Three stories today ask how science, AI, and witchcraft can bring humans together in good and evil ways. An American Heart Association study suggests that AI paired with everyday wearables could flag a hypertensive crisis up to three days before it hits, based on a year of data from more than 4,000 people with stage 2 high blood pressure. On the other hand, Gen Z is discovering arcane craft on Etsy, while Michigan is testing an AI that wants to prophesy when incarcerated people might commit a crime.

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New research from the American Heart Association suggests that an AI model fed data from everyday wearables could flag a coming hypertensive crisis up to three days in advance. The 12-month study followed more than 4,000 people with stage 2 high blood pressure. Participants wore a portable cuff-style monitor, which tracked blood pressure during workouts and sleep, plus a wrist-based fitness tracker that recorded heart rate and heart rate variability. Of those participants, 312 had dangerous spikes. The numbers are what make it notable. Among people who got an alert and received proper medication from a healthcare professional within 24 hours, the chance of a hypertensive crisis fell by 61% and emergency hospital visits dropped by 45%.

About 32% of those with a positive alert went on to have a crisis, while 97.4% of those without an alert stayed crisis-free. People whose blood pressure did not dip during sleep had five times the risk. For now, this is a limited study, not a feature you can switch on. The Apple Watch Series 12 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 can warn about blood pressure fluctuations but don't report systolic and diastolic values, while Huawei's Watch D3 uses a micropump cuff to do so. Experts say wearables are best treated as trend trackers and early warning systems, not replacements for medical-grade monitors. If this approach holds up, those warnings could become far more actionable.

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Michigan's Department of Corrections is preparing to let an AI system help decide how dangerous incarcerated people are and where they will be housed. According to Detroit station Fox2, as reported by Futurism, the state will use software from the non-profit Recidiviz, which began as a data project at Google, to sort people into the state's five security-based housing levels. Until now, that call was made by a committee of staff appointed by each facility's warden. A pilot will start in December at a number of men's facilities, and the department says the tool is meant to "optimize placement of incarcerated individuals."

The stakes are high for those affected, since a housing level determines which programs and resources a person can access and what population they live among for the length of their sentence. MDOC says the system should improve its ability to predict future violence by approximately 30 percent, though Futurism notes it is unclear how the state arrived at that figure. The outlet also points to unanswered questions about what data will be collected, and cites a ProPublica investigation of a similar risk tool in Louisiana that found racial and socioeconomic bias in the underlying data. In one case from that reporting, a blind, wheelchair-bound 70-year-old with a clean disciplinary record was rated a "moderate risk," which cost him parole eligibility. Michigan's tool is aimed at housing rather than parole, but Futurism argues software alone is unlikely to fix the state's corrections troubles and could make them worse. The department was cont

Spells are now just a checkout page away. Sellers on Etsy, often called “Etsy witches,” promise everything from good luck to sunshine on your wedding day, and demand is climbing. Etsy told BBC Scotland that searches for spells to keep the rain away on a wedding day have jumped 206%, while searches for wedding-related spells and witches are up 105%. Etsy’s own rules, however, require sellers to market spells as entertainment only. One of those sellers is Ellecia Cahill, a 24-year-old self-described mystic from Erskine with more than 2,000 sales. Her most popular requests aren’t love spells but abundance spells, which are meant to attract money and success. She says many young people feel lonely and want to believe in something bigger than themselves.

“Even if magic isn’t real, if it helps someone feel more confident, what is the harm?” she told the BBC. Results vary. Glasgow actress Laura Blair says her job spell didn’t deliver exactly what she wanted, but she has been busier than ever since. Chloe, 22, who paid for a spell to win back her ex, called it “a waste of time and money.” Sociologist Alexandria Arthur-Hastie of Leeds Beckett University sees the trend as “the latest step in the commodification of spirituality,” with young people looking for comfort when life feels uncertain.

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