SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " KTH " 739 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Scientists say they have built a cell from scratch for the first time
Scientists say they have built a cell from scratch for the first time that feeds, grows and replicates like a natural cell, a breakthrough in synthetic biology.
Your menstrual cycle may affect how well vaccines work
Women who were vaccinated against covid-19 in the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle reported having a breakthrough infection sooner than those vaccinated during their follicular phase
Political Control of Research Funding Threatens Sound Science
Decades of federal research funding have led to breakthroughs in medicine, technology, and environmental science. A new OMB proposal aims to derail all of this through political interference.
Breakthrough could lead to ‘big leaps’ in battery performance, scientists say
Researchers studied lithium-ion batteries, which are used for electric vehicles as well as portable electronics such as mobile phones and laptops.
Theater Quiz for June 2026: Pride, Politics and Prizes
How well were you paying attention to the theater over the past month? Answer these ten questions, and a whopper of a bonus question about Tony acceptance speeches, to find out.
Michelle Pfeiffer reveals why she felt 'humiliated' auditioning for her breakthrough film role
Magnetic sperm and the ugliest shark: science stories of the week
From a lupus breakthrough to why humans drift left when they walk, here are the most interesting scientific developments of the week
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
Soccer meets nature at Vancouver mountaintop watch party
The match between England and Panama was shown on a big screen atop Grouse Mountain, a 4,100-foot mountain that's part of the Pacific Ranges with a sweeping view of British Columbia. When Jude Bellingham scored England's breakthrough goal in the second half, the fans roared. Both Toronto and Vancouver are hosting matches during the tournament.
We almost had a smartphone in the 90s. Why did it fail?
In the early 90’s, a company called General Magic began working on a portable device that would allow people to check email, make phone calls, even play games. It was basically a smartphone. But it never caught on.On today’s show, a theory about why this device failed. General Magic had generous investors, world-class talent and creative freedom. But is it possible what they needed was constraints?Support:Planet Money+Read: Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletterOur weekly Indicator round-up newsletterFollow: InstagramTikTokYouTubeFacebookThis episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Emma Peaslee. It was produced by Emma Peaslee with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and James Sneed. It was edited by Marianne McCune and fact-checked by Charlotte Isidore. It was engineered by Jimmy Keeley with help from Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.
Vance Downplays Watergate and Compares Himself to Nixon
The vice president said that the scandal that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency would be “like a 12-hour news story” if it happened today and that the “deep state” had taken down Nixon.
Medical breakthroughs collide with the health system
The buzziest advances — like personalized gene therapies or AI-discovered drugs — may not deliver.
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.
Entrepreneurs pitched business ideas to Yahoo Finance
Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi is on the hunt for the next big business breakthrough. Check out the absolute best pitches and standout moments from the innovators making waves at Cannes Lions.
FDA's breakthrough pipeline fills up with generative AI devices
In this edition of STAT Health Tech: FDA drops enforcement against Whoop, more AI devices get FDA 'breakthrough' label, and more.
Star Fox Routes Walkthrough And Alternate Routes Map For Every Stage
Plan-et your way ahead
The biotech founder asking why good science gets stuck
As an undergraduate, Alinta Furnell led student societies, pitched startup ideas and built biotechnology ventures. Now, the UNSW alumna is investigating one of innovation’s biggest challenges – why so many scientific breakthroughs never make it beyond the lab.
Microsoft's quantum computing technology called into question, again
A new critique in the scientific journal Nature is raising fresh questions about Microsoft's claimed quantum computing breakthrough last year, which underpinned the company's announcement this month that it will have a working quantum system by 2029.
FSU computational scientist helps advance targeted drug-delivery systems using coding, modeling
A Florida State University computational scientist is paving the way for future medical breakthroughs by developing mathematical models and simulations to
What an abandoned heart failure trial says about 'breakthrough' devices that don’t reach patients
An abandoned heart-failure trial offers a rare window into devices that the FDA deems "breakthrough" but never reach patients.
Meet the doctor building tiny tools for big science breakthroughs
UCLA's Steven Jonas uses nanotechnology in his lab to explore cancer and other disease-fighting tools.
Senate passes landmark housing affordability bill after bipartisan breakthrough
The Senate passed a bill aimed at lowering housing costs on Monday after a major breakthrough and rare bipartisan consensus.
Breakthrough Science Meets Market Skepticism: Insight Molecular Diagnostics Inc. (IMDX)’s Defining Moment
Insight Molecular Diagnostics Inc. (NASDAQ:IMDX) is one of the high-growth micro-cap stocks to buy now. On June 11, Insight Molecular Diagnostics Inc. (NASDAQ:IMDX) announced the online publication in the American Journal of Transplantation of new data demonstrating the statistical superiority of its flagship GraftAssure transplant rejection monitoring assay. The study showed that the novel GraftAssure […]
Gov Sanders reveals 'major breakthrough' on education as red state positions itself as 'blueprint' for nation
Arkansas students show 7% proficiency gains under Gov. Sarah Sanders' LEARNS Act, with the governor hoping red and blue states will follow the blueprint.
‘If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD’: Vance’s risky gambit on Iran peace efforts
As the Trump administration neared a breakthrough in its negotiations with Iran, Vice President JD Vance jumped at the chance to be the face of a peace agreement designed to end months of unpopular war.
Chinese scientists create record-smashing brain implant electrode array
Breakthrough recorded neural activity with high clarity and remained safely functional for 18 months without a drop in performance.
The Drug That Bought My Father More Time Didn't Happen by Accident
Behind every medical breakthrough are decades of research — and decisions being made right now could determine which discoveries come next.
A daily probiotic may help relieve depression and anxiety
A small clinical trial suggests that probiotics may offer a surprising mental health boost for older adults with depression. Seniors who took a daily probiotic alongside their regular antidepressant treatment experienced slightly greater improvements in depression and anxiety symptoms than those who received a placebo.
Superconductivity breakthrough could unlock ultra-efficient electronics
A clever nanoscale redesign may have solved one of superconductivity’s biggest problems. Researchers in Sweden discovered that by subtly sculpting the surface beneath an ultrathin superconducting material, they could make it stay superconducting at higher temperatures and under much stronger magnetic fields.
Breakthrough to Make Bones Stronger Could Reverse Osteoporosis
A potential treatment for millions.
The Science and Health Breakthroughs Shaping a New American Era
TIME asked Bill Nye, Emily Oster, Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire, and 22 others to tell us about the scientific advances defining the U.S. at 250
The Science and Health Breakthroughs Shaping a New American Era
TIME asked Bill Nye, Emily Oster, Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire, and 22 others to tell us about the scientific advances defining the U.S. at 250
Scientists just found a hidden weakness in forever chemicals
Researchers discovered that hydrogen radicals generated by intense UV light can break down stubborn PFAS “forever chemicals” without added chemicals. The breakthrough reveals a key mechanism that could lead to greener and more effective technologies for permanently destroying these pollutants.
A vague Iran deal leaves more questions than answers
Trump hailed the document as a breakthrough after months of negotiations. Yet its broad contours remained unclear over a day after the deal was announced.
Mercy's Kerry Bommarito Earns "Top Women in Health IT" Recognition Again
Behind every breakthrough in healthcare technology is a leader helping move care forward — like Mercy’s own Kerry Bommarito. Mercy’s vice president of enterprise AI and decision intelligence has again been recognized by Becker’s Hospital Review, this time as part of its 2026 list of “Women in Health IT to Know.”
Trump admin’s policies negatively impacting U.S. science research
OPINION — The American academic research engine has long been the envy of the world. Generally well-funded, labs in the United States have been able to attract the best minds who generate breakthroughs and train the next generation workforce that powers the U.S. economy. But since the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025, new federal policies have destabilized the American scientific enterprise.
It’s my tree. Why can’t I cut it down?
Can the government stop you from cutting down your own tree? In many towns and cities these days, removing a tree now requires a permit. You might have to pay a fee, or promise to plant replacement trees. But sometimes, the city won't let you cut down the tree at all, even a tree in your own backyard.That's because trees are important for air quality, for flood control, and for public health. They help keep neighborhoods cool on hot days. But some think that tree protection laws have gone too far — that they might even be unconstitutional.On today's episode, it's the latest showdown between property rights and local zoning laws. Typically, towns and cities enjoy a lot of power when it comes to zoning and permits. They can ban certain types of buildings. They can make you paint your house a certain color. But can they make it illegal to cut down a tree? And what does it mean to "own" a piece of property anyway?Support:Planet Money+Read: Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletterOur weekly Indicator round-up newsletterFollow: InstagramTikTokYouTubeFacebookThis episode of Planet Money was hosted by Jeff Guo and Amanda Aronczyk. It was produced by James Sneed and Emma Peaslee, edited by Jess Jiang, and fact-checked by Vito Emanuel. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.
DC Wrap: U.S. and Iran have apparent breakthrough in talks
A look at the day's biggest stories in national politics
DC Wrap: U.S. and Iran have apparent breakthrough in talks
A look at the day's biggest stories in national politics
This atmosphere in Toronto after Canada equalizes ⚡️
This atmosphere in Toronto after Canada equalizes ⚡️
Stanford scientists regrow lost cartilage and reverse arthritis in major breakthrough
A new treatment that blocks an aging-related protein restored lost cartilage in old mice and helped prevent arthritis after knee injuries. Human cartilage samples showed similar signs of regeneration, raising hopes for a future drug that could repair joints instead of replacing them.
UT Austin researchers create nanoscale Longhorn using DNA origami
UT Austin researchers folded DNA into a nanoscale Longhorn, demonstrating a breakthrough that could help deliver cancer drugs more precisely and speed up the production of advanced materials.
Brandon Aiyuk said something interesting in latest rant against 49ers
Brandon Aiyuk recently spoke out against the 49ers again. He said something interesting, which could impact his upcoming season.
Johns Hopkins announces major new investment in cutting-edge life sciences research
The Life Sciences Research Initiative will direct $80 million annually over the next two years to fuel breakthroughs and discoveries to improve human health
The 2026 World Cup: Sports and Conflict
As the United States prepares to co-host the largest World Cup ever played, the link between sports and politics is no less relevant than it was during the Cold War. But can it create diplomatic opportunities or even peace breakthroughs?
Why strong health systems are essential to global growth
Breakthrough health innovations can only deliver on their promise when people can reach them. Read about why investing in health is crucial.
Pfizer's 2025 Impact Report Highlights Progress Across Patients, Planet, and Responsible Business
Here at Pfizer, we are in the business of breakthroughs, and while our focus is on making advancements that impact patients’ lives, we are also aware of our work’s broader impact on the world. Every year, we take stock of the impact our work has on the world, the environment, and people themselves in our Impact Report.
Cell Therapy Clinical Trials: Breaking Down the Science
Breakthrough T1D is here to answer all of your questions about islet cell therapies, from the research lab to real-world treatments.
New OMB rule could break science in the United States
The drug that saved your mother. The treatment your doctor recommended. The clinical trial that bought someone you love more time. None of it was inevitable. It required a system built to operate outside politics and sustained over decades, because science doesn’t operate on the timeline of a politician. That system is now under direct threat. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed a new rule to regulate all federal grants, not just science, but housing, education, defense, NASA and everything in between, that would fundamentally change how research is conducted in the United States. There have been a lot of fires in the past 16 months, and if everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency. But this is a very big deal. These rules would strip away the independence that has kept science from becoming a political tool. The good news is there’s still something we can all do. How the grant system was designed to work When I was a new faculty member, I was full of millions of ideas, so I sat down and wrote an NIH proposal. I worked on it for months and thought it was so good. Then I sent it to my mentor. It came back covered in comments. Places where my reasoning wasn’t as airtight as I’d thought, methods that could be stronger, gaps in my thinking that I had been too close to the work to see. It stung, as honest feedback always does, but peer review almost always makes the work better. In fact, it’s the backbone of how American science has functioned for generations. At NIH, submitted proposals go to a panel of scientists who have experience in the field. These are the people who can read research methods and spot their weaknesses, who understand when an experiment is designed well and when it isn’t. Applications are scored rigorously, and often only the top 3-20% of proposals receive funding. The people making funding decisions are required to justify them based on these reviews. To be clear: this is not a perfect system, and good science still goes unfunded more often than any of us would like due to limited resources. There is also criticism that peer review may undervalue bold ideas that are risky but could have high payoffs. But the peer review system is nonetheless a meaningful part of the grant selection process. While thoughtful and careful changes could improve the system, the changes being proposed by OMB will not make things better. The rule that could change everything Through this OMB proposal, the system that helps decide what gets funded is being dismantled. There are many troubling elements buried in this proposal, but three provisions stand out in particular. Each would be damaging alone. Together, they would change what kind of science gets done in America, and who it serves. 1. Political appointees would decide which science gets funded, and peer review would be explicitly sidelined or ignored. The guidelines your doctor follows, the standards that determine what’s in your air and water, the drugs that get approved for your family: all of it starts with a funding decision. Right now, that decision is made by scientists who can evaluate whether the work is actually sound and whether it could move the needle forward. Under this proposal, funding decisions could be made by political appointees. The careful, expertise-driven review process that shapes grant funding would be effectively sidelined. That means that a poorly designed study could get funded simply because someone in a political office liked the sound of it, while rigorous, important work doesn’t get funded because it no longer aligns with the administration’s priorities. In other words, critical work that benefits all of us could now be missed just because it has become politically inconvenient. 2. Grants could be canceled at any point, without warning, in the middle of ongoing work. Say your tax dollars have been paying for a cancer study for two years. The grant was awarded for five years, so the team is mid-experiment. There are three additional years’ worth of answers that could change how the disease is treated for hundreds of thousands of people. With this new rule, the federal government could cancel the remaining funding tomorrow, walk away from the commitment it made with your money, and have no legal obligation to finish what it started. This is a huge waste of money. There are rarely other sources of funding for this work, which means the team, the graduate students, postdocs, and research staff who have dedicated years of their careers to this project could lose their jobs. Patients who have contributed their time to studies may not see it turn into useful learnings for others. Every hour of work already completed could result in nothing useful. Science can take decades to get to tangible outcomes. It needs a stable funding system to flourish. 3. Researchers would have a harder time communicating their findings without pre-approval from the federal government. There is a saying from Sir Mark Walport: “Science isn’t finished until it’s communicated.” Science is no use to anyone if it is kept locked away in the labs that produced the data. The proposed rule could make communicating research findings harder in a number of ways: Make it harder for scientists to widely share their findings in scientific journals. Publication costs, including journal fees that allow for broad public access, could not be paid for by federal funds which is often how scientists pay these costs. Restrict researchers from engaging publicly about how their findings should inform policy or public health guidelines. This would restrict scientists from doing the work that transforms years of lab work into decisions that actually affect people’s lives. Make it harder for scientists to attend conferences. Conferences would now need to be approved by the federal agency at the time of grant award. This disadvantages conferences or publications that are not politically aligned. Conferences are a key way in which scientists learn about work happening in their field so they can collaborate and build on each other’s findings. What good is science with a muzzle? The long-term impact These changes could (and hopefully would) be reversed under the next administration. But by then, damage has been done. Once projects are halted or denied funding by political appointees, people leave their science careers for other paths or even leave the country to do their amazing science elsewhere. You cannot pause a scientific study the way you pause a subscription you decided isn’t useful anymore. You cannot freeze a research team that depends on salaries to feed their families, causing a scramble for replacement funding that, in most cases, simply does not exist. When the money stops, everything stops, and all the work in progress and its potential are lost. Despite all of the language about reducing waste, fraud, and abuse, this new proposed rule increases the administrative burden tremendously. Every researcher watching this unfold will make a rational decision: don’t start anything that will take a decade to finish. This includes not building a team around funding that could vanish, or asking the big questions that need patience and stability to answer. The most consequential science, the kind that produces the treatments and the breakthroughs that reach your doctor’s office twenty years from now, is exactly the science that would be abandoned first. This is still a proposal, so we can all do something Some worry this rule is already a done deal. But by law, OMB is required to open a public comment period. Those comments matter because they inform members of Congress, they can be used in litigation, and they create a public record. So here’s what you can do: Submit a public comment. The public comment period on this proposed change is open until July 13. Anyone can submit a comment, and OMB is required to respond to substantial ones. Each comment must be different to count as distinct; identical comments will be counted only once. Comment as an individual, not on behalf of your organization. Here’s a full resource to help you, with useful examples, but in general: Share a story about how science or federal funding has benefitted you or is involved in your work. Are you or someone you loved a cancer survivor? Do you know someone with Alzheimer’s? Have you received NIH/NSF or other federal funding? All of these can be stories you use to highlight why you care. Explain why you’re worried about these proposed changes. You can use the wording found here or in other resources to help you. Ask them to withdraw this proposed rule. Contact your elected representatives. Congress allocates money to federal agencies to spend, and it has oversight of how that process works. You can let your representatives know this proposed change concerns you and ask them to intervene. There are levers they can push that can help at this moment. Let others know why federal funding matters. This isn’t just about science, but ALL federal grants, including for education systems, defense projects, and more. The process, including the importance of federal funding, is invisible to many. We can all make it more visible by sharing how science benefits us and why we value it. You can also share this article, or any of the resources linked here, to help spread awareness! Bottom line We are quickly losing ground in scientific research in the U.S. More changes, like the proposed rule by OMB, would decimate our ability to conduct research here, leaving us all worse off: fewer treatments for pancreatic cancer, less research on pollution impacts, fewer answers for patients with rare disease, and more unaddressed health needs. The impact will be very real for all of us, regardless of where we stand politically. Using our voices for science is more important than ever. Love, LM Big thanks to Dr. Megan Ranney for reading this over and providing brilliant insights, as always. Dr. Liz Marnik, PhD, is Executive Director of The Evidence Collective at YLE and a science communicator and immunologist working at the intersection of public trust, science, and public health. You can find her on Substack, LinkedIn, Instagram and Threads. Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) comprises a team of experts, ranging from physicians to immunologists to epidemiologists to nutritionists, working together with one goal: to “Translate” ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. The YLE suite of newsletters reaches over 475,000 people across more than 132 countries. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below: Subscribe
Could £400m research park plan make Norwich a global science hub?
Experts hope a revamp at the Norwich Research Park could lead to more scientific breakthroughs.
The science of seeing inside explosions
During the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos scientists needed a diagnostic tool. Like an x-ray confirming a broken leg bone, the researchers wanted to be able to see into the smoke cloud of detonation products. They needed to verify that the implosion remained symmetric to ensure an efficient detonation. Although it was a time when scientific breakthroughs came quickly, this challenge stumped them, and their initial efforts to use x-rays to visualize the event were limited.
New solar breakthroughs: the unexpected places scientists are finding revolutionary materials - Futura-Sciences
A Closer Look at Chemical Transformations The team’s breakthrough, recently published in the journal Nature Communications, is the scientific equivalent of pausing a movie in slow motion and noticing brand new characters on the screen. Instead of limiting themselves to the finished product of a reaction, the researchers examined every...
The Wallflowers celebrate 30th anniversary of breakthrough album at the Englert
While touring to mark The Wallflowers' 30th anniversary of “Bringing Down the Horse,” Jakob Dylan also spotlights Tom Petty’s underrated 1982 album “Long After Dark,” bridging the connection between two influential catalogs.
History of Science: Why is it important?
“The study of scientific history is vital for modern research, revealing that breakthroughs often stem from continuity rather than isolated revolutions”
Medical Advances Are Keeping a Health Reporter Busy
A conversation with Gina Kolata, who covers breakthroughs in medical science.
An incredible sports week ahead, plus RIP Stacey King
The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! What a week ahead. Coming up: 🫨 MSG frenzy 🎾 Zverev’s breakthrough 🙏 Beloved broadcaster dies To prepare for this week, I kept looking at the calendar and vacillating between stressed and pumped. Wow, there are so many big games. Amazing, right? But also … so much to care about. Yay? So this might be more of a personal exercise, but I think it can benefit us all. A guidebook to the week ahead, which is one of the most...
The Probiotic Breakthrough for Natural Anxiety Relief and Better Mental Health
A surprising gut-brain discovery suggests that anxiety could one day be treated with specially designed probiotics. Could anxiety be shaped, at least in part, by tiny organisms living in the gut? Research from Duke-NUS Medical School and the National Neuroscience Institute of Singapore points to
One UVM lab’s surprise discovery led to flu science breakthrough
Proteins in the two most common types of flu virus enable them to take very different paths to entering human lungs, a finding that could lead to more directed antiviral treatments.
Xavi Espart sends out message after ‘spectacular’ season with Barcelona
The defender is happy to have made the breakthrough.
AI Startup Collate Raises $95 Million To Automate Life Sciences Paperwork
In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at breakthroughs from ASCO, Harrison.ai's U.S. expansion, Clear's move into healthcare and more.
Scientists Create Water Tweezers to Move Small “Surfers”
Breakthrough shows how water waves can be used to move and hold floating objects
Elections to top science bodies test Croatia’s gender equality in research
Croatia’s track-record on gender equality in science has been both questioned and lauded in recent months, following both bad and good news on the topic. On the one hand, a senior awards committee was announced without a single woman researcher included. On the other, the national science academy welcomed its first cohort of fellows with more women than men.Members of the committee, which gives national awards recognising scientific achievement, are proposed by the ministry of science and endorsed by the parliament. The current line-up does include a woman, but she is culture minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek rather than a researcher. Even then, she didn’t make it into the photograph released to announce the appointments on April 16. “The image speaks a thousand words,” says Tanja Rudež, a science journalist for Jutarnji List newspaper. “I am surprised that none of these men, all well-known scientists, saw a problem with the fact that there was not a single successful female scientist on the committee,” she told Science|Business.Ivan Đikić, a prominent Croatian biochemist based at Goethe University Medical School, commented on LinkedIn that the news illustrated a “sad truth” about the state of science in Croatia.“It [. . .] reveals a system where women, despite contributing a substantial share of high-quality, internationally competitive science, are systematically excluded from the very processes that determine recognition and influence,” he wrote. Some 60% of researchers in Croatia are women, according to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, and they perform well in international competitions. For example, of the 12 European Research Council (ERC) grants awarded to Croatian researchers, seven went to women.“So how is it possible that decision-making bodies are still dominated by men over 60, while not a single female ERC laureate is involved in the selection process?” asked Đikić. “This is not a marginal oversight; it is a structural failure.” The ministry of science did not reply to a request for comment. The awards committee is not unusual. For example, a scientific advisory body announced by the ministry of demographics in April comprises 35 men and five women. The board of the Croatian Science Foundation, newly appointed by the parliament, is a little better, with five men and two women, but still unequal. “This is especially significant because such bodies do not merely distribute prestige. They shape research priorities, funding allocation and long-term scientific development,” Marija Lugarić, chair of the parliament’s committee on gender equality, told Science|Business. “Representation here matters not only symbolically, but materially.”Referring to the awards committee and the board of the science foundation, Lugarić says that while both bodies were appointed by parliament, neither met the minimum 40% gender balance threshold that Croatian law and EU guidelines expressly recommend for public bodies.Đikić wants to see EU institutions put pressure on the government to ensure basic standards of fairness, transparency and democratic governance in science policy are met. “Meaningful change will not come without pressure,” he wrote. “It must intensify both within Croatia and at the level of European institutions. Anything less undermines the credibility of Europe’s commitment to excellence and inclusion in science.”Rudež also underlined the importance of talking and writing about this topic, “because public opinion in Croatia does influence changes in the status and visibility of women in science.”The European Commission has not yet responded to a request for comment.Good news from the academyA more positive story came from the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts on 21 May, with the announcement of seven new women fellows and five men. This is the first time in the academy’s 165-year history that women have outnumbered men in a new intake.One of the new fellows, two-time ERC grantee Iva Tolić, credits the academy leadership with trying to be more modern and inclusive, representing the whole community better. “The academy is really aware that so far, before this election, there were very few women,” she told Science|Business. “So, they are actively trying to make this more equal.”Related articlesExplained: How the MSCA is close to achieving gender balanceCall for EU to leverage academic freedom in global talent raceRudež is more cautious, noting that despite the academy’s “breakthrough this year [. . .] it is still a predominantly male institution, with only 18% women.”This reflects a wider imbalance in Croatia’s research landscape. “The key levers of power in science are still in the hands of men,” she went on. “For example, all 14 rectors of private and public universities are men.”Similarly, Lugarić says a structural glass ceiling still exists in Croatian science, which is “most visible precisely where power is exercised.”She cites data from the Commission’s She Figures 2024 report, which shows that Croatia ranks second in the EU for gender equality in research and innovation overall, with an equality index of 79.6 out of 100. It is in the top five for women’s career advancement, participation in research; representation across all research sectors and for scientific publications.In stark contrast, it ranks second to last when it comes to women in decision-making positions in science. “This is not a coincidence,” Lugarić says. “It is a structural pattern.”Informal barriersThe persistent under-representation of women in the highest structures of Croatia’s academies, boards, award committees and leadership positions is not down to formal barriers, Lugarić says, but arises from more subtle obstacles such as “informal networks, persistent expectations regarding traditional gender roles and the unequal distribution of care responsibilities.”Tolić would like to see more support for young women in terms of affordable housing and child support, and higher salaries. Currently, she says, salaries in science stay low for the first 10-15 years, while housing and spaces in kindergarten are limited and expensive. “You have to work a lot, you get very little money, so it’s not great to have a family in this situation,” she says.But despite the challenges, Tolić is optimistic, saying that gender equality in research in Croatia is “definitely improving and going in the right direction.” The situation is particularly promising in biology, she adds, where most full professors, heads of department and deans of faculties are women. Lugarić, too, see the glass ceiling “very slowly, cracking,” and cites the academy election as an example that structural change is possible. Yet the situation in the national awards committee is a “stark reminder that without a conscious, systemic commitment to gender balance, progress will remain slow and uneven.”
A Psychedelics Revival Is Overdue
R. Gordon Wasson was a Manhattan banker who fancied himself a mycologist. In 1955, after decades studying the mushrooms of ancient cultures, he traveled to the remote mountains of southern Mexico to partake of what locals called the “flesh of the gods.” Wasson chronicled the experience in Life magazine — the first widely published account of psychedelic mushrooms since Spanish friars condemned their use in the early 17th century.
America’s 250th birthday celebration increasingly centers on Trump
The White House has built a set of highly visible, centrally controlled events — many created by presidential directive — that emphasize spectacle, branding, and new traditions.
Are plants the key to solving energy and food crises worldwide?
Costas Maranas, Robert V. & Gloria H. Waltemeyer Chair and Donald B. Broughton Professor of Chemical Engineering at Penn State, is developing computer models and algorithms to help scientists better understand, analyze and redesign biological organisms, including plants. In this Q&A, Maranas discussed how recent breakthroughs in modeling, artificial intelligence and systems biology are accelerating their work, helping plant scientists better understand and repurpose plants into fuel, plastics and more.
Turbo-charging battery research with AI: An ambitious vision
Argonne battery researchers and data scientists have come together to review emerging large language model applications in the battery field, outlining an ambitious technical roadmap to accelerate battery breakthroughs.
New light-powered chip could accelerate AI and quantum computing
Scientists have created a tiny chip that can generate, steer, and read light-based information all in one device, marking a major leap toward ultra-fast, energy-efficient computing. The breakthrough uses atomically thin materials and nanoscale structures to control a unique quantum property of light called the “valley” degree of freedom, allowing information to be encoded in new ways.
New solar desalination breakthrough makes fresh water without toxic brine
Scientists have developed a solar desalination system that turns seawater into drinking water without creating environmentally damaging brine. Special laser-textured metal panels use sunlight to evaporate water while automatically moving salt deposits away from the working surface, preventing clogging. The process was successfully tested with water from three oceans and can recover nearly all salts as solids. Those leftover materials could even become a source of valuable lithium for batteries.
A quantum metasurface breakthrough could finally close the terahertz gap
Researchers have developed a compact quantum detector that makes terahertz radiation much easier to detect. A specially designed metasurface funnels incoming energy into tiny active regions, greatly strengthening the electrical signal produced. The approach boosted efficiency by roughly 20 times compared to earlier designs and could pave the way for more practical THz devices in healthcare, communications, and scientific research.
Overnight Science Saturday News Digest May 30th, 2026
Grapefruit-sized hail may become more common in a warmer world New 3D silicon chip breakthrough could extend Moore’s Law for years | ScienceDaily Ancient DNA reveals how women helped transform…
Rafa Jodar’s ball girl shove incident leaves tennis fans divided
Rafael Jodar’s biggest French Open win turned into a messy social-media trial after a clip appeared to show a ball girl stumbling near him. The Spanish teenager had just beaten Alex Michelsen in five sets at Roland Garros, a serious breakthrough on a major stage.
It sounded like science fiction, but scientists sent quantum data through 19 miles of regular internet cable without breaking the network
Researchers just teleported quantum data through a busy internet cable. See how this breakthrough could create a secure quantum network.
New 3D silicon chip breakthrough could extend Moore’s Law for years
As traditional chip miniaturization slows, researchers have found a way to pack more computing power into the same space by stacking silicon circuits in multiple layers. The new process uses ultra-thin silicon membranes and low-temperature manufacturing techniques to overcome a major obstacle that has long blocked the production of true 3D chips.
New 3D silicon chip breakthrough could extend Moore’s Law for years
As traditional chip miniaturization slows, researchers have found a way to pack more computing power into the same space by stacking silicon circuits in multiple layers. The new process uses ultra-thin silicon membranes and low-temperature manufacturing techniques to overcome a major obstacle that has long blocked the production of true 3D chips.
Stanford quantum computing breakthrough uses twisted light to work without extreme cooling
A new room-temperature quantum device uses twisted light to entangle photons and electrons, overcoming one of the biggest hurdles in quantum technology. The breakthrough could pave the way for smaller, cheaper quantum systems with applications ranging from secure communications to future AI and computing platforms.
A New Perspective on the Universe, a Breakthrough in Medical Equity: Top Honours at the 2026 Canada-Wide Science Fair
Youth Science Canada presented the top awards at the 2026 Canada-Wide Science Fair (CWSF) on Thursday evening in Edmonton, Alta.
SURF, School of Mines researchers make potential climate science, microbiology breakthrough
A graduate student working a late night in a lab at the South Dakota School of Mines may have made a discovery that could have serious implications for microbiology and climate science.
Scientists break 30-year superconductivity record at normal pressure
Scientists at the University of Houston have shattered a long-standing superconductivity record, creating a material that can conduct electricity with zero resistance at the highest temperature ever achieved under normal pressure conditions. Their breakthrough pushes superconductivity to 151 Kelvin (minus 122°C), beating a record that stood for more than 30 years.
Scientists create supercharged vitamin K that helps the brain heal itself
Scientists in Japan have created powerful new vitamin K-based compounds that may help the brain regenerate lost neurons — a breakthrough that could one day change how diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are treated. By combining vitamin K with components related to vitamin A, the researchers developed compounds that were about three times more effective at turning neural stem cells into neurons than natural vitamin K alone.
Work begins this week on Business 51 reconstruction project in Stevens Point
Drivers in Stevens Point will begin seeing closures this week as the Business 51 reconstruction project gets underway.
Banner Health report shows Arizona research driving national medical innovation
Milestones in Research details 1,300 clinical and translational research studies, FDA-approved heart device, landmark Alzheimer's prevention work Dr Wilber Su Wilber Su, MD, cardiologist for Banner Health, in the operating room. Phoenix, May 26, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Banner Health's $80.5 million research enterprise delivered breakthrough treatments to Arizona patients in 2025 while advancing wide-ranging therapies toward FDA approval, according to the organization's annual Milestones in Rese
Canadian Physician-Founded Ava Industries Named Best Electronic Health Record Service in the 2026 MedTech Breakthrough Awards
Ava Industries (Ava), the Canadian electronic medical record (EMR) company built by physicians for physicians, has been named "Best Electronic Health Record Service" in the 2026 MedTech Breakthrough Awards program, a global recognition platform honouring innovation in digital health and medical technology.
"Every Xbox controller can be calibrated": This app's "historic breakthrough" claims to fix Xbox stick drift forever
Stick drift can ruin an otherwise excellent gaming experience, but DriftGuard has an answer.
Small Shoppes Marketplace brings a new home and hope for small business owners
Scientists just found a faster, cleaner way to extract lithium for EV batteries
A breakthrough lithium-extraction method could help solve one of clean energy’s dirtiest problems. Researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a fast new technique that pulls lithium directly from salty underground brines using a temperature-sensitive solvent, avoiding the giant evaporation ponds that can take years and drain precious water supplies. Even better, the method works on low-quality lithium sources that current technologies struggle to use.
Rediscovering science: New knowledge hidden in old data
What if the knowledge that could fuel the next scientific breakthrough has simply been forgotten in an old graph or table? Valuable scientific insights may already exist across decades of published experiments, ...
Ancient chemistry trick unlocks new type of glass that traps CO2 and hydrogen
Researchers have discovered how to fine-tune a futuristic type of porous glass that can trap gases like CO2 and hydrogen. Inspired by centuries-old glassmaking techniques, the team added sodium and lithium compounds to make the material easier to process and shape. The breakthrough could accelerate the development of high-performance materials for clean energy, gas storage, and advanced manufacturing.
Navy Researcher Kathryn Wahl ’87 Receives Award for Breakthroughs in Interfacial Science
Kathryn Anderson Wahl ’87, a senior researcher at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), has been awarded the 2025 E.O. Hulburt Annual Science Award for pioneering research that has advanced the…
What Scientists Are Saying About the Future of Virus Control
New breakthroughs offer hope, yet global pandemic readiness remains a work in progress.
AI & Science: What Is the Future of Discovery?
Continued progress in artificial intelligence, its expanding usefulness in science, and its contributions to landmark advances suggest that we may have entered a new era of AI for science.The breakthroughs so far—such as predicting the structure of practically every known protein, with profound implications for our understanding of biology, health, and the treatment of disease—are notable not only for what was achieved but also how it was achieved and what that suggests for scientific progress. This special double issue of Dædalus poses the question: What is the future of scientific discovery in this new age of AI? Thirty-three scientists responded. Bringing perspectives from life sciences and medicine, cognitive science and neuroscience, the physical and earth sciences, chemistry and materials science, computer science, mathematics and the social sciences—they draw on their work at the frontier of AI and science. The authors write with an eye to the future, not just the present. They explore what is being achieved and what possibilities lie ahead; examine AI’s limitations and efforts to move forward; and investigate the larger implications of AI-assisted science—on how science is done, the role of the scientist, and the scientific method, as well as the challenges and complexities involved.The authors together exemplify a long-standing bidirectional relationship: AI advancing science, while science advances AI. Where that relationship will take us—a golden age of discovery? New scientist-machine collaborations? Autonomous labs? Discoveries without human understanding?—is a future we are only beginning to imagine, and one we must also shape if the beneficial possibilities are to be realized.Image: UMAP sculptures visualizing three Dædalus volumes on artificial intelligence. © 2026 by Refik Anadol.
Democrats are hoping for a breakthrough as the House takes another Iran war vote
The House is expected to vote on legislation to compel President Donald Trump to withdraw from the war with Iran.
Nobel Laureate and UC San Diego Alum to Discuss the Future of American Science at Public Forum
On June 11, Nobel Laureate Ramsdell will join School of Biological Sciences Dean Kit Pogliano for a discussion on the nation’s scientific enterprise and its foundation that has delivered bold breakthroughs and transformed lives through research and innovation.
Scientists discover the nutrient that can supercharge cellular energy
Researchers discovered that leucine, a nutrient found in protein-rich foods, can supercharge mitochondria by protecting crucial energy-producing proteins inside cells. The breakthrough uncovers a powerful new link between diet and cellular energy — with possible implications for cancer and metabolic disease treatments.
‘We’ve given them the short end of the stick’: Business school dean says AI could eliminate many jobs for young people—even as they lead innovation
Despite being innovation leaders, young workers face an AI transition that prioritizes "better, cheaper, faster" over breakthrough thinking, according to Professor Jeff DeGraff.
Scientists uncover vast energy source underground—why this breakthrough changes everything - Futura-Sciences
The Unexpected Rise of White Hydrogen For a long time, it was believed that hydrogen (H2) does not naturally exist on Earth. However, traces of natural hydrogen started appearing here and there—some even detected in France as early as the beginning of the 20th century. Starting in the 1970s, researchers...
We asked US researchers how the Trump administration's science policies have affected them
The American academic research engine has long been the envy of the world. Generally well-funded, labs in the United States have been able to attract the best minds who generate breakthroughs and train ...
Bergman: ‘The time is now’ to push for breakthroughs in psychedelic treatments
Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) said on Tuesday that “the time is now” to push for breakthroughs in psychedelic treatments given President Trump’s recent support for this field of res…