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Michigan health officials warn of ‘large and growing outbreak’ of cyclosporiasis
State officials are still working to identify what caused the spread of more than 170 cases.
Brand New The Blood of Dawnwalker Gameplay Showcases Coen’s Investigation Skills and a Boss Battle Against the Eerie Forgotten Guardian
See Coen's investigation and fighting skills on full display in this quest gameplay from The Blood of Dawnwalker.
See inside Louisiana’s tent at the Washington, D.C. fair celebrating America’s 250th birthday
“Louisiana looked at this as a prime opportunity to showcase the Louisiana that people don't know.”
Cyclosporiasis Cases In Lenawee County
The Lenawee County Health Department is investigating a cluster of cyclosporiasis cases among Lenawee County residents. These cases are part of a multijurisdictional outbreak, and public health offici
Judges resume sentencing over shooting at Texas immigration facility
The case has been closely watched by critics who say the prosecution could have wide-reaching impact on protests and First Amendment free-speech rights.
Africa CDC: Uganda health ministry confirms isolated Marburg case
Africa's top public health agency said on Wednesday that Uganda's health ministry had confirmed an isolated case of Marburg virus disease.
The Case for Performance-First Management
What began as a crisis-driven response to the Covid pandemic laid the foundation for today’s dominant management paradigm: people-first management. But today’s business demands a different approach, as performance and productivity have replaced engagement and retention atop the CEO agenda. Performance-first management represents a gentle shift toward an approach where managers empower their teams to deliver high-impact results within a complex and evolving reality. It keeps people at the center, but reorients the manager’s role around enabling performance, not just supporting satisfaction. Gartner research shows that managers who shift toward a performance-first approach are up to 21% more likely to deliver the business results that are expected of them. And employees who say that their managers are performance-first report higher overall satisfaction with their employee experience.
Redford Township cat hoarding case: Animal Control rescues cats from home deemed public health hazard
Animal control officers from multiple agencies are continuing efforts to rescue dozens of cats from a Redford Township home after authorities declared the property an imminent danger to public health.
Situation of the reserve team's squad
Several players from Girona B have ended their association with the Club and will not continue to be part of the reserve team next season.This is the case for Ferran Ruiz, Oriol Comas, and Miguel Sán...
Jonathan Turley: This is a court that follows principle, not politics
Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley argues that the Supreme Court’s upholding of birthright citizenship showcases its integrity and independence on ‘Special Report.’
DC sports fans have a chance to showcase their favorite memorabilia in new exhibit
The D.C. Public Library is calling on sports memorabilia collectors around the region to contribute to an upcoming exhibition.
Toledo-Lucas County Health Department confirms cases of cyclosporiasis, a parasitic intestinal illness
The Toledo-Lucas County Health Department (TLCHD) has confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis, an intestinal illness caused by a parasite called cyclospora cayetanensis.
Seven gastrointestinal illness cases linked to Seattle sushi restaurant, health officials say
Seven people reported getting sick after eating at the Sushi%AYCE/All You Can Eat restaurant in Seattle’s Chinatown International District.
Health officials warn of West Nile virus in mosquito in Alhambra, human infection in Long Beach
The first human case of West Nile virus in Long Beach and current mosquito-carrying activity in the San Gabriel Valley has been reported this month.
Trump calls on Congress to end birthright citizenship after court defeat
The Supreme Court's ruling in the birthright citizenship case poses a political challenge for President Donald Trump.
The Supreme Court’s New 6–3 Elections Case Was Not Nearly as Bad as Expected
As disastrous Supreme Court election cases go, Tuesday’s decision in NSRC v. FEC doesn’t make the list of complete abominations.
Cruis'n Blast has been delisted from the Nintendo Switch eShop
Out of nowhere, Cruis’n Blast has been delisted from the Nintendo eShop. As far as we’re aware, the arcade racer has been available since launching on Nintendo Switch almost five years ago. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case as of today. Looking the game up on the Nintendo eShop now provides zero results. We checked both the North American store...
The Supreme Court’s trans sports ruling is a cautionary tale for all left-leaning lawyers
If you’re a liberal, and you’re thinking of bringing a case to the Supreme Court, don’t
Samsung’s app for Android XR-powered Galaxy Glasses shows case, ‘One UI XR’ [Gallery]
Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Glasses are not coming out in the immediate future, but new leaks shed a bit of new...
Best, worst case scenarios for 49ers defense in 2026
The 49ers have a new defensive coordinator running the unit in 2026. What would be the best and worst results for the team on that side of the ball?
Supreme Court agrees to review ban on AR-style semi-automatic rifles in major Second Amendment case
The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will decide whether cities and states may ban people from owning AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic weapons, taking up a major Second Amendment dispute that it had previously declined to address.
“We’re going to regret that decision”: Dbrand cancels its Companion Cube Steam Machine case after Valve demands it
“Being proud of the thing we made did not give us the right to make it”…
America 250 Is Rewriting the Business Case for Made in America
Naturepedic’s Arin Schultz examines why America’s 250th anniversary coincides with a fundamental shift in manufacturing strategy. Schultz argues that tariff uncertainty, supply-chain disruption and…
Stéphane Dion: The case for unified and effective Canadian science diplomacy
Canada sells well; it opens doors. But it needs effective science diplomacy, based on a unified approach, bringing together governments, embassies, businesses and universities.
Supreme Court loosens campaign finance laws, opening up flood of midterm cash
The change is likely to benefit Republicans, who brought the case and rely more on large donors.
Supreme Court Strikes Down Limits on Political Party Spending
At issue in the case was a post-Watergate law that Congress passed to limit the amount of money individuals can give to political parties.
Supreme Court lifts Watergate-era caps on campaign spending
The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a Watergate-era cap on how much money political parties may spend in coordination with candidates, siding with Republicans in a case initially filed by then-Senate candidate JD Vance that experts say could ultimately benefit the GOP in this year’s midterm election.
Supreme Court rules against trans athletes in case over sports participation
The court ruled Tuesday that Idaho and Virginia did not discriminate against runner Lindsay Hecox or high school shot-putter Becky Pepper-Jackson in barring them from playing on teams that align with their gender identity.
Supreme Court upholds state bans on transgender athletes in girls and women's sports
The ruling on a pair of separate cases from Idaho and West Virginia could carry far-reaching implications for transgender rights.
Maine high court to hear appeal ballot initiative case
Oral arguments are set for 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta.
Supreme Court could rule on birthright citizenship, transgender sports cases today
The Supreme Court is expected to release decisions on birthright citizenship and laws barring transgender girls and women from participating in school sports teams.
Meet a PhD student selected for a national Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation Scholarship | CWRU Newsroom
Jenna Jaklich is nearly three years away from completing her PhD program in materials science and engineering at Case Western Reserve University, but...
Samsung hints the Galaxy Ring 2 could do something no Galaxy wearable has done before
A senior Samsung executive has revealed that the next-generation Galaxy Ring will bring a promising compatibility upgrade.
Supreme Court's ruling in Cook case backs Federal Reserve's independence
The Supreme Court on Monday said the Federal Reserve, unlike any other agency in Washington, has a measure of independence from the presidency and day-to-day politics.
Health officials investigate cyclosporiasis cases in Monroe County, Michigan
Cyclosporiasis cases on the rise in Monroe County, health officials say
An outbreak of Cyclosporiasis is spreading in Monroe County, health officials announced on Monday.
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 series colors look stunning as official cases leak [Gallery]
While we’ve yet to get clean renders of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 series, a new leak shows off Samsung’s...
Exclusive: First look at the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Z Flip 8, and Z Fold 8 Ultra (a.k.a. 'Fold 8 Wide')
Samsung is gearing up for a big reveal of its latest foldable smartphones at the upcoming annual Unpacked event in July, and it's slated to officially
Accessory Company Yanks Companion Cube Steam Machine Case Because It Never Actually Asked Valve For Permission
“We’re going to regret that decision for a very long time”
Supreme Court hands Trump new power to tighten his grip on the federal government
Trump lost a Supreme Court case over his attempted Fed firing. But he won a bigger fight for presidential power.
Netflix and Superheroes Are Having a Rough Stretch on Streaming....
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) I have a quick prediction before we start today’s article: You might see this data in future news articles. Not my specific charts or analysis, but the core trend I’ve been monitoring—Netflix is having a lackluster Q2—will become inescapable. Often, folks want to know “What does the data say?” Well, that’s what it says. I haven’t seen this analysis hit the trades really yet, but I have a feeling some other outlets are going to start making this case soon. Remember, you read it here first. You probably have read about the problems facing superhero films at the box office this weekend. Well, this week, I explore whether superheroes are dying on TV as well! And the data says: definitely maybe! We have a lot to cover in today’s Streaming Ratings Report, which covers the two weeks of 18-May and 25-May. Today, I’m just looking at TV, like Netflix’s disappointing Q2, superhero shows underwhelming, a few TV shows dropping off the charts, The Pitt finally ending its epic run on the viewership charts (and whether “view counts” change its status as one of the biggest shows of all time), all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Tomorrow, I’ve got a great rundown of the film side of things. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, Showlabs, TV Time trend data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of May 18th to May 31st, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - Netflix’s Q2 Slump Continues Having analyzed streaming ratings for going on half a decade, I have learned to trust my gut, but I’m always relieved when I can find actual data to back it up. For example, after a string of very popular shows like Stranger Things, Bridgerton, The Lincoln Lawyer and The Night Agent came out, week after week, in January and February, my gut wondered if Netflix had enough new and returning TV shows to sustain them throughout the year. Since then, Netflix’s post-March slate of shows has not impressed me. This week seemed to feature a potential new hit, but then, like a classic Duffer Bros. TV show, there was a twist. I speak of The Boroughs, Netflix’s latest (and last) Duffer Bros. produced show. The pitch is “Stranger Things with older actors”. And it topped the Nielsen charts: With just two weeks of viewership, The Boroughs would have been a top 25 debut show last year: But here’s the twist: Netflix has already cancelled The Boroughs! What happened? Likely a few things. First, the show didn’t do as well globally as it did in the US. As What’s on Netflix showed, it lagged behind several other shows that got cancelled. Second, its completion rate was likely low; after an initial burst of interest, it quickly dropped off on the Samba TV and Luminate charts. Third, the Duffer Bros. left Netflix for Paramount, and that may have factored into Netflix’s decision here. (Though I tend to believe that if a show is doing well, Netflix would have kept greenlighting seasons.) Still, just because I can explain why Netflix may have cancelled this show doesn’t mean I’m justifying it. In particular, as I’ve noted before, Netflix is losing a lot of their bigger shows as they reach their natural ends, and they need to replace those shows. This show had the hallmarks of a big new genre show, and it’s their biggest hit of the last few months (in the US at least), but now it’s done. Netflix’s other show this week—The Four Seasons, the second season of the “hit” show from last year—definitely disappointed. Its sophomore season had about half the viewership of the first, only 12.7 million hours. It also only had a two week run on Samba TV, and its numbers were all down on Luminate too. In other words, even with two successes, the Q2 slump for Netflix looks real: I could add to the list of disappointments: Both Lord of the Files and Man on Fire had short runs on the Nielsen charts. Running Point’s sophomore season also opened to about half its viewership, similar to The Four Seasons. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’s second season—see below—didn’t even make any of the three viewership charts I track, unlike the first season. Netflix is absolutely having a dismal second three months of 2026. If this Nielsen data is any indication, and I think it is, I think this will show up in Netflix’s engagement report, and maybe even their financial outcomes. And the rest of June doesn’t look much better. We have two hit shows coming back—Sweet Magnolias, one of their quietest big shows, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, a big hit for them in 2024—but the other big swings are limited series crime thrillers i.e. no future season potential. Like I said above, sometimes when I uncover a juicy nugget like this, other outlets end up writing very similar articles mimicking the data without credit. We’ll see if that happens this time! Share Television - The State of Superhero Shows on Streaming When I first heard the pitch for Spider-Noir—a Sony TV show on Prime Video that binge-released eight episodes first on MGM+ then on Prime Video two days later—I had my doubts. It’s a live-action Spider-Man show set in the 1930s, starring Nicholas Cage, based on a cameo of a character in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. No, seriously, that’s the pitch. That could either go terrifically well or horribly wrong. Great because, Spider-Man. He’s the biggest superhero we have. I’ve seen tracking numbers that put the new _Spider-Man: Brand New Da_y as the blockbuster of the year and initial pre-sales back that up. And yet this Spider-Noir pitch feels very esoteric. (Also, the eight-episode binge release feels very “Amazon copying Netflix” again.) So what’s the data say? And what does this say about the future of superhero shows?
The Supreme Court handed Trump an election case defeat. Is a bigger win for him coming?
The Supreme Court’s ruling letting more than a dozen states keep their post-election grace periods for mail ballots is a defeat for President Donald Trump and Republicans ahead of the midterms, but the GOP can still capture significant victories in major election-related cases coming farther down the pipeline.
Peptides are the latest US health craze. But what exactly are they?
While peptides are taking the health and wellness category by storm for various use cases, what exactly are they? Leerink Partners senior research analyst Michael Cherny helps break down what a peptides are, how people are choosing them for personal health and recovery reasons, and who the biggest winners in consumer pharmaceuticals could be if their popularity continues to grow.
The Most Important Business Lesson From Cannes Had Nothing to Do With Advertising
The world's biggest advertising festival just made the case that creative thinking belongs in the boardroom, not just the campaign brief.
Parents charged with murder after 7-year-old son died of heart disease at 255 pounds
The young boy was allegedly living on a diet of potato chips, French fries and other unhealthy snacks. One prosecutor described the case as "extraordinary, terrible neglect."
Monroe County Health Department reports multiple cases of parasite-caused intestinal illness
Multiple cases of cyclosporiasis, a diarrheal illness caused by an infection from a parasite, have been reported in Monroe County, according to the county health department.
Beloved gas station pizza chain CEO reveals 400-store expansion plan as food business booms
Casey's General Stores plans to add at least 400 new locations over three years while expanding its prepared food menu with wings and fries.
Nancy Guthrie demand letter’s authenticity questioned by sheriff
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos weighs in on a new demand letter in the Nancy Guthrie case, which claims to know who kidnapped the mother of 'Today' host Savannah Guthrie.
Monroe County Health Department investigating cluster of cyclosporiasis cases
The Monroe County Health Department is investigating a cluster of cyclosporiasis cases that have popped up in the past week.
France keeps health emergency plan at highest level in case of another heatwave
PARIS, June 29 (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Monday he was keeping the country's health emergency response plan, ORSAN, at its highest level for the coming days in view
France Keeps Health Emergency Plan at Highest Level in Case of Another Heatwave
PARIS, June 29 (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Monday he was keeping the country's health emergency response plan, ORSAN, at its highest level for the coming days in view of "a possible recurrence of a heatwave episode". Lecornu was speaking at the start of a ...
Opinion | America Is the Land of Endless Choice, Except in Politics
There’s a case to be made for a two-party system, but what do you do when your party loses its mind?
Supreme Court won't revive Alan Dershowitz's $300 million suit against CNN
Dershowitz had urged the court to reconsider New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. The landmark First Amendment case that made it harder for public figures to win libel lawsuits because it requires proof that an outlet knowingly published something false, or showed a reckless disregard for the truth.
Supreme Court hands Trump a loss in his fight with the Fed
The Supreme Court sided against President Donald Trump in a closely-watched case.
Supreme Court to review the legality of mass voter purges in the weeks before an election
The Supreme Court will review the legality of mass voters purges in the final weeks before an election, as part of a larger case the justices are taking up examining the methods Arizona uses to keep non-citizens off the voter rolls.
Supreme Court rejects Trump's push to toss $5M verdict in E. Jean Carroll case
The decision comes about two years after the court granted Trump broad immunity from criminal prosecution
Second 2026 Connecticut measles case reported
Connecticut’s second measles case of 2026 in Connecticut was confirmed by state health officials in Monday.
Texas Democrats leave convention united in effort to end GOP’s 30-year hold on state politics
Texas Democrats spent their 3-day convention in Corpus Christi rallying party activists, training volunteers and making the case for Democratic policies and candidates across the state ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Supreme Court issues opinions
Major rulings are anticipated this week in cases involving presidential power, birthright citizenship and transgender rights.
Supreme court nears the end of its term with cases about Donald Trump’s power to be decided
Court expected to hand down decisions on several outstanding cases, wrapping up term that has focussed on Trump’s expansive claims of presidential power
Moving ‘Casey and Diana’ plumbs the messy layers of hope
Nick Green’s dramatization of Princess Diana’s visit to an AIDS hospice is darkly funny and life-affirming, onstage at American Players Theatre through Sept. 24.
Rural Fosston moves forward in its quest to relinquish control of local hospital from Essentia Health
A northwestern Minnesota community is seeking to regain local control of its hospital, arguing Essentia Health has failed to meet local health care needs. A recent court ruling allows Fosston to take its case to arbitration.
The last, best hope for the Colorado GOP
If the Colorado Republican Party desires to retain any relevancy, let alone wrest back any of the levers of political control in the state, it needs to elect Barb Kirkmeyer in the June 30 primary. To be sure, Kirkmeyer would be a solid candidate for governor in any case, whether or not she shared the […]
Efzimfotase alfa demonstrated improvements in bone health in treatment-naïve pediatric patients with hypophosphatasia achieving median difference of 1.67 vs placebo in RGI-C Score at week 25 in MULBERRY Phase III trial
Positive results from the MULBERRY Phase III trial showed that efzimfotase alfa (ALXN1850), an investigational enzyme replacement therapy, demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in bone health in children (2 to
Texas Democrats leave convention united in effort to end GOP's 30-year hold on Texas
Texas Democrats spent their 3-day convention in Corpus Christi rallying party activists, training volunteers and making the case for Democratic policies and candidates across the state ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Microbusinesses celebrate New York state’s first cannabis showcase
Five years since the legalization of recreational marijuana in New York state, business owners and growers are still struggling and navigating their way through the complicated legal status and policies surrounding the cannabis industry.
Pennsylvania measles outbreak tops 70 cases as health leaders pledge to get spread ‘under control’
The most recent measles outbreak started in the area of Lebanon and Lancaster counties in late April. Cases now span six counties.
Entertainment Firms Face AI Copyright Uncertainty
Editorial analysis: For AI and ML practitioners, unclear copyright rules raise the legal risk and compliance cost of using generative models in production content pipelines. According to The Economic Times, Indian entertainment firms are investing heavily in AI for content creation, but current copyright law, which is tied to human creativity, may not clearly protect AI-assisted or AI-generated works. The Economic Times reports lawyers warn that, without specific legislation or case law, such works face risks of duplication and misuse, complicating licensing, attribution, and monetization for studios and creators. The article highlights that creators and rights holders in India currently have limited legal recourse under existing statutes, per The Economic Times.
Long Beach reports first West Nile case
The city of Long Beach has reported California's first human case of West Nile virus this summer, according to health officials.
Second Measles Case of 2026 Confirmed by Wyoming Department of Health
The Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) has confirmed a case of measles in an unvaccinated adult from Teton County. Measles is a highly contagious infection that can cause severe illness. The public may have been exposed to measles at the following locations and times: Cafe Court Pizzeria and Ranch House Restaurant, Colter Bay Village, Grand […]
Usher makes the case for R&B in stadiums
LOS ANGELES — As Usher prepares to launch a stadium tour with Chris Brown, he says the criticism and legal troubles surrounding the singer never factored into his decision to
Arizona health officials investigate suspected pneumonic plague case
Health officials in Yavapai County are looking into a suspected case of pneumonic plague.
Team USA Basketball Showcase celebrates youth sports
The Team USA Basketball Showcase tipped off on Saturday featuring community, camaraderie, and a continuing commitment to youth sports.
Private Selection chicken breast product target of health alert
The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants people who may have purchased a variety of Private Selection raw boneless chicken breasts to check their freezers or refrigerators in case they still have them.
Private Selection chicken breast product target of health alert
The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants people who may have purchased a variety of Private Selection raw boneless chicken breasts to check their freezers or refrigerators in case they still have them.
Arizona health officials investigate suspected pneumonic plague case
Yavapai County Community Health Services said Friday that a county resident is thought to have contracted the infection.
Florida cases echo Italy’s gangmaster economy
Legal labor systems can still become traps for powerless workers.
Alito and Kagan’s telling exchange about race and politics
Both sides of the debate in the court’s case on temporary protected status could have used a little more realism.
But-For Causation and the Essential Business Hurdle: Analyzing the Summary Judgment in RAAM Construction
RAAM Construction Inc v. United States of America, Case No. 2:25-cv-04681-SPG-AJR, 2026 WL 18391 (C.D. Cal. June 23, 2026). The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) codified under Internal Revenue Code Section 3134 remains a significant source of controversy, audits, and high-stakes federal litigation.
Value of Things: A look at the hot seat
Is Nick Caserio on the hot seat if the offensive line fails again
Morocco jails 29, including politicians and sports figures, in drug trial
Casablanca court delivers landmark verdict in 'Escobar of the Sahara' case: up to 12 years for top figures.
Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen: What We Learned In Capcom's Showcase
Kento Kinoshita, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen's original director, is returning for Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen
Case Studies From Ireland: Making Sustainability Good Business
From Kinisla to Strong Roots, these food companies are making the business case for sustainable practices.
Ex-Trump adviser John Bolton expected to plead guilty in classified information case
Bolton to plead guilty charges that he unlawfully retained sensitive national security information in agreement that includes $2.25m fine
Nevada takes step toward becoming corporate litigation hub with business court pilot program
The Clark County District Court this week announced it has restructured its departments to include a dedicated business court. The restructuring is expected to bring down case adjudication times, and it could help an ongoing effort to transform Nevada into a premier destination for corporate litigation. Judges Maria Gall and Joe Hardy–Departments 9 and 15, […]
Supreme Court rules in weedkiller cancer case
Dems want to unmask Eli Lilly's obesity drug user, a new genome-editing tool raises ethics questions, and more health news
Cascades doubles down on business case for sustainability
The fiber specialist laid its path forward in a 2026-2030 sustainability plan. It’s emphasizing supplier vetting and its capacity to assist customers with their sustainability goals as it continues to strive for widely recyclable packaging.
Trump foe John Bolton is set to plead guilty. Here’s why the case didn’t fall apart
As several criminal investigations into President Donald Trump’s foes continue to flail, federal prosecutors are now ushering one of his biggest critics to a conviction.
Trump likely to ‘lose’ on birthright citizenship case, political analyst says
Fox News senior political analyst Juan Williams discusses the Supreme Court set to issue a ruling on birthright citizenship on ‘Special Report.’
Blue state leaders erupt after Supreme Court’s decision ending TPS protections for Haitians, Syrians
Supreme Court rules 6-3 in favor of Trump administration in two key immigration cases on Temporary Protected Status and asylum, drawing opposition from blue state Democrats.
DC Wrap: Supreme Courts rules on immigration and gun cases
A look at the day's biggest stories in national politics
Making Our Own Luck
We are cross-posting a piece that former NIH official Kris Willis wrote for Macroscience. Kris is now the President and Founder of the Woodley Park Institute, for which I’m a board member. Picking winners or hedging bets? Federal science agencies have long wrestled with the question of how to ensure their billions of dollars of grants and contracts result in maximum benefits for Americans. On the surface, it might seem that a goal-oriented, interventionist style of management would be the best policy: prioritize our most pressing problems and distribute funding accordingly.This top-down strategy creates a unique hazard, though: bad choices can send resources in the wrong direction, resulting in slow progress that impedes the delivery of tangible benefits to citizens. Moreover, if decision makers pursue an applied advance when the underlying scientific principles remain poorly understood, they risk costly failures and a loss of support for the research enterprise at large. Examples include Nixon’s 1971 War on Cancer, undertaken on the premise that a cure could be achieved in less than a decade, the drive to build an operational commercial fusion plant by the mid-1990s, and the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, which failed to produce the effective treatments and prevention strategies promised by 2025. The contrasting laissez-faire approach is to hedge your bets. If the path to an advance is impossible to predict, then the wisest choice might be to distribute funding to as widely as possible. The main risk of this strategy is that spreading funding thinly may limit the resources available to the most promising research, resulting in the same negative outcomes as the interventionist approach: limited support for the most promising topics, slow progress, and delayed returns. In reality, at science agencies like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, program managers navigate between these two extremes, setting some funds aside to target high-priority areas and using the rest to cover the widest possible range of meritorious proposals. This middle path seems like the most rational way to proceed, but it still requires making choices. How much should be set aside for high priority topics? What should those topics be? How should we define merit? Expert opinion can provide a helpful guide, but leading experts can have remarkably different opinions about what matters and what should be prioritized. Moreover, experts and administrators alike can be risk averse, giving an edge to high-profile, well-established concepts. What’s really needed is a data-driven framework to help guide decision-making, one that doesn’t simply repackage prestige or incumbency. Recognizing breakthroughs years in advance Many breakthroughs fail to attract funding or recognition at the earliest stages of development. Katalin Karikó, for example, spent years struggling to win grants for work on mRNA that would eventually win her and Drew Weissman a Nobel Prize. Similar stories can be told about Jim Allison’s groundbreaking studies leading to the development of cancer immunotherapy, Stan Pruisner’s demonstration that prions can self-replicate without DNA, or Robin Warren and Barry Marshall’s proof that Helicobacter pylori, not stress, causes ulcers. Yet at some point, the scientific community recognizes and responds to transformative breakthroughs like these. How does that change happen? And what if science funders could identify the areas that are on the cusp of a breakthrough? Those questions led my collaborators and me to study how scientists responded to past breakthroughs. Based on patterns in that data, we developed a means of predicting future breakthroughs, using biomedicine as a proof of concept. It’s worth taking a moment to describe how our approach works. Briefly, our prediction process begins by grouping the 18 million or so peer-reviewed papers in PubMed, the authoritative database of biomedical research, into roughly 50,000 unique topics. A small subset of these topics are so widely acclaimed as breakthroughs that they have been recognized with a major prize like a Nobel or a Lasker Award. We theorized that studying the development of these outliers over time, especially before they gained acclaim, was the key to identifying future instances of them. After defining topics, we chose 21 representative breakthroughs and asked what they looked like before they won prestigious prizes. To answer that question, we re-ran our topic-mapping algorithm repeatedly, winding back the clock one year each time, stringing together the years to follow the progress of each field as it grew and advanced. We found that in each case, the years leading up to a discovery followed a pattern: a burst of papers on a new, rapidly evolving topic, many of which quickly became influential. These characteristics—the percent of papers that are new, the percentage of papers that are brought in from other topics, and the influence of each individual paper—can all be measured separately for any given topic. Together, they act as a predictive signal that is detectable an average of five years before a transformative discovery is made, and up to thirty years before the discovery receives a major prize. Scanning the current research landscape for topics that display this signal allows us to predict what work will likely produce a future breakthrough. Each year we analyzed includes four or five signals, a number that appears to have remained constant across a twenty year time frame. In their classic work on the sociology of science, Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar established that the desire to participate in a major discovery is an important motivator for scientists as they consider whether they should take up (or abandon) a research problem. Although further work is needed, the simplest explanation for our results is that this behavior is widespread enough to detect at scale. A foundational advance, or something like it, draws the attention of scientists and causes them to change the direction of their research. They vote with their feet, staking their own reputation and careers by publishing on and citing the new idea. That upswell of interest is the foundation of our breakthrough signal. What kind of research does our model identify as a breakthrough? After building a model based on the patterns in our 21 preselected breakthroughs, we tested it by identifying all early signals of discovery from 1994 through 1997. Of the 18 signals we found in that time period, 17 can be traced forward in time to a breakthrough. Examples include super-resolution fluorescence microscopy (see the image above), the directed evolution of proteins and enzymes (Chemistry Nobel, 2018), and sequencing the human genome (National Medal of Science, 2008). The discovery of the role of leptin signaling in obesity is a particularly interesting case study. Around 1950, scientists noticed the existence of a type of lab mouse that suffered from a unique inherited form of obesity. When given the freedom to choose their own diet, these mice ate more than normal and preferred food that was high in fat. Researchers had few clues as to why the animals overate; early experiments pointed to the existence of a soluble ob factor found circulating in the bloodstream that regulated appetite, but its identity was unknown. In 1994, Jeffrey Friedman and colleagues identified and sequenced the ob gene, noting that the protein it encoded appeared to fit the profile of a circulating factor. A year later, a trio of high-profile publications demonstrated that ob was a hormone that regulated body weight and fat deposition by regulating appetite. One of these was co-authored by Friedman, who christened it leptin from the ancient Greek word for thin. Using our model, the data from 1996 make it clear this advance would become a breakthrough. Scientists had flocked to study the biology of the new hormone, generating the flurry of new papers and citations required to produce a signal. One of these demonstrated that serum leptin concentrations reflected the amount of adipose tissue in the human body, providing clinical validation of the earlier mouse studies. Before the identification of leptin, scientists were unable to point to a specific molecule that controlled appetite and adiposity, so that it was impossible to rule out non-physiological causes of obesity; its characterization fundamentally changed our concept of weight gain. In 2010, Friedman and fellow pioneer Douglas Coleman were awarded a Lasker for the discovery. Our work also identifies breakthroughs in clinical practice and behavioral and social sciences, even though these areas are less likely to draw the attention of major prize committees. One example that falls into this category is the introduction of endovascular aneurysm repair, a minimally invasive surgical procedure for the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm, a leading cause of death among Americans over the age of 65. Relative to the previous standard of care, it reduces in-hospital mortality by almost four-fold. In 2017, Timothy Chuter received the American College of Surgeons’ prestigious Jacobsen Innovation award for his multiple refinements to the technique. Another under-recognized breakthrough identified by our model is the development of standardized survey instruments to assess the quality of life for HIV+ patients. The antiretroviral cocktails introduced in the mid-1990s reduced AIDS mortality, but treatment came with serious side effects. The new evaluations showed that patients whose disease progressed had worse physical functioning than Americans with other chronic diseases, while those who were asymptomatic maintained a health-related quality of life on par with the overall US population. This evidence made it possible for patients and activists to argue that even in the absence of a total cure, and in spite of the side effects, alleviation of symptoms was a worthwhile priority for clinicians. My colleagues and I have failed to identify any significant recognition for the physicians and health policy experts who pioneered this advance, although in 2016, researchers called for the World Health Organization to set targets for good health-related quality of life as part of its framework to end the AIDS pandemic. From forecasting to funding How should science funders use our predictions? Any serious discussion of what we should do with this new capability needs to begin with an understanding of its limitations. We can’t (and shouldn’t) invest all of our resources in the small number of topics predicted to produce breakthroughs. Innovative new fields are born from existing ones; they rarely arise de novo. If funders don’t maintain a diverse portfolio, the breakthroughs of tomorrow will have no antecedents. Think of this as eating the seed corn, or killing the goose that lays the golden egg. There are also multiple goals of funding beyond basic scientific discovery, including translating discoveries into clinical practice, developing new technologies, supporting economic development, and training new scientists. The investments needed to accomplish these goals are likely different from those required to support emerging breakthroughs. Finally, we must be aware that we may not capture every instance of a breakthrough. The concept is fuzzy, and not every significant discovery is recognized with a major award. Further, breakthroughs are rare, meaning that our dataset is, by necessity, small. This makes formal estimates of accuracy challenging. Although our overall success rate appears to be high, any one signal may turn out to be a false positive. We found one apparent example: the development of the third generation COX-2 inhibitors, Vioxx and Celebrex, which were much celebrated in the early 2000s as effective but non-addictive pain relievers, meets all the algorithmic criteria of a breakthrough. Five years after it received FDA approval, researchers demonstrated that Vioxx was associated with serious cardiovascular complications, and the manufacturer voluntarily pulled the drug from the market. Celebrex remains available, although like other NSAIDs, it carries an FDA warning for increased cardiovascular risk. Decision makers who were overly focused on the breakthrough potential of this research might have wasted substantial resources nurturing an area that ultimately proved to be a failure—but so would those who relied on expert opinion at the time. That said, the potential benefits of funding the next mRNA vaccine or cancer immunotherapy years earlier than we might have are large. When we can’t assume the outcome of an action, it’s worth conducting an experiment. Can targeted support for areas that are poised to produce a breakthrough increase the return on scientific investment without cannibalizing future advances? With the necessary administrative infrastructure in place, conducting this experiment would be straightforward. First, identify all the breakthrough signals between 2018 and 2023, select half at random, and commit to a decade of investment. For biomedicine, a six year window should yield about 30 topics with the potential to produce a breakthrough. Providing strong support to half of these might be accomplished for $300 million a year. That’s roughly half of the recent annual budget of the NIH Common Fund or around 20% of the fiscal year 2025 budget for ARPA-H. After five years, then again at ten, compare to see which group — the one that was actively managed, or the control — produced more breakthroughs, and on what timescale. Although we used biomedicine as an example, the same experiment could just as well be run for physics, materials science, or any other discipline. Any attempt to undertake such an experiment should keep three points top of mind. First, we can predict the topic of future breakthroughs, but the people and vision for how to move the work forward are still important. In practice, this means success requires active program managers with the expertise to develop the science and the authority to do so, including by recruiting investigators. Second, we would be wise to learn from the failures of past attempts to fund transformative research. High among these are funding modestly repackaged work, confusing the genuinely novel with the merely unfamiliar, and relying too much on incumbent investigators. All of these risks can be mitigated by thoroughly and intelligently integrating high quality data into portfolio management. Finally, we need to have patience. Even with strong funding support, producing a breakthrough takes time. If supporting breakthroughs is the best way to nurture the birth of new fields, we also need to accurately describe and properly manage the other two stages, so that we invest wisely throughout the productive lifetime of ideas and divest once they reach the point of diminishing returns. We would benefit from more study of all of these phases, especially the transition from one to another. More research could answer questions like: When does a breakthrough become an established field? How do the availability of funding, the size and characteristics of the available workforce, and the accumulation of evidence that disagrees with prevailing models affect a field’s decline? Exactly how do old ideas give birth to new ones, and can we speed up the process? The more we understand about the dynamics of scientific progress, the better we can maximize the odds that our curiosity leads to results. I’d call that finding a way to make our own luck.
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Earlier in June, Europe’s worst fears of technological dependence were confirmed when the White House ordered the AI firm Anthropic to stop non-US citizens using its leading models. This kill-switch moment crystalised anxieties in Brussels that the continent, lagging the US on the creation of leading-edge AI models, is now a technological of vassal of Washington. The shock has specific implications for European scientists and universities. Some governments are now worried that with AI being integrated into labs, Donald Trump now has his finger hovering over an off switch for European science. “Having restrictions on this tool, it can have an impact on our own research,” said France’s research minister, Philippe Baptiste, at the VivaTech conference in Paris on June 18.Baptiste, himself a former academic, said that colleagues in mathematics had recently warned him they were now cut off from leading-edge US models, risking their work. “This model is not available anymore now because of the US restriction, and for the first time this had an impact on mathematics,” a field where large language models (LLMs) are making a significant contribution, said Baptiste. So, should European scientists avoid relying on US models in the future? Or would this be a self-harming overreaction? And how is AI being used in science, anyway? What happened?On June 12, it emerged that Washington, citing cybersecurity concerns, had ordered Anthropic to stop non-US citizens using two models: Claude Mythos 5, and Claude Fable 5, a version of Mythos but with guardrails to prevent abuse. Anthropic said Washington’s concerns were overblown. But forced to follow the order, yet with no way to check who was using the models, the company suddenly shut down access for everyone, US citizens included. There’s still no agreement on how to restore broad access. But last week, Bloomberg reported that select US companies, and the US government, still had access to Mythos despite the ban, but the EU’s cybersecurity agency Enisa had been shut out. Class division of researchersIn the longer term, access outside the US should be restored, said Marcel Salathé, co-director of the AI centre at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL), because a permanent restriction would be financially ruinous to US AI firms. “Even Trump will eventually budge to economic pressure,” he said.However, US AI firms might end up operating rather like banks, doing due diligence on users of their leading-edge AI models, he went on.European scientists are unlikely to fall foul of such checks, he said. But having a Chinese postgraduate in their lab, or doing a type of research the US disapproved of, could potentially result in access being denied. “It will create a sort of class division of researchers,” he said. More than frontier modelsHowever, successfully deploying AI in science is about far more than just having access to leading LLMs such as Mythos.Instead, many science-specific tools, most famously Alphafold, which predicts protein folding structures, require “far less” computing power to train than frontier models, well within the capabilities of European supercomputers, according to a recent analysis by the Arq Foundation, a Brussel-based AI think tank. Instead, tools such as Alphafold are possible because certain fields, like protein folding, weather prediction or astronomy, have large, clean, standardised datasets that can be used to train predictive models. Rather than compute, “data is the central constraint for AI for science,” the report says. For example, a less powerful physics model trained on CERN’s data “will be more valuable than the best model without certain data,” said Bengüsu Özcan, author of the report. European advantage?Europe could therefore steal a march by using its scientific data and infrastructure to create models US digital giants cannot. “They might actually match or go even beyond what these big [US] companies are doing,” said Özcan.Indeed, some European start-ups hope to create automated testing labs to create the kind of standardised data that could speed up the discovery of new materials. Materials scientists say there’s currently too little data to train models. AI scientistsHowever, even if the bottleneck for AI in science is often data, rather than compute, being at the mercy of the US for LLM access could still become a problem for European scientists. A new class of “AI scientists” based on leading LLMs is also emerging, Özcan’s report says.Unlike domain-specific tools like Alphafold, these try to automate day-to-day scientific work, by providing an overarching tool that coordinates specific models to synthesise existing literature, generate hypotheses or run analysis of data. The problem for Europe, however, is that these tools are sometimes based on US leading models. Google Deepmind’s AI Co-Scientist, for example, is built on Google’s Gemini LLM. Systematic failureThese scientific automation tools are still in their early stages, and still exhibit “systematic failures on scientific tasks,” Özcan’s report says. One of the problems is that the messy, day-to-day process of scientific discovery is largely not documented, meaning LLMs don’t have a good source of data to learn how scientists actually work. Meanwhile, some tasks, such as literature synthesis, don’t typically require access to leading edge models.However, the performance of AI scientific assistants could improve as companies such as Google pour resources into developing them. Rely on US“Unfortunately, for scientific assistants, there is not much we can do right now except rely on US frontier AI,” said Antoine Bosselut, a natural language processing expert based at EPFL. Chinese-built open models, which can run on local computers, lessening the risk of a shutdown, are touted as one alternative to US dependence. There’s also Mistral, once seen as Europe’s main AI hope, but the Paris-based company has seen its recent models fall behind in performance. But the Chinese alternatives are generally not as capable as US frontier AI models, said Bosselut, unless paired with fiddly, custom tools that allows them to act as independent agents. “Most scientists do not have the time,” he said. Don’t jump ship yetAlthough the kill switch moment is seen a warning shot for European scientists, it doesn’t mean labs should abandon US AI tools immediately. “I do not think the right response is simply to abandon US-based models and systems under the banner of sovereignty or independence,” said Mattias Björnmalm, secretary general of the Cesaer university association. “That would be an overreaction.”Related articlesEuropean sovereignty in AI requires ‘ugly trade-offs,’ say experts Robotic lab start-up makes case for €500M EU-funded materials testing facilityAI in science: is it useful? Instead, European researchers need to ask themselves whether they’re becoming dependent on technology that could be turned off in Washington, said Özcan. “They might not see this today, but they should really start asking this question,” she said. European researchers need a plan B, said Salathé. “I would recommend to every researcher, very proactively explore alternatives.”Own toolsIn addition, Björnmalm and others want European research institutions to develop their own scientific AI tools.Instead of signing AI deals with US digital giants, European universities should be using this money to create their own models, which may end up being superior for research, said Sabine Leonelli, an expert on the use of AI in science at the Technical University of Munich. “Universities in Europe seem to be happy to sign commercial contracts with US companies on the assumption [their AI tools] are better,” she said. But US frontier LLMs are typically opaque, and have been developed without independent scientific input, she said. “This is not good enough for science.”Last year, Swiss researchers released Apertus, an LLM designed to be completely transparent, from its development methods to its training data. The idea is that this makes scientific tools built on top of the model far more reproducible than with closed, commercial alternatives.“Europe needs more of this: serious capacity-building that gives researchers, universities and companies credible options,” said Björnmalm.