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Bumpy road for Omaha business park boosted by $90M from state leads to first tenant, 150 jobs
The oft-bumpy road to an Omaha airport area business park boosted by $90M in state funds has led to its first tenant and 150 "quality" jobs.
Supreme Court scraps check on money in politics at request of Vance, GOP
The GOP asked the Supreme Court to scrap a Watergate-era rule preventing donors from bypassing limits on what they can give federal candidates.
Two Dan Sullivans will be on the ballot in Alaska
The incumbent senator accuses his challenger of being a Democratic plant set up to confuse primary voters, but fellow Republican Dan J. Sullivan has said his desire to run is genuine.
Supreme Court upholds bans on transgender athletes participating in women and girls' sports
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has long coached his daughters' and other girls basketball teams at school, wrote the court's majority opinion.
UNC basketball champion arrested after illegal sports betting scheme
Former Tar Heel Ed Davis was one of six arrested in the latest betting sting.
Business is good at the Camillus Costco. It asks town for OK to make a move
The proposal is being reviewed by the town of Camillus planning board.
College basketball returns to KeyBank Center this October with doubleheader
The first game of the day will see Daemen College take on St. John Fisher, followed by Saint Bonaventure taking on Penn State.
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.
Will NC lawmakers oppose Trump’s funding ask without Helene money?
A number of North Carolina Republicans say they will oppose the White House's funding request because it doesn't include money for Helene recovery.
"We're talking about at least half a decade of horror": former Exodus lead explains why he wasn't keen on doing a Baldur's Gate 4 despite Hasbro offering the chance
After Larian opted against a Baldur's Gate 4, Hasbro asked Archetype Entertainment head James Ohlen if he fancied a crack at it and he wasn't keen.
Analysis | Democrats turn to unconventional organizing in an atypical ‘must-win’ Senate race
Alaska presents myriad challenges to political organizers.
Weird Science: Space enthusiasts helping train AI system to unlock deep secrets of spiral galaxies
Led by Dr. Patrick Treuthardt of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the project asks everyday volunteers to review automated, color-coded maps of spiral galaxy arms.
Company that made a Steam Machine wrap based on Valve intellectual property without asking forced to take it down
Dbrand's Portal-themed Companion Cube wrap for the Steam Machine won't be seeing the light of day for a very good reason.
South Coast youth basketball team wins national title
The Leaders In Training seventh grade boys basketball team capped its season by winning the Zero Gravity National Championship.
Cubs BCB After Dark: Who is the Cubs’ best reliever?
The late-night/early-morning spot for Cubs fans asks who is the best reliever in the bullpen right now.
How the Chicago Bulls retooled their sponsorship business to meet CMO data demands
As sports sponsorship spending rises, CMOs are looking for hard evidence to justify their deals. Teams and franchise owners are responding, but there’s competition.
Duke basketball's first 2027 commit has a familiar last name
The Blue Devils get another Knueppel next year.
Use of artificial intelligence for mental health splits opinion
Two-thirds of those aged 25 to 34 have asked chatbots for wellbeing support
US Sen. Dan Sullivan’s same-name challenger can be on primary ballot, Alaska Supreme Court rules
The Alaska Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a man with the same name and party affiliation as Alaska Republican US Sen. Dan Sullivan is qualified to run for the seat and ordered elections officials to place him on the August primary ballot.
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”
A new political party could be coming to Nebraska; state Democratic Party officials call foul
The sponsor behind the push for the new party is Robin Richards, according to paperwork obtained through the Secretary of State's office.
NEBRASKA REACTS Survey Results: The New Uniforms Are…Not Great
But can we just win? Honestly, the changes probably didn’t live up to the hype tweets & videos.
What we know about Sixers' situation heading into free agency
Mike Gansey’s first free agency window as the Sixers’ president of basketball operations is about to begin.
Gene Off Script: Are politicians embracing socialism?
Are politicians embracing socialism? Many candidates running for elected positions are being asked if they renounce socialism.
Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari to be inducted into Memphis Sports Hall of Fame
Calipari reached the NCAA Tournament six times with Memphis, including a national runner-up finish in 2008, and won the 2002 NIT title.
Expanding pharmacists’ authority is about healthcare
Alaska’s passage of House Bill 195 marks a practical and overdue step toward improving access to healthcare, especially in a state where geography alone can turn a minor illness into
How Sports Other Than Football Shaped Garrett Wilson’s Creativity
Growing Up, the WR Also Played Basketball and Did Gymnastics
Careers That Shaped Biology
Every great scientific career begins with a question no one has been able to answer — and a scientist stubborn enough to keep asking it. This series looks back at the careers of some of HHMI’s most distinguished scientists — people whose contributions have changed what we know about life itself, and whose stories reflect the best of what science, and scientists, can be.
GLP-1s 101: What the science says about weight loss, side effects, safety
We asked Stanford Medicine experts to break down everything you need to know about the drugs known as GLP-1s, semaglutide, Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound and many more.
America @ 250: Alex Wysocki asks, ‘Are short-term political gains worth giving up the big picture?’
Alex Wysocki is a television producer, filmmaker, husband and father of three. He and his wife Abigail moved to Champaign during the COVID-19 pandemic and are raising their family here.
How the Mass Shooting at Bondi Beach Shattered Australia’s Political Consensus
After the country’s most deadly act of gun violence in nearly thirty years, some politicians asked whether the real problem wasn’t gun control but antisemitism. Were they right?
Editorial: Feds find more health care fraud
It shouldn’t be too much to ask that taxpayer-funded social service programs benefit people who actually exist.
House committee advances radiology-backed legislation to curb prior authorization
The Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act seeks to streamline the “often cumbersome and time-consuming” task of approving requests for medical imaging in Medicare Advantage.
Business Owner Questions Buffalo Council on Business Park
At their last regular meeting in June, the Buffalo City Council was asked by business owner Dustin Smith about the status of lots at the Buffalo Business Park, saying he may be interested in purchasing one. He explained further. Smith said he wanted to know what the city was planning for the business park because […]
Nebraska Democrats warn of new political party for spoiler candidates
Two top leaders with the Nebraska Democratic Party are warning of a new political party they believe aims to put spoiler candidates in Nebraska’s big midterm races.
Hornets send Miles Bridges to Phoenix Suns, AP source says
Guard Grayson Allen and forward Royce O’Neale would be coming to Charlotte, according to a person familiar with the deal.
A brief history of same-named political candidates, election hijinks and Dan Sullivans in Alaska
The kerfuffle surrounding the Alaska Senate race isn’t the first time two Dan Sullivan candidates have wound up on the same ballot.
Employment scams study reveals soaring numbers
Job hunters tricked into handing over thousands of dollars are being lured with a new tactic: task-based scams, in which they are offered high pay to “like” and “subscribe” to videos online.
Pols & Politics: Why not make looser drinking laws for World Cup permanent, observers ask
Massachusetts relaxed its rules on public drinking to accommodate World Cup fans. One libertarian magazine is wondering why it isn’t permanent. Plus: Lawsuit to compel audit being considered.
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.
Colombia vs Portugal Highlights
Check out the full game highlights between Colombia and Portugal in the 2026 FIFA World Cup™. Announced by John Strong and Stu Holden.
Man with same name as U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is eligible for Alaska's primary ballot, judge rules
The judge ruled that the division’s decision to exclude Dan J. Sullivan because his candidacy was not “in good faith” was not based on the Constitution, Alaska law or the division’s own regulations.
GOP candidate with same name as senator can stay on Alaska ballot, judge rules
Supporters of incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan say a challenger with the same name is not running in “good faith,” but a judge says that is not an issue.
City of Palms new downtown parking program: How local business react to the change
The Fort Myers City Council recently approved a change impacting parking rates at all three of downtown Fort Myers' parking garages. As it stood, visitors would receive one hour of free parking followed by a hourly rate. Now, the change has made it so visitors are entitled to two free hours followed by a hourly rate. Local business owners and managers said it's a good idea giving visitors more time to bask under the royal palms and indulge in some shopping. But one general manager points out a problem that did not start yesterday, but years prior.
UNC Health Talk: Why do I still get pimples?
Are you asking why you get acne well past puberty? Dermatologist Margaret Coates has the do's and dont's for treating adult acne.
Business owners: The future of downtown is a stronger State Street
Businesses for State Street is made up of business owners and members of the Santa Barbara community. We write to respectfully ask that the mayor and City
The Pressure On Bungie’s ‘Marathon’ After Destiny 2’s Death Is Insurmountable
Marathon was never supposed to be here, but now is tasked with ensuring Bungie survives as a studio now that Destiny 2 is dead.
Maliq Brown Arrives In San Antonio & Finds Something Familiar
Brown is in a great situation, but it should also seem familiar
Man with same name as US Sen. Dan Sullivan is eligible for Alaska’s primary ballot, judge rules
Man with same name as US Sen. Dan Sullivan is eligible for Alaska’s primary ballot, judge rules
3 ways you’re working wrong, according to scientists
Stop multitasking.
Cameron Carr discusses joining the Lakers
NBA mock drafts projected Cameron Carr getting selected between 15 and 20 in the first round. Ending up with the Lakers was more than he could have asked for.
Supreme Court ruling on Roundup points to a confusing difference between the law and science
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Roundup shows science and law use the same word — causation — while asking different questions, writes epidemiologist.
If a Lyme disease vaccine gets approved, how would it go over? We asked hunters
Drugmakers are working on a potential new shot to prevent the tick-borne illness. How might it fare in the era of vaccine skepticism?
Marine biobanks: the science of 'stopping time' for an ecosystem under pressure
In labs around the world, the ocean is being kept in jars. Some of it is alive, bubbling in flasks, while some lies frozen in liquid nitrogen. These marine biobanks are collections of coral cells, algae,…
Perplexity, Kalshi, Replit insiders share how to get a startup job
We asked startup founders, recruiters, and hiring managers what to do — and not to do — to boost your chances of getting an offer.
Man with same name as US Sen. Dan Sullivan is eligible for Alaska's primary ballot, judge rules
An Alaska judge has ruled that a man with the same name and party affiliation as Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is eligible to challenge the senator in the August primary
ICE mask ban takes effect in N.Y. amid dueling lawsuits and a race for governor
The Trump administration’s lawsuit argues that states do not have the authority to regulate the federal government’s operations.
KATSEYE addresses speculation over Manon's future with group
KATSEYE is asking fans for patience as Manon Bannerman's health-related hiatus stretches into its fifth month.
Police seek help identifying suspect in California Avenue business break-in
The Bakersfield Police Department is asking for the community’s help in identifying a man accused of breaking into a business on California AvenuePolice said it
Sports Intelligence Project explores high-end decision making in multifaceted industry
A new co-curricular offering tasks students with combining data, AI and the human element of athletics.
Nebraska Hispanic Chamber of Commerce holds networking event for Omaha businesses
Watch: Omaha business leaders met at Mexico's consulate to network with the Nebraska Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Windows 11 is getting redesigned taskbar settings in new build
Microsoft is giving Windows 11 redesigned taskbar settings, and the changes are already available for testing in the latest build.
Master Inventor Hoffman Turns Chemistry Into Capability | Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Christopher Hoffman has been recognized as a Johns Hopkins APL Master Inventor, a distinction earned through a career spent asking a simple question: What can chemistry can do to solve a real-world problem?
Chaotic Push to Train Staff for US Ebola Outbreak Facility Alarms Health Workers
The three-day session focused more on administrative tasks than spread prevention.
Warren Buffett Bought A Business For $1.7B ‘Over The Phone Without Ever Meeting The People There’ Using The ‘Most Valuable Skill’ He Learned
Buying a company for $1.7 billion without meeting management sounds like the kind of decision that would keep lawyers busy for months. Warren Buffett did it over the phone. Speaking at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2003, Berkshire Hathaway Chair...
Sweden and WHO launch new long-term initiative to transform Ukraine’s health system
WHO and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) have launched a new multi-year cooperation project to support the long-term recovery and transformation of Ukraine’s health system. The new project, “Ukraine’s Health System Transformation Initiative: Strengthening Health Governance, Health Financing and Service Delivery for Long-Term Recovery”, was launched at the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2026 in Gdansk, Poland on 26 June, and will run from June 2026 to 2029. Sweden will contribute approximately US$ 26 million (240 million Swedish krona) to support this project. This contribution forms part of Sweden’s broader support to Ukraine through the Team Europe approach, which brings together the European Union, its Member States, and key partners such as the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enlargement and Eastern Neighbourhood and Enabel, and WHO as lead health agency, to support Ukraine’s recovery, reform agenda and European integration.“Ukraine’s health recovery cannot be measured only by what is rebuilt, but by whether people can count on the health system when they need it most. The scale of the task is immense, with health reconstruction and modernization needs estimated at US$ 19.4 billion over the next decade. Sweden’s US$ 26 million contribution to Ukraine’s Health System Transformation Initiative is a timely investment in the institutions, financing and services that will support Ukraine’s long-term recovery and European integration. WHO remains a trusted partner of the Government of Ukraine in advancing this process. I am deeply grateful to Sweden for its consistent support and partnership,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. More than 4 years of war have placed unprecedented pressure on Ukraine’s health system, creating 3 interconnected challenges. The first is responding to the immediate consequences of the war and the urgent health needs of the population. The second is recovering and modernizing health services today. The third is continuing reforms and aligning the health system with European standards in the context of Ukraine’s future accession to the European Union. The war has led to large-scale population displacement, an increasing need for trauma care and rehabilitation, and shortages of health workers. High out-of-pocket payments in Ukraine make access to health services more difficult. Around 46% of total health expenditure is paid directly by individuals, placing a significant financial burden on many households and underscoring the need for reforms in health financing. Older people, persons with disabilities, women, children and veterans continue to face the greatest difficulties in accessing health services. “Ukraine is demonstrating that health system transformation can continue even during war. Ukraine is also continuing to align its health system with European norms and standards. WHO is committed to supporting Ukraine on this journey. We provide technical support, help coordinate partners’ efforts and support the institutional changes needed to strengthen the system. We are grateful to Sweden for its support. Through this partnership, we can help Ukraine build a more resilient, accessible and people-centred health system,” said Dr Jarno Habicht, WHO Representative in Ukraine. About the Health System Transformation InitiativeThe new initiative will support Ukraine through 3 interconnected areas: strengthening governance and coordination of health sector reforms through more inclusive coordination platforms and structured policy dialogue; transforming service delivery by reinforcing a primary health care-centred model that integrates family medicine, nursing and midwifery; and improving financial sustainability by supporting reforms that ensure the long-term viability of the national health system and reduce out-of-pocket payments for households. Overall, these reforms are expected to make the health system more coherent and easier to navigate, improve the quality and continuity of care, and ensure more equitable access to services, particularly for those who need them most. They will also support Ukraine’s progress towards a more modern health system aligned with European standards. “We are convinced that long-term recovery is not possible without strong, high-quality, person-centred health services that are accessible to everyone. Our partnership with WHO is designed to support deep and lasting systemic changes. Investments in human capital especially autonomous midwives, whose role for maternal, newborn and adolescent sexual and reproductive health cannot be understated, stronger governance, digital transformation and the financial sustainability of the health system are investments in Ukraine’s future. We are proud to support this process,” said Malin Perhult, the Head of the Ukraine Unit at Sida. Focus throughout implementation will be given to the most vulnerable population groups, including older people, women and children, and persons with disabilities, who have been affected by the war and face greater health-care needs. The initiative will be implemented in close cooperation with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the National Health Service of Ukraine, the Public Health Centre of Ukraine, regional authorities and international partners. This project will help Ukraine move towards a system where everyone can access the health care they need. It will strengthen primary care, make the health finance system more stable and predictable, and reduce the out-of-pocket costs that Ukrainians face when using health services. As a result, the Ukrainian health system will become more aligned with European standards and more sustainable in the long run.
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
Most Patients Want Docs To Break Cancer News Directly, Not Through Portal Messaging
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, June 25, 2026 (HealthDay News) — People are becoming more comfortable communicating with their doctor through clinics’ patient portals. Folks use the portals to ask their doc questions and even to review the results of recent medical tests. But there are ...
'The Vampire Lestat's Sam Reid on Magnus, Claudia, Sofia, and more
Would Lestat listen to Chappell Roan? Asked and answered.
Ozone Ascent: Mega Rayquaza Timed Research
From Saturday, July 25, at 10:00 a.m. to Sunday, July 26, 2026, at 8:00 p.m. local time free Timed Research will be available to all Trainers that rewards a Meteorite that enables you to Mega Evolve Rayquaza! Complete the research tasks to earn a Meteorite, an encounter with Rayquaza, and more. Unlike other Mega-Evolving Pokémon, […]
Top 2027 big man expected to visit Arkansas basketball
Arkansas basketball is expected to host 2027 big man Caleb Ourigou for an official visit this weekend.
Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Preview: Mike McConathy
Our preview of the 2026 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Class concludes with Northwestern State’s legendary basketball coach - Mike McConathy!
Senate Indian Affairs Committee Advances Mark Cruz’s Nomination to Lead Indian Health Service
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, led a nomination hearing to consider Mr. Mark Cruz, of Oregon, to be Director of the Indian Health Service within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and expressed her intent to support his nomination. Representative Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a citizen […]
Elliot Cadeau appears set to return to Michigan basketball roster
For the third and presumably final time this offseason, Elliot Cadeau appears to have confirmed he will stay with Michigan basketball.
Kenny Klein, former longtime Louisville Athletics administrator, dies
Kenny Klein, a former Louisville Athletics administrator of 39 years who worked more than 1,300 straight men's basketball games, has died at age 65.
Matt Rhule hosts youth football camp in Omaha through FlexWork Sports
Matt Rhule and four Nebraska football players made the trek to Omaha Thursday.
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.
Dunleavy vetoes some health and education increases approved by Alaska lawmakers
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy canceled funding increases for a variety of state health and education programs on Wednesday, vetoing a combined $57.8 million in general-purpose money from state budget bills passed by the Legislature.
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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.
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