The wackiest headlines from the week as they would appear in a Classifieds section.

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PASSIONATE ACTORS: The CW has been watching BookTok, and it knows what you all want. The network will produce six made-for-TV movies based on best-selling Harlequin novels. Hallmark, you’re on notice.

FOOD SCORN: An Atlantic writer posted a screed against wraps in which she described them as “an indistinguishable food slurry wrapped in edible cardboard.” Sounds like she’s confusing wraps with deep-dish pizza.

Personal

FOUND—GAUDY NECKLACE: A black bear in Michigan was finally freed from the giant plastic lid he got stuck around his neck nearly two years ago when he was just a cub. This is why you should be careful when you buy jewelry on Etsy.

BACK ON FB: And not just for all the flip-able side tables on Marketplace. Aaron Sorkin has written and intends to direct a sequel to The Social Network based on The Wall Street Journal’s “Facebook Files.”

PLZ TAKE A PIC: BeReal went from “App of the Year” to an annoying notification that made you question why you even downloaded the thing. But now…it’s back, and wants to stir up drama in your friend group again.

For sale

MANIPULATED CROISSANT: Pastry Chef Tanya Bush waited in the lines and tried a whole bunch of viral cronuts/cakes/cubed puffs. Maybe the true meaning of pastries is the artistically whipped toppings we enjoyed along the way?

ICONIC VEST: The patterned sweater vest that Matthew Broderick wore in the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off sold for $279,400 at auction. That’s not even the most overpriced thrifted piece of clothing you’ll find in Chicago.

NAMING RIGHTS: If you send $150 to this baby-naming service, someone will send you a questionnaire and offer three suggestions for your new baby’s name. What’s so wrong with Greg?—MM, DL

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even turn water into wine, and then turn the empty bottle into a hangover remedy.

Orcas were seen using tools in a first for ocean mammals. Seaweed spa treatments are a universal language: Marine biologists witnessed a group of killer whales off the coast of Washington state exfoliating each other with kelp, a practice similar to grooming behaviors that were previously thought to be mostly unique to primates. In the first-ever observed instance of mutual marine grooming, the orcas bit off pieces of seaweed, placed the strips between themselves and another pod member, and then rubbed their bodies together, seemingly to get rid of dead skin and parasites (and to bond). “These are probably the most monitored marine mammals in the world,” the study’s lead author said, so it’s surprising that it took so long to catch them grooming.

E. coli can convert plastic into acetaminophen. Your empty Poland Spring could be upcycled into a headache reliever, according to a new report published this week in Nature Chemistry. In a lab experiment, it took less than 24 hours for a genetically-engineered strain of E. coli to chemically convert 92% of a broken-down plastic water bottle into acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. If you’re wondering why anyone would do this, you may not know that acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol outside the US and Japan) is primarily manufactured from chemicals found in crude oil. Chemists have, in recent years, found greener ingredient alternatives in some trees, and this new discovery could help offset plastic waste.

Mice with two dads have kids of their own. In a major reproductive milestone that could one day help same-sex human couples start their own genetically related family tree, lab mice that were grown from an egg and two different sperm cells have fathered mouse children of their own. The babies were born to female mice that mated with the lab-grown dads. Earlier this year, another research team created mice with two fathers, but they didn’t grow up to be fertile like the new mouse dads. Human applications are unknowably far away because the success rate was very low, but this accomplishment was still a long time coming: Scientists created the first fertile offspring of two mother mice in 2004. Replicating the process for males was more of a challenge.—ML

North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un tossed on a non-bathing suit and had someone set up some chairs for him and his family so they could watch people enjoy a water slide at Wonsan Kalma, a new coastal beach resort. Kim spent some time poolside with a pack of cigarettes and a cold drink, as one does at a water park, calling the property one of the country’s “greatest feats.”

The attraction officially opens on July 1, but there’s bad news for tourists looking to vacation in North Korea—foreign visitors are all but banned, with restrictions still in place dating back to the Covid-19 pandemic.—DL

Your colleague who likes to touch base and circle back is likely sending even more unimaginatively worded emails. And you can thank ChatGPT for that.

Researchers are finding that not only is AI learning from human-generated content, but it’s also influencing how humans write and speak, homogenizing our style and vocabulary:

• Words that abound in AI-generated text like “delve, “meticulous,” and “adept” have taken over the human lexicon in both written and spoken communication.
• For example, linguists from the Max Planck Institute in Germany recently found that academic YouTubers began using words favored by AI chatbots up to 51% more frequently after the release of ChatGPT.

While technology has always shaped the way we write and speak (thx, phones), this is the first time in history that machines are directly dictating communication style. So, let’s delve into consider what AI becoming a linguistic force heralds for our oral and written expression.

It’s not just ChatGPT addicts

AI tools are integrated into software ranging from word processors to messaging apps, successfully enticing millions of users to seek assistance from a machine when composing text. But even people who don’t use AI can end up parroting it, famed linguist and AI critic Emily Bender told the Atlantic. She believes that the profusion of synthetic text online and its use in email communications make it impossible to dodge the tech’s influence.

In the case of the academic YouTubers, the Max Planck Institute study suggests that reading ChatGPT-generated term papers may be leaving a mark on their speech patterns. The researchers found that in most instances, AI’s favorite word, “delve,” showed up in many videos that appeared to be unscripted.

Are we becoming rambling bores?

Linguists say that the influence of AI-generated texts is making language cookie-cutter, flattening the quirks and eccentric irregularities that make words pop off the page. Experts point out that this could make human writing less effective, since text peppered with clichés and buzzwords is less likely to keep readers interested.

Meanwhile, some scholars are concerned that AI is homogenizing regional and international variations of English, making it less likely that someone will casually describe their affairs as “hunky-dory”:

• A recent Cornell study found that AI may be influencing the writing style of Indian English speakers to sound more American.
• UC Berkeley researchers found that ChatGPT preferred Standard American English and was more likely to produce exaggerated caricature-like outputs when prompted by speakers of other dialects.

Besides getting us addicted to a stock set of words and turns of phrase, AI is also making us wordier, because chatbots tend to prefer long-winded, flowery prose. People produced more verbose Facebook Marketplace listings after being exposed to ChatGPT-written ones, a study by Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, showed. Listings written post-ChatGPT exposure were 87 characters on average, up from the 33 characters participants cranked out before they saw the AI-generated version.

And it impacts how we view others’ communication

Research indicates that AI-assisted communication can also influence how people perceive each other. A recent Cornell University study found:

• When “smart replies” were used in work chats, trust often improved, as AI tends to use more emotionally positive language.
• But people who suspected their colleagues were sending AI-generated messages were more likely to perceive the sender as less collaborative and more demanding, raising the possibility that AI use might undermine interpersonal relationships.

We can adapt

Some experts claim that identifying the problem sets humanity on the track to combat it, and there’s already a backlash brewing to address what’s seen as AI dimming the sparkle of human language.

Many academics are consciously avoiding AI-coded terms in their work, while one professor told the Atlantic that some of his students are refusing to use AI, taking pride in their ability to naturally formulate crisp sentences—the expressive equivalent of folks who do all their grocery shopping at their local organic farm.

Even AI users have some control over how their synthetic writing sounds. Ritesh Chugh, an IT professor at Central Queensland University in Australia, suggests adjusting settings within AI tools to prompt them to avoid repetition, use precise language, and personalize tone.

If you don’t want to sound like a robot…try your best to avoid relying on these words and phrases preferred by ChatGPT.—SK

Before Ian Fleming created James Bond and the 007 universe, he served as a liaison officer to the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a clandestine service that operated in tunnels beneath London and dispatched British agents on sabotage missions in Nazi-occupied territories during World War II.

Soon, those tunnels that inspired the books that became a billion-dollar movie franchise will be transformed into a tourist attraction featuring a spy museum, a WWII memorial, and a bar 100 feet below ground.

• The British Military Intelligence Museum is on a military base in London with limited public access. The museum will relocate a collection of equipment, weapons, and documents to the tunnels and shed light on the SOE, an agency so secret that few people know anything about it.
• The bar was part of the original design, showing that your cool office with beer on tap wasn’t the first time a company used alcohol to keep employees happy.

Tunnels timeline: They were originally built as a bomb shelter in the 1940s and housed the headquarters of the SOE, which likely influenced Fleming’s “Q Branch” in the Bond books. Later, the tunnels became a secure communications site, one that was used during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After lying dormant since the 1980s, British Telecom sold the tunnels to a private equity group called The London Tunnels Company in 2023.

Just wait: The 90,000-square-foot space aims to be open in 2028, right around the time the next James Bond will be cast.—DL