World Cup begins under health watch as new AI rules spark debate and ancient Rome’s road network expands

World Cup kicks off amid outbreak tracking as Mars mission ends and AI fights heat up

World Cup crowds spark outbreak tracking as AI tensions rise and ancient Rome’s roads get a stunning reboot

By Rachel Feltman , Lauren J. Young , Andrea Gawrylewski , Fonda Mwangi & Alex Sugiura

Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners and Happy Pride! For Scientific American ’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. You’re listening to our weekly science news roundup.

The World Cup kicks off in just a few days. Now, I love “the beautiful game” as much as the next guy, but I will say this international spectacle is already messing with my commute. Which I don’t appreciate. My concerns about overcrowded public transit are small potatoes compared to what public health experts have to worry about in the wake of such a large event. New York City’s health commissioner recently told NPR that the city has been running simulations to prepare for mass casualty events and disease outbreaks. And some of the World Cup locations in the U.S. are also dialing up their use of wastewater surveillance to catch any pathogens.

Here to tell us more about that is Lauren Young, associate editor for health and medicine at Scientific American . Thanks for being here, Lauren.

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More than five million people from around the world are going to be traveling to North America for the World Cup this week. Sixteen different cities are gonna be hosting the games. But as people come, public health experts are gonna be on pretty high alert for any potential outbreaks of infectious diseases, and the way they’re doing that is using this forecasting system through wastewater detection.