Enlarge / When Aston Martin first announced the Valkyrie it planned to take it to Le Mans. That plan got put on hold for a while, but now it's happening for real. (credit: Aston Martin)

Aston Martin is set to return to the world's premier endurance race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with a prototype Valkyrie hypercar in 2025. The return to Le Mans also signals the marque joining the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Often talked about in hushed tones by people in the know, the idea of Aston Martin's halo hypercar entering the top flight of endurance motorsport has long been wished for, and the firm's announcement is sure to make race fans happy. The Gaydon, UK, company intends to enter at least one Valkyrie in both WEC and IMSA from 2025, giving itself a chance to take the top step at Le Mans, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and the 12 Hours of Sebring.

The basis for the competition car is set to be the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro, an even more hardcore version of the already rather raucous Valkyrie road car. The car with license plates boasts a Cosworth-developed 6.5-liter V12 packing 1,000 hp (745 kW), mated to a 160 hp (120 kW) electric motor, giving it an F1-style kinetic energy recovery system. Its hybrid setup makes it a ferocious thing.

Enlarge / Apple AI executive and former Google search lead John Giannandrea. (credit: Steve Jennings / TechCrunch / Flickr)

In iOS 17, Apple recently made it easier to use alternatives to Google search in the Safari web browser's private browsing mode—but the company considered going even further by making DuckDuckGo, which is marketed as a more private alternative, the default choice in that context.

As reported by Bloomberg's Leah Nylen, the information came to light when Amit Mehta, the US District Judge who is handling the US antitrust trial over Google search, unsealed transcripts of testimonies by DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg and Apple SVP of machine learning and AI strategy John Giannandrea. Giannandrea worked as Google's head of search before his current role at Apple.

Weinberg claimed in his testimony that his company had 20 or so meetings with Apple about the possibility and that he believed the change would happen because prior DuckDuckGo integrations made their way into Safari. He even said this was the one proposed integration that didn't make it "all the way through the finish line."

Enlarge / The crucial part, you see, is You. (credit: Microsoft / Activision Blizzard)

It has been a long road since January 2022 when Microsoft first announced its intentions to buy the gaming conglomerate Activision Blizzard King. But after overcoming a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit and appeasing UK antitrust authorities, it's official: Microsoft owns the makers and publishers of Call of Duty, Fallout, Overwatch, WarCraft, Diablo, Candy Crush, and many more titles.

There's even a trailer for it—a trailer for a corporate acquisition. It features iconic moments from Microsoft's prior acquisitions, including Halo and Fallout, and Activision Blizzard's titles, including a meme-friendly StarCraft moment, stripped of its "Hell" preface.

"Whether it was late nights spent playing the Diablo IV campaign with friends from start to finish, gathering the entire family in the rec room for our weekly Guitar Hero night, or going on an epic streak in Candy Crush, some of my most memorable gaming moments came from experiences their studios have created," said Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, in a press release. "It is incredible to welcome such legendary teams to Xbox."

Enlarge / Aerial photo taken at night shows the TSMC plant area in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)

The US Commerce Department announced today that key foreign chipmakers can continue receiving critical US chipmaking tools at China-based plants, Reuters reported.

This decision extends special authorizations that were granted to foreign chipmakers—including South Korea's SK Hynix and Samsung, as well as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC)—after the Biden administration curbed shipments of advanced chips and chipmaking equipment to China last October.

Those export controls were intended to slow down China's rapid advancement of AI and military technologies, but the new rules also negatively impacted US chip production. To overcome those inadvertent impacts on US chip supplies, the Biden administration granted limited special authorizations to allow some chipmakers to continue shipping equipment into China. Now, those chipmakers will be able to continue operating Chinese plants "without the headache of applying for US licenses," Reuters reported.

Enlarge / A box of Paxlovid, the Pfizer antiviral drug. (credit: Getty | Europa Press News)

After raising the price of COVID-19 vaccines more than fourfold this year, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told investors Monday that the company will also likely hike the price of its lifesaving COVID-19 antiviral treatment, Paxlovid, raising further concern about access and health care costs.

The price of the drug is already $530 for a treatment course. That's what the US government paid for the drug in the emergency phase of the pandemic. But, as the drug moves from government distribution to the commercial market this year, the price is expected to increase. So far, it's unclear what the new price will be.

In a company investor call Monday, Bourla said only that the "pandemic price" of $530 is likely to be "lesser" than the commercial price and that negotiations are beginning.

Enlarge / A box of Paxlovid, the Pfizer antiviral drug. (credit: Getty | Europa Press News)

Pfizer on Wednesday revealed that it raised the list price of a course of Paxlovid—its lifesaving antiviral drug used to reduce the risk of severe COVID-19 in those most vulnerable—to nearly $1,400, more than double the roughly $530 the US government has paid for the treatment in the emergency phase of the pandemic.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had noted in an investor call at the beginning of the week that the company would increase the price of Paxlovid as it moves from government distribution to the commercial market at the end of this year. But, he did not announce the new list price then. Instead, the company revealed the more than twofold increase in a letter to pharmacies and clinics dated Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the list price of $1,390 after viewing the letter.

A Pfizer spokesperson told the Journal that "pricing for Paxlovid is based on the value it provides to patients, providers, and health care systems due to its important role in helping reduce COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths."

Enlarge / "GPTs" will allow ChatGPT users to create custom AI assistants that serve different purposes. (credit: Getty Images)

On Monday, OpenAI announced "GPTs," a new feature that allows ChatGPT users to create custom versions of its AI assistant that serve different roles or purposes. OpenAI will let users share GPT roles with others, and it plans to introduce a "GPT Store" later this month that will eventually share revenue with creators.

"Since launching ChatGPT, people have been asking for ways to customize ChatGPT to fit specific ways that they use it," writes OpenAI in a release provided to Ars. "We launched Custom Instructions in July that let you set some preferences, but requests for more control kept coming."

For example, in a screenshot of the GPTs interface provided by OpenAI, the upcoming GPT Store shows custom AI assistants called "Writing Coach," "Sous Chef," "Math Mentor," and "Sticker Whiz" available for selection. The screenshot describes the GPTs as assistants designed to help with writing feedback, recipes, homework help, and turning your ideas into die-cut stickers.

Enlarge / Dikembe Mutombo rejects your flawed publication. (credit: DAVID MAXWELL / Getty Images)

In a move that surprised very few people, the journal Nature retracted a paper claiming a major advance in high-temperature superconductivity. This marks the second paper the journal retracted over the objections of Ranga P. Dias, a faculty member at the University of Rochester who led the research. Or at least it's implied that he objected to this retraction, as he apparently refused to respond to Nature about the matter.

Dias' work on superconductivity has focused on hydrogen-rich chemicals that form under extreme pressures. Other research groups have shown that the pressure forces hydrogen into crystals within the material, where it encourages the formation of electron pairs that enable superconductivity. This allows these chemicals to superconduct at elevated temperatures. Dias' two papers purportedly described one chemical that could superconduct at room temperatures and extreme pressures and a second that did so under somewhat lower pressures, putting it within reach of more readily available lab equipment.

But problems with the first of these papers became apparent as the research community dug into the details of the work. Dias' team apparently used a non-standard method for calculating the background noise in a key experiment and didn't include the details of how this was done in the paper. In other words, the data in the paper looked good, but it wasn't clear whether it accurately reflected the experimental results. As a result, Nature retracted it, although all nine authors of the paper objected to this decision at the time.

Enlarge / I'm just so good at this game, it would be disheartening for you to see my progress in your feed. Yep, that's it. (credit: Getty Images)

Steam has long sought to strike the right balance between convenience, community, and private refuge. Until recently, sharing your gaming history was either public, exclusive to your friends, or turned off entirely. A screenshot from a noted Steam watcher suggests that a "Mark as Private" option could be coming for individual games that you're not keen on anyone, including friends, knowing you've put some time into.

Posting on X (formerly Twitter), Pavel Djundik, creator of the Steam insight tool SteamDB, shows options on the three-dot menu to the right of a game, with the last being "Mark as Private." A tooltip on the option reads, "Mark this game as private and hide it from my friends." Djundik's example is Counter-Strike 2, which, perhaps in some circles, is a game worth hiding.

Tweet (Xeet?) from the SteamDB founder, pointing to a not-yet-public feature in Steam for hiding certain games from public or friends' profiles. (credit: X / Pavel Djundik)

Some folks may be concerned to show the massive hour counts they've put into certain games. Others might be concerned about certain obsessive or ignoble achievements in games standing out in their timeline. More likely, of course, are the kinds of adult and fetish games with which Steam has a highly confusing relationship. The replies to Djundik's tweet suggest that people get this, though they also have some suggestions about other refinements, like finer-grained friend management tools.

Enlarge / The facility seen in this architect's rendering will not be built. (credit: Idaho National Lab)

Nuclear power provides energy that is largely free of carbon emissions and can play a significant role in helping deal with climate change. But in most industrialized countries, the construction of nuclear plants tends to grossly exceed their budgeted cost and run years over schedule.

One hope for changing that has been the use of small, modular nuclear reactors, which can be built in a centralized production facility and then shipped to the site of their installation. But on Wednesday, the company and utility planning to build the first small, modular nuclear plant in the US announced it was canceling the project.

Going small

Small modular reactors take several steps to potentially cut costs. Their smaller size makes it easier for passive cooling systems to take over in the case of power losses (some designs simply keep their reactors in a pond). It also allows the primary components to be built at a central facility and then shipped to different plant sites, allowing a lot of the manufacturing equipment to be reused for all the sites that use the reactors.

Enlarge / If it were me, I would simply not burrow my way directly to where all the creatures are gaining levels as fast as my gold allows them. But I'm not full of grog and adventuring spirit. (credit: EA/KeeperFX)

In an interview about The Making of Karateka, a wonderful interactive documentary and game-about-a-game, Chris Kohler of Digital Eclipse notes that, based on the company's data, people don't actually play the games inside "classics" collections. Maybe they spend 5 minutes inside a few games they remember, but that's about it. Presenting classic games, exactly as they were when they arrived, can be historically important but often falls short of real engagement.

That's why it's a thrill to see (as first spotted by PC Gamer) a triumphant 1.0 release from KeeperFX, an open source "remake and fan expansion" of Dungeon Keeper, the 1997 Bullfrog strategy game that had players take on the other side of a dungeon crawl. The project had already, over 15 years, carried the game quite far, giving it modern Windows support, hi-res support, and loads of bugfixes and quality-of-life improvements. Now, says the team, all the original code from the original executable has been rewritten, freeing them up to change whatever they want in the future. There can be more than 2,048 "things" on the map, maps can have more than 85 square tiles, and scripting and mods can go much further.

But take note: "Ownership of the original game is still and will always be required for copyright reasons." You can, like I did earlier today, rectify that with a $6 GOG purchase, at least while it's on sale today. After downloading KeeperFX, you unpack it, run its launcher, point it to where you've installed the original Dungeon Keeper, and launch it. And then you get ready to click.

Enlarge / A Porsche 963, one of the four different kinds of hybrid prototype racing cars built to the LMDh rules, running in IMSA's GTP class at the 2023 Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in October. (credit: David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The crowd streamed onto the track before the race, seizing their last chance to see the brightly liveried cars up close. Daytona had been busy in January, but the crowd at Road Atlanta seemed even larger. To be honest, though, the race the fans were here to see would not be one for the ages. A 52-car grid packed into just 2.8 miles of race track promised potential trouble, and the 10-hour race saw 14 interruptions by the safety car, never getting into a rhythm. But I’m not sure that mattered much; the main draw for many in attendance that Saturday was simply seeing this new era of hybrid prototypes in person, and on that score, everyone left with smiles.

We’ve spilled plenty of pixels over the past 18 months or so delving into some of the minutiae of this new class of racing car, variously known as LMDh or GTP. Briefly, these are purpose-built racing cars, which start with a carbon-fiber spine from one of four racecar constructors and then add an engine, bodywork, and software from one of the four OEMs that participate, and then the same Xtrac gearbox, Williams Advanced Engineering lithium-ion battery, and Bosch electric motor as a way to keep development costs reasonable.

The rules purposely limit the amount of aerodynamic downforce a car can generate relative to the amount of drag it creates, and they positively encourage each car maker to give these race cars styling that calls out to their road-going products.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | YinYang)

In August, the Department of Health and Human Services announced 10 drugs selected for the first round of Medicare price negotiations—a landmark effort established by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to try to drag down the country's uniquely astronomical prescription drug prices.

Pharmaceutical companies publicly balked—and also sued—then eventually came to the table. But it was far from their first protest of the Democrat-led effort to reform drug pricing in the US, which pays far more for prescription drugs than other high-income countries.

In 2022, the pharmaceutical industry's top lobbying group, PhRMA, gave a record $7.5 million to the GOP-linked dark money group, American Action Network (AAN), which spent millions on advertising that year opposing drug pricing reforms, some of which made it into the Inflation Reduction Act.

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)

A Florida judge, Reid Scott, has ruled that there's "reasonable evidence" to conclude that Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk knew of defects in Autopilot systems and failed to fix them. Testimony from Tesla engineers and internal documents showed that Musk was "intimately involved" in Tesla's Autopilot program and "acutely aware" of a sometimes-fatal defect—where Autopilot repeatedly fails to detect cross traffic, Scott wrote.

"Knowing that the Autopilot system had previously failed, had limitations" and, according to one Tesla Autopilot systems engineer, "had not been modified, Tesla still permitted the 'Autopilot' system to be engaged on roads that encountered areas of cross traffic," Scott wrote.

Because a jury could perhaps consider that a "conscious disregard or indifference to the life" of Tesla drivers, Scott granted a motion to seek punitive damages to Kim Banner, whose husband Jeremy was killed in 2019 when his "Model 3 drove under the trailer of an 18-wheeler big rig truck that had turned onto the road, shearing off the Tesla's roof," Reuters reported. Autopilot allegedly failed to warn Jeremy or respond in any way that could have avoided the collision, like braking or steering the vehicle out of danger, Banner's complaint said.

Enlarge / Conscience do cost, as a certain fictional denizen of Baltimore's East Side once said. (credit: Larian Studios)

One of the best things about playing Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3) is the way that it simulates the feeling of having an actual Dungeon Master overseeing your session. The second-person narration, the dice rolls, and even the willingness to say "Yes" to your quirkiest ideas all add to the impression that there's some conscious intelligence on the other side.

But consciousness can sometimes be a curse, and a recent patch to BG3 introduce burdensome complexity into the game's thinking. Essentially, the game was suffering from lag and slowdowns as players progressed because the game's decision engine couldn't stop assessing previous instances where a party member had gotten away with theft, murder, or other nefarious deeds.

The performance issues have affected some players ever since Patch 4, released on Nov. 2 with more than 1,000 changes. One of those changes was a seemingly small-scope, situational bit: "Scrying Eyes in Moonrise Towers will now only react to theft and vandalism if they see the crime being committed." The floating orbs in that area were, apparently, ignoring players' best attempts at sneaking, invisibility, or other cover-ups.

Enlarge (credit: TonyBaggett | iStock / Getty Images Plus)

The appearance of any big brand's ads on websites that the brand has specifically blocked is one of a brand's biggest nightmares. That could include specifically blacklisted sites—like Breitbart—or any category of generally controversial site, like sites in countries sanctioned by the government, sites featuring hardcore pornography, or sites containing pirated content.

According to an Adalytics report, the Google Search Partner Network (SPN) has allegedly been putting brands at risk of all of these undesirable placements without advertisers fully realizing the dangers. Adalytics researchers reported finding Google search ads for top brands and government agencies displaying on hundreds of undesirable websites.

Among those impacted were big brands—like Amazon, Apple, BMW, Home Depot, Lego, Meta, Microsoft, Paramount+, Samsung, and Uber—and top government entities including the US Treasury and the European Commission. Ads from nonprofits like the American Cancer Society and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, as well as major media outlets like The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal were also found on illegal or adult sites.

Enlarge / Founder and CEO of NVIDIA Jensen Huang speaks during the New York Times annual DealBook summit on November 29, 2023, in New York City. (credit: Michael M. Santiago / Staff | Getty Images North America)

The US could be up to two decades away from maintaining its own domestic chips supply chain, Nvidia Corp.'s CEO, Jensen Huang, told an audience gathered in New York for the New York Times’s DealBook conference.

Nvidia is a giant in the semiconductor industry, and Huang said his company's success depends on "myriad components that come from different parts of the world," Bloomberg reported. "Not just Taiwan," Huang said, where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing company makes the world's most advanced semiconductor technology.

“We are somewhere between a decade and two decades away from supply chain independence,” Huang said. “It’s not a really practical thing for a decade or two.”

As 2023 draws to a close—and as we start to finalize our Game of the Year contenders—I really should be catching up on the embarrassingly long list of great recent releases that I haven't put enough time into this year. Instead, over the last few days, I've found myself once again hooked on a simple, addictive, and utterly unique Japanese Windows freeware game from the late '90s that, until recently, I thought I had lost forever.

Pendulumania is a cult classic in the truest sense of the word: Few people have heard of it, even in hardcore gaming circles, but those who have experienced it tend to have very fond memories of it. And while I shared those memories, it wasn't until this week that I've been able to share my effusive praise for a game whose name and playable executable had eluded me for well over a decade.

Timeless design

The mechanics of Pendulumania are incredibly simple. You use the computer mouse to control a metal ring, which is attached via an elastic string to a white ball. The object is to carefully move the ring so the stretchy string and gravity can nudge the ball around a 2D plane, crashing into floating scoring orbs to collect points (colored orbs that randomly appear can make the ball larger or the string stronger as well). Be careful, though; if the elastic string stretches too far, it will break and your game will be over.

Enlarge (credit: zhihao | Moment)

After a spy camera designed to look like a towel hook was purchased on Amazon and illegally used for months to capture photos of a minor in her private bathroom, Amazon was sued.

The plaintiff—a former Brazilian foreign exchange student then living in West Virginia—argued that Amazon had inspected the camera three times and its safety team had failed to prevent allegedly severe, foreseeable harms still affecting her today.

Amazon hoped the court would dismiss the suit, arguing that the platform wasn't responsible for the alleged criminal conduct harming the minor. But after nearly eight months deliberating, a judge recently largely denied the tech giant's motion to dismiss.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

AI face detection now counts among the tools that could be used to help adult sites effectively estimate UK user ages and block minors from accessing pornography, the UK's Office of Communications (Ofcom) said in a press release on Tuesday.

The only foreseeable problem, Ofcom noted: There's little evidence that the AI method of age estimation will be fair, reliable, or effective.

The UK's legal age to watch porn is 18. To enforce that restriction, under the Online Safety Act, Ofcom will soon require all apps and sites displaying adult content to introduce so-called "age assurance" systems that verify and/or estimate user ages. Sites and apps risk potential fines if they fail to "ensure that children are not normally able to encounter pornography on their service."

Enlarge / A large family can come with some unfortunate downsides (in addition to that weird cousin). (credit: Oliver Rossi)

Analysis of genomic and behavioral data from the vast UK Biobank finally demonstrates that genes that promote reproductive behaviors come with the ultimate price.

Aging stinks. You get marks on your skin, you’re slower, you forget stuff, and everything hurts. Your joints crack and pop. Evolution has achieved so many remarkable things; how is it possible that we still have to put up with growing old?

The antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis states that your body falls apart when you’re old to pay the cost of being reproductively fit when you’re young. If the same gene has different effects (called pleiotropy) at different times of life—if it enhances your chances of reproduction when you’re young but is deleterious somehow once you get older—that gene will still undergo positive selection and remain in the population because reproduction is that important.

Enlarge / In the past you needed to be brave to own an Italian motorcycle. Now you just need to be brave to ride one. (credit: Ducati)

BOLOGNA, ITALY—For decades, owning an Italian motorcycle required a tradeoff. On one hand, Italian bikemakers led the pack with gorgeous designs and the most exotic, highest-performing engines in the world. No other country could come close to matching the sounds and smells of a Ducati, Moto Guzzi, or Aprilia revving by. But build quality and reliability always presented a challenge for owners, not to mention parts availability and exorbitant maintenance costs.

Ducati arguably led the charge in every regard, setting a standard as the Ferrari of the motorcycle world with eye-catching Rosso Corsa red paint jobs to go along with real racing success in MotoGP and World Superbike thanks to famous—some might say infamous—desmodromic engines. However, In recent years under Volkswagen Group's ownership, Ducati has made great strides in reliability and build quality, which explains to a large extent why 2022 was the firm's most profitable year ever, with 62,000 bikes sold worldwide.

During a recent trip to Italy, I visited the Ducati factory in Bologna to learn how modernizing the production facility at Borgo Panigale helped improve the bikes built there over the decade since joining the Volkswagen group.

We didn't get to see Dune: Part Two—the second film in director Denis Villeneuve's stunning adaptation of Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic—last month as originally planned since the film's November release was delayed until next March due to the Hollywood strikes. But Warner Bros. doesn't want us to completely forget about Dune in the meantime, so it dropped another trailer for the holiday season.

(Spoilers for Dune: Part One below.)

As reported previously (also here and here), Herbert's novel Dune is set in the distant future and follows the fortunes of various noble houses in what amounts to a feudal interstellar society. Much of the action takes place on the planet Arrakis, where the economy is driven largely by a rare, life-extending drug called melange ("the spice"). Melange also conveys a kind of prescience and makes faster-than-light travel practical. There's betrayal, a prophecy concerning a messianic figure, giant sandworms, and battle upon battle as protagonist Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) contends with rival House Harkonnen and strives to defeat the forces of Shaddam IV, Emperor of the Known Universe.

Enlarge / Rembrandt's The Night Watch underwent many chemical and mechanical alterations over the last 400 years. (credit: Public domain)

Rembrandt's The Night Watch, painted in 1642, is the Dutch master's largest surviving painting, known particularly for its exquisite use of light and shadow. A new X-ray imaging analysis of the masterpiece has revealed an unexpected lead layer, perhaps applied as a protective measure while preparing the canvas, according to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances. The work was part of the Rijksmuseum's ongoing Operation Night Watch, the largest multidisciplinary research and conservation project for Rembrandt's famous painting, devoted to its long-term preservation.

The famous scene depicted in The Night Watch—officially called Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq—was not meant to have taken place at night. Rather, the dark appearance is the result of the accumulation of dirt and varnish over four centuries, as the painting was subject to various kinds of chemical and mechanical alterations.

For instance, in 1715, The Night Watch was moved to Amsterdam’s City Hall (now the Royal Palace on Dam Square). It was too large for the new location, so the painting was trimmed on all four sides, and the trimmed pieces were never found (although in 2021, AI was used to re-create the original full painting). The objective of Operation Night Watch is to employ a wide variety of imaging and analytical techniques to better understand the materials Rembrandt used to create his masterpiece and how those materials have changed over time.

Enlarge / Extreme E travels to remote locations by boat and brings its own energy infrastructure with it. Currently, it makes its own hydrogen on site and uses that to charge EV batteries, but in 2025, the cars will switch to hydrogen fuel cells. (credit: Colin McMaster / LAT Images)

ANTOFAGASTA, Chile — On a picnic bench in Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the most remote locations on Earth, Alejandro Agag is holding court.

"Welcome to the edge of the world," he laughs, gesturing toward the vast desert around him. A gust of wind kicks a cloud of sand and dust across the table. "It's amazing, this place."

The 53-year-old Spanish entrepreneur is taking in the sights and sounds of the season 3 finale of Extreme E, the off-road electric racing series he launched in 2021. Part of the series' ethos is that it races exclusively in regions of the globe that are heavily impacted by climate change (such as the Atacama Desert—the driest, non-polar region on Earth), typically with no spectators present.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Bill Diodato)

January is usually a big month for hiking the list prices of drugs in the US—and it looks like 2024 will be no different. Pharmaceutical companies plan to raise the US list prices of more than 500 prescription medications this month, and more are expected to be announced in the coming weeks. That's according to a report from Reuters, which is based on data from the health care research firm 3 Axis Advisors.

The high-profile drug makers with plans to increase prices include giants such as Pfizer, Sanofi, and Takeda.

This year's tally of 500 is in line with the past few years, with 452 list price increases as of January 1, 2023, and a high of 602 on January 1, 2021, according to data from 46brooklyn, a drug pricing nonprofit related to 3 Axis Advisors. Overall, drug makers raised the list prices of 1,425 drugs in 2023, down slightly from 1,460 in 2022.

Enlarge (credit: Dmitry Mayer | iStock / Getty Images Plus)

To kick off the new year, Montana and North Carolina joined a growing number of states enforcing laws requiring age verification to access adult content online.

In the days before the laws took effect on January 1, Aylo—the owner of adult sites like Pornhub, Youporn, Brazzers, and Redtube—blocked access for users in both states, continuing to argue that requiring ID for every login makes adult sites less safe for everyone.

“As you may know, your elected officials in your state are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website," adult entertainer Cherie DeVille said in a public service announcement displayed to users attempting to access sites in Montana and North Carolina. "While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”

Enlarge / There aren't many online game stores where you can spend $48,000 on a single "Add to Cart." (credit: RSI)

At this point, over 11 years after we first wrote about Star Citizen, the still-in-alpha game is interesting less as something that might eventually be "finished" and more as a fascinating tale of feature creep and fundraising success. To that last point, we were suitably boggled at the recent news that Roberts Space Industries is now offering a  $48,000 "Legatus Pack" as a "perfect collection" of "all ships released and concepted through [in-universe year] 2953."

The collection of 187 ships (and hundreds of accessories like paint colors, skins, armor, and in-game posters) is now roughly two-thirds of the median annual household income in the US (circa 2022). But that price isn't even available to lookie-loos like you and me; to add the package to an online shopping cart, you must first spend at least $1,000 to become a member of the game's Chairman's Club.

What a bargain!

While the newest Legatus Pack launched in late December, the offering isn't a new concept for developer Roberts Space Industries. The first Legatus Pack launched in May 2018 for a relatively reasonable $27,000. Before that, similar "Completionist" packs of all in-game content released up to that point would run players up to $15,000.

Enlarge / The three recalled pouches linked to lead poisonings. (credit: FDA)

The Food and Drug Administration has discovered a second metal contaminant—chromium—in the recalled cinnamon applesauce pouches found to contain cinnamon contaminated with extremely high levels of lead. The products have now poisoned nearly 300 young children in 37 states.

The health implications of the additional contaminant are not clear. There is no antidote for chromium exposure, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends supportive care. But the finding does hint at the possible motivation behind the tragic poisonings.

In the FDA's announcement, the agency noted that "The lead-to-chromium ratio in the cinnamon apple puree sample is consistent with that of lead chromate (PbCrO4)." This is a notorious adulterant of spices used to artificially bolster their color and weight.

Enlarge / A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer stands guard outside the Senate of Canada prior to the Speech from the Throne on September 23, 2020, in Ottawa. (credit: Getty | DAVE CHAN/AFP)

Canada issued a warning Monday that it stands ready to defend its prescription drug supply from US importation plans—and also said the plans wouldn't work for the US, anyway. "Bulk importation will not provide an effective solution to the problem of high drug prices in the US," Health Canada said in a statement.

The defensive stance comes just days after the US Food and Drug Administration granted Florida authorization to directly import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada in an effort to help drag down America's uniquely stratospheric drug pricing. Florida is the first state to win such an authorization, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis celebrated it, claiming the drug imports will save the state "up to $180 million in the first year alone." There are caveats, though. Before Florida can import any drugs, it must complete several obligations, including submitting to the FDA additional drug-specific information, testing the drugs for authenticity and FDA compliance, and relabeling them in accordance with FDA labeling.

The FDA authorized the importation program in accordance with section 804 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act). The move stems from President Biden’s "Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy," which directed the FDA to help develop such programs.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

As a scientist heavily engaged in science communication, I’ve seen it all.

People have come to my public talks to argue with me that the Big Bang never happened. People have sent me handwritten letters explaining how dark matter means that ghosts are real. People have asked me for my scientific opinion about homeopathy—and scoffed when they didn’t like my answer. People have told me, to my face, that what they just learned on a TV show proves that aliens built the pyramids and that I didn’t understand the science.

People have left comments on my YouTube videos saying… well, let’s not even go there.

Enlarge / Kyle MacLachlan in Dune, 1984. (credit: Everett)

David Lynch’s 1984 sci-fi epic Dune is—in many ways—a misbegotten botch job. Still, as with more than a few ineffectively ambitious films before it, the artistic flourishes Lynch grafted onto Frank Herbert’s sprawling Machiavellian narrative of warring space dynasties have earned it true cult classic status. Today, fans of the film, which earned a paltry $30 million at the box office and truly bruising reviews upon its release, still wonder what Lynch would have done if given the opportunity to adapt the next two novels in Herbert’s cycle: Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

Franchising was the plan before the first film crashed and burned, with Lynch and star Kyle MacLachlan (playing Paul Atreides) set to shoot both Dune sequels back-to-back in 1986. Miniature spaceship models, costumes, and props from the first film were placed in storage by producer Dino De Laurentiis for use on these follow-ups, while the director hammered away on a Dune II script. “I wrote half a script for the second Dune. I really got into it because it wasn’t a big story,” he says in Lynch on Lynch, “more like a neighborhood story. It had some really cool things in it.”

During the two years I spent putting together my book A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune—An Oral History, I had no luck uncovering Lynch's script for Dune II, despite Frank Herbert telling Prevue magazine in December 1984 that he possessed a copy and was advising Lynch on it. “Now that we speak the same ‘language,’ it’s much easier for both of us to make progress, especially with the screenplays,” Herbert told the publication. Then, in July 2023, within the Frank Herbert archives at California State University, Fullerton, I came across a slim folder with a sticky note declaring “Dune Messiah script revisions,” addressed to the second floor of VFX man Barry Nolan’s office in Burbank where Lynch supervised the final effects shoots and editing on Dune.

Enlarge / A vial of the updated 2023-2024 formula of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at a CVS Pharmacy in Eagle Rock, California, on September 14, 2023. (credit: Getty | Irfan Khan)

Staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines can cut the risk of COVID-related strokes, blood clots, and heart attacks by around 50 percent in people ages 65 years or older and in those with a condition that makes them more vulnerable to those events, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The finding, published this week in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, should help ease concerns that the shots may conversely increase the risk of those events—collectively called thromboembolic events. In January 2023, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration jointly reported a preliminary safety signal from their vaccine-monitoring systems that indicated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines may increase the risk of strokes in the 21 days after vaccination of people ages 65 and older. Since that initial report, that signal decreased, becoming statistically insignificant. Other vaccine monitoring systems, including international systems, have not picked up such a signal. Further studies (summarized here) have not produced clear or consistent data pointing to a link to strokes.

In May, the FDA concluded that the evidence does not support any safety concern and reported that "scientists believe factors other than vaccination might have contributed to the initial finding."

Enlarge (credit: Darrell Gulin)

In a striking experiment, scientists from the French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the University of Montpellier have observed the impact of selective pressure on a flowering plant. By comparing the pansy flower variety of today that grows in the Paris region to those regrown from the seeds of the same variety collected in the 1990s and 2000s, the researchers have observed notable differences.

According to the study’s co-author, Pierre-Oliver Cheptou, the plant’s evolution over this period has resulted in a 25 percent increase in self-pollination (or selfing) in modern two plants. “We also noticed a 10 percent decrease in the flower size and a 20 percent reduction in the nectar production, which suggests the decrease in rewards for pollinators such as bumblebees,” he said.

To confirm this outcome, Cheptou and his colleagues conducted behavioral tests involving bumblebees "which preferred the ancestor plants,” Cheptou said.

Enlarge / US President Joe Biden speaks during a "First Tool-In" ceremony at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. facility under construction in Phoenix, Arizona, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022. TSMC today announced plans to boost its investment in the state to $40 billion and construct a second production facility, following major customers urging the Taiwanese chipmaker to build more advanced semiconductors in the US. (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)

President Joe Biden's plan to expand America's command of the global chips market hit another setback Thursday when Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Chairman Mark Liu announced that he anticipates significant delays at the company's second chips plant in Arizona.

This news follows previous delays announced last year at TSMC's first chips plant, which Liu partly blamed on US workers lacking specialized skills. At Thursday's news conference, Liu "reiterated" those complaints, Bloomberg reported, claiming that TSMC is still struggling to hire skilled workers in Arizona.

According to Liu, TSMC's second Arizona plant—which is supposed to become the most advanced facility in the US—likely won't start volume production of advanced chips until 2027 or 2028. That's potentially two years longer than initial projections suggesting that production would start in 2026.

Enlarge / Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). (credit: Getty | Chip Somodevilla /)

Pharmaceutical companies have raised the list prices of 775 brand-name drugs so far this year, with a median increase of 4.5 percent, exceeding the rate of inflation, according to an analysis conducted for The Wall Street Journal.

Drugmakers typically raise prices at the start of the year, and Ars reported on January 2 that companies had plans to raise the list prices of more than 500 prescription medications. The updated analysis, carried out by 46brooklyn Research, a nonprofit drug-pricing analytics group, gives a clearer picture of pharmaceutical companies' activities this month.

High-profile drugs Ozempic (made by Novo Nordisk) and Mounjaro (Eli Lilly), both used for Type II diabetes and weight loss, were among those that saw price increases. Ozempic's list price went up 3.5 percent to nearly $970 for a month’s supply, while Mounjaro went up 4.5 percent to almost $1,070 a month. The annual inflation rate in the US was 3.4 percent for 2023.

Enlarge / Sierra Space's 300-cubic-meter inflatable habitat burst at 77 psi, five times the pressure it would need to handle in space. (credit: Sierra Space)

Sierra Space says it has demonstrated in a ground test that a full-scale inflatable habitat for a future space station can meet NASA's recommended safety standards, clearing a technical gate on the road toward building a commercial outpost in low-Earth orbit.

During a December test at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, Sierra Space's 300 cubic meter inflatable structure withstood five times the pressure it would need to handle in space. The so-called ultimate burst pressure test was designed to measure the limits of the soft goods technology Sierra Space is developing alongside ILC Dover, which also built spacesuits for NASA.

The 27-foot-diameter (8.2-meter) inflatable structure burst at 77 psi, exceeding NASA's recommended safety standard of 60.8 psi, which is four times the module's real-life operating pressure at 15.2 psi.

Enlarge / A bold jumping spider struggles to survive in New York City in A Real Bug's Life, narrated by Awkwafina. (credit: National Geographic/Jamie Thorpe)

Pixar's 1998 animated film A Bug's Life celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, and National Geographic decided to mark the occasion with a new science docuseries, A Real Bug's Life, narrated by Awkwafina. As with the Pixar film, the bugs (and adjacent creatures) are the main characters here, from cockroaches, monarch butterflies, and praying mantises to bees, spiders, and even hermit crabs. The 10 episodes tell their stories as they struggle to survive in their respective habitats, capturing entire ecosystems in the process: city streets, a farm, the rainforest, a Texas backyard, and the African savannah, for example.

The genesis for the docuseries lies in a rumored sequel to the original film. That inspired producer Bill Markham, among others, to pitch a documentary series on a real bug's life to National Geographic. "It was the quickest commission ever," Markham told Ars. "They said yes literally over a weekend. It was such a good idea, to film bugs in an entertaining family way with Pixar sensibilities." And thanks to the advent of new technologies, plus a couple of skilled "bug wranglers," the team captured the bug's-eye view of the world beautifully.

According to Director of Photography Nathan Small, long tube-like probe lenses enabled the camera crew to capture footage from inside tiny cracks and holes to better document the buggy behavior. They also made better use of macro lenses. "Before when we had macro lenses, they were all quite long, and the background would be really smooshy with everything out of focus," Small told Ars. "We tried to shoot everything from very low, very wide angles with lots of context, so you can experience the world from the point of view of the animal and see how it sits in its location, rather than just a smooshy background."

Enlarge / "Well, we all have a face/That we hide away forever" (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

If you've paid any attention to the intersection of AI and culture this month, you’ve probably stumbled across a video billed as a “comedy AI” doing a 60-minute impression of a stand-up routine by the late, great George Carlin. Even if you didn’t watch “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead,” you probably stumbled on some of the many, many headlines suggesting that AI had brought the legendary comedian “back from the dead” in some sense.

Or maybe you saw some of the disgusted and/or panicked responses to the special among Carlin fans, comedy purists, and AI fearmongers. Those included Carlin’s daughter, Kelly, who told The Daily Beast that she’s talking to lawyers about the possibility of legal action against the special’s creators, the comedy podcast Dudesy.

But I think that anger is at least partially misplaced. After spending the last few weeks diving down a distractingly deep rabbit hole, I’m convinced that Dudesy’s “AI-generated” George Carlin special was actually written by a human, using voice- and image-generation tools to essentially perform in “AI face” as part of an ongoing comedy bit.

Enlarge / Who doesn't want less recoil? Unless, that is, you're someone competing against the person getting this benefit with a $100 "emulation" device. (credit: Cronus)

The Cronus Zen describes itself as a hardware tool for "universal controller compatibility," letting you plug in a third-party controller, an Xbox controller into a PlayStation, or even your keyboard and mouse into a console. But you can also use its scripting engine to "amplify your game" and set up "GamePacks" to do things like reduce recoil animations in games like Call of Duty. And that is where Cronus seems to have gotten into trouble.

As first noted by the Call of Duty news channel CharlieIntel, the latest update to the PlayStation 5's system (24.01-08.60.00) software blocks the Cronus from connecting. The update is "NOT mandatory," Cronus claims in a notice on its website, so Zen players can hold off and keep playing. Still, there is "currently no timetable on a fix … it could be 24 (hours), 24 days, 24 months, we won't know until we've dug into it." There is, for now, a "Remote Play Workaround" for those already too far updated.

Ars attempted to reach Cronus for comment and reached out to Sony as well and will update this post with any new information.

Enlarge / A promotional image cited in the lawsuit uses Carlin's name and image to promote the Dudsey podcast and special.

The estate of George Carlin has filed a federal lawsuit against the comedy podcast Dudesy for an hour-long comedy special sold as an AI-generated impression of the late comedian. But a representative for one of the podcast hosts behind the special now admits that it was actually written by a human.

In the lawsuit, filed by Carlin manager Jerold Hamza in a California district court, the Carlin estate points out that the special, "George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead," (which was set to "private" on YouTube shortly after the lawsuit was filed) presents itself as being created by an AI trained on decades worth of Carlin's material. That training would, by definition, involve making "unauthorized copies" of "Carlin's original, copyrighted routines" without permission in order "to fabricate a semblance of Carlin’s voice and generate a Carlin stand-up comedy routine," according to the lawsuit.

"Defendants’ AI-generated 'George Carlin Special' is not a creative work," the lawsuit reads, in part. "It is a piece of computer-generated click-bait which detracts from the value of Carlin’s comedic works and harms his reputation. It is a casual theft of a great American artist’s work."

Enlarge / Pro-choice protesters march outside the Texas State Capitol on Sept. 1, 2021, in Austin, Texas. (credit: Getty Images | The Washington Post )

Fourteen states have banned abortions at any gestational age since the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022. Since the enactment of those abortion bans, an estimated 64,565 people became pregnant as a result of rape in those states. But, while five of the 14 states have exceptions for rape, all of the states logged only 10 or fewer legal abortions per month since their respective bans were enacted.

The finding, published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine, is a stark look at the effects of such bans on reproductive health care. The study did not assess how many of the estimated 64,565 pregnancies resulted in births, but it makes clear that tens of thousands of pregnant rape survivors, including children, were forced to turn to illegal procedures, self-managed abortions, or burdensome travel to states where abortion is legal—cost-prohibitive to many—as an alternative to carrying a rape-related pregnancy to term.

It also showed that legal exceptions for rape don't work. The states with those exceptions apply stringent time limits on the pregnancy and require victims to report their rapes to law enforcement, which likely disqualifies most. The US Department of Justice estimates that only 21 percent of victims report their rape to police, for myriad reasons.

Enlarge / The three rulebooks for "fantastic medieval wargames" that started it all, released at some point in late January 1974, as seen in Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History. (credit: Wizards of the Coast/Ten Speed Press)

"We have just fromed [sic] Tactical Studies Rules, and we wish to let the wargaming community know that a new line of miniature rules is available."

With this letter, written by Gary Gygax to wargaming zine publisher Jim Lurvey, one of the founders of what would become TSR, announced that a January 1974 release for Dungeons & Dragons was forthcoming. This, plus other evidence compiled by Jon Peterson (as pointed out by the Grognardia blog), points to the last Sunday of January 1974 as the best date for the "anniversary" of D&D. The first sale was in "late January 1974," Gygax later wrote, and on the last Sunday of January 1974, Gygax invited potential customers to drop by his house in the afternoon to try it out.

You could argue whether a final draft, printing, announcement, sale, or first session counts as the true "birth" of D&D, but we have to go with something, and Peterson's reasoning seems fairly sound. Gygax's memory, and a documented session at his own house, are a good point to pin down the celebration of this thing that has shaped a seemingly infinite number of other things.

Enlarge / Aerial view of the Athabasca oil sands near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. (credit: Bloomberg Creative via Getty)

Canada’s tar sands have gained infamy for being one of the world’s most polluting sources of oil, thanks to the large amounts of energy and water use required for their extraction. A new study says the operations are also emitting far higher levels of a range of air pollutants than previously known, with implications for communities living nearby and far downwind.

The research, published Thursday in Science, took direct measurements of organic carbon emissions from aircraft flying above the tar sands, also called oil sands, and found levels that were 20 to 64 times higher than what companies were reporting. Total organic carbon includes a wide range of compounds, some of which can contribute directly to hazardous air pollution locally and others that can react in the atmosphere to form small particulate matter, or PM 2.5, a dangerous pollutant that can travel long distances and lodge deep in the lungs.

The study found that tar sands operations were releasing as much of these pollutants as all other human-made sources in Canada combined. For certain classes of heavy organic compounds, which are more likely to form particulates downwind, the concentrations were higher than what’s generally found in large metropolises like Los Angeles.

Enlarge / The exterior of the headquarters of biotechnology company Biogen in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (credit: Getty | Boston Globe)

Biotechnology company Biogen is abandoning Aduhelm, its questionable Alzheimer's drug that has floundered on the market since its scandal-plagued regulatory approval in 2021 and brow-raising pricing.

On Wednesday, the company announced it had terminated its license for Aduhelm (aducanumab) and will stop all development and commercialization activities. The rights to Aduhelm will revert back to Neurimmune, the Swiss biopharmaceutical company that discovered it.

Biogen will also end the Phase 4 clinical trial, ENVISION, that was required by the Food and Drug Administration to prove Biogen's claims that Aduhelm is effective at slowing progression of Alzheimer's in its early stages—something two Phase 3 trials failed to do with certainty.

Enlarge / US President Joe Biden speaks before signing the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. (credit: Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images North America)

The Biden administration announced investments Friday totaling more than $5 billion in semiconductor research and development intended to re-establish the US as a global leader manufacturing the "next generation of semiconductor technologies."

Through sizeable investments, the US will "advance US leadership in semiconductor R&D, cut down on the time and cost of commercializing new technologies, bolster US national security, and connect and support workers in securing good semiconductor jobs," a White House press release said.

Currently, the US produces "less than 10 percent" of the global chips supply and "none of the most advanced chips," the White House said. But investing in programs like the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC)—considered the "centerpiece" of the CHIPS and Science Act's four R&D programs—and training a talented workforce could significantly increase US production of semiconductors that the Biden administration described as the "backbone of the modern economy."

Enlarge / OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman walks on the House side of the US Capitol on January 11, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in talks with investors to raise as much as $5 trillion to $7 trillion for AI chip manufacturing, according to people familiar with the matter. The funding seeks to address the scarcity of graphics processing units (GPUs) crucial for training and running large language models like those that power ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini.

The high dollar amount reflects the huge amount of capital necessary to spin up new semiconductor manufacturing capability. "As part of the talks, Altman is pitching a partnership between OpenAI, various investors, chip makers and power providers, which together would put up money to build chip foundries that would then be run by existing chip makers," writes the Wall Street Journal in its report. "OpenAI would agree to be a significant customer of the new factories."

Enlarge (credit: Senate HELP Committee)

When big pharmaceutical companies are confronted over their exorbitant pricing of prescription drugs in the US, they often retreat to two well-worn arguments: One, that the high drug prices cover costs of researching and developing new drugs, a risky and expensive endeavor, and two, that middle managers—pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), to be specific—are actually the ones price gouging Americans.

Both of these arguments faced substantial blows in a hearing Thursday held by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). In fact, pharmaceutical companies are spending billions of dollars more on lavish executive compensation, dividends, and stock buyouts than they spend on research and development (R&D) for new drugs, Sanders pointed out. "In other words, these companies are spending more to enrich their own stockholders and CEOs than they are in finding new cures and new treatments," he said.

And, while PBMs certainly contribute to America's uniquely astronomical drug pricing, their profiteering accounts for a small fraction of the massive drug market, Sanders and an expert panelist noted. PBMs work as shadowy middle managers between drugmakers, insurers, and pharmacies, setting drug formularies and consumer prices, and negotiating rebates and discounts behind the scenes. Though PBMs practices contribute to overall costs, they pale compared to pharmaceutical profits.

Enlarge / Stephen Ubl, president and chief executive officer of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), speaks during a Bloomberg Live discussion in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. (credit: Getty | Andrew Harrer)

A federal judge in Texas dismissed a lawsuit Monday brought by a heavy-hitting pharmaceutical trade group, which argued that forcing drug makers to negotiate Medicare drug prices is unconstitutional.

The dismissal is a small win for the Biden administration, which is defending the price negotiations on multiple fronts. The lawsuit dismissed Monday is just one of nine from the pharmaceutical industry, all claiming in some way that the price negotiations laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 are unconstitutional. The big pharmaceutical companies suing the government directly over the negotiations include Johnson & Johnson, Bristol Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk, Merck, and AstraZeneca.

Last month, a federal judge in Delaware heard arguments from AstraZeneca's lawyers, which reportedly went poorly. AstraZeneca argued that Medicare's new power to negotiate drug prices violates the company's rights under the Fifth Amendment's due process clause. The forced negotiations deprive the company of “property rights in their drug products and their patent rights" without due process, AstraZeneca claimed. But Colm Connolly, chief judge of the US District Court of Delaware, was skeptical of how that could be the case, according to a Stat reporter who was present for the hearing. Connolly noted that AstraZeneca doesn't have to sell drugs to Medicare. "You’re free to do what you want," Connolly reportedly said. "You may not make as much money."