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Remember him? Developers GDC billboard pokes at despised former Google Stadia exec Satirical San Francisco billboard asks: "Has a Harrison fired you lately?" Kyle Orland Mar 18, 2025 5:40 pm | 6 The subject of this billboard is totally, completely legally distinct from former Google Stadia executive Phil Harrison. Credit: VGC The subject of this billboard is totally, completely legally distinct from former Google Stadia executive Phil Harrison. Credit: VGC Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreIt's been nearly two years now since game industry veteran Phil Harrison left Google following the implosion of the company's Stadia cloud gaming service. But the passage of time hasn't stopped one company from taking advantage of this week's Game Developers Conference to poke fun at the erstwhile gaming executive for his alleged mistreatment of developers.VGC spotted a conspicuous billboard in San Francisco's Union Square Monday featuring the overinflated, completely bald head of Gunther Harrison, the fictional Alta Interglobal CEO who was recently revealed as the blatantly satirical antagonist in the upcoming game Revenge of the Savage Planet. A large message atop the billboard asks passersbyincluding the tens of thousands in town for GDC"Has a Harrison fired you lately? You might be eligible for emotional support." Google's Phil Harrison talks about the Google Stadia controller at GDC 2019. Credit: Google Google's Phil Harrison talks about the Google Stadia controller at GDC 2019. Credit: Google While Gunther Harrison probably hasn't fired any GDC attendees, the famously bald Phil Harrison was responsible for the firing of plenty of developers when he shut down Google's short-lived Stadia Games & Entertainment (SG&E) publishing imprint in early 2021. That shutdown surprised a lot of newly jobless game developers, perhaps none moreso than those at Montreal-based Typhoon Games, which Google had acquired in late 2019 to make what Google's Jade Raymond said at the time would be "platform-defining exclusive content" for Stadia.Yet on the very same day that Journey to the Savage Planet launched as a Stadia exclusive, the developers at Typhoon found themselves jobless, alongside the rest of SG&E. By the end of 2022, Google would shut down Stadia entirely, blindsiding even more game developers.Dont forgive, dont forgetAfter being let go by Google, Typhoon Games would reform as Raccoon Logic (thanks in large part to investment from Chinese publishing giant Tencent) and reacquire the rights to the Savage Planet franchise. And now that the next game in that series is set to launch in May, it seems the developers still haven't fully gotten over how they were treated during Google's brief foray into game publishing.Google wanted games that only worked in the cloudwhich dont exist, Raccoon Logic co-founder & creative director Alex Hutchinson told VGC in an August interview. "They were asking us to deliver the kind of games built by 400 to 600 people, huge Marvel license games and Star Wars tie-ins. They said if you make the game and its great with 25 people, then well let you hire 500 artists, which is not how it works. No one was talking the same language."Raccoon Logic's new San Francisco billboard includes a QR code that directs visitors to a promotional page for Revenge of the Savage Planet, featuring the pithy sympathy message that "We got fired by him as well!" The site promises a donation to the Canadian Mental Health Association for each person who scans the billboard; as of this writing, those donations sit below $2,500. Thanks for sticking it to Gunther Harrison! Credit: Revenge of the Savage Planet Thanks for sticking it to Gunther Harrison! Credit: Revenge of the Savage Planet Harrison served as the very public face of Stadia shortly after his hiring in 2018 when the service was still being teased as "Project Stream." He was a main presenter on a GDC stage almost exactly six years ago when Google revealed the Stadia name and promised that the streaming service would be "the future of games." By 2020, though, Harrison had stopped tweeting or appearing in promotional videos, before finally leaving the company in 2023.Before the ill-fated Stadia, Harrison helped lead Sony's gaming efforts during the troubled launch of the PlayStation 3, at one point going so far as to brag that "nobody will ever use 100 percent of [the PS3's] capability." He then worked in Microsoft's gaming division during the disastrous rollout of the Xbox One and its confused used game policies.Since leaving Google, Harrison has yet to announce a new role on his LinkedIn page.Kyle OrlandSenior Gaming EditorKyle OrlandSenior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper. 6 Comments

The power is yours Nvidia announces DGX desktop personal AI supercomputers Asus, Dell, HP, and others to produce powerful desktop machines that run AI models locally. Benj Edwards Mar 18, 2025 5:19 pm | 22 A press photo of Nvidia DGX Spark (left) and DGX Station (right) along with a DGX motherboard. Credit: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-dgx-spark-and-dgx-station-personal-ai-computers A press photo of Nvidia DGX Spark (left) and DGX Station (right) along with a DGX motherboard. Credit: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-dgx-spark-and-dgx-station-personal-ai-computers Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreDuring Tuesday's Nvidia GTX keynote, CEO Jensen Huang unveiled two "personal AI supercomputers" called DGX Spark and DGX Station, both powered by the Grace Blackwell platform. In a way, they are a new type of AI PC architecture specifically built for running neural networks, and five major PC manufacturers will build the supercomputers.These desktop systems, first previewed as "Project DIGITS" in January, aim to bring AI capabilities to developers, researchers, and data scientists who need to prototype, fine-tune, and run large AI models locally. DGX systems can serve as standalone desktop AI labs or "bridge systems" that allow AI developers to move their models from desktops to DGX Cloud or any AI cloud infrastructure with few code changes.Huang explained the rationale behind these new products in a news release, saying, "AI has transformed every layer of the computing stack. It stands to reason a new class of computers would emergedesigned for AI-native developers and to run AI-native applications."The smaller DGX Spark features the GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip with Blackwell GPU and fifth-generation Tensor Cores, delivering up to 1,000 trillion operations per second for AI.Meanwhile, the more powerful DGX Station includes the GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip with 784GB of coherent memory and the ConnectX-8 SuperNIC supporting networking speeds up to 800Gb/s.The DGX architecture serves as a prototype that other manufacturers can produce. Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo will develop and sell both DGX systems, with DGX Spark reservations opening today and DGX Station expected later in 2025. Additional manufacturing partners for the DGX Station include BOXX, Lambda, and Supermicro, with systems expected to be available later this year.Since the systems will be manufactured by different companies, Nvidia did not mention pricing for the units. However, in January, Nvidia mentioned that the base-level configuration for a DGX Spark-like computer would retail for around $3,000.Benj EdwardsSenior AI ReporterBenj EdwardsSenior AI Reporter Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site's dedicated AI beat in 2022. He's also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. 22 Comments

A new image of the cosmic microwave background radiation for part of the sky the zoomed in area is about 20 times the width of the moon as seen from EarthACT Collaboration; ESA/Planck CollaborationOur latest and best ever map of the early universe is five times more detailed than anything we have had before, but while it precisely backs up the leading model of the universe, it is also a double-edged sword because the new data also offers no clues to solving some of cosmologys biggest mysteries.The map shows the cosmic microwave background (CMB), a faint remnant radiation from the early stages of the universe. It began as the earliest light just 380,000 years after the big bang, but billions of years of the universe expanding have shifted its frequency from the visible spectrum to microwave. AdvertisementNow, new data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) has given us a clearer image of the CMB albeit only from the half of the sky that can be imaged from the observatorys location in Chile.Jo Dunkley at Princeton University, who worked on the project, says that the data has nailed down with better precision the ingredients of the universe, its size, its age and its expansion rate. But the really key discovery was that nothing contradicted the current leading model of the universe, known as lambda-CDM.Previous data put the age of the universe at 13.8 billion years and the rate at which it is expanding known as the Hubble constant at 67 to 68 kilometres per second per megaparsec distance from Earth. ACT data essentially confirms this, but increases the precision and confidence in those findings.Untangle the weirdness of reality with our subscriber-only, monthly newsletter.Sign up to newsletterThe CMB was first mapped by NASAs Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) in the 1980s and 90s, then by NASAs Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) in the 2000s and then in yet greater detail by the European Space Agencys Planck spacecraft from 2009 to 2013. Each mission provided successively more detailed maps of the CMB, advancing our knowledge of cosmology and understanding of the early universe.One limitation of ACT is that it is a ground-based telescope, unlike these previous space-based missions, which is why it is limited to just one half of the sky. Despite this, ACT gives not only better resolution and sensitivity than these previous maps, but it also measures the polarisation of the CMB, or the orientation in which light waves oscillate, revealing some information about how the CMB light has evolved over time.By looking at the polarisation of the CMB in better detail we could have seen something different. We could have seen the standard cosmological model breaking, says Dunkley. Because whenever you look at the universe in a different way, you cant be sure that your original model is still going to work. We were quite ready to see something departing from that model, some subtlety. But we havent.This may be reassuring for those working on lambda-CDM, but hasnt been welcome news for all scientists. Colin Hill at Columbia University in New York says that he was hoping to see some evidence in the data for an as-yet-unexplained phenomenon perhaps a new type of energy or particle which could help explain the so-called Hubble tension: the discrepancy between the rate of expansion in the universe given by the lambda-CDM standard model and what we measure directly.Weve all just been blown away by how consistent [the ACT data] really is with the standard model. Were all trying to poke and prod the model from different aspects and look for a place where its going to crack, and where nature will give us something to sink our teeth into. And so far, nature hasnt yielded that crack, says Hill.He says that the most viable theories for the Hubble tension discrepancy require phenomena which simply dont appear in the ACT data, which is currently the best we have. This will force scientists back to the drawing board to seek another explanation. The new measurements are going to put theorists, including myself, into an even tighter straitjacket, says Hill. It deepens the mystery.ACT collected the data that makes up this new map between 2017 and 2022, but has now been shut down. Dunkley says that we are unlikely to get a higher resolution map for some years, although a new telescope in Chile will start work later this year. As for the other half of the sky, only two locations on Earth are likely to be able to host new telescopes that would yield results: Greenland and Tibet. Dunkley says that unfortunately Greenland doesnt yet have the necessary infrastructure for such a project, and Tibet is politically sensitive.Jens Chluba at the University of Manchester, UK, says that while scientists on the project have already been working with the data, the open release of the ACT map will now spark a flurry of activity.The whole cosmology community can get their hands on the data and do all kind of cross-analysis with their data sets, says Chluba. Its super exciting and Im pretty sure there will be a burst of follow-up publications after this.Mysteries of the universe: Cheshire, EnglandSpend a weekend with some of the brightest minds in science, as you explore the mysteries of the universe in an exciting programme that includes an excursion to see the iconic Lovell Telescope.Find out moreTopics:

MindMoney is a deeply emotive subject, our attitudes to it vary wildly and we are reluctant to bring it up in conversation. Could new research help us to be less weird about it? 18 March 2025 SkizzomatConversations with your hairdresser can be quite revealing. And when I went for a trim earlier this year, the gossip was especially good. It was close enough to Christmas for our chat to turn to gifts and giving and, as he snipped away, my stylist had some juicy anecdotes to share. One customer had complained that despite her sister being about to buy a 1 million house, she still moaned about contributing 20 towards a gift for their aunt. Another described presents from her son as a bit thin. And a third felt physically sick at the amount his family members had spent on his young nieces.Money, money, money. We have such different attitudes towards cash, but taboos make it tricky to talk about. As a result, it can drive a wedge into otherwise happy relationships. This is exacerbated by growing financial divides: analysis from a charity called the Fairness Foundation found that, between 2011 and 2019, the wealth gap between the poorest and richest UK households grew by 50 per cent and the situation is even worse in the US. Yet psychologists have only recently begun truly getting to grips with why money is such a deeply emotional topic for us something filled with meanings and belief rather than simply a necessity to pay the bills.Now, they are unpacking everything from how and when our ideas about money develop to what constitutes a healthy or unhealthy relationship with the stuff. Psychologists may be late to the party, but some of their findings are surprising.

2025-03-18T22:01:57Z Read in app Finally, Elon Musk has a black-and-white victory this year. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? SpaceX just brought home two astronauts who were stuck on the International Space Station for months.Their return was a fairly routine spaceflight for SpaceX.It's a victory Elon Musk can claim after a series of setbacks to his other ventures.Elon Musk and his many projects have had a rough couple of months, but SpaceX nailed an undisputable win for him on Tuesday.The rocket company's Crew Dragon spaceship splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, carrying two NASA astronauts who were stuck on the International Space Station for about nineSuni Williams and Butch Wilmore became international news after their Boeing spaceship glitched as it approached the ISS in June. NASA decided it was safer for them to fly SpaceX home. The change of plans meant they had to stay and serve a full shift with the next astronaut crew, turning their original weeklong mission into nine months. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spoke with reporters from the International Space Station after their spaceship departed without them last year. NASA TV Their safe return is a win for Musk after a series of high-profile setbacks, from exploding Starship rockets to a Tesla stock crash.Musk did not respond to a request for comment.Tesla and SpaceX woesWilliams' and Wilmore's return is a much-needed win for SpaceX and Musk, who is struggling recently. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore (at center) pose with their fellow astronauts Mike Barratt (far left) and Tracy C. Dyson (far right). NASA Musk himself said on Fox Business that he's had "great difficulty" running his companies since taking on the Department of Government Efficiency, which was created by an executive order by President Donald Trump and aims to slash federal spending.He didn't elaborate, but that day Tesla's stock had dropped 15%, bringing Musk's net worth downTesla has also been the subject of a series of protests, boycott efforts, and vandalism incidents in recent months. The electric vehicle company's sales have plunged in multiple countries, including the US.That all culminated in Trump promoting Tesla cars last week on the White House lawn, where he inspected and praised five of the Trump and Musk stand next to a Tesla Model S at the White House. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images "The Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World's great automakers, and Elon's 'baby,' in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for," the president wrote on Truth Social ahead of the Tesla event.Then there's SpaceX. The company's up-and-coming Starship mega-rocket was making significant progress with each uncrewed test flight until this year, when two consecutive flights ended with premature explosions. Starship and booster separate during its January test flight. AP Photo/Eric Gay Those flightsAll the while, Musk has been contending with criticisms and backlash against DOGE from legal challenges to scrutiny of its hires.Corporate experts have told Business Insider that Musk is "way overstretched" since taking on DOGE and "may have finally reached his tipping point."Musk claims victorySpaceX has been scheduled to bring the two astronauts back since August, when NASA officials decided they weren't confident enough in Boeing's spaceship to return Williams and Wilmore.Musk started teeing their return up as a new victory in January, when he said on X that President Trump had asked SpaceX to bring them home "as soon as possible." The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts aboard, including Williams and Wilmore, departs the International Space Station moments after undocking. NASA Musk has since said on Fox News that Williams and Wilmore were "left up there for political reasons," which multiple astronauts have disputed. The day ahead of their return flight he shared a video of Wilmore saying he appreciated Musk and Trump.Despite the hubbub, this was a pretty routine flight for SpaceX. It was the 10th time the company's Crew Dragon vehicle has returned NASA astronaut crews to Earth in the last five years in addition to five private Crew Dragon flights.Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at mmcfalljohnsen@businessinsider.com. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

2025-03-18T21:53:56Z Read in app In this screengrab from a Marine Corps video on the dangers of cellphone usage, a Marine sends a message to his friends in battle. That has been deadly in Ukraine. Screenshot/US Marine Corps video This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? The top Marine Corps general issued a warning to troops about battlefield cellphone usage.Cellphone data can reveal troop locations, making them vulnerable to enemy attacks.The war in Ukraine highlights the dangers of cellphone use in a combat environment.The Marine Corps' top general sent a video reminder out to the force this week, cautioning troops that battlefield cellphone usage can have deadly consequences. It points to Russian disasters in Ukraine.The video shared on social media shows a Marine who escaped enemy fire seeking refuge in an abandoned building. Assuming he's safe, the Marine pulls out his phone to send a text asking for assistance, sending his location with it.What no one realizes in this exchange is that the messages were intercepted. As his fellow Marines come to his aid, an enemy strike hits, resulting in fatalities.The video then turns the discussion to the conflict in Ukraine, noting news headlines from the war about the weaponization of mobile phones, and how cellphone usage by Russian soldiers led to a deadly Ukrainian strike. The video references a devastating strike that killed scores of Russian troops in Makiivka at the end of 2022. Moscow blamed cellphone usage, but there appear to have been multiple factors involved. It still serves as a point of caution all the same."If you can be sensed, you can be targeted," Gen. Eric Smith, Commandant of the Marine Corps, said in the video. "And if you can be targeted, you can be killed."While the Marine in the video shares his exact location, map coordinates are not needed for troops to endanger themselves or their comrades. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops posted videos on social media and called loved ones back home, all data that Ukraine used to strike.Phone calls, texts, and photos shared with friends over unprotected lines can be intercepted and mined for metadata, showing where they were taken. Open-source information gleaned from photos has been fatal in Ukraine.Russia has implemented several cellphone bans, and in 2024, Russia's lower house of parliament proposed legislation that would punish troops for using their personal phones in battle.It's not just phone usage that causes problems in combat; it's unintentional signal emissions, too, like the phones pinging off cell towers. "The character of war continues to change," Smith said. "The proliferation of technology has made signature management essential on the battlefield."The Marine Corps released its most current official policy on cell phones in 2024, Capt. Stephanie Baer, a spokesperson, told Business Insider.She said "the posted video is an amplification and continual reminder of the importance of the policy on usage in all situations," and added that the video's release was not linked to any specific recent events.The idea of "signature management" has been a critical tenant of discipline on the battlefield, but it's become increasingly important on modern battlefields where electronic emissions can betray positions and movements.A unit's "signature" generally refers to its presence and how easily it can be detected. Light, noise levels, and movement can all be elements of signature management. But with the proliferation of cell phones, and social media, the idea of signature discipline is morphing into a more urgent concern.Smith isn't the first Marine leader to warn about cellphones. Former Commandant Gen. David Berger noted such concerns about cellphone vulnerabilities to defense reporters in 2022."We have to be distributed. You have to have enough mobility that you can relocate your unit pretty often," he said of efforts to prepare for expeditionary operations throughout the Pacific. "You have to learn all about like some of us learned 30 years ago camouflage, decoys, deception," he said."What we didn't worry so much about 30 years ago now is every time you press a button, you're emitting," he said.

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.Welcome to The Logoff: Today were focusing on a new development in Ukraine that gives us more insight into Donald Trumps approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin.Whats the latest? Putin and Ukraines Volodymyr Zelenskyy are each supporting a 30-day pause in attacks on energy and infrastructure, such as power plants and refineries. The planned pause follows a lengthy phone call between Trump and Putin earlier today.Putin did not agree to a full ceasefire, which Trump has proposed and which Ukraine had assented to earlier. Russia put out a post-call statement suggesting that it would only agree if foreign countries cut off military and intelligence aid to Ukraine a demand Trump has not agreed to.What hasnt changed? Fighting along the front lines, and presumably also drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, will continue. The US will also continue providing weapons and intelligence to Ukraine, after briefly suspending both earlier this month.Whats the big picture for Ukraine? The optimistic take on what happened today is that the two sides are talking via the US and that this could be the basis for a broader ceasefire. On the other hand, recent statements from Russian officials suggest theyre still pushing for a demilitarized and subservient Ukraine. And Putin may be doing just enough to keep Trump happy while continuing to press his advantage on the battlefield.What did we learn about Trump? Trump didnt totally sell Ukraine out, which seemed like a real possibility just a few weeks ago. On the other hand, he also doesnt seem to put pressure on Russia to agree to a real ceasefire, as he did with Ukraine. Trumps own statement about the call makes it seem like he was satisfied with the result, despite Putins unwillingness to back down. And with that, its time to log off...Part of the lure of social media is the promise of external validation, and so I really appreciated this piece from my Vox colleague Allie Volpe. It explains why were hard-wired to seek validation and how we can avoid being trapped by that need. I particularly loved this line: What is far more nourishing than the sugar high of validation is an internal process of recognizing your own worthiness.Its easier said than done, but, for me at least, its a good aspiration. Thanks so much for reading, and well see you back here tomorrow.See More:

By Ed Cara Published March 18, 2025 | Comments (0) | Roughly 40% of Americans have experienced back pain in the past three months. PeopleImages.com - Yuri A via Shutterstock If youve ever had trouble recovering from a bad back, youre far from alone. A study out this week has found that only about 10% of common back pain treatments appear to provide any noticeable relief, and just barely at that. Scientists in Australia led the research, published Tuesday in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine. The researchers analyzed data from hundreds of clinical trials testing out dozens of back pain remedies, and found that only a few truly seemed more effective than placebo. These treatments, which include exercise or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), probably only provide a small benefit on average, however. Back pain, particularly low back pain, is one of the most common and frustrating afflictions plaguing humanity today. Just about everyone will experience low back pain at least once in their lives. Roughly 10% of the worlds population currently has an aching back, while about 40% of adults in the U.S. have had back pain in the last three months. Most episodes of back pain do fade away over time, but around 10% of Americans are thought to have chronic or recurring back pain. Nearly all back pain cases are non-specific, meaning theres no clearly identifiable disease or structural reason to explain it. Anyone whos dealt with repeated bouts of back pain is likely familiar with the long list of supposed curesand with how often they dont seem to work. The researchers aimed to conduct the most extensive review yet of these non-invasive, non-surgical back pain treatments, using data from studies considered the gold standard of medical evidence: randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials. All told, they reviewed 301 trials that covered 56 different treatments or treatment combinations for acute or chronic non-specific lower back pain.We were motivated to conduct this review because non-surgical and non-invasive approaches are recommended as the initial treatment approach. But many such options are available, and its not always easy to know which ones are effective, lead study Aidan Cashin, an exercise physiologist and deputy director of the Center for Pain IMPACT at Neuroscience Research Australia, told Gizmodo. Cashin and his team found that only NSAIDs seemed to be effective over placebo for acute back pain, while five appeared to work for chronic back pain. These were: exercise, spinal manipulation (which is often associated with chiropractors, but can be performed by physical therapists or osteopaths), taping, antidepressants, and a class of drugs that reduce our sensitivity to pain called TRPV1 agonists (the primary ingredient responsible for a chili peppers burning sensation, capsaicin, is one such agonist). Other treatments that failed to meet the threshold for success included cannabinoids, muscle relaxants, opioids, acupuncture, and dry cupping. Unfortunately, even the top-performing remedies were pretty mediocre. The researchers only had moderate certainty in the data supporting any of these treatments, and their overall effectiveness was judged to be modest at best.The current evidence shows that one in 10 non-surgical and non-interventional treatments for low back pain are efficacious, providing only small analgesic effects beyond placebo, they wrote. Now, its certainly possible that some people will experience substantial relief from one of these therapies, or that some will benefit from a treatment that doesnt work well for many others (this reporter knows someone whos experienced sharp relief from their back pain after taking muscle relaxants, for instance). Some treatments may also still provide some broad relief but havent been tested in large enough, well-designed studies that can demonstrate their potential. Many of the treatments included in the review only had data from a single small trial (less than 100 people) to evaluate, for instance. And there are other commonly touted remedies for back pain that have never been tested in placebo-controlled trials. So the researchers are calling for more high-quality studies of existing back pain treatments to fill in the missing gaps of data.That said, there isnt really a sure-fire, highly effective cure for back pain widely available right now (that includes surgery)a reality that the researchers themselves acknowledge. Many of the investigated treatments only attempt to target a single potential contributing factor which may in part account for why, on average, many treatments werent effective. More work is needed to better understand what causes and maintains low back pain so we can develop more targeted treatments, Cashin said. At the same time, he notes, there is an emerging wave of new treatments that have shown some promise in addressing the multiple drivers of back and other kinds of chronic pain, such as pain reprocessing therapy and graded sensorimotor retraining. And its possible these and future targeted treatments may be able to provide large and sustained benefits for people with chronic back pain, he says.Speaking personally as someone whos regularly dealt with low back pain for years, exercise and a stretching routine seem to help me keep it in check most of the time. But like the millions of sufferers out there, I hope that these breakthroughs will eventually become potent options for this often annoying, sometimes aggravating condition.Daily NewsletterYou May Also Like By Ed Cara Published January 7, 2025 By Ed Cara Published August 1, 2024 By Adam Kovac Published July 24, 2024 By Ed Cara Published July 5, 2024 By Ed Cara Published December 27, 2023 By George Dvorsky Published January 26, 2022