Watching a whole bunch of smut has some major side effects — and no, we're not just talking about stained bedsheets.
In a new study published in the <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2025.1477914/full">journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience</a>, researchers at the Chengdu Medical College in China found that people who watch a lot of pornography had lower cognitive performance and showed signs of neurological arousal akin to opioid addiction.
It's new data in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-watching-porn-bad-for-your-health-we-asked-5-experts-140550">swirling debate</a> over whether watching porn — or <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/202010/how-much-time-does-the-world-spend-watching-porn">how much</a> — affects <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8080450/">cognition</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1743609522000297">emotional regulation</a>, and <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8362880/">our relationships</a>. The battle has raged on for years in academic journals, but has gained increasing prominence as a divisive <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/13/project-2025-porn">political</a> and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/anti-porn-influencers-oppenheimer-1234811712/">social issue</a> in recent years (complicating matters further, there's a <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/masturbation-side-effects">broad medical consensus</a> that masturbation is healthy.)
The Chengdu researchers are squarely in the "porn sucks" category with this study. Using an experimental cohort of 21 heterosexual, mostly male college students — 16 who said in a survey they only watch adult content on occasion, and five who were described as having a "severe" internet porn addiction — the team used a brain imaging technique to measure how the habit was affecting cognition.
Known as functional near-infrared spectroscopy or fNIRS, this imaging method looks at brain activity by shining a near-infrared light through the scalp and seeing how much of its light is absorbed by the hemoglobin in the brain.
Using a fitted fNIRS cap and additional instruments that recorded facial expressions and vital signs, the researchers looked at the brain and body feedback coming from those 21 college students while they watched a 10-minute-long X-rated clip. Before and after the viewing session — in which the participants were asked to not masturbate, we should note — the students performed tests designed to measure cognitive function.
The brain readings of the two groups turned out to be vastly different. The occasional porn watchers exhibited stronger neural connectivity in brain regions related to language, movement, and sensory processing. And the "gooners," to use <a href="https://www.them.us/story/what-is-gooning-and-is-anyone-actually-doing-it">cultural parlance</a> for people who are seriously hooked on erotica, had heightened connectivity in regions related to executive function, addiction, and emotional regulation.
The gooner squad also showed higher emotional and physiological arousal than their less-porn-watching counterparts, and their facial expressions when watching the clip showed a wide variety of emotions ranging from happiness to anger — though strangely, the study also found they appeared more "numb" than the lower-frequency group. In sum, the study suggests, the effects were similar to opioid users who experience intense calm, euphoria, and blurry perception.
Physiologically, there were similarities between both groups during the viewing sessions — but the changes exhibited were often more dramatic in the gooners. Both groups had lowered heart rates during the session, but the effect was more pronounced in the more dedicated smut consumers. The same was true for the lowered cognitive performance both groups showed post-porn, which declined more steeply in the high-frequency porn watchers.
These results aren't entirely surprising. A <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8080450/">2021 study</a> found that problematic porn watchers suffer deficits in everything from working memory and decision-making to inhibition control and attention span; a <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1874574">2014 paper</a> found reductions in gray matter volume associated with consuming adult content.
Though there will obviously need to be more and larger studies to figure out what's going on physically and neurologically with gooners, this research seems to demystify porn's effects on frequent watchers — not to mention an interesting new datapoint in the debate over the seriousness of porn addiction, too.
More on porn: <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-vaccines-ai-slop">Government Website Caught Hosting "Gay Impregnation" Content</a>

Brain Drain

Neuroscience/Brain Science

This is worth reading.

Scientists Scanned the Brains of Hardcore Gooners and Found Something Ominous

A solar firm in Minnesota is suing Google for defamation after the tech giant's <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-overviews-still-2024">shoddy AI Overviews</a> feature allegedly made up wild lies about the company — and significantly hurt its business as a result.
"This lawsuit is not just about defending our company's reputation; it's about standing up for fairness, truth, and accountability in the age of artificial intelligence," Nicholas Kasprowicz, general counsel for the solar company, Wolf River Electric, said <a href="https://finance-commerce.com/2025/06/wolf-river-electric-google-ai-defamation-lawsuit/">in a statement</a>.
First filed in a state court in March, the lawsuit was transferred to a federal court this week after Google filed for a removal, the <a href="https://www.startribune.com/google-ai-overview-lawsuit-defamation-great-river-electric/601371780">Minnesota Star Tribune reported</a>. 
It's generally uncharted legal territory. Can a company be held responsible when its AI spreads harmful misinformation? If so, it could represent a huge inflection point as AI companies have long tried to duck liability for the outputs spouted by their large language models.
"This might be one of the first cases where we actually get to see how the courts are going to really dig down and apply the basic principles of defamation law to AI," Ari Cohn, lead counsel for tech policy at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2025/06/17/what-to-do-when-an-ai-lies-about-you-00410599">told </a><a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2025/06/17/what-to-do-when-an-ai-lies-about-you-00410599">Politico</a>.
What Google's AI allegedly made up is clearly serious enough to put customers off, and appeared when searching "Wolf River Electric lawsuit" on the search engine, which is a plausible query for a potential customer looking into the background of someone they're about to do business with.
Per the suit, as quoted by the Star Tribune, the AI feature confidently fibbed that Wolf River Electric was facing a lawsuit from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for "deceptive sales practices," like lying to customers about savings, and tricking homeowners into signing contracts with hidden fees.
Ever the diligent researcher, the Google AI cited four links to back up its claims: two news articles (including at the Star Tribune), a statement from the state's AG, and Angie's List. None of these made any mention of a lawsuit against Wolf River. Per Politico, some of the links mentioned that other solar companies were being sued, but there was nothing about the plaintiffs. Errors like these are well documented: Google's AI is easily tricked into inventing and then elaborately explaining <a style="font-weight: 400;" href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-overviews-fake-idioms">fake idioms</a>, when it's not busy <a style="font-weight: 400;" href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-glue-pizza">recommending putting glue on your pizza</a>.
Google denied the defamation allegations in a filing last week, and brushed off what happened as a harmless mishap. What's losing a few potential customers when they're building amazing AI that's going to save the world?
"The vast majority of our AI Overviews are accurate and helpful but like with any new technology, mistakes can happen," Google said in a statement to Politico. "As soon as we found out about the problem, we acted quickly to fix it."
When you're not a trillion-dollar monolith, however, lies can be pretty costly. Wolf River said that several of its customers cancelled their contracts — some worth as much as $150,000 — because of what they read in the Google AI Overviews.
There's a silver lining, however: all that lost business may be some of the strongest evidence yet for proving AI-related defamation in court.
"Wolf River Electric claims they've got the receipts," UCLA Law professor Eugene Volokh told Politico. "They've got what a lot of people who've been libeled have a hard time proving."
Also in the solar company's favor is that it likely isn't well-known enough to count as a public figure, Politico noted, meaning that the bar for proving defamation is lower. Wolf Electric doesn't have to demonstrate there was "actual malice" involved, and instead merely needs to show that Google was negligent.
It's far from an open and shut case, but it has the makings of a strong one. According to the Star Tribune, Wolf Electric is seeking significant damages of $110 million to $210 million.
"No corporation, regardless of its size or market dominance, should be permitted to release powerful AI tools that generate and spread false information without proper oversight or consequences," Kasprowicz said.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/televised-love-declaration-chatgpt">Nation Cringes as Man Goes on TV to Declare That He's in Love With ChatGPT</a>

Pants on Fire

When an AI "hallucination" becomes defamation.

Solar Company Sues Google for Giving Damaging Information in AI Overviews

It's not written by humans, it's written by AI. It's not useful, it's slop. It's not hard to find, it's everywhere you look.
As AI-generated text is becoming increasingly ubiquitous on the internet, some distinctive linguistic patterns are starting to emerge — maybe more so than anything else, that pattern of negating statements typified by "<a href="https://x.com/alliekmiller/status/1908199383868625303">it's not X, it's Y</a>."
Once you notice it, you start to see it everywhere. One teacher on Reddit even noticed that certain AI phrase structures are making the jump into spoken language.
"Comments and essays (I'm a teacher) are the obvious culprits, but I've straight up noticed the 'that's not X, it's [Y]' structure being said out loud more often than it used to be in video essays and other similar content," they <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1lczwg9/its_gotten_to_the_point_where_i_notice_chatgpts/">wrote</a>.
It's a fascinating observation that makes a striking amount of AI-generated text easily identifiable. It also raises some interesting questions about how AI chatbot tech is informing the way we speak — and how certain stylistic choices, like the em-dash in this very sentence, are becoming looked down upon for resembling the output of a large language model.
"Now I know that linguistic style existed before GPT, and it was common enough, but now I just can't unsee or unhear it," the Reddit user wrote, saying they now "assume AI was involved" when they see it.
"Makes me grimace just a bit on the inside," they added.
Others quickly chimed in, agreeing and riffing on the phenomenon.
"You're not just seeing it  — you're saying something," one user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1lczwg9/comment/my4ip6u/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">wrote</a> in a tongue-in-cheek comment, imitating ChatGPT. "And that's not illusion — that's POWER."
"It's almost as if AI use is becoming the preferred way of communication," another user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1lczwg9/comment/my4ikqy/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">commented</a>. "It's not just frustrating — it's insulting."
Beyond a prolific use of em-dashes, which have quickly become a telltale sign of AI-generated text, others <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1lczwg9/comment/my4i2mb/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">pointed out</a> the abundant use of emojis, including green checkboxes and a red X.
It's a particularly pertinent topic now that the majority of students are <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-destroying-generation-students">owning up</a> to using tools like ChatGPT to generate essays or do their homework. Even <a href="https://futurism.com/teachers-ai-grade-students">teachers are using</a> the tech for grading, closing the loop on a trend that experts warn could prove incredibly destructive in the field of education.
Tech companies have <a href="https://futurism.com/we-tested-openais-new-ai-detector-and-uhhhhh">struggled</a> to come up with trustworthy and effective AI detection tools, more often than not leaving educators to their own devices.
And the stakes are as high as they've ever been. The internet is <a href="https://futurism.com/internet-polluted-ai-slop">being flooded with AI slop</a>, drowning out text that's actually being authored by a human.
AI's oddly stunted use of language isn't surprising. After all, large language models are trained on enormous training datasets and employ mad-libs style tricks to calculate the probability of each sequential word.
In other words, LLMs are imitators of human speech and attempt to form sentences that are most likely to be appreciated by the person writing the prompts, <a href="https://futurism.com/sycophancy-chatbots-ai-problem">sometimes to an absurd degree</a>.
It's an unnerving transition to a different — and <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-industry-problem-smarter-hallucinating">consistently error-laden</a> — way of writing that simply doesn't mesh with the messiness of human language. It's gotten to the point where <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/professors-alarmed-ai-undergrads">teachers have become incredibly wary</a> of submitted work that sounds too polished.
To many, it's enough to call for messier writing to quell a surge in low-effort AI slop.
"GPT is always going to sound polished," one Reddit user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1lczwg9/comment/my4uckj/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">offered</a>. "It’s a machine that rewards coherence, which is why incoherence has never been more precious."
"We need the rough edges," they added. "The voice cracks. The unexpected pause. The half-formed metaphor that never quite lands. Because that’s how you can tell a human is still in there, pushing back."
More on AI chatbots: <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-chatbots-summarizing-research">AI Chatbots Are Becoming Even Worse At Summarizing Data</a>

AI is Mightier Than the Pen

It's not useful, it's slop.

Once You Notice ChatGPT's Weird Way of Talking, You Start to See It Everywhere

Two satellites just carefully lined up to form a perfect "<a href="https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Proba-3/Proba-3_s_first_artificial_solar_eclipse">artificial total solar eclipse</a>" in orbit.
Earlier this year, the two probes, which are part of the European Space Agency's Proba-3 mission, positioned themselves in a perfect line 492 feet apart to have one of them perfectly obfuscate the Sun's rays.
Impressively, they were able to maintain their position with an accuracy down to the millimeter.
The outermost satellite then snapped fascinating pictures of the Sun's corona, the outermost part of our star's atmosphere, something that's generally speaking only possible during a natural solar eclipse.
The first "Occulter" satellite's 4.6-foot disc cast a three-inch shadow onto the Association of Spacecraft for Polarimetric and Imaging Investigation of the Corona of the Sun (ASPIICS) instrument mounted to the second "Coronagraph" satellite, allowing it to get an uninterrupted view of the Sun's corona.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-354445" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/06/Proba-3_Occulter_eclipsing_Sun_for_Coronagraph_spacecraft_pillars-1200x849.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="849" />
The spectacular satellite dance could give researchers new ways to study solar wind, or the continuous flow of particles from the Sun. It could also give them new views of coronal mass ejections, powerful explosions of plasma and magnetic fields that have <a href="https://www.space.com/astronomy/sun/powerful-solar-flare-erupts-from-sun-triggering-radio-blackouts-across-north-america-video">been linked</a> to radio blackouts and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/solar-storm-shut-down-farm-equipment">GPS outages</a> here on Earth.
"It is exciting to see these stunning images validate our technologies in what is now the world’s first precision formation flying mission," said ESA director of technology Dietmar Pilz in a <a href="https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Proba-3/Proba-3_s_first_artificial_solar_eclipse">statement</a>.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-354444" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/06/Solar_corona_viewed_by_Proba-3_s_ASPIICS_pillars-1200x1200.png" alt="" width="1200" height="1200" />
Researchers behind the stunt are excited to gather even more images and data of the Sun's corona.
"I was absolutely thrilled to see the images, especially since we got them on the first try," ASPIICS principal investigator Andrei Zhukov added. "Now we are working on extending the observation time to six hours in every orbit."
"Each full image — covering the area from the occulted Sun all the way to the edge of the field of view – is actually constructed from three images," he explained. "Combining the three images gives us the full view of the corona."
Best of all, Zhukov and his colleagues found that the satellites' "'artificial eclipse' images are comparable with those taken during a natural eclipse."
"The difference is that we can create our eclipse once every 19.6-hour orbit," he added, "while total solar eclipses only occur naturally around once, very rarely twice a year."
Scientists are already excited about the glut of new observations that could greatly enhance existing research into the Sun's atmosphere, including efforts to use computer simulations to predict future patterns.
"This huge flow of observations will help refine computer models further as we compare and adjust variables to match the real images," said ESA space weather modeling coordinator Jorge Amaya in the statement.
More on solar eclipses: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-rover-eclipse-mars">Here's What NASA's Rovers See During an Eclipse on Mars</a>

Faking an Eclipse

Why wait for the next solar eclipse if we can create them ourselves?

Scientists Line Up Satellites to Create "Artificial Total Solar Eclipse"

Since 2022, anyone who calls 988 — the US' nation-wide suicide and crisis hotline — has had the option to dial 3 to speak to a counselor trained to help LGBTQ youth.
After July 17, however, this specialized extension will no longer exist.
Yesterday, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) <a href="https://www.samhsa.gov/about/news-announcements/statements/2025/samhsa-statement-988-press-3-option">announced</a> it would discontinue funding for the "LGB+" hotline, pointedly omitting the "T" that stands for "transgender." That statement coincided with a stop-work order issued to <a href="https://www.thetrevorproject.org/blog/trump-administration-orders-termination-of-national-lgbtq-youth-suicide-lifeline-effective-july-17th/">The Trevor Project</a>, one of seven nonprofits contracted to provide specialized counseling to minors, according to <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/maggieastor.bsky.social/post/3lrv67o6pw227">New York Times reporter Maggie Astor</a>.
Per SAMHSA, "press 3 services" have received $33 million in annual public funding, which is now being subsumed into the overall 988 budget.
This is being done, the administration says, "to focus on serving all help seekers, [emphasis in original] including those previously served through the Press 3 option."
Notably, the "press 3" provision is absent from the Health and Human Services <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/fy-2026-budget-in-brief.pdf">2026 budget proposal</a>, along with other <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250618183023/https://www.fcc.gov/988-suicide-and-crisis-lifeline">specialized hotlines</a> like the Veterans Crisis Lifeline — currently "dial 1" — or the American Sign Language videophone connection. However, the LGBTQ extension is the only one SAMHSA released an explicit statement about.
That's a rather telling gesture by the Trump administration, which has wasted no time <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-sign-orders-ending-diversity-programs-proclaiming-there-are-only-two-sexes-2025-01-20/">rolling back protections</a> for LGBTQ people, <a href="https://19thnews.org/2025/03/trump-anti-trans-executive-orders/">mandating discrimination</a>, and setting <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/trumps-hhs-urges-therapy-for-transgender-youth-departing-from-broader-gender-affirming-health-care">dangerous standards</a> for transgender healthcare.
Given that the press 3 funding still goes to 988 anyway, it's difficult to paint this as anything other than a targeted move against LGBTQ youth, directly from the nation's top political leadership.
According to a <a href="https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/press-releases/baldwin-warren-markey-merkley-blast-trump-plan-to-cut-988-suicide-and-crisis-line-for-lgbtq-youth">joint statement</a> from Democratic senators, the LGBTQ youth hotline has been contacted well over 1.2 million times in its three short years of operation. With that kind of volume, it's hard to deny there's an urgent need for specialized crisis counseling — especially given that nearly <a href="https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2024/">40 percent</a> of LGBTQ youth struggled with suicidal thoughts in 2024.
While there's never a great time to cut off programs that save children's lives, the Trump administration's moves come as LGBTQ people experience a huge uptick in dangerous and discriminatory incidents compared to previous years.
The Gay &amp; Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation <a href="https://glaad.org/2025-alert-desk/">recently noted</a>, for instance, that the number of anti-LGBTQ incidents including assault, harassment, bomb threats, and arson in the US skyrocketed from 521 between 2022 and 2023 to 932 in 2024 and 2025.
Contrary to the Trump administration's feelings, incidents like these have been found to <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4144327/">greatly intensify</a> the need for specialized crisis services.
In that vein, it's probably no shock that the people committing these crimes are increasingly incited by the rise in <a href="https://futurism.com/meta-lgbtq-hate-speech">hateful rhetoric</a> circulating online. Since 2022, GLAAD told Futurism that 242 perpetrators referenced "<a href="https://glaad.org/gender-ideology-definition-meaning-anti-lgbt-online-hate/">gender ideology</a>" in their attacks, while 517 mentioned false allegations of child abuse, or "<a href="https://glaad.org/groomer-definition-meaning-anti-lgbt-online-hate/">grooming</a>."
Even on its own, that hateful rhetoric has consequences, and has been found to directly relate to increases in the <a href="https://csw.utk.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-relationship-between-violent-political-rhetoric-and-suicide-rates.pdf">LGBTQ suicide rate</a>. As one anonymous person testified to GLAAD, "I, being a part of the community, feel horrible seeing this kind of thing, knowing that the world is becoming a worse, intolerant place, where I might suffer violence on the streets because people are being increasingly encouraged to hate the LGBT+ community."
"It is unconscionable to rip lifesaving help away from LGBTQ youth, during Pride month, and in the midst of unprecedented anti-LGBTQ attacks," said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD in a statement. "LGBTQ youth, just like all youth, deserve to receive competent care when they reach out for help."
GLAAD and The Trevor Project both note that specialized crisis counseling <a href="https://www.thetrevorproject.org/Get-Help/">remains available</a> around the clock, every day of the year, regardless of the government's rollback.
More on Trump: <a href="https://futurism.com/noaa-stop-tracking-weather-disasters">NOAA Will Stop Tracking Weather Disasters Because Trump Doesn't Believe in Climate Change</a>

Dial Tone

The number you have dialed has been disconnected.

Trump Admin Shut Down Suicide Hotline for LGBTQ Youth

<h2>Left on Bead</h2>
Over half a century ago, Apollo astronauts encountered something surprising littering the desolate lunar surface: a vast number of tiny orange beads.
As <a href="https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-moon-is-covered-in-tiny-orange-glass-beads-now-we-know-why">Universe Today reports</a>, scientists have long proposed that these beads, each smaller than a grain of sand, date back to over three billion years ago, when volcanic eruptions on the now-inert natural satellite were still commonplace.
The theory goes that material launched up by lunar volcanoes would solidify into tiny drops in the freezing vacuum of space, surviving without any erosion or weather for billions of years.
Decades later, researchers have now used high-tech microscopic techniques to get a much more detailed look at these tiny orange beads.
Using electron microscopy, X-ray spectroscopy, and a host of other techniques, the team found that each glass bead tells a different story, fleshing out a geologically active history rife with violent volcano explosions.
"We’ve had these samples for 50 years, but we now have the technology to fully understand them," said Ryan Ogliore, Washington University professor of physics and coauthor of a paper set to be published in the journal Icarus, in a <a href="https://mcss.wustl.edu/news/why-moon-shimmers-shiny-glass-beads">press release</a>. "Many of these instruments would have been unimaginable when the beads were first collected."
<h2>Mooncano</h2>
Ogliore also found that some of the beads are reminiscent of natural processes that take place on Earth.
"The very existence of these beads tells us the Moon had explosive eruptions, something like the fire fountains you can see in Hawaii today," Ogliore said.
However, their shape, color, and chemical composition are unsurprisingly completely different thanks to their extraterrestrial origin.
The team had to go to great lengths to make these measurements. Since the tiny Apollo samples can easily react with oxygen and other elements in Earth's atmosphere, the researchers had to protect them from air exposure at every step.
But thanks to their detailed analysis, the history of our planet's satellite is slowly coming into focus.
The research tells a complex story of the Moon's evolution, "like reading the journal of an ancient lunar volcanologist," according to Ogliore.
More on the Moon: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trillion-dollars-platinum-extracted-moon-craters">Scientists Say There's Over a Trillion Dollars of Platinum Waiting to Be Extracted From the Moon's Craters</a>

Volcanic Spittle

The Moon may look gray, but up close it's a whole 'nother story.

Scientists Investigating Small Orange Objects Coating Surface of the Moon

Novo Nordisk, the Danish company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, made one very dumb decision a few years ago that's now poised to massively eat into its profits — a wild twist in the pharma company's saga, and an all-time cautionary tale for its peers.
When watching an interview with the head of generic drugmaker Sandoz, <a href="https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/novo-nordisk-s-canadian-mistake">Science magazine columnist Derek Lowe</a> learned something incredible: that Novo failed to renew its Canadian patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in the uber-expensive drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.
Speaking to the <a href="https://endpoints.news/qa-sandoz-ceo-talks-generic-glp-1s-trumps-tariffs-mark-cubans-company/">biopharma industry outlet Endpoints News</a> earlier this month, Sandoz CEO Richard Saynor dropped the information as an aside in a larger conversation about the company's plans to sell generic semaglutide in Canada in 2026 — the same year that Novo's patent expires there due to the filing oversight.
"Canada, we filed and are waiting for approval once the data exclusivity expires sometime in Q1 next year," Saynor told Endpoints. "Interesting market. Novo never filed a patent in Canada."
Saynor, to be clear, was not quite correct in saying Novo never filed for a semaglutide patent in Canada — but the truth of the matter is actually way funnier.
Lowe learned, via trawling through <a href="https://brevets-patents.ic.gc.ca/opic-cipo/cpd/eng/patent/2601784/summary.html">Canadian patent records</a>, that Novo last filed to renew its semaglutide patent in the great white north back in the year 2018. When the regulatory body that governs patents reminded the Danish manufacturer that it was time to pay the annual maintenance fee, a paltry $250, Novo hemmed and hawed about whether it wanted to pay for so long that it quite literally lapsed.
Incredibly the Canadian patent office even gave the company a year-long grace period to make up for it, but the company never took the authorities up on the offer.
"Once a patent has lapsed," the Canadian patent officials reminded Novo Nordisk in a letter viewed by Lowe, "it cannot be revived."
As the Sandoz CEO remarked in his Endpoints interview, there's little doubt that "someone's lost their job" over the patent problem in Canada. Indeed, Saynor described that country as Novo's second-largest semaglutide market, and Ozempic sales in Canada garnered the pharma giant <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/06/17/novo-nordisk-ozempic-wegovy-semaglutide-canada-patent-protection-fee/">$2.5 billion CAD last year</a>.
"You gotta ask why. I don’t think Canadians are disproportionately large," Saynor said. "There’s clearly a dynamic, like insulin, with cross-border business. It’s going to be interesting to see how that evolves."
Novo has, notably, kept up with its patent fees in the US, and generic semaglutide won't hit American shelves until at least 2032 — but as Saynor alluded to, they might be able to drive up to Canada to get it next year.
More on Ozempic: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/mcdonalds-ozempic">McDonald's in Trouble as Ozempic Takes Hold</a>

Losing Game

Rx/Medicines

It's going to lose billions.

Something Comically Bad Just Happened to the Inventor of Ozempic

Hunting for <a href="https://futurism.com/dark-matter-signal-axion-detector">dark matter</a>, the invisible substance thought to account for 85 percent of all mass in the cosmos, isn't easy. If it interacts with light at all, it does so incredibly weakly. Still, we can see its handiwork everywhere, with its gravitational pull determining the formation of everything from whole galaxies to individual stars.
Now a team of astronomers is proposing a new technique for searching for dark matter — and it runs counter to its reputation as a completely invisible, light-inert presence haunting the universe. 
In a <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.141001">recent study</a> published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the astronomers raise the possibility that clumps of the mysterious stuff could actually be acting as "lampshades" around stars, dimming their light just enough to be detectable by our present-day telescopes.
"While we usually say dark matter does not interact with light at all, making it totally transparent and invisible, the truth is, it is allowed to interact with light a tiny bit," coauthor Melissa Diamond at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, <a href="https://www.space.com/astronomy/dark-matter-lampshades-dimming-stars-could-solve-one-of-the-greatest-scientific-mysteries">told Space.com</a>.
"Dark matter might form large clumps or clouds, often called MACHOs," she continued. "There may be enough dark matter in these MACHOs that their weak interactions with light collectively block light from passing through the cloud, like how a lampshade blocks some but not all light from getting through."
What dark matter actually is remains a mystery despite being a cornerstone of modern cosmology, but there are <a href="https://futurism.com/new-form-dark-matter">several strong candidates</a>. The prevailing theory is that it's made of a hypothetical class of particles called weakly interacting massive particles, or <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/earth-swimming-dark-matter">WIMPs</a>, which neither emit nor absorb light, don't interact with standard baryonic matter, and are slow and heavy enough to exert a powerful gravitational influence while clumping together. So far, experiments to detect WIMPs have been unsuccessful.
For this latest study, the researchers explore another dark matter suspect called massive astrophysical compact halo objects, or MACHOs. Unlike other candidates, MACHOs are hypothesized, rather conveniently, to comprise ordinary matter. They aren't a substance hitherto unknown to science, but a hodgepodge of well-studied cosmic objects like ultra-dense neutron stars or black holes. Since these objects typically give off little to no light, that would explain why they go undetected by our telescopes, especially if they're isolated in the outskirts of their galaxy. Another key point is that MACHOs don't have to be the only type of dark matter out there — maybe it's a mix of WIMPs and other candidates.
Astronomers have reported detections of MACHOs using a technique called gravitational <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trillions-rogue-planets-wandering-galaxy">microlensing</a>. When the light from a background source is warped by the gravity of a massive object — like a MACHO — it gets bent in such a way that it acts like a natural lens, brightening the light. But this has its drawbacks. If the intervening object isn't massive enough, or if its matter is spread too thinly, then its lensing effect may be too slight to notice, Diamond explained.
"This is where the lampshade effect can make a big difference," she told Space.com. "While the clump might be too puffy to make for a good lens, it can still block some starlight, causing the star to dim instead of brightening."
"The advantage of this technique is that it works for dark matter objects that are difficult or impossible to search for using available techniques," she added.
And we can actually start looking for these lampshades now using surveys already available to us, like the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment — no new telescopes required.
"This technique lets us get new use out of existing data, and lets us look for new types of MACHOs that microlensing surveys might not otherwise be sensitive to," Diamond told Space.com.
What makes this so exciting is that if these lampshade detections are borne out by the evidence, we'd gain a stronger idea of dark matter is, Diamond said. And if they aren't made, then we've narrowed down the list of dark matter candidates. As it stands, <a style="font-weight: 400;" href="https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/what-dark-matter-is-probably-not?language_content_entity=und">MACHO skeptics argue</a> we haven't seen enough of these objects out there to account for all of dark matter.
More on space: <a href="https://futurism.com/james-webb-haze-pluto">James Webb Peers Into Mysterious Haze Covering Pluto</a>

Throwing Shade

Wait... is there something out there?

Astronomers Suggest That Entire Stars Are Being Obscured by Giant "Lampshades" of Dark Matter

During a recent exchange on "Real Time with Bill Maher," risk analyst Ian Bremmer argued that artificial intelligence has basically eviscerated the "<a href="https://mashable.com/article/ai-taking-new-graduates-entry-level-jobs">learn to code</a>" cottage industry.
When discussing the way AI has swept the world and taken many white collar jobs with it, Bremmer referenced how rapidly the technology has overtaken the traditional career trajectory for programmers — so much so that people who used to have cushy software developer jobs are now <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/laid-off-tech-worker-sell-blood">selling their plasma</a> to make ends meet.
"Just five years ago, the smartest advice that we had for the kids was 'learn how to code,'" Bremmer recollected. "That is literally worse advice now than 'get a face tattoo.' You can't do worse than learn to code."
Indeed, in its <a href="https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major">latest labor market report</a>, the New York Federal Reserve found that recent college graduates who majored in computer science or computer engineering have higher rates of unemployment than those who studied journalism, political science, and even English.
Overall, computer science majors had the seventh-highest rate of unemployment at 6.1 percent, and computer engineering majors had the third-highest at 7.5 percent, per the New York Fed. Compared to the overall recent graduate unemployment rate of 5.8 percent, that's an embarrassing reversal indeed — especially for a field that was once considered a safe and lucrative bet for prospective students.
During the lively discussion, Bremmer's fellow guest, historian and author Rutger Bregman invoked a popular silver lining talking point about AI hoovering up white collar jobs: that ultimately, capitalists will "come up with new bullsh*t jobs" for people who lost work to the technology.
In the wake of so many tech layoffs, the new adage is now "learn AI" — but as tech founder Joe Procopio wrote in an <a href="https://www.inc.com/joe-procopio/learn-ai-is-learn-to-code-all-over-again/91154304">Inc magazine column</a> earlier this year, that advice probably about as effective long-term as "learn to code."
"We’ve already inadvertently created a class of 'AI talent' that knows how to code with GitHub Copilot," the serial entrepreneur and advisor wrote. "This is not going to create better code for better apps for better business outcomes."
Instead, as Procopio aptly noted, "it’s doing a great job creating AI slop but with code — just like 'Learn To Code' created a workforce of terrible coders, who are now easy targets to be replaced by AI slop coders."
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"Damn this vicious cycle," he concluded.
More on AI and labor: <a href="https://futurism.com/computer-science-majors-high-unemployment-rate">"Learn to Code" Backfires Spectacularly as Comp-Sci Majors Suddenly Have Sky-High Unemployment</a>
</div>

Code Not

"You can't do worse than learn to code."

Risk Expert Says "Learn to Code" Is Now Worse Advice Than "Get a Face Tattoo"

Kristi Noem, the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kristi-noem-ice-gun-handling-video-b2730219.html">gun-loving</a> former South Dakota governor who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/07/kristi-noem-trump-secretary-homeland-security">now runs Homeland Security</a>, was rushed to the hospital this week for a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/17/politics/kristi-noem-hostpital">severe allergic reaction</a> — and she just so happened to have visited a biohazard lab run by our nation's top allergy specialists the day prior.
On June 16, per a photo <a href="https://x.com/SecKennedy/status/1934739031276875933">posted on X</a> by Health and Human Services director Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Noem visited the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where the bulk of the United States' biodefense experiments — including its <a href="https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/covid-19-research-integrated-research-facility">research into COVID-19</a> and Ebola — are conducted.
The HomeSec head was seen standing alongside RFK Jr. and his <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/08/398144903/like-father-like-son-not-exactly-when-it-comes-to-rand-and-ron-paul">fellow political nepo baby</a>, GOP senator Rand Paul, as they posed awkwardly in front of the NIAID sign. Though we don't know exactly what the trio was doing there, we could hazard some guesses given the shared <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/23/politics/kristi-noem-south-dakota-coronavirus">COVID skepticism</a> and <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/top-republican-airs-concerns-about-rfks-bully-pulpit-and-vaccine-hesitancy">general anti-scientific sentiments</a> between them.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
With <a href="https://twitter.com/Sec_Noem?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Sec_Noem</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRandPaul?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenRandPaul</a> inspecting the biological hazard labs at Fort Detrick. <a href="https://t.co/Mt9rqo5Iq7">pic.twitter.com/Mt9rqo5Iq7</a>
&mdash; Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecKennedy/status/1934739031276875933?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/medialibrary/assets/photo/61367">photos published</a> by the Department of Homeland Security on its official website, Noem and her comrades were seen not only shaking hands with fatigue-wearing military leaders at Fort Detrick, but also watching lab workers do important-looking experiments.
Though Noem <a href="https://apnews.com/article/south-dakota-kristi-noem-coronavirus-pandemic-0d58c61ba20c8bf9ba4ee02ef46b1da0">infamously opposed masking</a> during the early days of the pandemic, she has not, to her credit, ever proposed any conspiracy theories about the origins of the novel coronavirus. The same can't be said of Paul, who has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/science/covid-lab-leak-wuhan.html">long been outspoken</a> in his insistence that the virus escaped from a high-security lab in Wuhan, China.
So dedicated is the Kentucky Republican to the "lab leak" theory that he <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2024/11/22/rand-paul-senate-investigation-covid-19-origin-lab-leak-theory-anthony-fauci-nih/">declared last November</a> that he would be starting an investigation into its origins. Soon after Noem <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/puppy-killer-trump-cabinet">became Homeland Security secretary</a> under president Donald Trump's second administration, Paul <a href="https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/reps/dr-paul-issues-subpoenas-to-fourteen-agencies-regarding-covid-19-origins-and-risky-gain-of-function-research/">got her department's help</a> in subpoenaing federal agencies about said theory.
RFK Jr., meanwhile, has a way more old school reason to visit the biohazard lab. He has for years stridently argued that <a href="https://www.protectourcare.org/fact-sheet-rfk-jr-spread-conspiracy-that-lyme-disease-came-from-a-military-bioweapon/">Lyme disease was an escaped bioweapon</a> cooked up by the US military that escaped from a lab similar to NIAID's at Fort Detrick.
Because there's not much information about what went on during the trio's so-called "inspection" aside from the photo ops, it's anyone's guess what Noem, Paul, and Kennedy encountered inside that lab, or if it had anything to do with her hospitalization the subsequent day.
Still, it's incredibly ironic that she was rushed to the hospital with an allergic reaction right after visiting a facility run by an agency dedicated to studying such health issues — the same one that <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/hhs-niaid-irf-ebola-disease-research-stop/">RFK Jr. has already attacked</a> during his tenure at the helm of our nation's healthcare.
More on crackpot politicos: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/male-politicians-cosmetic-procedures">Male Politicians Are Getting Wild Plastic Surgery Procedures</a>