Author: NY TIMES

CooperSurgical, a major medical supply company, is facing a wave of lawsuits from patients who claim that one of its products destroyed embryos created with in vitro fertilization.Fertility clinics across the world used the product, a nutrient-rich liquid that helps fertilized eggs develop into embryos. This week federal regulators made public that the company had recalled three lots of the liquid, which was used by clinics in November and December. The number of affected patients is unclear, although experts estimated that it is in the thousands.On Thursday, a couple in Virginia filed a lawsuit against the company, the eighth in…

The phrase “arc of oblivion” sounds apocalyptic, as if it ought to be uttered in the unmistakable voice of Werner Herzog and accompanied by grave proclamations about the end of all things. “The Arc of Oblivion,” a documentary directed by Ian Cheney, in fact delivers both of those things. But they’re delivered in such a lighthearted, weird, thought-provoking manner that it’s less frightening than fun. And if you’re left thinking about disasters, it’s only natural: Cheney’s building a literal ark throughout. (Wordplay!)A mass-extinction flood is the ur-apocalypse in many ancient texts, but Cheney isn’t building an ark to rescue humanity,…

Hours after the news broke on Wednesday that the United States had picked up worrisome intelligence about Russia’s capacity to strike American satellites, the Pentagon sent a missile-tracking system into orbit, part of a vast new effort to bolster the military’s growing presence in space.The timing was coincidental. But it underscored how concerns about advances in Russian and Chinese capabilities in space have led the United States to embrace innovative ways of protecting vital communications, surveillance and GPS systems on the battlefield of the future.The system put into orbit on Wednesday was a prototype developed to test a new plan,…

Outwardly, this season’s New York Fashion Week shows followed a familiar playbook. Marc Jacobs showed his collection before the week technically began. The official schedule ran for six days (albeit with fewer events) and it played the hits: Carolina Herrera, Michael Kors, Tory Burch.All of this brought a calm to a week that can sometimes be anything but. That calm extended to the streets outside shows, which drew smaller crowds with a relaxed energy. (Some rainy and snowy days surely played a part.) This laid-back attitude permeated people’s clothes, many of which were in neutral shades and worn with effortless…

By Matt RichtelReported from ice-cream shops and frozen-food aisles in Boulder, Colo.Feb. 15, 2024Banana pudding, chocolate fudge brownie, salted caramel, Cherry Garcia, Dr Pepper Float and dozens of other flavors packed the ice-cream freezer at a local Safeway. Robin Sawyer, one recent Sunday afternoon, hunted for her personal favorite, black raspberry chocolate chunk.Her husband, Mark, 68, has long been a fan of chocolate chip, but he doesn’t see it around much anymore.“Here it is!” Ms. Sawyer, 66, said to him, kneeling in front of the Haagen-Dazs section. “In the small container.” Then she corrected herself: “Oh, that’s chocolate chocolate chip.”Vanilla…

One set of 10 articles identified by Dr. David showed repeated reuse of identical or overlapping black-and-white images of cancer cells supposedly under different experimental conditions, he said.“There’s no reason to have done that unless you weren’t doing the work,” Dr. David said.One of those papers, published in 2012, was formally tagged with corrections. Unlike later studies, which were largely overseen by Dr. Yoon in New York, this paper was written by South Korea-based scientists, including Changhwan Yoon, who then worked in Seoul.An immunologist in Norway randomly selected the paper as part of a screening of copied data in cancer…

Near the end of “Blind Injustice,” an opera about six people who were wrongfully convicted of crimes and later freed, the exonerees reflect on the time they have spent behind bars.“What makes a person strong enough to endure injustice?” they sing. “What makes a person free?”Questions of prejudice, guilt and resilience run throughout “Blind Injustice,” composed by Scott Davenport Richards to a libretto by David Cote, which has its East Coast premiere on Friday at Peak Performances at Montclair State University.The work, which was commissioned by Cincinnati Opera and premiered there in 2019, explores the effects of wrongful convictions on…

Almost a decade ago, California became the first state in the United States to ban single-use plastic bags in an effort to tackle an intractable plastic waste problem.Then came the reusable, heavy-duty plastic bags, offered to shoppers for ten cents. Designed to withstand dozens of uses, and technically recyclable, many retailers treated them as exempt from the ban.But because they didn’t look much different from the flimsy bags they replaced, lots of people didn’t actually reuse them. And though they came emblazoned with a recycling symbol, it turned out that few, if any, actually were recycled.The unhappy result: Last year,…

Jaime King had been feeling that something was off. “There’s this strange, volatile energy,” the actress, director and model said on a recent Saturday. She perched on the hearth of a fireplace at her home in Los Angeles, knees to her chest, gaze flitting between the fire and the view beyond a sliding-glass door. “If I’m not looking at you, it’s because I’m listening,” she said to a reporter.“I was nervous earlier, and then I was like, shaky, and then I was like, whoa, what is this vibration?”The premiere of her latest film, “Lights Out,” in which she plays a…

Elon Musk continues his flight from “the First State”Another Elon Musk-led company has moved its home base from Delaware as the tech billionaire continues to criticize the state after a judge there voided his nearly $56 billion payday at Tesla.Moving the incorporation of SpaceX, Musk’s privately held rocket giant, to Texas will help bolster the Lone Star State’s standing with business. But it remains unclear whether Tesla itself will be able to make the same journey.Musk is making good on his threat to pull out of the state. “If your company is still incorporated in Delaware, I recommend moving to…