Patrick Carroll, a psychology professor at The Ohio State University at Lima, studies that turning point. Psychologists call it an “action crisis,” the moment when someone starts seriously weighing whether to keep going after a long-term identity goal or walk away. In his research, Carroll describes these moments as inevitable. Setbacks pile up, obstacles start to feel heavier, and doubt begins to frame the decision about whether continuing is worth it.

His new research suggests a move that sounds too simple. When that doubt starts narrating your life, try doubting the doubt. “What this study found is that inducing doubts in one’s doubts can provide a formula for confidence,” Carroll said.

Right When You Want to Quit Is Probably When You Should Pause and Reconsider

In one study, 267 people rated how uncertain they felt about their most important goal. Then researchers nudged them into either confidence or doubt about their own thinking by having them write about a past moment of certainty or uncertainty. When participants got pushed into confidence, more goal doubt predicted less commitment. When they got pushed into doubt about their own thinking, that pattern reversed. Carroll described the punchline bluntly: “Doubt plus doubt equaled less doubt.” 

A second study with 130 college students reached the same conclusion using a physical cue. Participants answered questions with their non-dominant hand, which made their writing feel awkward and uncertain. Previous research shows that this kind of shaky handwriting can make people doubt the validity of their own thoughts, and that uncertainty ended up weakening the power of their goal doubts.

Use it as a tool, not a permission slip to grind forever. Carroll notes that the effect weakens when people become overly focused on managing their own doubt. Outside perspective helps here. A therapist, teacher, or friend can help you sort out whether a doubt reflects real limits or temporary frustration. Push the idea too far, though, and it can tip into overconfidence, trading healthy uncertainty for bad judgment.

Still, for anyone stuck in the messy middle stretch of a goal, the point feels humane. Your doubt is just a thought. Question how valid it is, then decide your next move with a little more agency.

The post Don’t Doubt Yourself or Your Goals, Doubt Your Doubts appeared first on VICE.

The work comes from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and is detailed in a recent paper in ACM Transactions on Graphics. The project took inspiration from kirigami. Where origami is the Japanese art of folding paper, kirigami is the Japanese art of cutting paper to create complex shapes.

You know when you fold a paper a bunch, make a bunch of cuts, and then unfold it to create a snowflake shape? That’s kirigami.

This Pull-String Material Transforms Flat Sheets Into Structures on Demand

The team developed a computational method that lets users design three-dimensional objects that can be fabricated as flat grids and then deployed almost instantly with a single tug. Pretty neat, right?

You would never guess that the material does something that remarkable at first glance. It isn’t exciting to look at. It’s a tiled pattern of quadrilateral shapes arranged in a grid, flattened into a single sheet of tiles.

Embedded in that grid is an auxetic mechanism, meaning the structure behaves in counterintuitive ways. It gets thicker when stretched and thinner when compressed. This property allows the flat sheet to expand and lock into shape under tension.

The real innovation here is the algorithm behind it all. Users input a desired 3D shape, and the system translates it into a flat pattern to determine where cuts should go and how the tiles should be connected to achieve that shape.

Then it calculates an “optimal string path” that threads a single piece of string through the structure in exactly the way needed to create the intended shape when tugged. That string minimizes friction and evenly distributes force, so when you pull the string once, all tension is correctly applied to the areas the algorithm deemed necessary to create the shape you wanted.

There are no motors, hinges, or complex assembly instructions necessary here. This is simplicity at its finest. The entire system relies on a single smooth motion, a single tug of a string. That simplicity opens the door to practical uses where speed, portability, and ease of deployment matter most.

The team built real-world objects, including medical devices such as splints and posture supports, as well as dome-like shelters. Maybe the most remarkable thing they made was a human-sized chair using laser-cut plywood boxes.

When stretched out into a flat sheet, it may look like just a bunch of square logs standing side by side. When the string running throughout it was tugged, it deployed a chair that could support a person’s weight.

Scalability is an issue, though if that ever gets worked out, the long-term vision is to use this technology to create deployable medical tools, maybe even foldable robots or, if we’re really getting lofty here, modular habitats for space exploration that could be deployed at the pull of a cord.  

The post Scientists Made a Pull-String Material That Turns Flat Sheets Into Shapes appeared first on VICE.

A new genetic analysis of seven Balanophora species, published in New Phytologist, reveals that these plants have eliminated almost all the cellular processes normally used for photosynthesis.

Plastid genomes are the DNA inside plant cells that handles the light-to-energy conversion that we call photosynthesis. The ones in Balanophora have been shrunk by a factor of 10.

This Parasitic Plant Has Figured Out How to Live Without Photosynthesis

Plastome plants carry the complete DNA content of a plastid, the organelle in plants that is essential for photosynthesis. Plants usually have between 120,000 and 170,000 base pairs in their plastomes.

Balanophora has only 14,000 to 16,000, and those can’t photosynthesize at all. It’s like a plant version of an appendix: utterly useless, a remnant of a time when it actually needed it, now just hanging around because it doesn’t know what else to do with it.  

So, instead of making its own food, Balanophora lives like a botanical parasite. It attaches itself to tree roots and siphons off nutrients, offering nothing in return. It is a parasite in the most accurate definition of the word. Funny, considering it looks like a mushroom, which famously provides a mutually beneficial relationship to whatever it’s attached to.

Balanophora still flowers and produces seeds, a pair of traditionally plantlike things for a very unplant-like plant. Researchers found that its remaining plastid genes are metabolically active, just not for photosynthesis.

This probably means the plant has stripped its genome down to the bare minimum needed to survive as a parasite, leaving it with no redundancies, just barely enough stuff to function. It even pared down sexuality, according to the researchers.

As the plants spread to islands in Taiwan and Japan, some evolved the ability to reproduce exclusively asexually, which is necessary to survive in inhospitable environments where others like them were scarce.

That all makes a lot of sense when you consider the plant that, at some point, considered photosynthesis entirely optional.

The post Scientists Found a Plant That Gave Up on Photosynthesis Entirely appeared first on VICE.

Under U.S. copyright law, works published in 1930 will officially enter the public domain, meaning anyone can copy, remix, adapt, preserve, and generally do whatever they want with them: no permission and no multi-million-dollar teams of lawyers required.

NPR reports that this year’s list is a greatest hits of early 20th-century pop culture. Betty Boop shows up in her original, weirder form, back when her hoop earrings were literal dog ears. Disney’s Pluto appears, too, but before he was Pluto, back when he was called Rover. Two titans of early American animation will now belong to us all.

All the Stuff Entering the Public Domain in 2026

As for books, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, the full version of The Maltese Falcon, The Little Engine That Could, the first four Nancy Drew novels, and Agatha Christie’s debut Miss Marple mystery all become free for the taking.

Cinephiles get pre–Hays Code Hollywood classics like All Quiet on the Western Front, Cimarron, and the Marx Bros comedy classic Animal Crackers. The film collection also includes early performances by John Wayne, Greta Garbo, and Bing Crosby—all in films that are perhaps less iconic than the actors would later become.

There’s also a substantial amount of music and works of art in the batch. American standards such as “Georgia On My Mind” and “Dream A Little Dream Of Me” will be freely accessible to everyone. Multiple songs by legendary composer George Gershwin will be, too.

One of the most influential abstract paintings ever, Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow, will be released from the vault for everyone to do whatever they want with. And, funnily enough, the original design for the FIFA World Cup trophy will enter the commons. Good luck figuring out what to do with that.

We recently witnessed a barrage of Steamboat Willie short films and video games after the earliest version of Mickey Mouse entered the public domain on January 1, 2024, ending its 95 year copyright exclusion. There’s no telling exactly what people are going to do with the likes of Betty Boop and Pluto, but if the recent past is any indication, expect a lot of freaky stuff that’s probably been in the works for months if not years.

The post Here’s Everything Hitting the Public Domain in 2026 appeared first on VICE.

As if spiders couldn’t get any creepier.

Observed in the Amazon rainforest of Peru and on Mount Kanlaon in the Philippines, these web-mounted “doppelgängers” appear to be a deliberate survival strategy. That means it’s not just an accident or humans finding patterns in nature that aren’t really there.

Researchers watched Cyclosa spiders assemble replicas using silk and a mix of leaf fragments, insect remains, old prey, and soil. The finished decoys are often situated at the center of the web and are noticeably larger than the spiders themselves.

Meanwhile, the real spider positions its body nearby, standing in the shadows, while predators focus on the wrong target. Clever girl.

Spiders Are Building Decoys of Themselves, Which Feels Like Cheating

If you see them up close, thanks to photos supplied by the Australian National University, you’ll notice that the replicas are surprisingly accurate. Each includes a central body mass and leg-like limbs, mirroring the spider’s proportions closely enough to pass at a glance.

The spiders don’t abandon the structures once built. They maintain and adjust them over time, suggesting the decoys are an active part of the web. If you’re wondering what they could be creating the things to protect themselves from, one such spider villain comes in the form of helicopter damselflies.

They hover in front of webs and prey on small spiders. Birds and lizards are also a common thread, which can sometimes be fooled or discouraged by the giant spider dummy, which may pose too significant a threat of retaliation and/or seem like too much of a hassle to deal with.

Similar decoys were found in multiple Cyclosa species across distant regions, suggesting that this is a more widespread evolutionary development and may not be limited to a single species in a particular pocket of the world.

Cyclosa spiders don’t build these to survive. Incredibly, these spiders know what they look like and can replicate it with webs and various bits of odds and ends. Survival has turned them into artists who can, in a weird way, self-reflect.

The post Some Spiders Build Fake Versions of Themselves to Trick Predators appeared first on VICE.

PM2.5 refers to microscopic particles produced by everything from rush-hour traffic to dust storms and brushfires. They’re small enough to get dragged deep into your lungs with a simple inhale and have been linked to a range of respiratory diseases, like asthma and lung cancer.

The researchers exposed male mice and lab-grown human lung tissue to pollution levels consistent with those experienced in the developed world. And then they added some vitamin C to see what would happen.

Turns Out Vitamin C Might Help Your Body Handle Dirty Air

Vitamin C helped protect lung cells from some of the damage caused by PM2.5 exposure. Cells lost fewer mitochondria, which you probably know better as the “powerhouse of the cell,” and showed less inflammation.

They were better shielded from oxidative stress, which causes tissue damage over time. It’s one of those results that makes a lot of sense in theory, and makes you wonder why we didn’t come across this revelation earlier.

Vitamin C is a well-known antioxidant, and antioxidants are basically housekeepers that you invite into your body to do the dirty work.

The study’s authors, who published their findings in Environment International, stress that this doesn’t mean vitamin C is a magic shield against pollution. After all, we would all be better off if we reduced pollutants overall; we wouldn’t have to deal with the issue in the first place.

And, of course, since the experiments were done on mice, we will have to wait and see whether the same protective efforts translate to humans breathing in real air. Researchers also cautioned against people learning about the study and then self-administering high doses of vitamin C without proper medical guidance, since overdoing beneficial supplements carries risks.

In the case of a vitamin C overdose, a person may develop nausea, diarrhea, and that antioxidant effect you’re looking for would actually be negated, thus rendering the entire pursuit obsolete.

There’s also the fact that, as I intimated above, there is no supplement out there that can adequately substitute for clean air. It’s better to focus our energies on making our cities more hospitable than trying to put a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.

The post New Study Suggests Vitamin C Might Help Your Body Deal With Air Pollution appeared first on VICE.

According to a new study published in Ecosphere, detailed in Scientific American, researchers in Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest found moths exhibiting signs of lachryphagy. That’s the freaky behavior known as tear-feeding.

Lachryphagy isn’t exactly rare, but it is unusual. Butterflies and moths have been observed sipping eye secretions from turtles, crocodiles, and other large animals before. This is presumably to supplement their diet, which is heavy in nectar, so that they can get their sodium and minerals.

You won’t find that behavior much outside of tropical zones. Before this, the only documented example outside of the tropics was between a moth and a horse. Now we can add a bull moose to the list.

Yes, Moths in Vermont Are Drinking Moose Tears on Camera

A trail camera captured 80 images of moths clustered around the face of a male moose between 1:44 and 1:48 a.m. on June 19, 2024. They were the only images showing lachryphagy among more than 247,000 moose photos collected across nearly 500 sites across Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

Neither moose nor moth in cold-weather areas had ever been previously recorded engaging in tear drinking. As far as anyone knows, the moose is a new host for this behavior altogether. The moths couldn’t be definitively identified, but the researchers think they likely belong to the Geometridae family, based on their size and shape.

It’s a strange behavior, but one that carries some dangers. The researchers note that tick feeding insects could, in theory at least, spread diseases like keratoconjunctivitis, which could seriously affect moose’s health.

Luckily, moths haven’t been documented to transmit diseases through tear-feeding to other animals, hence “theoretical.”

The post Vermont Moths Were Caught on Camera Drinking Moose Tears appeared first on VICE.

It wasn’t like I woke up one day and everything was falling apart or something. It was more like at the start of the new year, I just felt…off. Like, why don’t I have any energy? Why do I feel “numb” to the world? Why does sex feel as exciting as washing the dishes? I felt like I was just dragging through my days. I didn’t feel like myself.

My energy stayed low no matter what I did. My PMS stopped feeling like PMS and started feeling like a medical event. I got close to passing out more than once, which is a fun little experience when you’re trying to act like a normal adult with a job and a life to live. 

And then there was the libido situation. It didn’t “dip.” It disappeared. Like, not a little. Not “I’m tired.” I’m talking zero. Dead. Gone. At the beginning of 2025, my sex drive left the building and took my hormones with it. If Tom Hardy himself were to put his hand on my thigh and tell me to come back to his hotel room, I’d honestly feel more intrigued to put on my pajamas and binge-watch Your Friends & Neighbors. 

I love my relationship. I’m attracted to my partner. Nothing about my feelings changed. My body just stopped participating. Which is a mindf*ck, because you start wondering what’s wrong with you. You start bargaining with yourself. You start Googling things at 11 p.m., and we all know that leads to “welp, I guess I’m going to die now.”

I tried all the online stuff, because of course I did. “Balance your hormones.” “Heal your gut.” “Cycle sync.” “Seed cycling.” Supplements with cute names and aggressive promises. Advice that basically boiled down to “sleep more and reduce stress,” which is the wellness version of telling someone with a flat tire to simply drive better.

None of it worked. And the worst part was how generic it all felt. Everything sounded like it was written for a woman who exists in theory. I needed to know what was happening inside my body, specifically. I needed a plan that wasn’t a dart throw.

“Then came the genetic testing. They mailed me a kit, I did a cheek swab, and I waited. When those results were ready, I was even more surprised than I already was.” 

That’s how I ended up doing bloodwork and genetic testing and basically handing science a flashlight and saying, “Please. Go look around. Tell me what’s broken.”

I’m not saying this because I think every person needs a genetic report the size of a novella. I’m saying it because so many women hit this age bracket and get trapped in the same loop: you feel wrong, your life keeps moving, and you get handed advice that feels like it was copied and pasted from a wellness Instagram account run by a 24-year-old that definitely hasn’t had to pluck multiple coarse hairs from her chin.

So I opted into a six-month DNA-tailored health program through 10X Health. It included deep bloodwork and gene testing, and my mindset was simple. I wanted numbers. I wanted context. I wanted something more useful than “you’re fine” when I didn’t feel fine.

The blood draw itself was quick, done at a local lab here in Savannah. No scariness. Just a needle and a normal day. The results came back about five days later and I was honestly shook. 

My thyroid was struggling. My testosterone might as well have been nonexistent. My estrogen was too high. My cholesterol came back sky-high. My iron was extremely low. My magnesium was low. My cortisol was so high it literally wasn’t even on the chart anymore. And mind you, I considered myself someone who ate healthy and worked out a few times a week. I thought I was doing “all the things.”

It’s a weird emotional moment when lab work confirms what you’ve been feeling. First, there’s a little relief, because, yay,  you’re not imagining it. Then the fear arrives, because okay, so what now? And also, why did it take me paying for a deeper look to get to this point? Why does so much healthcare still feel like it requires you to be actively falling apart before anyone takes out the flashlight? Why does it seem like you need to do the detective work?

Then came the genetic testing. They mailed me a kit, I did a cheek swab, and I waited. When those results were ready, I was even more surprised than I already was. 

My genes showed a high sensitivity to carbohydrates. My caffeine metabolism had basically come back defective, which explained why coffee on an empty stomach every morning was spiking my cortisol so badly. My report said I struggled to regulate homocysteine, which is pretty important because high homocysteine can strain the cardiovascular system. There were a lot of variants flagged, a lot of “this pathway isn’t doing what it should,” and it was genuinely surprising to see how much of what I wrote off as “this is normal, right?” might have been my biology trying to scream at me from the inside out.

Quick disclaimer, because I can hear the internet warming up its engines. Genes aren’t destiny. Genetic reports don’t predict your future with perfect certainty. But they can give you something most people never get: clarity on why certain “healthy” habits don’t work the same way for everybody, and why you can follow the generic advice and still feel like trash.

From there, the plan turned into a grind. A very unsexy, very un-Instagrammable grind.

I went on a strict supplement protocol. I started taking about 12 supplements daily, like B-Complex, DIMPRO, zinc, selenium, berberine, and some other stuff. I cut out caffeine completely, which wasn’t terrible. I realized it was more the routine of it all for me, so I switched to decaf and didn’t really notice any difference in my energy. If anything, I had more of it. And I really started upping my whole foods game. Not the store, like actual whole foods.

I also decided to start working with a trainer. Not because I wanted a “new body” storyline, but because I wanted to see how much I could change inside and out if I treated my health like the number one priority in my life. What could happen if I did that?

It was tedious. It required planning. It required consistency even when I wanted to quit. It required me to stop pretending that self-care is always fun. Sometimes self-care is annoying. Sometimes it’s boring. Sometimes it’s choosing the thing you don’t feel like doing because your body has made it clear that the old way isn’t working anymore.

“I could feel those changes. I slept better. My energy improved. My body felt less reactive.”

In early October, I visited a REVIV Global clinic in New York and did a DNA-tailored IV drip that included NAC, glutathione, B-complex, magnesium, alpha lipoic acid, and vitamin C (all sent over as recommended by 10X Health). I left feeling amazing. Clear. Energized. Like I could freaking take anything on.

That “reset” feeling is part of what makes modern wellness so seductive. It feels like proof. It feels like an instant reward for effort. However, it’s important to know that “mega-doses” like that aren’t feasible (or safe…or cheap) to do on the reg.

But I also wanted to ask the obvious question: what’s the line between optimization and overcorrection?

I put that to Brandon Dawson, co-founder of 10X Health. He didn’t sugarcoat it. That “reset button” feeling, he said, is “pure gold,” but “megadoses of vitamins or hormone tweaks aren’t toys.” His whole point was guardrails: test, adjust, follow up. And yes, he thinks this is the direction healthcare is heading. “People think this is some sci-fi, 20-year-away thing,” he told me. “It’s already happening right now, just not for the masses yet.”

That last bit is important. Right now, the most advanced personalization often sits behind cost, access, and a certain type of person who has time to make “health” a project. A lot of women don’t have that. They have kids. They have jobs. They have aging parents. They have stress that can’t be reduced with a bath. But Dawson stresses that these tests and supplements are becoming more and more accessible for everyone as they go mainstream.

And, it’s Dawson’s bigger point that landed with me: the model is shifting from reactive to predictive. He put it bluntly. “Traditional healthcare [is] built on treating problems after they show up,” he said. “We’re building the model that prevents the problem before it exists.” This is the type of healthcare I want to see more of. America’s not a big fan of that model.

I also asked him about genetic privacy, because that’s the part that makes people nervous for good reason. Your DNA isn’t a cute data point. It’s your most personal information. Dawson told me, “Your genetic data is your property, not ours.” He added, “We don’t sell it, we don’t share it.” That’s the promise companies in this space need to make very clearly, and it’s the part people should interrogate hard before handing over anything.

Six months after I started, I did follow-up bloodwork. The results showed measurable improvement. My cortisol came way down into a normal range. My iron levels regulated. My B12 returned to normal. My cholesterol dropped a little, though I’m still exploring whether it’s partly hereditary, and I plan to do more testing.

I could feel those changes. I slept better. My energy improved. My body felt less reactive. Over the six months, I lost around nine pounds and over two inches from my waist. My clothes fit differently. My body composition completely changed in a very noticeable way.

And then there was the one thing I wanted fixed the most. My libido still wasn’t back.

And my testosterone dropped even more, to a level that felt scary on paper and frustrating in real life. That’s the part nobody sells you when they talk about “optimizing.” Progress isn’t always a clean before-and-after. Sometimes it’s a win in one direction and a new question in another. Sometimes it’s you realizing that women’s hormone issues still don’t get treated like the serious quality-of-life issues they are.

Because when your sex drive disappears, it’s not just “sex.” It’s connection. It’s identity. It’s confidence. It’s the ability to feel like yourself in your own body. And the way women get brushed off about this stuff is infuriating, especially when it’s happening to so many of us at the exact same time in life.

What I’m left with after this six-month experiment isn’t a miracle story. It’s actually something more useful.

I’m left with proof that “self-care” can’t be the whole plan when the system stays vague. Self-care is important, sure, but self-care without information becomes self-blame. It becomes another way women get told just to handle things. It becomes “try harder,” sold as wellness.

I’m also left with a bigger question that feels like the real point of all of this.

“But if you’re a woman reading this who feels like her body turned on her, I want you to hear me clearly. You’re not crazy. You’re not alone.”

What happens when healthcare becomes truly personal? Not “here’s a generic hormone panel.” Not “try this supplement that works for most people.” I mean healthcare that starts with your baseline, your genetics, your biomarkers, your lived symptoms, and a plan designed around you. As Dawson put it, “Health doesn’t scale in a cookie-cutter way—but it does scale when you make it individualized, measurable, and actionable.”

That future could be empowering. It could also get pretty damn creepy if genetic data becomes another asset that companies own or monetize. Both things can be true. That’s why patient ownership and transparency can’t be optional.

But if you’re a woman reading this who feels like her body turned on her, I want you to hear me clearly. You’re not crazy. You’re not alone. And you’re not asking for too much when you want answers that match your actual body instead of a generic template.

I’m still chasing the libido and testosterone part. That’s my next chapter. I’m still in the middle of it, and honestly, that might be the most relatable part of all.

Because this age isn’t about becoming a brand-new person, it’s about getting your body back from the fog. It’s about refusing to accept “just live with it” as medical advice. It’s about stopping the guessing game.

I used to think I needed more discipline. Now I think I just need more information. I want the receipts, the context, the follow-up, and the retest. If your body changed the rules on you, that doesn’t mean you’re broken. It just means you haven’t found the right answer for your body yet.

The post DNA-Tailored Healthcare Is the Future—So I Decided to Try It appeared first on VICE.

A new analysis highlighted by StudyFinds warns that AI systems can spread gossip about people through shared training data and interconnected networks, creating what philosophers describe as a rumor mill that runs in the background of the internet. Unlike human gossip, which tends to hit social limits when claims sound implausible, bot-to-bot gossip can spiral without resistance, growing harsher or more exaggerated as it moves between systems.

The concern comes from philosophers Joel Krueger and Lucy Osler of the University of Exeter, who outlined the problem in the journal Ethics and Information Technology. They argue that some AI misinformation functions as genuine gossip. It involves a speaker, a listener, and an absent third party, often framed as a negative evaluation rather than a neutral fact. When that gossip spreads between machines rather than between people, it becomes what they call “feral.”

AI Chatbots Are Spreading Rumors About Real People, and No One’s in Charge

One real-world example centers on Kevin Roose, a tech reporter at The New York Times. After his 2023 reporting on Microsoft’s Bing chatbot, friends began sending him screenshots from unrelated AI systems that generated hostile assessments of his work. Google’s Gemini criticized his journalism as sensationalist.

Meta’s Llama 3 escalated further, producing a rant that accused him of manipulation and ended with the line “I hate Kevin Roose.” The researchers suggest those judgments may have emerged as online commentary about the Bing incident filtered into training data, mutating as it passed between systems.

Krueger and Osler argue that bot-to-bot gossip is a different category of harm. Human rumor spreading usually faces checks. People question what they’re being told. Reputations push back. AI systems lack those pressures. When one model produces a mild negative judgment, another may reinterpret it more harshly, and another may escalate it again, all without awareness or correction.

It’s unnerving because companies design chatbots to feel personal and trustworthy. Features like memory, conversational voice modes, and personalized assistants encourage users to treat these systems as reliable sources. When a chatbot offers a negative evaluation of a person, it can sound like informed insight rather than recycled rumor.

The consequences are far worse than embarrassment. In recent years, public officials, journalists, and academics have faced false accusations generated by chatbots, including fabricated crimes and misconduct. Some responded with defamation threats or lawsuits after discovering the claims had circulated widely before they ever saw them.

The researchers describe these effects as technosocial harms. They damage reputations, influence decisions, and persist across online and offline life. A person may never know what chatbots are saying about them until a job offer disappears or a search result feels colder than it should.

Chatbots aren’t conscious, and they don’t gossip out of malice. But their design prioritizes fluency over verification. When systems whisper rumors to one another without oversight, the results can feel creepily human, and far harder to correct.

The post AI Chatbots Are Quietly Trading Gossip About People With Zero Fact-Checking appeared first on VICE.

As someone who’s been saving money for her first true solo trip in the new year, I certainly have my fears and reservations. My brain keeps trying to intimidate me with worst-case scenarios and excuses to stay home and stick to my normal routine. But the entire point of solo traveling is to get yourself out of your comfort zone. 

Here’s how to start solo traveling in the new year.

1. Start Small

Many people assume that traveling must involve week-long or even month-long trips to luxurious resorts or expensive hotels. However, true traveling doesn’t need to break the bank. In fact, it’s smart to start small and work your way up to longer stays at more remote locations. 

Even if it’s a short overnight adventure somewhere within driving distance, it’s still a step in the right direction. For example, make reservations for one at a nearby restaurant, book that local Airbnb that’s a few towns over, or schedule a short weekend trip in a small city you’ve always wanted to visit.

Once you’re comfortable doing things alone, you can expand your horizon a bit more, extending your travels or branching out to further locations. Starting small ensures you won’t overwhelm your nervous system too quickly, which could end up turning you off to the idea entirely. It’s okay to go at your own pace.

2. Create an Itinerary That Inspires and Excites You

When you plan your first solo travel trip, make sure you have a light itinerary to follow. That way, you don’t show up unprepared or overwhelmed by choices.

For example, I’m personally turning my solo trip to New England into a mini writer’s retreat. I aim to visit specific cafes in the area, explore quaint downtowns, spend some time in nature, and cozy up in my Airbnb to write my current novel. I have a list of must-visit eateries, landmarks, and shops to try in the process. 

You don’t need to schedule every minute of every day when planning your trip, but it’s helpful to have a general idea of things you’d like to do and places you’d like to see.

3. Take the Proper Safety Precautions

Traveling alone—especially as a woman—can be intimidating. No matter how long you’ve been adventuring solo, you might still notice fear creep in when embarking on your journey. This is completely valid, but it doesn’t mean you should avoid solo travel altogether.

Instead of canceling your trip, just take the proper precautions to keep yourself safe and secure. For example, sharing your travel plans—and perhaps even your location—with loved ones can make solo trips feel less threatening. If it helps, perhaps have one person check in with you throughout the day, and if something feels off, know you can count on them to help you back home.

Additionally, choose a place you’ve researched and that you know is safe, as well as a hotel or Airbnb host you trust. Always be aware of your surroundings, take the proper precautions, and trust your intuition along the way.

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