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July 15, 2025—ChatGPT is changing our vocabularies. Plus, scientists discover the rarest human blood group, and the biggest black hole merger ever seen.
—Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Artist's impression of two black holes merging and the waves in spacetime it creates. Lynette Cook/Science Source | | - The LIGO gravitational wave detector spotted a collision between fast-spinning "forbidden" black holes. It's the biggest black hole merger ever detected. | 4 min read
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from FEMA, funding intended to reduce damage from flooding and other disasters. | 6 min read
- In a routine blood test, French scientists identified the world's newest and rarest blood group, called "Gwada-negative." The sole known carrier is a woman from Guadeloupe whose blood is so uncommon that doctors couldn't find a single compatible donor. | 3 min read
- Although bariatric surgery can result in significant weight loss, weight stigma can persist years after the surgery. | 16 min listen
- A person in Arizona died last week of the plague. Yes, the bacterium that caused the Black Death is still around. | 6 min read
| | ChatGPT is influencing how we speak. The Large Language Model (LLM) employs certain words, such as "delve," "realm" and "meticulous," more than others. Scientists analyzed more than 360,000 YouTube videos and 771,000 podcast episodes before and after ChatGPT's launch. They found a surge in the use of these words in human conversation in the 18 months after the LLM's release.Why this matters: It may seem harmless, but this trend carries risks. Humans tend to imitate one another, says study co-author Levin Brinkmann. However, we don't emulate others equally. We're more likely to mimic folks who we perceive to be knowledgeable or important, he explains. People may start to rely on and imitate ChatGPT over other sources, narrowing language diversity.
What the experts say: "Looking at word distribution is the right methodology" to understand how ChatGPT is affecting the way we communicate, says James Evans, a professor of sociology and data science who was not involved in the study. "As the models mature, these distributions are going to be harder to discriminate." —Andrea Tamayo, newsletter writer | | "Empirical Evidence of Large Language Model's Influence on Human Spoken Communication," by Hiromu Yakura et al. Second version of preprint posted to arXiv.org on June 30, 2025, modified and restyled by Amanda Montañez. | | | | |
| Unscramble a Piece of History | Assemble this puzzle of our cover from August 1995 which shows a diver coming to the surface. The issue included a feature describing the latest science on decompression illness. To celebrate Scientific American's upcoming 180th anniversary, we're publishing a jigsaw puzzle every weekday to show off some of our favorite magazine covers over the years. Click here for more puzzles. | | - Last week along the Guadalupe River in Texas, some six to 10 inches of rain fell in just three hours. Last night record rainfall fell in some parts of the New York tri-state area. No matter where you live, climate change is affecting the weather, causing tragedy in many cases. "No place in the U.S.—in the world, really—is safe from the ravages of the climate crisis," wrote the editors of Scientific American earlier this year. "There are no climate havens. Places touted as less prone to heat ... are subject to floods and more intense snowfall. Those close to water face rising sea levels or floods." Even in places that were once thought to be immune to changing weather, "population growth would strain water supplies, eventually spoiling these places as the rest of the country continues to endure more intense wildfires, more destructive hurricanes and tornadoes, prolonged droughts, and intensifying heat waves." | 4 min read
| | You can rest assured that ChatGPT has yet to sway my word choice as I write these newsletters. No, I won't be delving into that realm of meticulously chosen language anytime soon (wink). In all seriousness, reading human writing created by different kinds of people about different kinds of things seems the best way to broaden your vocabulary and keep it uniquely yours. Check out this newsletter every Friday in summer for a new book recommendation. | | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | | |
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