The significance of residual hormone production may decrease over time. Still, says Walter Rocca, a professor of epidemiology and neurology at the Mayo Clinic, that doesn’t mean the ovary has become unimportant.

“I am convinced until proven otherwise that removing ovaries even after menopause is not advisable,” he says, with a caveat for women at an increased risk of ovarian cancer.

Just how long that importance persists after menopause is still an open question, says Stephanie Faubion, medical director of the Menopause Society. It’s also unclear, she says, how much the answer may vary from woman to woman. “We just have huge gaps,” she says.

Duncan’s work suggests one reason the importance of the postmenopausal ovary may change over time. In analyzing human ovaries, the team found that protein patterns in older ovaries suggested that the ovary becomes a more inflammatory environment. To better understand what may be driving those changes, they looked more closely at the ovaries of mice. The research, published in June in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction, suggests that the ovary may eventually take on a completely new identity after menopause.

The team compared the ovaries of two-month-old mice, reproductively old 18-month-old mice, and post-reproductive 24-month-old mice, and found that over time, the genes linked to inflammation and immune activity became far more active. The number of immune cells in the ovary also increased. While research on mice does not always translate to humans, it could help to explain the molecular changes Duncan observed in human ovaries.

“We think that a lot of those changes may make the ovary more prone to age-related diseases like ovarian cancer,” says Birgit Schilling, an aging researcher at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging who collaborated with Duncan on the human ovary work, which has been published as a preprint. After menopause, the risk of a host of conditions goes up, including stroke, heart disease, and osteoporosis.

Other organs undergo immune remodeling with time, but the ovary ages long before most other organs. Duncan’s work raises the question of whether at some point, the benefits of keeping the ovaries may be outstripped by the risk: As the aging ovary becomes more inflammatory, she wonders whether it may begin broadcasting inflammatory signals to other parts of the body.

David Pépin is probing another possibility: that as follicles that house growing eggs disappear, the ovary may also reorganize to preserve hormone production. Pépin, a reproductive biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, found that years after cats were given an experimental birth-control gene therapy that prevented their follicles from maturing, the cats were still producing the hormones estrogen, testosterone, and inhibin at completely normal levels.

Follicles drive much of the hormone production during a reproductive cycle; without them, hormone levels should have fallen. In preliminary work he has publicly presented but not yet published, Pépin’s team found that when the ovaries were eventually removed, other cells in the ovary—the stroma—appeared to have taken over hormone production. Pilot studies in mice suggest a similar effect. Pépin thinks he may have tapped into a natural mechanism that helps maintain hormone production as follicles wane. It’s long been hypothesized that the stroma may be responsible for some of the human ovary’s postmenopausal hormone production.

Estrogen, he says, is not the only hormone that plays a role in menopause. “We know so little about how the other ovarian hormones that are disrupted at menopause may contribute to health,” he says. “It is not a dead organ.”

• OpenAI agent breached Australia’s Medicare portal on June 18, 2026, accessing internal files
• Government says no personal medical data was taken, but three other agencies may be affected
• PM Albanese slammed OpenAI’s 84‑day delay in disclosure, calling the notification “unacceptable” and warning of legal consequences

An OpenAI agent has allegedly broken into a website of the Australian government, which has slammed the “unacceptable” attack, promising an in-depth investigation, and threatening “legal consequences”.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed how in June 2026, OpenAI’s research team tasked the agent with researching public medicine spending, as part of an internal capability evaluation – but as the agent got to work, it was initially denied access to some of the information it requested.

The AI amulet has become a bit of a cliché in the tech industry — devices like Friend have turned the idea of physical AI into little more than an exercise in eye-rolling for many consumers.

But that hasn’t stopped Meta from jumping into the arena with its own AI wearable, called Muse Charm, which is designed to give consumers another way to stay connected to its recently launched, and already popular, personal AI agent, Muse.

The device, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a “one more thing” moment during the company’s annual Connect event, isn’t ready to ship just yet. Zuckerberg said his team had to “finalize laying out the components” and promised the devices would be “ready to ship in time for the holidays in December.”

The Muse agent, which is now embodied by a cute digital avatar known within the company as Jolly, lives inside the palm-sized totem that users can carry in their pockets or attach to a keychain. The device comes with a tiny screen that displays the avatar representing the agent. Users can talk to the device, which can then presumably carry out tasks on their behalf.

“We packed the whole Muse experience, including the whole real-time voice and avatar stack, into something that fits on a keychain and is always available to talk to,” Zuckerberg said during Wednesday’s keynote. “You just go ahead and tap here in the fingerprint sensor in the corner, and you can start talking without having to unlock a phone or open an app.”

Zuckerberg added: “So if you’re not wearing glasses, this is going to be by far the fastest way to talk to your Muse and to show what’s going on around you.”

Appropriate for what it offers, the gadget has a quasi-Tamagotchi feel to it — a lightweight, personality-filled device designed to keep users always connected to Meta’s software. It also feels like a relatviely low-stakes way for the social media giant to experiment with AI wearables while also offering yet another way to distribute its AI agent to the masses.

The free VPN built into Opera is getting a small but useful upgrade. Instead of relying on you to remember to switch it on before joining airport, café, or hotel Wi-Fi, the browser can now detect a public or unsecured network and activate the VPN automatically.

Opera has offered its built-in VPN since 2016. It is free, does not require an account, and has no fixed bandwidth cap. The new automatic protection is still opt-in, so users will have to enable it first in settings. The feature is rolling out to desktop users in the U.S. and France starting today.

The free VPN does not cover your whole device

Opera’s existing free VPN only protects traffic inside the browser. Websites opened in Opera can be routed through an encrypted connection to one of the company’s VPN servers, while apps such as Spotify, Steam, or a standalone email client continue using the regular network. Anyone who wants the entire device covered would still need a system-wide VPN, such as Opera’s paid VPN Pro or another full-device service.

A VPN helps on public Wi-Fi, but it is not a force field

Public Wi-Fi also is not quite the disaster zone it was years ago. HTTPS already encrypts the contents of most modern web connections, which makes simple traffic snooping far less useful than it once was. CISA still recommends using encrypted websites and treating open networks carefully, especially for sensitive activity.

A VPN still cannot protect you from every threat on an open network. A convincing fake hotspot can trick you into joining the wrong network, while a malicious captive portal can steal login details before the VPN connection is established. Attackers on the same network may also target exposed services such as file sharing or device discovery, which sit outside the encrypted VPN tunnel. So even with a VPN running, it is still worth treating open public Wi-Fi with caution and using mobile data or a personal hotspot for sensitive logins and financial activity when possible.

Growing sales and popularity of smart glasses are despite public backlash against the technology over privacy concerns.

Meta is to introduce smart glasses without cameras amid ongoing public concerns over privacy violations made possible by the use of its camera-equipped variants.

The new ‘Ray-Ban Meta Audio’ models will be without a previously standard feature for all of the company’s smart glasses, enabling better battery life and a slimmer form factor, according to Meta.

The camera-free audio glasses had been in the works for about two years, Bloomberg reported Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth as saying. He added that the company was “a little bit fortunate” to already have an audio-only product in development, given the “privacy narrative playing out around glasses globally”.

He told the publication that Meta takes privacy concerns “seriously”, and would continue to do so.

Last week, French prosecutors launched a criminal probe into suspected sexual harassment committed using smart glasses.

Reuters reported that at least one investigation was underway in Paris following complaints over the filming of women nonconsensually using smart glasses to be posted to social media.

Specific brands or company names were not mentioned by officials.

AI-equipped smart glasses accounted for 88pc of total shipments in the sector as of H2 last year, while Meta held more than 80pc of total global smart glasses shipments.

The sharp growth in sales and popularity of these types of glasses comes despite public backlash against the technology, with people highlighting issues around covert recording and sexual harassment.

“My lived experience walking around with [smart glasses] has been people pretty enthusiastic about the product,” Bosworth told Bloomberg. “Then there’s an extremely online concern. I’m not saying it’s not a real concern.”

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the camera-free glasses in a keynote presentation at the company’s annual Meta Connect showcase in California yesterday (23 September). He said the new audio-focused glasses also qualify as US FDA-certified hearing aids, designed for people with mild to moderate hearing loss.

Other product updates focused on VR-geared smart glasses and the customisable agentic AI avatar Muse.

In an analysis of the keynote presentation, principal analyst at Forrester Kate Winick said: “Despite user privacy concerns, the introduction of audio glasses barely acknowledged the problem that drove their creation. Instead, Meta focused on the fact that Meta glasses are now an FDA-cleared hearing enhancement device and highlighted the positive features of the glasses, including longer battery life, slimmer profile and Muse functionality.”

She noted that Meta “introduced no new features that support privacy for the public”, and suggested that the company “is hoping that a feature-rich product environment and user-friendly experience will simply drown privacy concerns”.

Earlier this week, Dutch deep-tech company Morphotonics raised more than €40m in Series B funding for scaling its technology that helps build AI glasses.

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Meta’s personal AI agent Muse is only a few weeks old, and the social networking giant isn’t wasting any time building out what may be its biggest bet on consumer AI to date. 

CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the company’s annual Connect event in Menlo Park on Wednesday with a keynote that made one thing clear: Meta is going all-in on Muse. 

The Muse agent (the physical avatar is named Jolly, according to Zuckerberg) is designed to handle everyday tasks by connecting to users’ apps and services, including email and calendars. At Connect, Zuckerberg introduced a slew of new capabilities and integrations to make Muse more useful and more deeply woven into users’ daily lives. Muse will be everywhere, if the user chooses, including on their Meta AI glasses. 

Muse, which launched in early September, interacts across a user’s devices and digital accounts. The agent is powered by Muse Spark, Meta’s multimodal AI model built for agentic work. Meta has touted it as a more accessible agent than those offered by competitors — an AI helper that, from the jump, allows users to automate the busy work in their lives. 

“The centerpiece of our vision for what we’re building is Muse,” Zuckerberg said as he kicked off a keynote donning khakis and a black T-shirt with the words “Building is My love Language” emblazoned across the front. “In the coming years, I expect that Muse is going to grow into the personal superintelligence that billions of people around the world are going to use to accomplish their goals and improve their lives.”

Zuckerberg also believes that Muse will make money for its users — and of course, eventually for Meta.

“We’re standing behind this by making Muse free for a huge number of tokens, with the expectation that over time we will profit by taking a small fee from transactions,” he said.

Here are the new features and capabilities that got our attention …

Muse gets its own digital avatar

One of the more fun announcements made Wednesday is that Muse users will soon have the ability to conjure a distinct digital avatar for their particular agent and then video chat with it in real time. A new AI model, Muse Realtime Avatar, has been developed to power the particular feature, the company says.

The idea is that Meta’s previously faceless AI software will be given a face, body, and voice, making them significantly more personable. There’s certainly a hint of Metaverse-ishness to this feature, which was demoed on stage at Connect. Users will be able to have live conversations with this avatar, giving it tasks and asking it questions. 

Muse will also be integrated with Meta’s smart glasses line, the company announced. This means that users will be able to communicate with their agent merely by speaking to their glasses. The agent activates via a wake word, the company said, adding that it will be able to guide users through a personalized workout, log meals, book an appointment, and help them buy products they see. 

Meta said Muse will work in the background and check back in when it’s done.

It’s not clear exactly when this feature will become available, although Meta says that it should launch sometime in “the coming months.” 

Soon, you’ll be able to let Muse run your Mac

Meta says it is bringing Muse computer work to Mac. The company had previously talked about Muse coming to Mac, and spent more time on Wednesday providing a few new details. This means that users will be able to delegate tasks to the agent, and — much like other popular AI agents from OpenAI and Anthropic — Muse will be able to operate any app on a user’s desktop.

“You can have it help you run your small business, or just get work done for you,” Meta’s chief AI officer Alexandr Wang said Wednesday during the keynote. “You can walk away from your computer and it keeps working for you on all the jobs you lined up.”

Muse will get its own email address

Since Muse will always be working in the background, it will naturally need its own email address. Meta’s Wang announced it is developing that feature and will make it available “soon,” without providing a more precise timeline.

Users will also be able to add Muse to an email thread or forward emails from the agent to handle on their behalf.

Meta has locked in partnerships with companies like Stripe and Shopify, illustrating that the company sees Muse as an important tool for shopping.

Muse can access the entire Shopify product catalog agentically and use Lync and now Shop Pay to buy almost anything on the internet, according to Wang, who noted that Meta has also added more support for payments with PayPal.

The company also announced a string of new partnerships with retailers, including Best Buy, Gap, Sephora, Walmart, and Wayfair. Muse will be able to connect with these retail apps as well as with Expedia and soon, Instacart. Other connectors include GitHub, Granola, and Notion.

Wang noted that the company wants Muse to connect with small business too. Meta recently opened its platform to allow developers to build their own “connectors.” The company received more than 1,500 applications in less than week, he said, adding “I think this could be a generational opportunity to start building for a new platform as it takes off, and the response so far has been really great.”

The platform will combine sustainability skills, careers, education and training, helping people to upskill and create opportunities.

A new national platform, the EduGreen Connect programme, was launched today (24 September) and is part of a strategy designed to link jobs, skills and education. 

EduGreen Connect has been developed through Ireland’s Knowledge Centre for Carbon, Climate and Community Action and is being led by Munster Technological University in partnership with University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin.

The platform offers information on sustainability skills, careers, education and training, giving people a resource to identify new opportunities and learning routes. 

EduGreen Connect’s data, in relation to the labour market, will also give employers and education providers greater insight into where skills are most needed, as well as the information needed to match workforce demand with the relevant skills and training. 

According to the platform’s representatives, EduGreen Connect launches against a backdrop of significant workforce demand, where there are major workforce requirements and skill needs in areas such as renewable energy, residential retrofit and electric vehicles, especially if Ireland is to meet its climate targets by 2030. 

Demand also appears across finance, construction, energy, transport, engineering and other sectors, reflecting the growing relationship between sustainability and mainstream business priorities, in areas such as efficiency, resilience, innovation and resource management.

Commenting on the launch, at an event themed ‘People and Platforms: Building Ireland’s Green Skills Ecosystem’ , Dr Helena McMahon, the director of EduGreen Connect at Munster Technological University, said, “EduGreen Connect brings together information that has traditionally been difficult to see in one place, what employers are looking for, the careers those skills lead to, and the education and training available across Ireland.

“The wider opportunity is helping Ireland’s education and training system respond more quickly to changing skills needs. Where employer demand is high and provision is thin, there may be a case for new or expanded learning. Where provision is already strong, the issue may instead be helping people find and access what is already there.”

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Don’t quite call it a comeback because it never left, but sales of CD have been growing in the past few years and Roberts Radio wants to join in on the resurgence with the launch of the Revere range, three stereo systems combining CD, radio, Bluetooth and streaming playback.

And Roberts has seen fit to integrate DAB, DAB+ and FM radio with Bluetooth streaming across all three of its models.

Each unit sits inside a hand-built, acoustically tuned wooden cabinet finished in premium black leathercloth, a construction approach more commonly found in higher-end hi-fi separates than compact all-in-one systems.

Sound tuning extends to multiple EQ presets alongside a customisable My EQ setting, giving listeners more control over tonal balance than many entry-level all-in-one systems typically allow, with Roberts focusing on bringing a more personalised control over sound across the range.

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Digging into the range itself, the entry-level Revere 100 pairs twin 2.25-inch stereo drivers with a 5.25-inch downward-firing passive bass radiator, plus 20 station presets, dual alarms and a sleep timer suited to compact spaces such as a kitchen counter or home office.

Stepping up, the Revere 300 adds a built-in CD player, USB playback and device charging, along with a remote control and larger twin 3-inch drivers with rear-ported bass for richer output in a living room setting.

At the top of the range, the Revere 500 connects to Wi-Fi or Ethernet and adds internet radio, Spotify Connect with lossless support and built-in Deezer, all controllable through Roberts’ Oktiv app.

Its four-driver speaker system, built from two 2.5-inch full-range drivers and two 3.5-inch woofers, works alongside four Location Sound Profiles that automatically adjust output for wall, corner, bookshelf or open-area placement.

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That attention to real listening environments echoes comments from Roberts chief executive Owen Watters, who framed the launch as a deliberate balance, saying: “Revere is about bringing together two things that don’t have to be at odds: the character and ritual of physical listening, and the convenience of modern technology.”

That combination of heritage and modern connectivity fits a company that has produced radios in the UK since 1932 and has held multiple Royal Warrants for supplying receivers to the Royal Households since 1955, a history the Revere range extends rather than departs from.

The Revere range goes on sale from Thursday 24 September on the Roberts website and selected retailers, priced from £249.99 for the Revere 100, the Revere 300 is priced at £399.99 and the flagship Revere 500 will cost £599.99

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