did not do that. This article is not a relitigation of the science. I have written extensively about that already. This post is for the record. It is simply an accounting of what was wrong with their episode. Contents Is there a power plant next to the 49ers practice facility? — the clearest single example of getting something objectively wrong For the record — a high-level overview of all of the problems with their investigation Draw your own conclusions — why they had to make this episode at all What they left out about childhood leukemia — the exposure threshold, and playing games with statistics to minimize sick children What they left out about the mechanism — the body of literature they refused to cover, and evidence for the mechanism used against it The scientists Science Vs interviewed and did not air — four credential scientists who support myhe theory, recorded and cut, or not even called How they misrepresented me and my case — an answer severed from its question, and three telling edits How you would actually study the injuries — it doesn’t actually matter which team is the most injured, overall The theory: magnetic fields, oxidative stress, and collagen Since the episode never states my theory, here it is below. Those who are familiar with my work can skip this section. Electrical equipment produces magnetic fields, and those fields induce faint electrical currents in anything that passes through them, including people. My argument goes further than induced current. Mitochondria — the structures that generate a cell’s energy — run on continuous flows of electrons and protons, and those flows carry faint electromagnetic fields of their own. Maxwell’s principle of superposition shows that when two fields share the same space, they add together. An external field does not need to be strong to alter an internal field, it only needs to be present. The electron transport chain inside the mitochondria leaks a small fraction of its electrons by design, and those become reactive oxygen species — free radicals, which healthy cells use as signals. External magnetic fields cause the rate of leakage to change, increasing free radicals. When free radicals accumulate faster than the cell’s antioxidant systems can clear them, the result is oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a recognized driver of chronic illness, including cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, diabetes and cancer, and it is in every medical school curriculum. One of its ordinary effects in connective tissue is that it switches on matrix metalloproteinases — MMPs, the enzymes that break collagen apart — while suppressing new collagen synthesis. Tendons are made of collagen. An athlete loading his soft tissue heavily six days a week is already creating oxidative stress in the tendons, so the addition of magnetic field exposure compounds the damage and inhibits repair, making him more susceptible to injury when enormous force lands on a tendon in a fraction of a second. That is the theory. We know that EMF causes oxidative stress, and we know that oxidative stress degrades collagen. The only thing missing is a study showing that direct connection. I have never claimed certainty that the substation is contributing to the elevated injury rate. I do believe it is likely, and I believe it warrants caution, and that a revenue machine like a major NFL team can easily afford to remove the exposure out of precaution. Is there a power plant next to the 49ers practice facility? Here is the clearest single instance of the problem with this episode. It requires no knowledge of electromagnetic fields at all. This story first came to me through Jon Feliciano, a former 49er, in an interview on Willard & Dibs on 95.7 The Game. Asked about why the 49ers are always injured, he said players used to joke that it was the power plant behind the practice fields. Wendy Zukerman corrects him on air. “It’s important to say that it’s not a power plant near the 49ers site.” Torre then asks her to explain the difference between a substation and a power plant. Her answer: a power plant generates electricity and transmits it to a substation, which converts the voltage into something your house can use and sends it on to your home or your business. There are two problems with that. The first is that there is a power plant on that site. The Gianera Generating Station is a natural-gas-fired peaker plant owned by Silicon Valley Power, and it has been there since 1986. I have published aerial photographs of the location from 1987 in which the gas plant is the only thing standing, before the practice facility was even there. I even mentioned the gas plant in my first interview. (Feliciano has since gone on record about this issue, and it is clear he had the substation in mind rather than the gas plant.) The second is that her definition describes a distribution substation, and the facility beside the 49ers is not that. It is the Northern Receiving Station, which takes in bulk power from outside the city’s grid and delivers it to distribution substations. Silicon Valley Power’s own map distinguishes receiving stations from substations, and Rose Rimler even reads the label out loud in the episode when she walks through that map on air. A few minutes before the map segment, Zukerman tells Torre: “like I said, we fact check everything.” Well, maybe not everything. I made a mistake On the morning of July 6th, at 10:20, I sent Rose and Wendy two studies. During the interview I had been asked which human studies show oxidative stress from electromagnetic fields, and I had not been able to name one on the spot. Rose emailed asking for the studies, I quickly searched for a couple, and I wrote that I thought these were the most relevant from that search. Unfortunately, I was busy and did not read either one closely at first. I picked them because they were topically relevant — one on substation workers, one on power plant workers. Neither were great studies, and their problems go past the ones raised in the episode. That was careless on my part. There is context that did not make the episode, though. Before that email I had been on a Zoom call with Rose talking about EMF and oxidative stress, and I pointed her to Dr. Henry Lai at the University of Washington, who has spent years aggregating the literature on this question. His tallies show that roughly 90% of studies since the late 1990s find oxidative effects from electromagnetic field exposure — hundreds of studies, systematically counted. Rose told me she was already aware of his work. So when she asked for studies, I understood her to have the aggregate view already and that she would report anything within that context. Not reading those two carefully was still a mistake, but the larger mistake was assuming the episode would be based on a thorough review of the actual body of literature, rather than on whatever I happened to send that morning. The second email At 1:49 that same afternoon — three hours and twenty-nine minutes after the first — I sent them a second email that I had been preparing for a while. It was a structured document in six numbered sections, written in response to a request they had made two weeks earlier, laying out my entire argument with citations attached to every link in the chain. The episode aired on August 13th, five weeks later, and not a single item from the second email is in it. Here is how it opens: The full email is included at the bottom of this post in Appendix B. Nearly 1,500 words in total. It contains two named mechanisms with the physics behind them. Occupational studies in humans. The literature on oxidative stress and collagen. A section addressing the strongest counter-evidence against my own theory, which I raised myself. And a closing section stating plainly what the theory cannot yet show. My entire argument, in writing, with detailed citations for every claim, provided to them five weeks before broadcast, and none of it made it into the episode. That is the single largest omission, but it is not an isolated one. The whole episode is riddled with similar problems, and the conclusion they came to is not merely a difference of opinion about the scientific evidence. Through omission and through strategic editing, Science Vs misinformed its audience — about what the evidence shows, about what I argued, and about who they spoke to. That is a notable outcome for a show whose stated purpose is correcting misinformation. For the record I am not going to tell you that Science Vs set out to discredit me, or that they had come to their conclusion before they reported the story, or that they used misleading editing to make me look like a man retreating from his own theory. I cannot know what was in anyone’s head, and I am not going to pretend otherwise, either. What I can tell you is what is on the record. They asked me for evidence and aired the weakest thing I sent. They interviewed three scientists who supported my theory and aired none of them. They discussed childhood leukemia without ever saying the exposure level at which it appears. And they took an answer I gave weeks before Ken Karipidis, the one EMF scientist who was put on air, was interviewed, and placed it directly after his critique, where it comes off as a major concession. A friend of mine who has worked as a journalist for thirty years read that last one and called it sleazy. I agree with her. Those are just the four issues that are impossible to defend as pure editorial decision, but they are not the only issues. The most glaring issues stem from what they left out: The exposure level at which the childhood leukemia association actually appears — three to four milligauss, a number the episode never states despite it being much lower than what I measured. The mechanism itself: The episode gets as far as “oxidative stress could weaken collagen,” which leaves it sounding like speculation, rather than a known pathway. The second email, and all the studies in it. Dr. Paul Héroux at McGill, whose work my proposed mechanism rests on, whose contact details I supplied, and who was never called. Dr. Beatrice Golomb at UC San Diego, who runs a research group on oxidative stress and mitochondrial function and has specific expdertice in collagen, interviewed and not aired. Dr. David Carpenter at Albany, the most prominent academic voice on the harm from magnetic field exposure, interviewed and not aired. Dr. Joel Moskowitz at Berkeley, interviewed and not even credited. The specific, testable condition I put in writing that would make me abandon the theory. My own unprompted statement of the theory’s evidentiary gap. My caveats about my own measurements. My ranking of EMF as one factor among several rather than the only one. The new equipment installed at those facilities between 2010 and 2014, and the sharp rise in system load from 2013 onward. But that is not all. What they kept, they selectively edited to serve a narrative that was not served by the raw transcripts of the interviews. A description of thousands of commercial routers in a workplace, reduced to the Wi-Fi in your house. My own acknowledgment, multiple times, that "I'm not a scientist" clipped in an episode that spends considerable energy pointing out that I am not a scientist. And a qualification I volunteered about my own measurements, cut from my answer and delivered later by their EMF expert as a correction. Together their edit produce a portrait of a wellness guy with Wi-Fi phobia and two bad studies, backing away from his theory the moment a “real” scientist looked at it. A practice facility where nothing changed because no new substation was built. Injuries written off as random because the 49ers were not quite the single most injured team in the league over the period in question. That portrait is false even though almost no individual statement made in the episode is. Draw your own conclusions At the top of the episode, Pablo Torre says his show had been flooded with requests to investigate the substation — that it was the thing they were asked to look into over and over again. Neither show went hunting for this story. It arrived from their own audience, in volume, and it could not be waved off. A thread I posted on X reached twenty-two million people. A guy with a gaussmeter and a brand-new Substack obligated a Pultizer prize winning program to spend an hour on a question about player health, that is considered fringe enough that most media operations won’t touch it. Pablo Torre Finds Out could not ignore it. So Science Vs came in and ran a “debunking” operation instead of an investigation. Everything below is what had to be left on the cutting room floor to deliver the “debunking”. They could not ignore it. So they tried debunked it instead. The demand was strong enough to force an episode, and since the episodes release the 49ers have sustained more injuries, including season ending ones, and interest has only grown. Demand from fans and playets is strong enough to force a better investigation from someone else. An omission is not a lie until you find out what was omitted. What follows is the detailed record so you can see the full picture. Draw your own conclusions. I have drawn mine. I am going to keep publishing. A note about Pablo Torre Finds Out After the episode aired I posted publicly, calling out Pablo Torre Finds Out for concerns I had about the integrity of their investigation, and about an interview directly with Pablo Torre which had been offered but never happened. I have since spoken with a producer at PTFO. The offer had rested on a misunderstanding about where things stood between us, and it fell away as the Science Vs part of the production widened past the science. He apologized for the miscommunication and I accepted. The producer also confirmed to me that they did essentially hand off the entire investigation to Science Vs for narrative purposes — so Pablo would be genuinely curious or potentially surprised by their findings — while still taking responsibility for what went out under their name. I appreciated the candor and the accountability, and I am comfortable with where we left things. So this post is not about PTFO. My disagreement is with Science Vs. What they left out about childhood leukemia Childhood leukemia appears at three milligauss. They gave no number at all. 1. They built an EMF ruler, then discussed childhood cancer without it. The sequence on air went like this: First I measured almost 9 mG, then I measured up to 50 milligauss. Torre reacts with concern — “that sounds high.” Cut to Karipidis: the public limit is 2,000 milligauss. Torre reacts again — “What happens at 2,000?” Karipidis explains that nothing happens at 2,000, that safety factors are built in. Then: at more than 50,000 milligauss you get flickers of light in the retina, and higher still, nerve stimulation. The listener now has a ruler (their ruler) to measure these numbers with. Fifty is nothing by their ruler. Then the episode turns to childhood leukemia and states, accurately, that there is a real association — but tellingly, they never give the exposure level at which that association appears. Childhood leukemia appears at three milligauss. They conveniently left that out. The pooled analyses that produced the World Health Organization’s carcinogen classification found roughly a doubling of childhood leukemia risk above three to four milligauss. That is the number that belongs in that segment, and it is more than ten times below the reading that had just been dismissed as trivial. I gave them that number myself, on tape, in the interview. Describing my own threshold, I said my comfort level for long-term chronic exposure is three to four milligauss, but preferably one. 2. Six children in thirteen million. The episode reports that these fields might explain one to four percent of childhood leukemias, then reframes it as a German estimate of perhaps six cases among thirteen million children. Torre, to his credit, is uncomfortable. What never gets explained is why that number is small. Almost no children lives above three milligauss in Europe. Fewer than two children in a hundred, in the Italian data. So even if the risk to those children doubles, the number of additional cases across an entire country stays small — not because the hazard is small, but because hardly anyone is exposed to it. Count the whole population and the few who are exposed disappear. And the reason hardly anyone is exposed is that siting rules keep housing away from transmission lines. In Europe, at least. The Dutch government has a standing precautionary policy against building new homes in any zone where the annual average magnetic field exceeds 4 milligauss — the same number the episode never mentioned. Denmark and Norway treat 4 milligauss as the level that triggers a look at mitigation. That is five hundred times below the ICNIRP figure quoted on air. The United States has no federal equivalent. That is evidence of infrastructure siting policy working. It is not evidence that there is no hazard. It is evidence that we already act as though there is one. If you listen to the raw audio you will hear that my proposed solution is EMF exposure is to build better infrastructure. What they left out about the mechanism 3. They accused me of cherry-picking, and then cherry-picked themselves. On air, Zukerman tells Torre that people who worry about electromagnetic fields dismiss the studies showing null results and collect the ones showing harm, and that this is why you have to be careful not to cherry-pick. They had two papers I had rattled off in a hurry, and a second email containing a carefully chosen set. They ran the two weakest, graded them on air, and presented the result as the state of the evidence for not only my theory, but the whole question of oxidative stress from magnetic fields. That is cherry-picking from my emails. The bigger picture is what they did with the literature as a whole. Zukerman acknowledges it exists, dismisses it, and disposes of it in a single stroke. You can go online right now, she tells Torre, and find scores of studies showing these fields increase oxidative stress. The issue, she says, is that they are not studies in people. Many of them are in people. The occupational studies in my second email are in people. That email had been in her inbox for five weeks. She waved off the literature on a factual claim that the documents in her possession contradict. (I have written separately about the evidentiary standard at work here). The effect was that they essentially baited me: ask the subject to supply the evidence, take the weakest thing he sends, and let that stand as a proxy for the whole argument. Wendy has been doing this show for ten years and clearly knows how to extract what she needs for her desired narrative. 4. They presented the collagen-improvement research as a gotcha, but I had already addressed it. The episode treats the existence of studies showing that EMF can improve collagen as a surprise that undercuts me, but I had pre-emptively addressed that five weeks earlier in the email they ignored. Those studies use measured, high-intensity pulsed dosing. The mechanism by which they work is oxidative signalling. The cell reads a controlled rise in reactive oxygen species as a warning, upregulates its antioxidant defenses, mounts a repair response, and the therapy stops before the system is overwhelmed. The key point is that it induces an oxidative response, which means those studies are actually evidence for my proposed mechanism, not against it. A field that produces a therapeutic effect cannot be biologically inert (which is the implication when they say “Nothing happens at 2,000 milligauss). Chronic ambient exposure is the same pathway with no off switch, and it is most consequential during the evening and while sleeping, when the body is in repair mode and the exposure does not stop. Section 5 of my email is titled What about the study showing improved collagen synthesis. I raised the counter-evidence myself, explained why I did not think it refuted the theory, and wrote that I was disappointed the question had not come up in the interview. That is worth holding against the cherry-picking charge in the item above: the studies they presented as inconvenient for me were studies I had gone out of my way to put in front of them. 5. Section 1 of my email stated a critical argument that was never put to the expert directly responsible for it. My email says the exposure limits exist to prevent acute effects and do not address chronic exposure at all, and that my dispute is with the entire framework. Zukerman gestures at this once. After Karipidis gives the 2,000 milligauss figure, she tells Torre that I would object because those levels do not capture “more subtle effects.” That is not my argument, and “subtle” is doing a lot of work here. My argument is that the limits are built to prevent acute effects — nerves firing, muscles twitching, etc — and were not designed to address chronic exposure at all. In fact, ICNIRP’s own documents state as much themselves. Mine is a structural objection to what the standard measures, reduced as a concern about subtlety, it becomes a matter of degree, rather than a categorical difference. They interviewed Ken Karipidis, vice chair of ICNIRP — the body that writes those limits. He was asked what the limit is, but he was never asked how it applies to chronic exposure. The scientists Science Vs interviewed and did not air 6. They interviewed four officials of the standards body. The episode credits roughly a dozen researchers. Four of them are associated with ICNIRP. Ken Karipidis is the vice chair. Rodney Croft chaired ICNIRP from 2020 to 2024 and led the development of its current guidelines. Dan Baaken is ICNIRP’s scientific secretary. Frank de Vocht sits on the Main Commission. One of them speaks in the episode. Their institution’s position is more than adequately represented — the 2,000 milligauss figure, the safety factors, the assurance that nothing happens below the line. 7. The four who were left out. Dr. Beatrice Golomb is Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego — a physics undergraduate degree, a PhD in biology, an MD. She directs a research group whose stated focus is the relationship between oxidative stress, mitochondrial function and health. That is the mechanism the episode spent its first half dismissing. Her published work includes the fluoroquinolone case series behind the FDA’s black box warning on an antibiotic class that ruptures tendons, where the accepted mechanism is oxidative stress and mitochondrial toxicity — the back half of my chain, already on a drug label. She is in the credits. She is not in the episode. She has told me she finds my theory biologically plausible, and that she has a recording of her interview. Dr. David Carpenter directed the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany for decades and is the most prominent academic voice arguing these fields cause harm. Childhood leukemia is the reason these fields carry a WHO classification at all, and Carpenter is the person you call if you want that case made by someone who has spent a career on it. He is in the credits. He is not in the episode. He has told me that when he was interviewed they could not have been less interested in what he had to say. Dr. Joel Moskowitz directs the Center for Family and Community Health at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. He told me directly that they interviewed him and that he thought it went well. He does not appear in the episode, and unlike Golomb and Carpenter, he does not even appear in the credits. Dr. Paul Héroux at McGill is the researcher whose work provides the foundation for the oxidative stress mechanism my theory rests on. I gave Rose his email address and phone number. He was never interviewed. They never even called him. 8. “He’s not a scientist.” The episode leans hard on the fact that I am not a credentialed scientist. Zukerman says it. Torre repeats it. “At all.” Having built a segment on that, they then left out the physicist-biologist-physician, the professor of public health, the director of a university environmental health institute, and the McGill researcher whose work the primary mechanism comes from. They spent the episode telling their audience I am not a scientist, and then kept four actual scientists who support the theory off because their argument does not survive otherwise. How they misrepresented me and my case 9. They played my words as a response to an interview I had never heard. Near the end of the hour, Zukerman says she went to me and told me the evidence was lacking. Then she plays me saying I am not wedded to it being an EMF, that I have staked my reputation on it needing more study, and that I am not certain of anything. That segment was placed immediately after Karipidis had finished taking the cherry-picked papers apart. It plays as a man folding under expert scrutiny. Commenters have used it against me since, but it is incorrect. Here is the sequence as it happened. I was interviewed. Karipidis was interviewed weeks later. I was never told what he said, or even who he was. I was never asked to respond to it. I did not know his name until the episode aired. That is not a simple editing decision. That is a quote from one interview, moved to follow a critique from a different interview it was not a response to, so that it would land as a concession. A friend of mine who has spent thirty years as a journalist read that sequence and called it sleazy. She is right. The full passage is reproduced in Appendix A, and it is worth reading. What airs is the preamble. Four paragraphs later I say “to directly answer your question” — and that answer, about what would change my mind if the team relocated, is not in the episode. Neither is the sentence two paragraphs on, where I say the EMF might turn out to be ten percent of the problem. I will say the underlying point again, though, because I meant it and I still do. I am not wedded to my theory that magnetic fields from the substation are contributing to the 49ers injuries. I could be wrong. What I am wedded to is the process of scientific inquiry, and the fact that we should be cautious around these exposures and we need more independently funded studies. 10. Three telling edits. They cut “I’m not a scientist” mid-sentence. What I said: “...and I am not certain of anything. I’m not a scientist. To me, I find the mechanisms compelling. I will go back to the fact that I got into this not because of the 49ers, but because of clients I was working with who suffer from EDS...” What aired: “...and that I am not certain of anything. I’m not.” The clip ends on the first two words of the sentence in which I say I am not a scientist, in an episode that spends considerable energy establishing that I am not a scientist. The full sequence is in Appendix A. They cut my own description of my work. Asked what I do, I said I run a wellness business, that I am focused on writing software to help people navigate environmental stressors, that environmental health is my focus, and that I also do independent journalism and research. What aired is the wellness business and the environmental health, with the software and the journalism removed from my own answer. The software engineering does come up later — narrated by them, as a hacker who grew up to write firmware — but my current work, in my own words, arrives as “wellness guy.” Thousands of commercial routers became home Wi-Fi. What I described: working at a wireless networking company surrounded by thousands of Wi-Fi routers, and a stress-induced health collapse afterward that working in that environment contributed to. What aired: Wi-Fi, the kind you have at home — reinforced by a clip of Christian McCaffrey talking about turning his router off at night. Three cuts, and every one of them makes me seem less credible. That is not a coincidence. 11. I gave them my own caveats and the test that would disprove me. In the first email I wrote that a well-designed chronic, ambient-level exposure study in tendon showing no collagen degradation, run over many months, would undercut my confidence in the theory. That is a specific, testable condition, stated in advance and in writing. There was a second interview, weeks later, which was not used in the episode, but in that I asked again for the falsification criterion to be included. What the episode presents instead is a man saying “we need more study,” which reads as a hedge, an open-ended request for the benefit of the doubt. It is the opposite of a hedge. Section 6 of my second email says, unprompted, that as far as I am aware there is not a single study showing EMF-driven oxidative stress degrading collagen in a human in vivo or in human tendon in a lab. I wrote that because it is true and because it is the first thing anyone should check. Under their standard it becomes the hinge of the entire first half, framed as something they had to surface without my cooperation. I had handed it to them five weeks earlier. And in the interview I said that my 25 to 50 milligauss readings were taken at knee level, and that these fields attenuate quickly, so by the time it reaches your head it is not that high anymore. That did not air either. The qualification arrives later, from Karipidis, as a correction. How you would actually study the injuries 12. They measured the wrong thing. The episode spends its final act on whether the 49ers are the most injured team in the NFL, finds no clean ranking, and lands on “injuries are random”. That is the wrong test. You would define the exposure — measured field levels at the facility — and the outcome narrowly: soft-tissue injuries, not a single MSK injury count that a broken finger and a ruptured Achilles both land in. Then you would compare the 49ers to themselves before and after the exposure changed, and compare that change against every other team over the same window. That controls for league-wide shifts in rules, turf and training load. It is a difference-in-differences design, and it is standard. I sent them that argument on July 28th, in writing, along with the fact that in eleven of the past twelve seasons the 49ers had finished top ten in Adjusted Games Lost. And by the episode’s own reporting, the 49ers are second in games lost to injury over the past decade, with FTN’s Aaron Schatz confirming that once you adjust for starters they come out second worst in the league — after having been one of the healthiest teams for years before that. A finding like that is where an investigation starts, not where it stops. 13. I did a lot of substation research for the episode that was never aired. I had reported that the substation next to the facility was expanded in 2014. That was wrong, and Rose Rimler and I sorted it out together. They gave me credit on air, which I appreciated, but framed it as a concession on my part to something they had found. In fact I had been investigating it myself, was uncertain before they asked, but was waiting for clarification from Silicon Valley Power. The uncertainty centered around a substation named “Esparanca” that was proposed right behind the facilities as part of the stadium construction, but now appears to never have been built. I spent days in Silicon Valley Power’s records, and did eventually reach Silicon Valley Power for confirmation and indentified the mistake myself. I also gave them highly detailed documents on what we do know about those facilities: new equipment installed between 2010 and 2014, and load growth across the system with an inflection around 2013–2014, with the Northern Receiving Station carrying the highest capacity in the system and sitting closest to the data center corridor. None of that is in the episode. I have a separate piece about it coming out soon. *I cut 2 seconds from the raw audio to remove personal information that had no connection to anything in the episode. Appendix A: the passage the clip was taken from This is the sequence from my first interview, in full. The episode uses one fragment of it. It’s tricky because my understanding is that there’s something like a 15-year half-life on collagen remodeling issues. They’re going to get a new crop of players. What I really need, though, is for the injuries to be broken down so we can see the soft tissue injuries. Right now, they’re categorized as MSK injuries, but let’s say we can actually identify them more specifically. Is that right? He was able to do that? Oh, cool. I wasn’t able to find that information. Interesting — I didn’t know that data existed. I tried so hard to get it, and I didn’t know it was available. Maybe you could connect me with that person. That would be amazing. I’m not wedded to it being an EMF, honestly. I’m not. I would say that, to a certain extent, I’ve staked my reputation on the fact that it needs more study. It’s important to look into it, and I am not certain of anything. I’m not a scientist. To me, I find the mechanisms compelling. I will go back to the fact that I got into this not because of the 49ers, but because of clients I was working with who suffer from EDS, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a tendon hypermobility issue. This condition is documented to be partially caused by oxidative stress. I’ve worked with them to mitigate their EMF exposure and have seen people improve. I think it’s a bigger story. In a way, the 49ers represent an occupational cluster with specific exposure risks. If someone would conduct a study on this, I believe we could learn a lot. Perhaps we would discover that it’s like, okay, maybe it’s 10% of the problem. I don’t know the exact number, but I think either way, conducting the study would provide valuable insights. To directly answer your question, it’s challenging for me because it’s part of a bigger story. If the 49ers move and stop having injuries, I might conclude that it was related to the substation. However, if they move and still experience injuries, I would want to analyze the nature of those injuries. Are they primarily soft tissue injuries? I don’t think it’s necessarily a case closed, but the story might lose traction at that point regardless. Three things are worth noting. The aired fragment stops immediately before the sentence in which I say I am not a scientist — the cut described in item 10. It also stops four paragraphs before the words “to directly answer your question.” What the episode plays is the throat-clearing. The actual answer, about what would change my mind, never airs. And two paragraphs in, I say the EMF might turn out to be ten percent of the problem. That is the ranking the episode says I never gave. Appendix B: the full email, July 6th, 1:39 PM Hi Rose, You asked me to send you some studies a couple of weeks ago. I apologize for the delay. I have been incredibly busy. I also wanted to give you a chance to dig in yourself, and get your own perspective before I influenced you too much with mine. That said, I do want to make sure that the actual argument is abundantly clear, so here it is! One note before I begin, there are really two separate questions here: Does the substation cause the soft-tissue injuries? That was my specific claim, and what the podcast is about. Is the theory biologically sound? Can 50/60 Hz fields at these levels do anything biological below the safety limits? Question two is why people have been calling me a conspiracy theorist. The regulatory and advisory bodies (ICNIRP, etc) maintain that anything below their exposure limits is biologically inert, and that position is broadly accepted within the mainstream, but the actual science paints a different picture. To defend my theory I’ve had to defend a much larger claim: that the advisory bodies have the biology wrong. I can’t honestly answer question 1 without first addressing that. Here’s is a simplified outline of my theory, with links to studies: 1. Advisory body thresholds for biological effects The ELF magnetic-field limits (ICNIRP’s ~2,000 mG public / 10,000 mG occupational) exist to prevent acute effects from exposure. If a magnetic field is strong enough, it makes nerves fire and muscles contract. Muscles twitch. You can see faint flashes of light in your vision. People can even feel tingling or even a shock. That happens due to Faraday’s law, which states that a time-varying magnetic field induces an electric field inside the body via the creation of Eddy currents.The standards assume that those currents do nothing below the twitch threshold. They do not consider chronic effects at all. My argument is that they are biologically active and do have chronic effects. 2. There are multipe ELF-EMF mechanisms for inducing oxidative stress. This is basic biophysics. Below are the two primary mechanisms. Simplest first. Dr. Paul Héroux of McGill has the most intuitive explanation, which rests on Maxwell’s principle of superposition: because Maxwell’s equations are linear, two sets of electromagnetic waves sharing the same space simply add together. In the interview I pictured a pebble dropped into a pond, sending out clean ripples. Then a boat motors past at distance, sending larger waves, and where they meet the ripples, the two add together and the original pattern gets distorted. In our cells, the mitochondria run on continuous currents of electrons and protons that carry their own faint electromagnetic fields. An external field from a substation, by the principle of superposition, adds to those internal currents and shifts the pattern. The electron transport chain in the mitochondria leaks a fraction of its electrons by design as reactive oxygen species (ROS), which act as signalling molecules in a healthy cell. Distorting that field increases that electron leakage, creating oxidative stress. A tiny electromagnetic interference results in a large downstream effect. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844025006474 The more complex pathway is Dimitris Panagopoulos’s Ion Forced-Oscillation / Voltage-Gated Ion Channel (IFO-VGIC) mechanism. Weak, polarized, low-frequency fields force the ions (calcium, potassium, sodium) next to an ion channel’s voltage sensor to oscillate; because that force scales with the inverse cube of the distance involved, fields far below the stimulation threshold can still force the channel open, disrupting the cell’s ion balance and driving ROS overproduction (Nitric oxide and superoxide interact and produce peroxynitrite, a highly unstable cytotoxin that breaks down into free radicals). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366088934 https://www.spandidos-publications.com/ijo/59/5/92 https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/18/10041 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1585441/full https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3772193/ 3. Evidence of oxidative stress, in vivo, in humans from ELF-EMF There are many studies, and the strongest are occupational, which applies to the 49ers situation. 115 power-plant workers vs. 145 office controls. Serum malondialdehyde (MDA, the standard lipid-peroxidation marker), superoxide dismutase, and catalase were all significantly higher in the exposed group, and the markers rose with increasing field exposure. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3233/WOR-203244 A follow-up where they reversed the oxidative stress in power plant workers. A double-blind randomized controlled trial: 91 power-plant workers given vitamin E, vitamin C, both, or placebo for 90 days. The antioxidant groups showed reduced lipid peroxidation and raised antioxidant capacity versus controls. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32191586/ A spot-welder study: 46 welders occupationally exposed at 50 Hz, showed significantly altered red-blood-cell antioxidant enzyme activity and concluded ELF-MF “might act as an oxidative stressor… even at the recommended levels of exposure.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18504600/ A substation-specific study found oxidative stress and DNA damage https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24460415/ 4. Oxidative stress degrades collagen This half isn’t controversial at all. Oxidative stress activates the matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) that break collagen down and suppresses its synthesis. Here are three example studies: Siwik et al. 2001: Oxidative stress raises MMPs and lowers collagen synthesis in cardiac fibroblasts. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11121376/ Fisher et al. 2009: Collagen fragmentation drives oxidative stress and elevates MMP-1 in aged human skin. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2631323/ Varani et al. 2006: Decreased collagen production in oxidatively aged skin. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16723701/ 5. What about the study showing improved collagen synthesis I’m glad you asked this question, and I’m bummed we didn’t get to it in the interview because it is a great question, and very important to understand. Superficially it may appear to be a refutation of my theory, but I would argue that it actually supports the underlying argument. That study used a short, high-intensity pulsed dose: therapeutic-PEMF, the same type of field used clinically to stimulate bone and tissue healing. The reason this works is because it triggers the very same biological pathways that can lead to oxidative stress. The exposure still stimulates ROS production, but done at a controlled dosage, for a limited duration it has a different effect. The cell reads the ROS as a warning signal and it upregulates its antioxidant defenses, and mounts a repair/proliferation response. The therapy is then stopped before the cell gets overwhelmed. That is essentially a hormetic response: a small dose of a stressor producing a beneficial adaptation. Two things follow: At the very least, this means the field is biologically active, which by itself undercuts the regulatory claim that these fields are inert below their thresholds. There is a wealth of literature on PEMF (pulsed EMF) bone regeneration and calcium channel signalling (which is the second mechanims in section one). Here is one. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep13856 At best, it leads us straight to my actual concern, which is that under chronic, chaotic and unregulated exposure, the cell’s antioxidant capacity gets overwhelmed, resulting in oxidative stress. There are plentiful examples of things that are beneficial at controlled doses, but harmful at uncontrolled doses. Excecise is one obvious, uncontroversial example. Botox is perhaps a more interesting example. 6. What about a study that shows EMF causing collagen degradation in humans? As far as I am aware there is not a single study showing EMF-driven oxidative stress degrading collagen in a human, in vivo, or in human tendon in a lab. There are studies involving isolated fibroblasts though, which secrete collagen. The most relevant one showed that human fetal scleral fibroblasts exposed to 50 Hz ELF-EMF showed a significant decrease in collagen synthesis and that MMP-2 expression was upregulated, which is the exact mechanism I described in section 2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3626379/ That’s it! Thanks again for the interview. Best, Peter Anthony Cowan Environmental Health · Wellness Tech · Researcher & Journalist Publisher & Editor, Living Energy Bio: petercowan.comSocial: X · Instagram · TikTokApp: sunlightis.lifePhone: [redacted]
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Duncan Sheik, 'Spring Awakening' composer and pop star, dies at 56
Sheik had been best known for his lasting radio hit "Barely Breathing" when he turned his sights on Broadway
Duncan Sheik, 'Spring Awakening' composer and pop star, dies at 56
Sheik had been best known for his lasting radio hit "Barely Breathing" when he turned his sights on Broadway
Duncan Sheik, 'Spring Awakening' composer and pop star, dies at 56
Sheik had been best known for his lasting radio hit "Barely Breathing" when he turned his sights on Broadway
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Duncan Sheik, Tony- and Grammy-winning 'Spring Awakening' composer and pop star, dies at 56
Tony- and Grammy-winning musician Duncan Sheik has died at 56 | WWL
Duncan Sheik, Tony- and Grammy-winning ‘Spring Awakening’ composer and pop star, dies at 56
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Duncan Sheik attends 'The Broadway Legacy Foundation Launch' at the Broadway Museum on November 11, 2025 in New York City. (Santiago Felipe/Getty Images)Duncan Sheik, the Tony Award-winning composer behind Spring Awakening and more, has died, according to his Instagram. He was 56.The Friday morning Instagram post said the "father, husband, son, brother, and friend" died on Thursday night "surrounded by love."A message shared on Sheik's Instagram earlier this week by his family said he was "receiving medical care" and was "in critical but stable condition.""The world has a lost a singular talent, and deeply influential voice in music and theater," Friday's statement said. "From his Grammy-nominated hit “Barely Breathing” to his groundbreaking, Tony and Grammy Award-winning work on Spring Awakening, Duncan’s artistry touched many and leaves an indelible mark on the cultural landscape."Born on Nov. 18, 1969, in Montclair, New Jersey, Sheik rose to fame in 1996 when he released his self-titled debut album, which included his hit song, "Barely Breathing."The song peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and earned him a Grammy nomination for best male pop vocal performance.Following his debut album, he released Humming in 1998, Phantom Moon in 2001 and Daylight in 2002.While "Barely Breathing" established Sheik as a singer-songwriter, his career later expanded into musical theater, where he found success as a composer.Sheik collaborated with lyricist Steven Sater and composed the music for Spring Awakening, which opened on Broadway in 2006.He told Broadcast Music, Inc. in 2015 that around the time he was making the music for Spring Awakening, he wasn't "a huge fan" of music that was happening on Broadway and he wanted to make the music for an audience "beyond the normal crowd that would go to a Broadway musical."The rock musical, based on Frank Wedekind's 1891 play and starring Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, John Gallagher and Skylar Astin, became a major success. It won eight Tony Awards in 2007, including best musical, best original score and best orchestrations.He went on to compose music for several other stage productions, including American Psycho and Because of Winn-Dixie. He also collaborated with Sater again on Alice by Heart and The Secret Life of Bees.In his interview with Broadcast Music, Inc., he added that working on musical theater has "helped broaden my palette."Sheik went on to release several more albums throughout his career, including White Limousine, Whisper House, Covers 80s, Legerdemain and Claptrap.In May, it was announced that Sheik's new musical, Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen, would make its off-Broadway debut this fall. The musical is based on Moyoco Anno's manga graphic novel of the same name.An off-Broadway revival of Spring Awakening is also set to open this fall. Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
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