It's all about the work

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today. Health misinformation is thriving in the AI universe, frozen foods are winning at the grocery store, scientists have trained bacteria to eat cancerous tumors, and get ready for a Twisted Sister tour featuring a fill-in frontman🤘

But first our weekly poll!

OpenAI recently announced a beta version of ChatGPT Health, which will allow users to consult the chatbot with health-related questions—an avenue many have already been taking via Google searches for years anyway.

Anthropic provides similar features with its Claude chatbot, but both companies insist these tools are only supplemental and shouldn’t be considered replacements for legitimate and professional medical consultations.

What they can be used for is to streamline the reading and making sense of a person’s medical history. They can summarize and whittle down key and complex details so they’re understandable to the average person, who can use such information in preparation for going to see their physician.

They cannot assist in diagnosing medical conditions, and they certainly cannot treat them. Both OpenAI and Anthropic advise seeking immediate care if experiencing legitimate symptoms of anything, rather than consulting Claude or ChatGPT to assess what’s happening.

It’s also important to remember these tools are not infallible, and continue to experience hallucinations at times, resulting in the transmission of nonsense or incorrect information.

Finally, the privacy of one’s medical records is not guaranteed by federal law after giving companies like OpenAI or Anthropic access to them.

Posts on social media in recent weeks that appear to have been made using AI claimed Toyota would soon move its plant in Huntsville, Alabama to a new location in Ontario.

“Toyota just pulled the plug on their $9‑billion plant in Alabama and gave it to Canada,” said a Feb. 19 post on X.

The Japanese automaker responded earlier this week after several posts went viral, generated tens of thousands of likes with similar false claims about the move, and gained enough prominence to fool Google’s AI overview when users searched keywords and terms found in the posts.

“There is no truth to this,” Toyota Canada media spokesperson Michael Bouliane wrote in an email to CTV News.

Overviews began “confirming” the rumours, citing only the false claims made on platforms such as X, Facebook, Threads, and LinkedIn.

Google spokesperson Wendy Manto defended the overview feature, saying the vast majority of searches yield helpful and accurate information.

“Just like other features in Search, issues can arise when there is an absence of high‑quality information on the web on a particular topic, and we use these examples to improve AI Overviews broadly,” Manto said.

Frozen food has been a popular option for shoppers for decades, but according to a new report, that popularity has spiked considerably since 2019.

The report contained a survey conducted in October, which asked 1,560 participants who purchased frozen food several times a year about their consumption habits, their sentiments towards the items they buy, and what they specifically they look for in frozen food.

First, the report found frozen food sales were overall 45% higher in the year-long period leading up to September 2025 than they were during the same period of 2019.

The vast majority of survey respondents said they intend to buy more frozen food in the year ahead and are “very interested” in combining frozen foods with fresh foods to make and serve meals. Many specified they’re looking for minimal processing and healthier ingredients with high protein and fiber content.

15% of all respondents now believe frozen foods have a better quality than fresh foods, up three percentage points from 2019.

Sales at mass retailers or club retailers were up about 25% and 14%, respectively, while traditional grocers saw sales decline 40%, suggesting consumers are increasingly buying in bulk.

‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ some might say, and that likely applies in the case of a bacteria being trained by scientists at Waterloo University to consume tumors from the inside out.

The bacterium in question is Clostridium sporogenes, and it can only grow and function in a zero-oxygen environment. The core of a tumor—comprised of dead cells and no oxygen—is as good a place as any for this unlikely ally.

“Bacteria spores enter the tumor, finding an environment where there are lots of nutrients and no oxygen, which this organism prefers, and so it starts eating those nutrients and growing in size,” said Dr. Marc Aucoin, a chemical engineering professor at Waterloo.

When exposed to oxygen, this bacterium usually dies, which presented a problem when it approached the outer edges of the tumor during the study.

In response, Dr. Aucoin and his team leveraged previous research showing that a gene found in similar bacteria could be used to modify Clostridium sporogenes, making it more oxygen-tolerant.

They also used a phenomenon called quorum-sensing, which allows the bacteria to detect when it’s approaching an oxygen-containing environment, thereby activating the gene that creates oxygen tolerance.

Dr. Aucoin says the plan moving forward is to combine the gene-editing and quorum sensing methods to test whether a tumor can be destroyed while also preventing the bacteria from seeping into and infecting oxygen-rich environments.

Mussomeli is a small town of just 9,900 residents in Sicily, Italy, and after spending years renovating the three properties she bought for one euro each, California resident Rubia Daniels is now living her dream on the southern Italian island.

She travelled there in 2019 after hearing about the seemingly-too-good-to-be-true offers on crumbling properties. Her background in construction drove her to take a look to see if they could be restored.

She spent $35,000 renovating the three properties into a vacation home, a restaurant, and a wellness center, and says it was the best decision she ever made. In the Bay Area, a family of four needs an annual income of about $300,000 to live comfortably. In Mussomeli, there’s practically no such thing as stress, especially over living costs.

“People here, they consume a lot of alcohol, nicotine, carbs, and they live longer than most places,” Daniels said. “I believe it’s because the level of stress is so low and [the fact that] the community is so active that that gives them longevity.”

“The biggest challenge for me over here in Sicily is just the amount of carbs that they consume,” she joked. “Other than that, life is beautiful.”

Twisted Sister announced last year that they’d tour in 2026 in celebration of the band’s 50th anniversary. However, earlier this year, the tour was abruptly called off due to health issues frontman Dee Snider was experiencing.

Fans assumed Snider’s health was in serious crisis, so shortly after announcing the cancellation, he made a statement clarifying he’s fine, but just can’t be the Twisted Sister frontman everyone expects or remembers.

"You won't see me on the stage kicking ass like I used to because that will mess me up. Thank you very much for cheering me on. I'm OK. I just can't do that anymore. And you know what? The truth of the matter is: I don't want you to see me up there being less than you expect me to be. You got memories of a great show that I did? That's what I want to leave you with."

Can Twisted Sister survive without Snider? The rest of the band believes so, and they’ve revealed Canadian vocal sensation Sebastian Bach of Skid Row will fill in for their leader on the tour they still plan to go on this year.

Dates have not been announced yet, but as they say: you can’t stop rock ‘n’ roll.

Quizmaster’s choice

It’s Friday and you know what that means! Time for trivia à la carte. It’s a little of this, a little of that, and a whole lotta fun.

Give today’s trivia a try and you might just win a $25 e-gift card.

Winner will be notified on Monday afternoon. Keep an eye on your inbox and don’t forget to check your spam folder! *