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Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce wedding: Fans flock to Madison Square Garden for NYC nuptials
Swifties in NYC hope to catch a glimpse of Taylor Swift and send their well wishes for Swift's upcoming nuptials.
Steelers install new grass field at Acrisure Stadium after NFLPA survey graded previous surface poorly
Long Reads for the Long Weekend
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) Happy Fourth of July weekend! As has been a tradition of mine going back to the beginning of the EntStrategyGuy website, I’m sharing my favorite long reads of the last year, like I did in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024, and 2025. Let’s dive right in! Subscribe “Different Prices for the Same Ride: How Uber and Lyft Use AI to Get More Money Out of You“ by Derek Kravitz in Consumer Reports I don’t think surveillance pricing, like the kind described in this brilliant Consumer Reports article, is long for the world—it’s toxically unpopular—but we’ll see if either party takes on this issue. If I ran a political party focused on affordability, I would focus on a few pro-consumer and pro-market policies: Banning non-compete agreements. Ending surveillance pricing Eliminating junk fees (read more here...) Ensuring “right to repair” for consumer (and military!) products Capping excessive app store fees Stopping digital/algorithmic price-fixing tools. Preventing automatic subscription price increases. And more. If you want to fight inflation, there are a lot of great ways to do it quickly. Speaking of higher prices... “Secret Documents Show Pepsi and Walmart Colluded to Raise Food Prices Across the Economy“ by Matt Stoller in BIG Again, I think a political party should focus on lowering prices for consumers. And deals like this—Walmart making a deal/forcing Pepsi to offer the lowest prices at its stores and nowhere else—hypothetically lower prices at Walmart...but raise them everywhere else. “15 DUIs, still driving: California’s failure to take repeat drunk drivers off the road“ by Robert Lewis and Lauren Hepler in CalMatters CalMatters does terrific reporting in California, something the Golden State desperately needs more of, and this article is a great example of that. “PugLips: The next insanely popular thing you’ve never heard of…” by Simon Carless in Game Discover Co I thought that this parody article (and yes, it’s a parody, but I was definitely unsure at first) was hilarious and totally nailed how much tech/business journalism feels these days. Actually, three of my favorite articles this year were on hype in the video game industry, including Georg Zoller’s “The Video Game Industries Very Dark Night”—which I linked to recently and wrote a follow-up here—and Owen Mahoney’s “Derek Zoolander, Videogame Exec”. In particular, I like Mahoney’s focus on user experience as a guide to what trends will actually grab hold of customers. “The Matrix Lies“ by Evan Shapiro in Media War & Peace Evan Shapiro’s first person account of his experience with AI was hilarious. I think LLMs capabilities have significantly grown from last summer, and yet...my editor/researcher just had an abysmal experience using an LLM to do a quite basic task (which our LLM normally does each week) and the LLM made a mistake on every single data entry...along with seven different mistakes affecting twelve of the twenty or so entries, including mistakes that are explicitly spelled out in the prompt. That’s a brutal failure rate. Again, if you use AI/LLM for data collection, you need to take a lot of extra steps to verify and check the data. “Ghosts in the Balcony: A Cross-Country Trip to 58 Theaters Fighting to Survive“ by Matthew Frank in The Ankler I thought Matthew Frank’s pitch to head across America to visit theaters sounded insane aggressive at the time—at least it felt that way to someone a decade older than him; man, to be in your twenties again, am I right?—but I knew the result would be great. And it was, a terrific feature by a great young writer. Also, I loved Matthew’s recent article on who’s getting the precious few entry level jobs in Hollywood. (Hint: nepotism.) “Disney erased FiveThirtyEight“ and “Did Las Vegas get too greedy?” by Nate Silver in Silver Bulletin I love media history and analysis, and there’s no one better to get the history of FiveThirtyEight than from Nate Silver, who wrote about his personal experience in one of my favorite pieces from this year. I also loved Nate’s breakdown of what’s causing Vegas’ woes, but I’ll offer one criticism, summarized as “Might I suggest antitrust?” Many centrists/center-right/libertarian thinkers (Nate is self-described as the latter) often don’t consider consolidation or antitrust as factors in policy issues like housing, America’s military readiness, or, in this case, Las Vegas. Even if libertarians want to debunk antitrust/consolidation concerns, I’d love to read that debunking. In this case, Vegas is incredibly consolidated (though it also has been for a long time) and I’d have loved to read Nate at least contending with this factor, since he addresses almost every other potential factor for Vegas’ decline. “Why Microsoft’s Carbon Removal Pullback Is Such a Big Deal“ by Robinson Meyer in Heatmap News I’m a big supporter of carbon removal efforts, but this nascent industry faces a lot of headwinds, including this big move most recently. I think it’s clear that solar panels and batteries should be able to get the world to its carbon footprint goals, but effective carbon renewal remains necessary to prevent the worst impacts of global warming. “AI is killing the cheap smartphone“ by David Oks LLMs and AI will impact the world in ways we’re not ready for, and already, third world countries are seeing the prices of cheap cellphones skyrocket due to the cost of chips skyrocketing. This article by David Oks is a terrific breakdown. “100 Days of Madness: Netflix, Paramount, Warner and the Future of Hollywood“ by Wade Major at Hollywood Heretic Wade Major dove deep into Hollywood/streaming’s financials in this must read piece. Not that I agree with everything in this article (read my take on Warner Bros./Paramount here) but the analysis is top notch. I think many people discount how quality thinking, regardless of the argument/conclusion, will make you a better thinker. “Erased by the UFC: Frank Shamrock, The MMA GOAT of the 20th Century“ by Nate Wilcox in The MMA Draw Newsletter Growing up playing the UFC fighting game on the Dreamcast, Frank Shamrock was my favorite MMA fighter, and this history/tribute to him was great. Other Fun Reads “The Hardest Part Of History To Tell Is How It Felt“ by Craig Fehrman at Defector “Unmasking the Sea Star Killer“ by Craig Welch at bioGraphic “What Could Save the Industry? Fin-Syn“ by Richard Rushfield in The Ankler Alex Rollins Berg in Underexposed on movie bumpers, pillow shots, Disney trash cinema, cult films, and Casablanca. David H. Montgomery in YouGov’s The Surveyor on punctuation marks, condiments, dinosaurs, and comic strips and kids media. “How Medium finally pivoted its way to profitability“ and “Why the best journalists on YouTube are all former Vox employees“ by Simon Owens in Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter “It’s Not Just You, Netflix Shows Have Gotten Slightly Shorter: Here’s What the Data Says“ by Kasey Moore at What’s on Netflix “Numlock Awards: How Diane Warren became the biggest loser in Oscar history“ by Nathaniel Rakich and “Numlock Awards: The Oscar Bait era is over. The Oscar Chum era is here.” by Walt Hickey & Michael Domanico at Numlock Awards
10 More Amazing Indie Games To Wishlist This Indie-Penance Day
An exquisite array of games of every type, packed with invention and originality
It's Indie-Penance Day! Have 10 Incredible Indie Games To Wishlist
Video games are amazing! Here's a lot of proof
Wisconsin's most underrated players in EA Sports College Football 27
A pair of Wisconsin Badgers defensive stars seem to be underrated in the new EA Sports College Football 27 video game.
WPR’s Larry Meiller signs off after nearly 60 years
Larry Meiller hosted his final show on Wisconsin Public Radio on June 30. The Cap Times followed him on his last day.
Wimbledon clings onto fashion traditions, with a twist
Amid fast-changing fashion trends, Wimbledon has remained a bastion of "classy" style, with players and attendees donning their finest whites at the London tennis tournament which some say is reminiscent of traditional British high society.Going to Wimbledon is "fascinating" as it gives "an insight into what the past of British society looked like," according to Daniel-Yaw Miller, a sports and fashion journalist.
Old muscle stem cells can act young again but there’s a catch
Scientists at UCLA discovered a surprising reason aging muscles heal more slowly. In older muscle stem cells, a protein called NDRG1 builds up and acts like a brake, slowing the cells’ ability to jump into repair mode after injury. But there’s a twist: that same protein helps the cells survive the stresses of aging, allowing them to stick around longer.
AMERICA AT 250: COMPETING CELEBRATIONS REFLECT NATIONAL POLARIZATION, SAYS SMU POLITICS EXPERT
DALLAS (SMU) – As the nation marks its 250th anniversary with separate celebrations in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, SMU political scientist Matthew Wilson says the split reflects a deeper reality about modern America: the absence of a shared national narrative. Wilson argues that what should have been a unifying moment of national pride has instead become a symbol of the country's growing political polarization, with rival groups promoting fundamentally different visions of Amer
Palmetto Sports Daily: U.S. men’s soccer heads to Round of 16, Nike’s impact on Gamecock Athletics
The crew discusses the U.S. men’s team’s 2-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina and Nike’s impact on Gamecock Athletics after the branding switch.
Popular Windsor egg farm exits egg business amid hard times for small farms
Tiffany Holbrook, co-owner at Wise Acre Farm, announced this week that the farm shut down its local egg operations and will move to a new location in Sonoma County to focus on meat production. She said the realities and costs of running the…
Western Wisconsin health clinic in lockdown amid 'active situation'
A health clinic in western Wisconsin is in lockdown Thursday afternoon as law enforcement responds to an "active situation."
The 20 things in sports I only wish I could declare independence from this year
Wait, is this one of those "hit pieces" the online babies are always whining about?
Wisconsin Senator demands investigation into Postal Service
Sen. Tammy Baldwin said hundreds of votes were not counted in the state’s April election because ballots were delivered after the deadline.
MOMENT OF SCIENCE: Two planets lighter than cotton candy
Astronomers have discovered two planets the size of Jupiter, but get this: their densities are so low, they’re estimated to be lighter than cotton candy!
I left New York for small town 5 years ago; I wish I could move back
We left New York City for a charming village about an hour away. After just a few years, we started missing the city and planning to move back.
Business Confidence Improves Modestly Ahead of Q3 2026
Colorado business leaders entered the third quarter of 2026 with modestly improved confidence, though expectations remain below neutral as inflation, political and policy instability, and geopolitical uncertainty continue to shape the business outlook.
Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton in ‘Decisive’ Contract Talks Amid 2027 Uncertainty
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton has gotten off to an amazing start to the 2026 season, marking a real turning point with the team at a pivotal stage.
New Collaboration between Tufts University and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences Boosts Experiential Opportunities for Graduate Students
Tufts University is advancing this mission through a new collaboration with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine, giving graduate students direct access to immersive real-world ocean research.
Immigrant-owned small businesses take center stage at pop-up storefront in Philadelphia's Market East
The Welcoming Center has opened a pop-up storefront for immigrant small business owners.
Colorado’s Diana DeGette concedes defeat to Democratic socialist Melat Kiros
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette — the dean of Colorado’s congressional delegation — conceded defeat in the race for the 1st Congressional District a day after losing to Democrat rival Melat Kiros in their party’s primary contest. “I want to congratulate Melat Kiros for her victory last night, and I want to wish her all the […]
3 reasons to like Wisconsin’s new AD hire
Why should Badgers fans be optimistic about their new Athletic Director?
Bickering Over Healthcare Coverage Disrupts House Panel Hearing
Finger pointing over the number of Americans losing health insurance roiled what otherwise would have been a technical House hearing over employee health coverage.
Operations workforce powers ORNL’s autonomous science future
Behind every self-driving laboratory at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a team most people never see. Facilities and Operations (F&O) workers are building and maintaining the infrastructure that makes autonomous science possible.
This is not politics as usual
Today’s candidates for political office are finding their Jewish identity and support for Israel at the center of the conversation in an unprecedented way.
This satellite constellation transformed earth science by creatively tuning in to GPS signals
Key takeaways —The first constellation to produce high-quality data by picking up GPS microwaves reflecting off Earth, called CYGNSS, is featured in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Living in the Space Age exhibit. —Distortions in the reflected signals can reveal information about Earth, including hurricane wind speed and the distribution of moisture in soil, and the constellation provided unprecedented coverage in both time and space. —GNSS-R data is useful for mon
Trump administration ends $1.2M in federal grants for Wisconsin teen health programs
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services notified funding recipients on Saturday that the federal government had abruptly terminated a $1.2 million annual Teen Pregnancy Prevention grant, according to a letter shared with Wisconsin Public Radio.
How Wisconsin Used Foxes And Deer To Revamp Science Education
Public input identifying over 100 million trail cameras photos of Wisconsin’s animals has transformed science education and state wildlife management.
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’ 2026 TSRI Science Day Highlights Advances in Cancer Biology
June 17 saw more than 400 scientists, clinicians, research staff, and other Children’s Hospital Los Angeles team members come together for The Saban Research Institute’s (TSRI) yearly symposium and poster session—Science Day 2026.
Scrolling for science: How a Twitter post discovered a new wasp in Fukuoka, Japan
Researchers at Kyushu University recently identified a wasp species, Eupelmus curvator, in Japan for the first time after citizen scientists posted photos of it on Twitter (now X), marking both a new national record and the first formal description of the male of the species. The discovery highlights the growing role of social media in biodiversity research, allowing scientists to tap into observations from the public that would otherwise go unnoticed.
What 124 Future Business Leaders Really Think About AI and Work
Insights from 124 career assessments written by UMD-Smith graduate students show 98% expect artificial intelligence to transform, not eliminate, their careers. The analysis also found AI raises performance expectations while increasing demand for strategic thinking, AI literacy, ethical judgment and critical evaluation of AI-generated work.
Election officials react to report detailing distrust in Wisconsin elections
Republican research firm The Tarrance Group polled 600 likely Wisconsin voters about election administration concerns.
“Big Brother: Unlocked” announces hosting shakeup and new game twist
Taylor and Derrick are back, but with a new cohost.
Wisconsin Badgers to add Culver's logo to uniforms for football, 2 other sports
The Culver's logo will be on Wisconsin's football, men's basketball and men's hockey jerseys as part of an expanded sponsorship deal.
Everyday Hero: Helping respiratory care breathe into the future
The Wisconsin Society for Respiratory Care honored a UW Health leader with an Honorary Lifetime Award.
Wauwatosa business calls for lawmakers to save hemp
In November, most hemp in Wisconsin will be illegal. Wisconsin's estimated $700 million-dollar industry will shut down.
World Cup 2026: Why England and Thomas Tuchel should be worried about DR Congo ahead of last-32 clash
Teen pregnancy prevention cuts hit Wisconsin program connecting health providers and teens
Federal officials have cut off more than $2.4 million in federal funds for 2026-27 and 2027-28 targeting teen pregnancy prevention that would have gone to the Wisconsin health department, according to federal records. The funds would have gone to a variety of nonprofits and agencies in counties with the highest rates of pregnancy and sexually […]
Anti-migrant politics spark resurgence of racism, say some Britons of colour
After nearly four decades in Britain, Ali Haydor says there are now days when he wishes he could hide his brown skin.
Palmetto Sports Daily: Hornets make big moves, 4th of July food draft begins
The crew has more on the Charlotte Hornets’ big offseason moves, including the trades of both LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges.
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?
"It's not gonna be good:' Local business braces for Parkway East closure
Dave Guerin, a Swissvale business owner, shared his concerns about the upcoming 25-day Parkway East closure, citing challenges for deliveries and suppliers navigating detours.
Heat forces yodelers at annual Swiss festival to sing in fountains
Yodelers at a festival in Basel, Switzerland, turned city fountains into rehearsal spaces during Europe’s June heat wave.
Hoopaholic’s Gazette: DM, PK, NCAA, WC & BS
So be true to your school now/ Just like you would to your girl (or guy) OK, maybe the wisdom of Brian Wilson doesn’t have much if anything to do with today’s entry. But I did hear it on the radio today, and the Bard of 60s teen culture was all that and fostered us […]
Kara Swisher took Silicon Valley by force. Now she's eyeing influence in the 2028 campaign
Kara Swisher is expanding her influence from tech journalism to politics
Kara Swisher brings her Silicon Valley influence into politics
Kara Swisher is expanding her influence from tech journalism to politics. Swisher is known for her fearless interviews and has hosted figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
Kara Swisher took Silicon Valley by force. Now she's eyeing influence in the 2028 campaign
Kara Swisher is expanding her influence from tech journalism to politics.
Wisconsin moms on Medicaid now get 12 months of coverage
Wisconsin’s new law extends mothers’ Medicaid coverage for a full year after birth. Medical experts say it will save lives.
John Oliver scores his dream job: A soap opera gig on 'General Hospital'
The host of HBO's "Last Week Tonight" will realize one of his big wishes in July with a guest spot on the ABC soap opera "General Hospital."
Trump calls likely DC mayor Janeese Lewis George a 'communist' and vows to block her agenda
D.C. mayoral frontrunner Janeese Lewis George faces clash with President Trump over ICE enforcement, policing, cashless bail and sanctuary city policies.
Fifty-Three Named To CSC Academic All-District® Women’s At-Large Team
MADISON, Wis.--Fifty-three Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) individuals have been named to the 2025-26 NCAA Division III Academic All-District® Women’s At-Large Team, selected by the College Sports Communicators
Twenty-Four Named To CSC Academic All-District® Men’s At-Large Team
MADISON, Wis.--Twenty-four Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) individuals have been named to the 2025-26 NCAA Division III Academic All-District® Men’s At-Large Team, selected by the College Sports Communicators
'All INdiana Politics'
U.S. Sen. Todd Young has said that a proposed $300 billion payment to Iran would not be funded by American taxpayers, and that any ceasefire with Iran must be contingent on the dismantlement of its nuclear program, while Indiana Senators Young and Banks have split on a housing bill now awaiting President Trump's signature.
The 10 'Most Wishlisted' Upcoming Xbox Games According To Microsoft
Based on the MS Store's new filter
I Just Realized Why 'Sweet Magnolias' Star JoAnna Garcia Swisher Looks So Familiar (and It Has Nothing to Do with 'Reba')
If 'Sweet Magnolias' JoAnna Garcia Swisher has you doing a double-take, you're not alone. Here’s where you’ve likely seen the actress before.
Family visited Water Park Capital of the World; wouldn't do it again
Wisconsin Dells, "Water Park Capital of the World" had many family-friendly activities for our multigenerational travel group, but the cons added up.
Heavy Metal Legend Releases New Song Amid 2026 Tour
Nightwish's Floor Jansen is back with a fearless new single.
2026 F1 Austrian Grand Prix: Live updates and results as Lewis Hamilton leads resurgent Ferrari against Mercedes at the Red Bull Ring
Anaheim Ducks help Wisconsin Badgers extend major NHL draft milestone
This weekend's NHL Draft marks 29 straight where the Wisconsin Badgers have had a player selected.
Opinion | Trump’s Science Cuts Betray America’s Past Since Lewis and Clark
America has funded scientific research since 1804 — and remembers that first project as a national glory. Cutting similar funding today is a betrayal.
Astronomers find biggest super-puff planets yet, lighter than cotton candy
Comparable to shaving foam, astronomers find the wispiest planets yet. They're in the southern "flying fish" constellation.
Magnetic sperm and the ugliest shark: science stories of the week
From a lupus breakthrough to why humans naturally move anticlockwise, here are the most interesting scientific developments of the week
Four participants join Coalition for Support of Ukrainian Science at URC 2026
Four participants—Estonia, Switzerland, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the SaveScienceUA initiative—joined the International Coalition to Support Science, Research, and Innovation in Ukraine during the URC-2026 Conference in Gdańsk. — Ukrinform.
Valleywise Health acquires system to better treat premature and critically ill infants
Valleywise Health has a new system to better treat premature and critically ill infants, becoming the first Arizona hospital to implement it.
Austrian GP: George Russell tops Practice Three from Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton to set up thrilling qualifying
This Week in Science: An Earthquake Shift, a Black Hole First, And More!
Our weekly science news roundup.
How the dairy industry pushed Trump for migrant labor, and won
President Donald Trump was expected to announce the expansion of a guest-worker program to the dairy industry at a Wisconsin event. Instead, the news came out in a press release, angering immigration hard-liners.
'Supergirl' spoilers! Milly Alcock explains that 'twisted' ending
Spoiler alert! The following post discusses important plot points and the ending of “Supergirl” (in theaters now) so beware if you haven’t seen it yet.
Moment of Science: Music and Color
Dr. Stefan Wienzierl at TU Berlin studies how the architecture of a classroom or concert hall can impact the quality of music or speech.
MOMENT OF SCIENCE: How music can be interpreted differently
Music is a universal language, although how we perceive it can change from person to person.
Professor Willow’s Birthday Research
Starts Tuesday, July 21, 2026, at 10:00 AM Local Time Ends Tuesday, July 21, 2026, at 8:00 PM Local Time Wish Professor Willow a very happy birthday with Professor Willow’s assistant Pikachu! This adorable Pikachu makes their Pokémon GO debut as part of the Willow’s Birthday Research event along with GO Snapshots, raids and more […]
Palmetto Sports Daily: Hornets star Lamelo Ball traded to Minnesota, Lamont Paris talks NIL negotiations
On the latest episode of Palmetto Sports Daily, the crew discusses the blockbuster trade sending LaMelo Ball to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and SC men’s basketball coach Lamont Paris discusses NIL contracts.
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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How should European scientists respond to the US AI kill switch?
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.
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(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Scrolling through links over the last week, I stumbled across this fun headline: Wow. Formula 1 (the sport, not the docu-series) is the perfect “dog not barking”. As a reminder, each week in my Streaming Ratings Report, I call out the shows that miss every viewership chart. I dub them “dogs not barking”—like the Sherlock Holmes mystery—because without any data, we forget they even exist. This is in contrast to something like, say, a film flop—cough The Mandalorian and Grogu cough—where even underperforming at the box office is widely discussed here, there and everywhere. In the US, Formula 1 is now in “no public viewership data, so not discussed” territory. After moving to Apple TV from its former home of ESPN, basically no one talks about it. Apple did publish an initial, unsourced, unsubstantiated, (dare I say unserious) datecdote claiming more folks are watching Formula 1 on Apple than ESPN, but we haven’t gotten any updates since. This stands in contrast to when the sport streamed on ESPN, and ESPN PR provided weekly viewership figures. Formula 1 was, at best, a niche sport in America—averaging 1.3 million viewers in the Big Data Plus era—but now it’s basically anonymous. (And yeah, after moving to Apple, I very, very, very much doubt its ratings increased.) Unfortunately, that story isn’t quite big enough to warrant a section in today’s “Most Important Story of the Week” column, but I wanted to call it out, because otherwise, no one else will! Certainly, no one will write articles about the silence/ratings decline, unlike when they wrote breathless articles connecting the rise in viewership to Netflix’s Drive to Survive, including Reuters just last month. (This is a topic I’ve tried to provide a moderate/nuanced/non-hyped take since 2022.) Anyway, on to this week’s issue. I was a bit worried I didn’t have a juicy topic, then the Murdochs went out and did their Murdoch thing: buying Roku. So that’s the story of the week, and it happens to touch on quite a few themes of the streaming wars and the disruption therein. I’ll cover that, plus why more consolidation in Hollywood media looks likely, more good news on the Hollywood labor front, whether we’ll see an uptick in production in Los Angeles, some Broadway and theme park news, cellphone prices going up in the third world (and possibly everywhere), and more. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - Another Big Media & Entertainment Merger The story of the week is clearly Fox is buying Roku for $22 billion. I read a lot of good strategy takes on why Fox bought this streaming TV device maker—and I’ll have mine below—but what fascinates me more is how this deal connects to quite a few themes of the streaming wars, linking to everything from the pace of M&A to “aggregeddon” to Netflix’s recent M&A actions/inactions to the shift to advertising from pure play streaming and more. The only topic I can’t really connect it to is my old theory, “never bet against Rupert Murdoch” because he isn’t the one who did this deal; his son Lachlan inked it. (Do I think he provided advice, even at his 95 years of age? Sure.) That plus I have one additional piece of strategy for all entertainment players, inspired by this deal. So let’s dive into all those topics, starting with why I like this deal. Roku is a Great M&A Buy
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