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Major Health Care Union Endorses Julia Brim-Edwards for Multnomah County Chair
The Oregon Nurses Association this week endorsed County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards in the race for Multnomah County Chair.
Coe College announces approval of three-year online business administration degree
Coe College has received approval from the Higher Learning Commission to launch a three-year, reduced-credit bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in strategic leadership, the college announced Aug. 18. The online-only program is designed for adult students and working professionals. College officials said it is a true three-year degree, rather than an accelerated […]
Trump nominates anti-abortion White House aide as next FDA commissioner
If confirmed by the Senate, Heidi Overton, MD, PhD, would replace Marty Makary, MD, who resigned in May. Overton, who is associated with the America First Policy Institute, is an outspoken opponent of the abortion drug mifepristone.
NASA Updates Next Steps for Commercial Swift Boost Mission
NASA and Katalyst Space announced Wednesday the LINK spacecraft will not capture or boost an agency satellite to a higher altitude.
Rochester firm expands space systems business with new contract
Eoptic expands its space systems division with a new contract to supply DeepScan imaging payloads for national security missions.
Trust in science: A new STAT initiative
Dear Readers, When we launched STAT more than a decade ago, our mission statement promised that we would deliver "trusted, tough-minded journalism.''
White House plan for a ‘golden age’ of science ignores the structures that made the US a scientific superpower
This article by H. Christopher Frey, North Carolina State University, first appeared in The Conversation, republished with permission.
EigenQ and Silicon Valley Acquisition Corp. Advance Proposed Business Combination Transaction through Confidential Submission of Registration Statement on Form S-4
/PRNewswire/ -- EigenQ, Inc. ("EigenQ" or the "Company"), a quantum technology company, and Silicon Valley Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: SVAQ) ("SVAQ"), a...
ROSES-25: New Opportunity: D.9 HWO
The new ROSES-25 program element D.9 Habitable Worlds Observatory Instrument Concept Assessments (HWO-ICA), solicits proposals to support maturation of the HWO mission concept.
Father-son computer science professors lead Mercer On Mission program
This summer, a father-son duo was at the helm of one of the University’s Mercer On Mission programs abroad.
Vantor Appoints Will Cocos to Lead U.S. Government Business
WESTMINSTER, Colo., August 19, 2026--Vantor, the leader in unified spatial intelligence, announced today that Will Cocos has been appointed Executive Vice President and General Manager of its U.S. Government business. Cocos will lead Vantor’s work across the U.S. defense, intelligence and civil government communities, with a focus on accelerating the delivery of mission-ready capabilities to warfighters and other operators.
Trump to Nominate Heidi Overton, a Top Domestic Policy Aide, for F.D.A. Commissioner
Dr. Overton is a fierce opponent of abortion rights and a supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.
Fabio Capri Signs Management Agreement With WK Entertainment
Fabio Capri has inked a management deal with WK Entertainment. The new deal will see WK Entertainment support the artist's development, with a mission to
NJ health officials urge parents to ignore Trump order on childhood vaccines
NJ's health commissioner wants residents to ignore President Donald Trump's call for childhood vaccines to be cut from 17 to 11.
Plans for 54-bed mental health hospital in Exeter approved again
Cygnet Health Care was first granted permission for the project in 2018 but building did not begin.
Cam Neely Makes Surprising Admission About Bruins Captain Decision
David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy appear to be obvious candidates,, but Cam Neely revealed why the Bruins might leave their captaincy vacant again.
Valley North transmission lines on Inside West Virginia Politics
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WOWK) – On this week’s episode of Inside West Virginia Politics, our guests join Rick Johnson to discuss Valley North, home programs, Wheeling events and TANF. In Segment 1, we t…
Madison County commissioners approve pay raise, health benefits change
Madison County commissioners approved several policy changes during a meeting Monday morning, including one resolution described as controversial among some members and the community.
AI Helps Researchers Win NIH Grants. Will Science Suffer?
A new analysis of thousands of NSF and NIH grant applications—including some confidential rejected submissions—illuminates new patterns in generative AI’s relationship with federally funded research.
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4975-4981: Happy 14th Landing Anniversary
By Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK
Star Citizen Dev Hosts Disastrous Livestream To Show How A Mission Works And Is Told To Pull The Plug: 'It's Your Show, Wrap It Up'
The Star Citizen Live stream featuring the Siege of Orison mission doesn't go well at all
Standlee to pay $16.9 million for Anderson Hay's business
Company seeks permission for sale from bankruptcy court Anderson Hay has struck a deal to sell most of its operational assets, except its real estate, to the Standee forage company […]
Stephens College of Business Professional Sales Program Invited to Join Prestigious University Sales Center Alliance
The University of Montevallo Professional Sales Program in the Stephens College of Business has been invited to join the University Sales Center Alliance (USCA) as an Associate Member. USCA will formally recognize the Stephens College for this accomplishment at the USCA fall meeting Sept. 10-12 in Chicago. The University Sales Center Alliance mission is to provide… Continue reading Stephens College of Business Professional Sales Program Invited to Join Prestigious University Sales Center Alliance
CBP pauses Big Bend border construction ahead of fact-finding visit
U.S. Customs and Border Protection BP commissioner Rodney Scott wrote on social media Monday he was pausing construction in Big Bend National Park.
Hubble Solves Merger Mystery From Milky Way’s Early Years
New Hubble data shows definitive evidence of a dwarf galaxy merging with the young Milky Way in the earliest phases of its evolution.
Allen County Fair prepares for nine days of rides, food and entertainment
The Allen County Fair opens Friday for nine days of rides, food, live entertainment and family activities. Daily admission is $10 for those 7 and older, with discounts and free
As Asian business ownership declines, Tulsa commissioners pivot focus
The percentage of Asian Tulsans who own businesses is dropping. Asian Affairs commissioners are responding, shifting their focus from events to business resources.
Renaissance Technologies LLC Acquires New Shares in Starz Entertainment Corp. $STRZ
Renaissance Technologies LLC acquired a new position in shares of Starz Entertainment Corp. (NASDAQ:STRZ - Free Report) during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 50,200 shares of the company's stoc
Tresean Gore Reacts to Career-Best UFC 330 Victory
UFC middleweight Tresean Gore shared his reaction to defeating Vicente Luque via unanimous decision at UFC 330.Gore picked apart Luque on the feet for the majority of the 15 minutes and was able to avoid his opponent’s submission attempts to win his second straight fights inside the Octagon after finishing Azamat Bekoev in his last […] The post Tresean Gore Reacts to Career-Best UFC 330 Victory appeared first on HEAVY.
Nintendo Switch eShop latest sales: lowest prices ever for Front Mission remakes, New Super Lucky's Tale, more
A bunch of new sales are up and running on the North American Nintendo Switch eShop. These include the lowest prices ever for the Front Mission remakes, New Super Lucky’s Tale, and more. Here’s the full roundup: – A Memoir Blue – $2.79 (was $7.99) – AEW: Fight Forever – $15.99 (was $39.99) – Arcade Archives Bosconian – $5.59 (was...
Big Country Politics: What Arthur DiBianca wants to change at Texas Railroad Commission
BIG COUNTRY, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) — Arthur DiBianca, the Libertarian candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner, said the commission should prioritize constituents’ rights, increase transparency and si…
Novak Djokovic Reveals Concerning Health Issue, Makes Telling Admission About Future
Novak Djokovic revealed a longtime health issue after his Cincinnati Open upset loss and made a telling admission about his playing future. The post Novak Djokovic Reveals Concerning Health Issue, Makes Telling Admission About Future appeared first on HEAVY.
University of Chicago study suggests space missions don't affect astronauts' heart health
Researchers from the University of Chicago have uncovered some information on how space travel affects — or actually doesn't affect — the heart.
Cherry Bowl Drive-In to host free Faith and Family Night
There is no charge for admission or any of the evening’s activities.
Michael Smolens: Powerlink déjà vu on environment, energy and politics
Another proposed high-voltage transmission line through the desert is hotly disputed, much like one built years ago, but there are differences.
New Science Says Scrapping A Working Gas Car For An EV Is Usually Greener
New lifecycle research finds that scrapping some working gasoline cars early and replacing them with EVs can substantially cut cumulative emissions.
State of Wyoming Takes $1.32 Million Position in Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. $LYV
State of Wyoming purchased a new position in Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV - Free Report) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 7,215 shares of the company's stock, valued at appr
On election eve, remembering Nancy Metayer and a better politics
Coral Springs City Commissioner Nancy Metayer was killed just over four months ago. Here, a friend muses that Metayer makes for a good role model in increasingly divisive times.
Guest Commentary: ‘New weather’ reality defies politics
The climate has caused more disruptions this summer. Liberal politicians will blame the fossil fuel industries for continuing to drive up greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere; conservatives will blame regulation and lack of…
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Open Beta Adds Campaign Mission 'Entrenched'
A series first
Dritwood Outdoors: Wildlife science demands effective communication
Wildlife management has come a long way from the days of Aldo Leopold traversing the New Mexico mountains on horseback and the Wisconsin River Valley by canoe. Back then, most decisions were based primarily on observation and experience. Today, highly trained wildlife biologists use sophisticated research, technology and mountains of data to understand everything from population dynamics and habitat needs to disease transmission and predator-prey relationships.
Wildlife science demands effective communication
Wildlife management has come a long way from the days of Aldo Leopold traversing the New Mexico mountains on horseback and the Wisconsin River Valley by canoe. Back then, most decisions were based primarily on observation and experience. Today, highly trained wildlife biologists use sophisticated research, technology and mountains of data to understand everything from population dynamics and habitat needs to disease transmission and predator-prey relationships.
Freed American missionary ‘in good health’ after captivity in Niger
World Outreach Church Pastor Allen Jackson says freed missionary Kevin Rideout is a ‘bright voice for Christianity’ on ‘Saturday in America.’
'Mission' review: George MacKay is transcendent in this fever dream about living
Paul Wright's subversive drama sees the "Rose of Nevada" star reach his limit.
Curiosity stumbles upon a gigantic Martian “honeycomb” that has scientists intrigued - Futura-Sciences
In a 360-degree panorama captured by the rover on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the polygonal shapes stretch in every direction as far as the rover can see. They even extend around the sides of a nearby butte nicknamed “Miraflores,”...
Colorado Politics Calendar Aug. 17-23
CoPo’s weekly political calendar will help you find political and public-policy events throughout Colorado. It includes candidate and issue campaign events, public policy meetings, court hearings, state and local party conventions, assemblies, debates, rallies, parades, speaking engagements, traveling dignitary appearances, water meetings, book signings, county commission hearings, city council meetings and more. As a subscriber, […]
Wildlife science demands effective communication
Wildlife management has come a long way from the days of Aldo Leopold traversing the New Mexico mountains on horseback and the Wisconsin River Valley by canoe. Back then, most decisions were based primarily on observation and experience. Today, highly trained wildlife biologists use sophisticated research, technology and mountains of data to understand everything from population dynamics and habitat needs to disease transmission and predator-prey relationships.
Brandon Butler column: Wildlife science demands effective communication
Wildlife management has come a long way from the days of Aldo Leopold traversing the New Mexico mountains on horseback and the Wisconsin River Valley by canoe. Back then, most decisions were based primarily on observation and experience. Today, highly trained wildlife biologists use sophisticated research, technology and mountains of data to understand everything from population dynamics and habitat needs to disease transmission and predator-prey relationships.
Activision Really Wants You To Know Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's Campaign Isn't A Horrible Mess Like BLOPS7
For the first time ever a Call of Duty beta will include access to a singleplayer campaign mission
EXCLUSIVE FTC probes health records giant Epic Systems, sources say
Epic Systems, a healthcare database company that holds the medical records of hundreds of millions of Americans, is facing an antitrust investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
FDA approves new Alzheimer’s PET imaging agent from Lantheus
Tauklarify, also known as MK-6240, is a radiodiagnostic agent indicated for positron emission tomography scans of adults suspected of having the degenerative brain disease.
Nintendo reveals physical reward for completing the DK Challenge
Nintendo has just announced a physical collectible card set based on the digital rewards for the DK Challenge. Only players who are able to complete every mission in the DK Challenge before the end of the event will be able to receive it. There are a total of 39 cards to be produced with 24 from the featured challenges in...
SEC Prepares to Ease Rule on Wall Street Political Donations
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing to ease a rule that restricts investment advisers from working for public pension funds if they’ve made political donations to state and local elected officials.
Xbox Confirms Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Beta Will Feature Single-Player Campaign Mission for the First Time
Xbox is trying something new with the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta, as the company has announced this month's pre-release tests will include a single-player campaign mission for the first time.
Hubble vs Roman
NASA's Hubble and Roman space telescopes will work together to broaden our perspective of the universe.
Same knee surgery, twice the price: Hospital monopolies push up healthcare costs
Last year alone, hospital and health systems announced 46 mergers and acquisitions, according to a healthcare business consulting firm. Five ranked as “mega-mergers,” meaning they were valued at more than $1 billion. One merged 28 hospi…
MU Health Care recognized for excellence in cardiovascular care
MU Health Care is now one of just 28 Joint Commission Comprehensive Cardiac Centers in the nation and one of five in Missouri.
New initiative set to help small businesses grow in El Paso's Mission Trail
El Paso’s Mission Trail small businesses are getting an SBA-funded boost as Rep. Veronica Escobar, the County, Revby, and EFO Media launch hands-on marketing and technical assistance, from workshops to 1-on-1 support.
Montgomery County sues social media companies over youth mental health harm
Research shows using social media for three or more hours a day doubles the risk of certain mental health problems for teens.
Trump Gives Green Light to U.S. Companies to Aim Hacks at Cybercriminals
The practice would align the United States more closely with countries like China and Russia, where spy agencies have long relied on private-sector hackers to help with national security missions.
NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln Achieves Prestigious Joint Commission Recertification as a Thrombectomy-Capable Stroke Center
Bronx, NY – NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln announced today that the hospital has once again earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval and the
Inside a 25-Day Ocean Science Mission
Rutgers researchers will study small ocean processes with big consequences At sea, their days will begin in darkness. Before dawn, Rutgers oceanographers Joe Gradone and Corday Selden expect to be on deck aboard the research vessel Falkor (too), preparing instruments, reviewing data and directing the first collection of water samples of the day. Related: Read more […]
AI needs science’s search history
“Actually, that’s where the gold is,” said Alasdair Russell, my graduate school friend who leads a pre-clinical genome editing group at Cambridge. He was talking about the winding road of science that is omitted from published papers. “When you’re discussing how to do the experiment, and why this way is better than another way, and what does the data really mean? I know what it shows, but what does it mean?” At RAAIS 2026, he described how his group has begun logging the twisting path of discovery as it happens, recording the verbal and written exchanges that normally disappear. Ideas become nodes in a living graph: they branch when a meeting produces two plausible experiments, merge when separate lines of evidence converge, and go dark when someone quietly stops pursuing them. In his implementation, one agent scores novelty, while another tries to learn “how scientists think and how they navigate through a complex world of data,” so that high-potential nodes can trigger deeper investigation. As frontier AI labs deploy agents toward scientific discovery, giving AI authentic scientific taste remains a trillion-dollar dilemma. The bottleneck is that the record we have kept for centuries of science might be insufficient to get us there. The experiments that never make the paper Peter Medawar, 1960 Nobel laureate and “father of transplantation,” asked in 1963 whether the scientific paper was a fraud, and answered yes: the form of the paper misrepresents the thinking that produced it. Sixty years on, the diagnosis is unchanged. A paper presents a clean progression from hypothesis to result to conclusion. Lost along the way are the unconventional theories, the abandoned or unaffordable methods, and the underwhelming and inconclusive data. It reads like a browser history with every dead end deleted: the ten open tabs, the four rephrased queries, the wrong turn down a subforum. All scrubbed, leaving one clean path from question to answer as the canonical path. What has changed since then is that the discarded material is now worth something. No high-impact journal wants these artifacts, but raw trial and error is the most likely source of the training data required to develop scientific intuition, or what researchers call taste. Earlier attempts to capture the discards were motivated by scientific integrity. The Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine launched in 2002 to publish rigorous studies that disputed established models or exposed ineffective treatments. Its archive preserved negative conclusions after they had become papers, rather than the live alternatives and arguments that produced them. BioMed Central closed it in 2017, saying the mission had been served now that other journals publish null results. A less generous reading is that in fifteen years it published around 200 papers because almost nobody wants to read a negative result, let alone write one up when it will not count toward academic tenure. AI models are different. Even an uninteresting negative result can be useful, provided it is labeled. Earlier this year, Anthropic put a version of this to the test. The company pulled 129 decision points from real Claude Code sessions between January and March 2026, showed models the work up to a human detour, and asked what should happen next. Claude Mythos Preview beat the human choice 64% of the time, while Opus 4.5 managed 51%. The comparison was tilted toward the models because Anthropic deliberately chose moments where the human decision had room for improvement. On 127 further scenarios where the human action was already strong, the models improved on it only about 20% of the time. The study was possible because Anthropic’s researchers work inside a tool that logs by default. The reasoning, detours and outcome are produced in the same working environment. Biology has no equivalent. Its reasoning happens in hallways, at benches, in Slack threads and on whiteboards, while the outcome arrives weeks later somewhere else. The record has to emerge from the work itself. Ask scientists to reconstruct it afterwards and we’ll create another polished account. Subscribe A log is not a label Before any of this becomes training data, a negative result has to say what failed. The first paper published in the Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine examined 234 negative studies across five leading medical journals. Only 30% discussed statistical power, and half clearly defined a primary outcome. Tell a model an experiment failed, without telling it whether the assay was underpowered, a reagent had degraded, or the hypothesis was simply wrong, and it will learn noise with confidence. Decision histories have a second missing label too. When a lab considers five experiments and runs one, only the chosen branch returns an outcome. The other four are experimental counterfactuals. Researchers call this the selective labels problem: the data reveal results only for the actions someone chose to take. Such a record can teach a model to imitate a lab’s taste, but it cannot establish that the taste was good. It also smuggles local constraints into general lessons. A lab that never ran cryo-EM because it did not own a microscope teaches a model that cryo-EM is rarely the right call. Alasdair’s nodes preserve the candidate set, which is the necessary first step. To be useful, each decision record needs six fields: The evidence available at that moment, and nothing that arrived later. The candidates considered, including the ones dismissed in a sentence. For each candidate: the expected result, the confidence attached to it, and the cost in time and money. The route chosen, and the reason. What happened next. How the evidence changed the scientist’s view. These must be timestamped before the outcome, because hindsight turns uncertainty into inevitability. Disagreement also has to survive. Averaging three scientists into one clean rationale reproduces exactly the information loss we are trying to fix. But there is an obvious failure mode here. Once decisions are logged and scored, people log for the record post-facto. Anyone who has watched an electronic lab notebook fill up with retrospective tidying knows how quickly a research tool becomes a compliance exercise. A record that costs a scientist ten minutes of honest reflection per decision is worth far more than one that costs an hour of performance. A publication initiative called Registered Reports offers a useful starting point. Here, researchers submit their rationale, methods and analysis plan for peer review before the data exist, and the journal commits in principle to publish if they follow the approved plan. Nature has now expanded the format across every field it covers. This approach to paper writing timestamps intent before the outcome, but it freezes one plan. A useful search history must also preserve how the plan changed, which alternatives were rejected, when, and on what evidence. Subscribe Run the runner-up Autonomous labs show what happens when decisions and outcomes are connected in a loop. Liverpool’s mobile robotic chemist ran 688 experiments over eight days in a ten-variable formulation space. A batched Bayesian search used each result to choose the next experiments and found photocatalyst mixtures six times more active than the starting formulations. Every completed experiment changed what the system did next. The robot optimized within a goal and search space that humans had already chosen. It did not decide which scientific question mattered. So what this work demonstrates is narrower, but still useful: a search history pays off when the options return standardized outcomes quickly. Open-ended biology is harder because branches can take weeks and the discarded alternatives may never be run. Some exploration therefore has to be bought. Where two branches are plausible and the stakes justify the cost, a lab should sometimes run the runner-up. Otherwise the record captures what today’s scientists usually chose and stays silent on what they systematically overlooked. A funder could ring-fence a small fraction of a grant for the branch not taken, provided that the decision record and the outcome are both deposited. That costs money, but so does having every lab rediscover the same abandoned path. Test whether taste transfers When it comes time to evaluate if our new AI system exhibits taste, the comparison should run across laboratories and fields. At selected decision points in a live research campaign, we should freeze the six fields: the evidence, the candidates, expected results, confidence, costs and the choice made. Experts then rank the options before the outcomes are known, and those outcomes are checked independently later. We could give models one of two diets - papers alone, or papers plus decision histories - and ask them to rank the next experiment on unfamiliar projects. Then, we score information gained per dollar and week, calibration, and how quickly weak branches are abandoned. If histories improve choices only inside the lab that produced them, they amount to useful organizational memory. If they improve choices on unfamiliar problems elsewhere, Alasdair’s group will have captured something science has never managed to write down: a transferable record of taste. Until that happens, a scientific search history is a promising record, not yet a training set.
The Swift Rescue Mission Could Be Back in Business
After a nearly catastrophic failure, a software update renews hope of saving NASA's Swift observatory before it burns up.
Mission Improbable: A onetime Republican is trying to prove Democrats can win in Florida
David Jolly, a former Republican now running for Florida governor as a Democrat, is trying to revive the state’s political battleground status
Mission Improbable: A onetime Republican is trying to prove Democrats can win in Florida
David Jolly, a former Republican now running for Florida governor as a Democrat, is trying to revive the state's political battleground status.
LUC sends youth sports complex to City Council with lighting curfew and parking conditions
The Land Use Commission Wednesday approved a recommendation to the City Council for a youth sports facility on Green Bay Road — with conditions including
A woman on a mission
Mindy Engevik, Ph.D., is a woman on a mission. Make that TWO missions. Her vocation is studying the interaction between gut microbes and the gastrointestinal tract. Her avocation is advancing the careers of young women in science. She’s passionate about both goals, and she’s recently earned two prestigious national awards recognizing her achievements.
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers detain two members of the UN political mission
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have detained two Afghan members of the U.N. political mission in the country, the United Nations said Wednesday,
Columbus Health Commissioner Dr. Mysheika W. Roberts on food safety
Northrop's robot space mechanic is a new way to keep satellites at work longer
The Mission Robotic Vehicle is making the first attempt to attach a new thruster to an aging satellite.
FSU Health Lifestyle Medicine Clinic opens registration for LEADR diabetes remission program
The FSU Health Lifestyle Medicine Clinic is now accepting registrations for a 12-week program beginning Aug. 26 designed to help individuals with
From first 72 hours to first 90 days, tech extends hospital care beyond discharge
As value-based care expands, health systems are using technology-dependent transitional care to support patients at home, reduce readmissions and improve outcomes.
USPTO Expands Category A Patent Bar Admission Criteria to Include Biomedical Science Degree
The USPTO published a Federal Register Notice Tuesday announcing administrative updates to the General Requirements Bulletin (GRB).
Out of nowhere, Sony confirms that 2024 breakout hit Helldivers 2 joins PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium today
New enemies, new ranks, new missions - same ol' alien scum.
Small Business Spotlight: Specialty dental practice takes root on Market St.
WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO OPEN BLUE HERON ROOT CANAL SPECIALISTS? OWNER SARAH ERMOSHKIN: “I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart. When I was 23 years old, I owned a cafe in Seattle, where I even fought to oppose oppressive sales taxes on espresso drinks. After selling that business, I got married and started a family. Once my children were in school, I attended dental school through the Navy Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP), which covered my tuition and provided a stipend. From the beginning, my goal was to eventually own my own practice after completing my military service. The work I do is incredibly rewarding and being able to create an environment that puts patients first while helping employees grow professionally makes every day as a business owner meaningful.” WHAT DOES YOUR BUSINESS PROVIDE? ERMOSHKIN: “Endodontists are often called ‘pain doctors’ because our primary mission is to relieve pain and save natural teeth. We specialize in root canal therapy, retreatment of nonhealing root canals, treatment of root resorption, apicoectomies – microsurgical root-end procedures – and vital pulp therapy for children. Our goal is to preserve teeth that might otherwise need to be extracted and replaced with implants. Saving a patient’s natural tooth is almost always the best long-term solution for their oral health.” HOW DOES YOUR MILITARY TRAINING HELP YOUR BUSINESS? ERMOSHKIN: “My military service taught me how to lead, collaborate and make decisions under pressure. I worked closely with senior leadership while treating a large patient population and collaborating with specialists across multiple disciplines. During the COVID-19 pandemic, (I) served a dual role as Navy dentist and as the public affairs officer for Naval Health Clinic Annapolis, where I helped develop medical and dental communications for the midshipmen and support staff, while coordinating with the broader Navy Capital Region. We worked closely with other military treatment facilities to share best practices and deliver consistent public health messaging. Those leadership experiences continue to shape how I lead my team and serve our patients today.” WHAT CHALLENGES ARE YOU FACING RIGHT NOW IN YOUR BUSINESS? ERMOSHKIN: “One of our biggest challenges is overcoming the misinformation surrounding root canal treatment. Root canals are safe, effective and often the best way to relieve pain while preserving a natural tooth. Unfortunately, many people choose extraction because they believe it’s less expensive or because they’ve seen misleading information online. What they may not realize is that losing a tooth can lead to shifting teeth, changes in the way they bite and chew and significantly higher costs to restore their smile later.”
Boaty McBoatface and pals’ perilous mission | Investors Lab
Operating within a global underwater robotics market valued at over $5 billion, the market is rich with manufacturers
3,500-year-old skeletons challenge what scientists thought they knew about syphilis
Ancient remains from Vietnam suggest diseases like yaws may have been passed from mother to child thousands of years ago, a form of transmission often assumed to indicate syphilis. The discovery could overturn how scientists interpret ancient infections and complicate the long-running mystery of syphilis’s origins.
GW Law Professor Barak Richman Selected to Participate on North Carolina Health Care Cost Commission | GW Law
Professor Richman has been selected to serve as the facilitator for a recently created Healthcare Cost Commission for the state of North Carolina.
Time Mission bringing 'real-life video game' experience to Nashville
A Florida company billing itself as a "real-life video game" operator is opening its largest location yet in Nashville. Read the exclusive details.
Survey shows Americans want to start brain health habits earlier
A new national survey commissioned by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center finds most U.S. adults believe brain health habits should begin before age 40.
Lexington County could take on $74 million in debt for a sports complex
The Lexington County Recreation Commission is proposing a multi-sports complex off Interstate 77, but there are questions about how it will be paid for.
Politics Report: Baños Cerrados
Last week, former San Diego City Councilmember Donna Frye sent one of the staffers for Mayor Todd Gloria a picture of poop. “This Kodak Moment is from Mission Bay Park this morning near one of the closed bathrooms. Please share with the mayor.”
Jacobs Entertainment now wants two skyways (commentary)
A proposal for new skyways from J Resort faces review by the Reno Planning Commission and City Council following its debut at the Ward 1 NAB meeting.
NASA Swift Boost Spacecraft Prepares to Continue Mission
Katalyst Space uploaded a flight software update that reestablished attitude control of its LINK spacecraft, which is set to boost NASA’s Swift observatory.
NH's Business: What's happening with state's 2nd-largest revenue-generating industry: tourism?
Fred Kocher sits down with Lucy Lange, commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs, to discuss whether Canadian visits are rebounding after a big drop last year.
Curtain Call Cabaret & Lounge launches new pay model for entertainment, food
The Curtain Call Cabaret & Lounge in downtown Medford has introduced an innovative Pay-What-You-Want model that includes both admission and its food menu. For all Curtain Call-produced performances, guests may […]
AO Astrophysics Explorers Program 2026 SMEX Amended
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate (SMD) announces the release of Amendment #1 to the Announcement of Opportunity (AO) to solicit Principal Investigator (PI)-led space science investigations for the Small Explorer (SMEX) opportunity.
Joby Aviation to Scale Defense Business Through Acquisition of Resonant Sciences
Acquisition will significantly expand Joby’s defense business by adding a fast-growing company with established programs, classified capabilities and scaled manufacturing operations` Upon closing, Resonant will become Joby’s dedicated defense business, continuing its existing programs while expanding its portfolio to include Joby’s hybrid aircraft and autonomy technologies. Joby’s commercial aircraft business will remain focused on its electric air taxi initiatives Combination will create immediate opportunities to unite Joby’s dual-use aircraft, propulsion and autonomy technologies with Resonant’s radio frequency (RF), sensing and mission systems capabilities as well as its world-leading expertise in low-observability aircraft design Resonant delivered more than $100 million in trailing-twelve-month revenue, representing approximately 40% year-over-year growth, alongside strong adjusted EBITDA generation, driven primarily by long-cycle programs with the U.S. government, prime contractors and next generation defense technology programs
A new golf and social entertainment venue could be coming to Homewood
Homewood's Planning Commission approved The Woods Golf and Social, a putting course and entertainment venue.
The U.S. Healthcare System is Already Mostly Socialized
Now that Abdul El-Sayed is the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s open Senate seat, the outcome of this crucial race will depend mainly on two things: Whether Republicans succeed in demonizing El-Sayed because he’s brown and a Muslim, and whether they succeed in demonizing him as a left-wing radical. I will defer for the now the question of whether bigotry will be effective this year, although I will address it another day. What I want to address instead is El-Sayed’s signature issue — healthcare. Yes, El-Sayed advocates Medicare for All, a position the usual suspects denounce as “socialism.” I will get to the politics of his stance soon. Today, however, I want to talk about the substance. We should be clear that El-Sayed doesn’t even call himself a socialist. On the contrary, he explicitly disavows the label, saying “I’m a capitalist who just knows about capitalism”. In fact, as I explained in a previous post, the policies that El-Sayed advocates qualify him as a social democrat, not a socialist. Still, El-Sayed advocates a system under which the government would pay almost all medical expenses. Isn’t that socialism? Well, if that is the criterion then much of U.S. healthcare is already socialist. In fact, the government’s role is so large that U.S. healthcare is better described as partially privatized socialism than as anything resembling a free market. Let’s start with the raw numbers on health insurance, which pays the bulk of Americans’ medical expenses. Americans receive health insurance either from private companies or from public programs, overwhelmingly Medicare and Medicaid. Here’s what the breakdown of coverage and spending between private and public looked like in 2024: While a majority of Americans with health insurance get it from private companies, well over 100 million of us are covered by government programs instead. And these government programs pay more total dollars for medical bills than the private insurers do. Why do government programs that cover a minority of the population account for a majority of health insurers’ outlays? Mainly because Medicare covers seniors, and we’re expensive. Also, while Medicaid covers many younger Americans, disabled and elderly beneficiaries account for most of its spending. Even by the raw numbers, then, U.S. health insurance looks as much public as private. But that understates the government’s role: Private health insurance in the U.S. is both highly regulated and heavily subsidized. This is obviously true for the insurance coverage purchased by tens of millions of Americans through the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act. But employment-based health insurance, which covers 161 million Americans, is far more of a government creation than most people realize. For employment-based insurance exists largely because of huge implicit government subsidies that come with major strings attached. Here’s how that works. If your employer pays you $10,000, that’s taxable income. But if your employer pays $10,000 toward a company health insurance plan that meets certain criteria, it isn’t taxable. That’s a huge effective subsidy, running at more than $300 billion a year. Take that subsidy into account, along with the more than $100 billion per year spent subsidizing policies purchased under the ACA, as well as the outlays on Medicare and Medicaid, and net effect is that the government pays for more than two-thirds of Americans’ health insurance. Granted, there are strings attached. Roughly speaking, employment-based health plans can’t discriminate based on medical history — that is, they can’t deny coverage to employees with pre-existing conditions — and they also can’t offer the plans only to highly compensated employees — a health plan that is only for the C-suite is considered taxable income. So given the restrictions of the federal tax code, employer-based health insurance is a lot like Obamacare, which also prohibits discrimination based on medical history and provides subsidies to make insurance affordable to lower-paid workers. The fact is that virtually all of private healthcare insurance is already well under some form of government control through regulation and tax subsidies. How should we think about this system? First of all, is Medicare socialist? Don’t tell anyone, but the way Medicare operates — it covers every senior’s medical expenses, whatever they turn out to be, while being funded by taxes that depend on one’s income — could be summarized by the old Marxist slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” And back in 1961, when Ronald Reagan was the face of a last-ditch effort by the American Medical Association to block the creation of Medicare, he denounced Medicare as “socialized medicine” and warned that it would destroy our freedom. In reality, American freedom survived until Jan. 20, 2025, while Medicare is immensely popular, with an 82 percent favorable rating in the most recent KFF survey. Medicaid, government health insurance for lower-income Americans, comes in at 73 percent. This is in sharp contrast to public views about private insurers, who are widely disliked if not hated and accused of denying essential care. Furthermore, if Medicare is socialism, then the whole U.S. health insurance system, with the government paying most of the bills and placing conditions on private insurers, is almost equally socialist. If you insist on calling any program the government pays for and regulates socialist, then U.S. healthcare would best be described as a partially privatized form of socialism. And one must ask, what is the point of the part that is privatized? Do private insurers add anything positive? Or are they simply parasites, skimming off money that could have been paying for care? The case for viewing insurers as parasites is strong. Many Medicare benefits are now delivered via Medicare Advantage, that is, plans paid for by the government but run through insurance companies. MedPAC, an independent advisory commission, estimates that last year Medicare Advantage plans were overpaid by $84 billion, thanks to practices such as “upcoding,” in which patients’ health problems are overstated to get larger sums from Medicare. Assessing the waste from employer-based insurance is harder, but most evidence suggests that private insurers have substantially higher administrative costs than Medicare does. Furthermore, the complexity of private insurance, with multiple payers all trying to deny care when they can, is a huge burden both on providers — doctors, nurses, and hospitals — and on patients. What do private insurers offer to compensate for these costs? One must go through intellectual contortions to avoid the conclusion that they are, in fact, parasites. Which brings me back to El-Sayed. In supporting Medicare for All, he’s basically calling for an end to the partial, parasitic privatization of a healthcare system that is already hugely dependent on public funding. When one looks at it that way, it’s not at all a radical proposal. Admittedly, the political lift requires overcoming the opposition to higher taxes to pay for Medicare for All. Political realism rather than economics was the reason I and many other progressives supported Obamacare, with all its complexities, rather than demanding an immediate move to Medicare for All. But the political calculus may very well have shifted since the 2000s, as Americans are fed up with a system of unaffordable premiums, rampant claim denials, and byzantine claim administration. Moreover, funding healthcare insurance through taxation would allow for a much more progressive distribution of the cost. That is, compared to the present system, middle-income households would pay less as high-income households would pay more. And the U.S. would stop wasting large sums on pointless administrative costs. So let’s be clear: El-Sayed’s healthcare platform is perfectly reasonable on the merits of cost, fairness and health efficacy. And with private insurers never more hated, while millions of Americans are losing their health insurance, 2026 may be its time. MUSICAL CODA
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Key Takeaways The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys combined more than 263,000 telescope exposures to make the largest 2D map of the universe in visible and near-infrared light. Astronomers can pair the Legacy Surveys map with their own observations to explore our universe and search for rare phenomena. The 2D map serves as the foundation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey to measure the universe in 3D and investigate dark energy. Hold on to your telescopes: the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys team has released the largest-ever 2D color map of the universe. The 5.6-trillion-pixel map contains nearly 4 billion celestial objects, primarily stars and galaxies. The data is available for all to use and publicly viewable through the Legacy Survey Sky Viewer. Astronomers and citizen scientists can explore the map or combine it with their own observations to better understand our universe. Researchers can search for rare phenomena like gravitational lenses, observe fleeting events like supernovae, and investigate two of physics’ biggest mysteries: dark matter, the invisible substance that accounts for most of the mass in our universe, and dark energy, the force driving our universe’s accelerating expansion. The new map builds on earlier versions from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys that have already proved invaluable. 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It was built by combining 263,407 telescope exposures from three ground-based sky surveys: the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS) at NSF Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey (MzLS) at NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory, and the Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey (BASS) at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory. That was supplemented by years of data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite mission and additional public data. “For our team, these data are fundamental to our investigation of the expansion history of the universe and the formation of our galaxy,” said Arjun Dey, co-lead of the Legacy Surveys and an astronomer at NSF NOIRLab. “But the skies belong to everyone, and this survey gives everyone the chance to explore the sky and marvel at its wonders.” Here be galaxies The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys were originally conducted to prepare for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey. The Legacy Surveys’ 2D map is essentially a deep photograph of the sky; it records where galaxies and stars appear and how bright they appear. This crucial step enables DESI to select objects and measure their light in different wavelengths to determine their distances, building the largest high-resolution 3D map ever made. Scientists study the way galaxies have clustered at different ages of the universe to track dark energy over time. In April 2026, DESI completed its original five-year survey ahead of schedule and with vastly more objects than expected. The early results have shown surprising hints that dark energy’s impact may be weakening over time — a paradigm shift that could potentially shape the predicted fate of our universe. DESI expects to publish improved results using their first five years of data in 2027 and is continuing observations into 2028. DESI was so efficient at observing galaxies, the Legacy Surveys map needed to expand. Early on, “it became clear we might run out of galaxies to look at and run out of sky, and we better start doing something about that,” said Schlegel, who also works on DESI. The new Legacy Surveys map has been used to select DESI targets since June 2026 and will guide the telescope’s operations over the coming years. Computing the cosmos Merging hundreds of thousands of images taken on 2,285 nights, each with unique atmospheric and telescope conditions, was a massive computational effort. It took about a year to develop the computer code and eight weeks to process all the images at the Perlmutter supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Berkeley Lab. Beyond supporting DESI, the Legacy Surveys will be a foundational reference for the next generation of telescopes. As new observatories like the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (jointly funded by NSF and DOE’s Office of Science) and NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope come online, researchers can compare their observations with one of the deepest and most comprehensive views of the sky ever assembled. The Legacy Surveys data will also help scientists train artificial intelligence tools to analyze petabytes of astronomical data and accelerate new discoveries. It will be among the datasets used in an astrophysics pilot project within the American Science Cloud, part of the DOE’s Genesis Mission. The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys are supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of High Energy Physics; the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science user facility; the U.S. National Science Foundation, Division of Astronomical Sciences; and the partner institutions. DESI is supported by the DOE Office of Science and NERSC. Additional support for DESI is provided by the NSF; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation (SECIHTI) of Mexico; the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain; and by the DESI member institutions. ### Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 17 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
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