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Timothy Rebbeck: Science Gains a Stronger Voice in the U.S. Congress
Timothy Rebbeck: Science Gains a Stronger Voice in the U.S. Congress / Abdul El-Sayed, Amy Acton, Annie Andrews, cancer, Daniel Biss, Jasmine Clark,
Whoa, I Missed It! Disney Starts Licensing the Household Silver, When IP Backfires, and More Big Content Moves
(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Over these last few months, the entertainment business story landscape revolved around Skydance (and their merger) and Netflix (and their leadership shakeup). I don’t even want to scan my archives to see how many times I wrote about just those two companies over the last six months or so, let alone how many times they demanded their own article. Oh, how I long for June, when I could avoid them and write about other mergers and acquisitions (Comcast and NBCUniversal; Fox buying Roku). Well, not really, but you know what I mean. That focus on just two companies meant I ignored a lot of fun and, more importantly, important stories. So, it’s also time for another “Whoa, I Missed It” article. These are stories I wish I had written about, but aren’t exactly current events anymore. And there are a lot of them! Fifteen stories in all, including a very important merger that I didn’t write about, my word of warning about the IP deluge, how “genre” TV is making a big comeback, Netflix’s latest smart acquisition (and a licensing divorce), Disney and HBO’s recent TV show buys (and what they say about reboots on TV), a big cable merger, Amazon’s new bundle, social media censorship, and a lot more. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - Buy, Sell or Hold the Latest Content Development and Licensing in 2026!!! Content is king. I’ve written that before, and I believe in it now more than ever. If I had to quantify it, and I have, I put it at about 50% of the fate of any given media company, be they streamer, network, bundler, studio or social platform. This is a hits-driven business, and, as I like to do about every so often, it’s time to check in on the latest content moves. These content shifts on their own aren’t usually enough to be the “most important story” of a week, but if you add them up, you can see the content landscape shifting. The stories also fell into two natural buckets: licensing deals and IP moves. Plus, I’ll offer my “buy, sell or hold” rating for whether I think the deal is smart for a given side. Let’s dive right in. Disney Starts Licensing the Household Silver Disney is starting to license their core brands to Netflix. Quietly, over the last couple of years, Disney had rented some 20th Century [Fox] shows and films to Netflix, but until now, the core brands had escaped that fate. Now? At least some Pixar films will make it to Disney (including Elio) and some Disney+ Originals (like Percy Jackson and the Olympians). Here’s my rating for each company: Disney: Sell. One is tempted to say Disney has started licensing the “crown jewels”, but I don’t think we see that yet. I’d call this the “family silver” instead, which isn’t quite as valuable. That said, Disney’s new CEO clearly is focused on shoring up the company’s profitability, and that means licensing deals, even at the expense of Disney+ exclusivity. This could also help bring eyeballs to Percy Jackson for the upcoming season, a similar benefit to “dual casting” this show, which I also think Disney should do. Still, in the long run, I’d protect the core brands more. Netflix: Buy. This is a smart move, assuming the price is right, and I’d bet it is. (Netflix’s content licensing teams are some of the best in the industry.) Of course, this is another data point that Netflix is moving away from making their own films and relying on licensing instead. That has downsides—they’ll always end up renting—but if you’re buying Disney content, that’s a good move. Prime Video Buys More Live Events Amazon’s Prime Video/MGM Studios keeps purchasing live events, including the Emmys (which I wrote about here) and some regional sporting rights. These bolster their NFL, NBA and Academy of Country Music Awards licensing deals. My theory here is that Prime Video knows that they can sell the advertising for more on live events than on their massive acquired/original inventory of shows and films. (As I’ve been showing with Reelgood’s data, they have a LOT more shows and films than other streamers.) Advertisers want live, engaged viewers, since they’re a lot more likely to be real. Prime Video: Hold. I like Amazon’s focus on live events, but it remains tough to evaluate this company, er, business unit, since we don’t know anything about their financials. Yes, Amazon’s CEO recently released a very carefully worded statement about Prime Video, claiming profitability, but we don’t know by how much by when. (It’s also not audited by third parties, so we have to take it with another grain of salt.) Plus, given that Amazon increased the price of the Emmys by about a third, they also likely overpaid. (Maybe that’s why they’re barely profitable, allegedly.) But also, I think they know they need to dominate live TV, and that’s a smart strategy! So I’m torn, but lean towards calling this a smart move. The Emmys: Definitely sell! I mentioned this in my “Streaming Bonus Content” article, but I really, really, really, really do NOT like this move for the Emmys. Chasing short term dollars over long term awareness is not a smart move. To reach the widest audience, the “dual-cast” format—meaning broadcast and streaming—just reaches more people. Skydance Takes Its Animation Back This is the story that made me want to write a “let’s catch up on content” column in the first place. Specifically, Skydance and Netflix have ended their animated film output deal. It’s not huge, since really, what film has Skydance Animation made that’s broken out? But strategically, it shows you how Skydance is positioning their company. Skydance Animation: Hold. Again, I still need to see Skydance Animation put out a hit or two before I can judge this as a smart move. The other worry for Skydance is they have a lot of overlapping animation houses now, and that’s going to end at some point. Still, if John Lasseter can regain his animation mojo—and his track record has been mixed at Skydance, ignoring his other issues—this could be a powerful point for Paramount. Netflix: Hold (put your films in theaters). Right now, with the Dan Lin upheaval and Peter Rice coming in, we don’t really know what Netflix’s plans for theaters versus straight-to-streaming films are. So I need to see what new films (if any) they buy/rent/produce to replace the Skydance flicks, but it will probably be a smarter investment of capital, since the straight-to-streaming films have just failed to break out, outside of one major example. Theaters: Buy! They do look like they’re gonna end up with more inventory based on the Skydance move, and now Netflix putting four to five films in theaters per year. For example, Netflix confirmed that KPop Demon Hunters 2 will come to theaters, and that’s going to be a smash. Disney+’s Reboot Future So those were the major licensing news stories, and now we get to the IP-related updates. Obviously, I’m generally pro-IP in content development. But that’s not some iron law; not all IP hits equally. Get ready for Entertainment Nuance Guy. And let’s start with a big worry. Scanning the news stories, Disney has three reboots on their lineup between ABC, Hulu and Disney+: Coach (on ABC), The X-Files and Glee. So are reboots as immune to failure as IP? We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out about… Why I’m skeptical about some upcoming genre and IP plays… How Skydance’s merger closing unlocked Paramount and HBO… The focus on “genre” across the streamers and studios… Some big creators leave Netflix… Netflix’s horror TV show licensing play (and what they should have done instead)… A huge merger that I didn’t write about... Whether or not we’ll see a major film tax credit… Amazon’s new megabundle of streamers… And (somehow) more… ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
Science Policy Faces a Post-Election Shake-Up in Congress
Decisions on spending and White House control over science grants await a lame-duck Congress.
Gut microbe-made metabolite UDP-GlcNAc hijacks the host "sugar-switch" (O-GlcNAcylation) to fuel breast tumour progression and chemotherapy resistance
Graphical Abstract: Ruminococcus lactaris in the gut synthesizes UDP-GlcNAc, which enters the circulation and activates the host enzyme OGT. OGT-mediated O-GlcNAcylation stabilizes transcription factor NFIB, which upregulates OGT and the proto-oncogene KIT, forming a positive-feedback loop that drives breast cancer proliferation, invasion, migration, and paclitaxel resistance. Inhibition of OGT blocks this pro-tumor axis.
Trump's Washington projects are a likely casualty as Democrats claim Congress
The work his administration is doing to change the physical face of the District of Columbia is sure to encounter far more roadblocks than it did for the first two years of his second term.
A Blue Wave Swept Congress. It Also Upended State Politics
The big headlines from Election Day 2026 had to do with the Democratic takeovers of the U.S. House and Senate. Those wins were noteworthy – but a development at least as striking was the Democratic gains in the state legislatures. Democrats flipped both chambers in New Hampshire and Wisconsin, and ...
Stuart Varney: Democrats won 'enormous political power'
Democrats' 2026 midterm victory shifts control of Congress, raising questions about Trump's judicial nominees, the Supreme Court, Elizabeth Warren's influence over Wall Street and the 2028 election.
‘A Political Miracle’ - Democrat Berman upsets Steil in SE Wisconsin
ER nurse Mitchell Berman’s surprise flip of the 1st Congressional District puts an end to three decades of Republican dominance there.
Empiricists strike back: Midterms propel scientists and physicians to Capitol Hill
Undoing the White House’s war on science won’t be easy. Having new Democratic scientists and doctors in Congress will be a big help.
Corporate America braces for sweeping Democratic investigations
FOX Business correspondent Darren Botelho reports on Democrats' plans for congressional oversight of corporate America as business leaders weigh the potential impact.
Advocates for science funding energized by midterm rout
Some hope a Democratically controlled Congress can restore funding for scientific research that has been cut by the Trump administration
A bigger Democratic majority could reshape Marie Gluesenkamp Perez's role
The political dynamics that have made Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez a national figure could shift in the next Congress.
What many get wrong about Amish or Plain Anabaptist communities, measles, and health
The U.S. has reported three measles deaths this week in three different states. All the affected were unvaccinated, and some were too young to get vaccinated, relying on herd immunity. Many states haven’t seen a measles death in more than 30 years. Measles is highly contagious, but it mainly spreads among those without immunity. Social factors typically shape these unvaccinated pockets. Many states describe these deaths as occurring among “under-immunized, rural communities.” (In the future, it could be among other tight-knit groups.) Small signals in the news point to many outbreaks right now among the Plain Anabaptists (APA), which include communities like the Amish and Mennonite. Many know APA communities from a distance through their bakeries, furniture, and roadside buggies. But most of us don’t know enough about them, their traditions, or how those traditions actually interact with health and disease. Rumors, misconceptions, and frustration fill those voids. Tristan Sharratt, a family nurse practitioner and rural health researcher who grew up near and works with these communities in Central New York (and a YLE reader who reached out!), says misconceptions continue to create major problems. If the U.S. wants to stop a tsunami of measles coming down the pipeline, or even support health in those communities proactively beyond measles (which is ideal), we must understand how specific communities protect themselves, their values, and the role broader society plays. This starts with a conversation and some self-reflection. Here are the top five lessons I learned from my conversation with Tristan.
Democrats’ big victory comes with a catch for Illinois
Democrats are celebrating their return to power in Congress, but the retirement of senior Illinois lawmakers raises questions about the state's influence in Washington.
Lindsay Pieper examines persistent gender inequities in the Olympics and Paralympics
Despite progress toward gender equity in international sports, women continue to face significant disparities in athletic opportunities, leadership positions and media representation, according to...
Becoming a Black Scientist: Why the Path Is Harder
Black scientists face barriers from education through to employment, including disparities in representation, unemployment, and progression opportunities. Improving access alone is insufficient; structural and cultural factors must be addressed.
The women behind the Democratic wave transforming US politics
A record 155 women are set to serve in Congress, while one-third of the states will be led by female governors
Five Plays: Stanford Third Quarter
It took until the second half, but Louisville started to get more aggressive with their linebackers. On this play, Stanquan Clark times up the snap before shooting the gap to make a play in the backfield. He’s just unlucky because the play goes to the other side, which leaves him grasping for air. Stanford uses […]
What Does a Democratic Congress Mean for Business?
A host of business- and consumer-friendly policies could be on tap as newly empowered Democrats take control of Congress, writes Michael Hardaway.
How a ‘flaming liberal’ podcast host won a US House seat in conservative Missouri
Fred Wellman, host of the progressive podcast On Democracy, defeated longtime incumbent Republican Ann Wagner
US midterm elections 2026 live: Democrats exceed 250 House seats as blue wave sweeping Congress grows
Democrats widen gap in House chamber by flipping more seats, including in Ohio, Arizona and North Carolina; Ted Cruz calls election a ‘Watergate-level repudiation’
Familiarity vs. formality: Why do we call female politicians by first names?
Just because the U.S. is willing to elect women doesn’t mean it sees them in the same light as men. When the next wave of congressional and presidential hopefuls make themselves known ahead of 2028, make sure to see the women on the ballot as more than a hot commodity, an anti-candidate or a first name.
Political analyst speaks on New Mexico’s election results
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – This week, New Mexico voted Democrat Deb Haaland to the governor’s office, re-elected four members of Congress, and approved bonds and constitutional amendments, but what …
Business leaders pack the DECC for Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce dinner
The event is held to celebrate and recognize "outstanding" individuals and organizations for their contributions to the chamber and business community. The theme was "celebrating progress," highlighting innovation, investment, regional
Baumgartner lead widens in Eastern WA race for U.S. House
Baumgartner led 50.9% to 48.7% in the 5th Congressional District, a narrow lead but one that has widened since Tuesday night as more votes have been counted.
Lawsuits likely over Washington’s ban on trans girls in sports
At least one progressive advocacy group is exploring legal action over a ballot measure set to pass in Washington state that would ban transgender girls from girls’ school sports.
Another limited practice for David Njoku
Chargers TE David Njoku making progress with back-to-back limited practices
Progress being made on work at Greensboro Science Center
GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — Multiple projects are underway at the Greensboro Science Center. Construction on the Greensboro Biodome, which will be part of the center’s new area “Expedition Rain…
Health Brief: Medicare’s big payment shake-up
Plus: A new “STEM wave” is headed to Congress, with doctors and other medical professionals ready to take on health policy fights.
After taking control of Congress, Democrats vow major probes into Trump's 'tentacles of corruption'
Corruption topped the list of concerns for voters who ousted Republicans and handed Democrats control of Congress in the midterm elections. Now, the newly empowered Democratic Party is putting the issue front and center as its leaders chart their course for investigations and policymaking.
KFF Analyzes the Role of Health Care in the Midterms
The midterm elections mean changing power dynamics and shifting legislative agendas in Congress, both next year and during the upcoming lame duck session—the period between the November election and the new session beginning in January. As policymakers consider next steps, new KFF polling analysis examines the role health care played in voters’ decisions. Key Takeaways […]
Advocates for science funding energized by midterm rout
Some hope a Democratically controlled Congress can restore funding for scientific research that has been cut by the Trump administration
Democrat Eileen Laubacher leads Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s 4th CD
Democrat Eileen Laubacher saw her slim lead over Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert narrow as late returns posted Thursday in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, the state’s most heavily GOP seat. The race remained too close to call, with Laubacher leading the incumbent by 2,276 votes, for a margin of just under 0.7%, according to results […]
Elon Musk spent $445 million to help Republicans. Their losses put his businesses in the crosshairs
Elon Musk spent at least $445 million to try to help Republicans keep control of Congress
Experts question tactics, lack of mental health response in Columbia Pike police shooting
Overly aggressive tactics combined with an apparent lack of mental health responders may, according to policing experts, have contributed to a standoff on Columbia Pike escalating into a fatal officer-involved shooting. In interviews with ARLnow, two public safety experts questioned a series of decisions leading up to officers’ final confrontation with 33-year-old Shawn Valn, who
Election over, the clock starts ticking again on landmark college sports bill in lame-duck House
Next week in Congress, the clock starts ticking on a groundbreaking bill designed to overhaul college sports with nobody quite sure how an overwhelming wave of election-night victories for Democrats across the country will reset the debate.
Election over, the clock starts ticking again on landmark college sports bill in lame-duck House
Next week, Congress could begin debating a bill to overhaul college sports, amid uncertainty from recent Democratic election victories.
Election over, the clock starts ticking again on landmark college sports bill in lame-duck House
Next week, Congress could begin debating a bill to overhaul college sports, amid uncertainty from recent Democratic election victories.
Raman defeats Bass in race for LA mayor, ushering in new era of progressive politics
Raman, who is of Indian descent, becomes the first South Asian mayor of LA. A relative newcomer to local politics, she was elected to the City Council six…
Health care is in rough shape in Massachusetts. Can the new Congress help?
Any moves by Congress to change health policy face the potential of a presidential veto.
The Blue Tsunami Swept Doctors and Scientists Into Office
More than 80 percent of congressional candidates backed by the pro-science PAC 314 Action won, including Michigan senator-elect and epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed.
Who is Nithya Raman, the democratic socialist who will be Los Angeles’s next mayor?
Urban planner and outsider who bested Karen Bass has close ties to Hollywood progressives – and a complicated relationship with the DSA
Democrats\' victory was clear. The party\'s future is not
Democrats won sweeping victories in the midterm elections, but the results did little to settle the debate over their party’s future. Progressives won major Senate races in Michigan and Maine,
Gusciora: Trenton Must Choose Progress Over Politics
Mayor says eight years of progress, including more than $250 million in state aid, more than 11,000 lead lines replaced and an estimated 20 percent decline in violent crime, are at stake in the December 8 runoff TRENTON, N.J. (Nov. 5, 2026) — Mayor Reed Gusciora said today that voters in the December 8 runoff will decide whether[...]
Progressives in Congress Can Now Sway Funding, Investigations, Health Policy
Progressives may soon have the best opportunity in decades to influence the direction of the Democratic Party.
Health: How Can Congress Combat The Rising Cost Of Healthcare?
The cost of most necessities is rising right now. And healthcare is no exception.In 2026, the average employer-based family healthcare plan cost a little over $28,000. And employees contributed over $7,400 more to those plans than in 2025. That’s according to analysis from the health research group KFF.And the nearly 20 million Americans who rely on the Affordable Care Act for health insurance are facing a 13 percent premium increase next year.Two days out from the midterm elections, what can Congress do to keep healthcare affordable in the United States?Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.
Democratic leaders say affordability and accountability will be focus of new Congress
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer promised to reduce costs and end corruption.
Democratic leaders say affordability and accountability will be focus of new Congress
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer promised to reduce costs and end corruption.
Democratic leaders say affordability and accountability will be focus of new Congress
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer promised to reduce costs and end corruption.
Jay Feely's Congressional Dreams Have Doinked Off The Uprights
Tuesday sure delivered. The blue wave—a bluenami—is a great relief to people with brains and functioning moral senses, but much of the strongest juice produced Tuesday night was drawn from a few individual races. Some of those were incredibly stirring. It feels amazing to wake up in a world where Susan Collins is out in…
Democratic socialist Nithya Raman defeats Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayor’s race
NBC News projects the progressive City Council member has unseated Bass, a longtime fixture of California Democratic politics who served one term as mayor.
Grubhub parent files confidentially to go public
Wonder has been aggressive with acquisitions, snapping up Blue Apron, Grubhub and food media company Tastemade.
Medicus Pharma proposes $135M SkinJect spinout through SPAC business combination
Medicus Pharma CEO Dr Raza Bokhari joined Steve Darling from Proactive to discuss a proposed transaction involving the company's wholly owned subsidiary, SkinJect, which has entered into a non-binding letter of intent with an undisclosed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) for a potential business combination. The proposed transaction contemplates a US$135 million pre-money enterprise valuation for SkinJect, alongside a concurrent equity financing intended to support the company's SKNJCT-005 clinical study in patients with Gorlin syndrome and preparations for a potential New Drug Application (NDA). Bokhari told Proactive that the proposed deal is designed to establish SkinJect as a separately listed company focused on advancing its dermatology and rare-disease development program. Under the proposed structure, the SPAC would acquire 100% of SkinJect in exchange for newly issued common shares in the combined company. Medicus Pharma intends to retain majority economic and voting ownership, allowing existing Medicus shareholders to maintain significant participation in SkinJect's potential future value. The separation would also provide SkinJect with a dedicated financing platform to fund its clinical development activities, particularly the SKNJCT-005 study targeting Gorlin syndrome, a rare genetic condition associated with the development of multiple basal cell carcinomas. The concurrent financing is expected to support the clinical program and the work required to prepare and potentially submit a New Drug Application, subject to successful development and regulatory progress. Final ownership percentages have not yet been determined. These will depend on negotiations surrounding the definitive transaction agreement and the combined company's capitalization, including retained SPAC cash, public and sponsor shares, warrants and other potentially dilutive securities. Medicus said the proposed transaction remains subject to the completion of definitive documentation and other customary conditions. The planned spinout represents a strategic step in Medicus Pharma's efforts to give SkinJect a dedicated corporate and financial structure, while allowing the parent company to retain majority participation as the dermatology program advances towards its next clinical and regulatory milestones. #proactiveinvestors #nasdaq #mdcx #tsxv #mdcx #pharma #SkinJect #Biotechnology #Healthcare #RareDisease #GorlinSyndrome #Dermatology #SPAC #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #NDA #Biopharmaceuticals
Reaching Across the Aisle to Lower Health Care Costs
Following a panel organized by Penn LDI and Penn Washington, two health policy experts share how both aisles of Congress can reduce health care costs.
Election 2026: A Political Earthquake
Tuesday's election puts Democrats in position to block some of Trump's anti-environmental efforts while expanding state clean energy policies.
How Democrats’ midterm wins reshape Farm Bill politics
Democrats’ sweeping gains in this week’s congressional midterms, driven in part by voter frustration in farm states, give the party new leverage in Farm Bill negotiations, according to farmers and farm advocates.
Oregon was once a Republican stronghold. This politician started shifting the balance in 1954
For much of the first half of the 20th century, Oregon was effectively a one-party Republican state. Democrats had not won a U.S. Senate seat in 40 years, had not won a U.S. House seat in 18 years, and had controlled the state legislature for only four of 74 years since 1880. Into this landscape emerged Richard Neuberger, a Portland-born journalist of Jewish heritage whose prolific writing career, progressive convictions and remarkable personal drive would reshape Oregon politics.
Report: Japan's Tashima to stand against Infantino for FIFA presidency
Kozo Tashima, the honorary president of the Japanese Football Association (JFA), will challenge Gianni Infantino for the FIFA presidency, according to reports. Infantino’s position appeared under threat after a dropped plan for private investment in the World Cup caused consternation, but he has rallied and now looks to be in a strong position to win a fourth term at FIFA Congress in Morocco next year.
Healthcare powers Democrats’ midterm rout: 4 takeaways
Voters sent a strong rebuke of the GOP health agenda on Tuesday night as Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress, rejecting Republicans who pushed sweeping healthcare cuts.
Here’s what to expect on healthcare from a Democratic Congress
The Democratic takeover of Congress will revive fights over Medicaid cuts, insurance subsidies and healthcare affordability.
Healthcare powers Democrats’ midterm rout: 4 takeaways
Voters sent a strong rebuke of the GOP health agenda on Tuesday night as Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress, rejecting Republicans who pushed sweeping healthcare cuts. Here are f…
Triumphal Arch Set to Win Final Approval Despite Court Challenges
President Trump’s 250-foot arch project is expected to win approval on Thursday from a federal planning board. Court action and Democrats’ upcoming control of Congress could halt the plans.
A ‘STEM wave’: Democratic doctors, scientists win a record number of seats in the midterms
New members of Congress are expected to help shape the health agenda next year.
Health Care: Don’t Just Fix What They Broke
The new Congress must not only repair what Trump has wrought but focus on immediate relief for the already insured.
Video: Democratic Health Professionals Win Seats in Congress
Some Democratic doctors and nurses ran and won congressional seats by centering their campaigns on opposing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
When papers become currency: a Chinese debate about trust in science
Last Saturday, 31 October, I went to the University of Hong Kong’s Beijing Centre for its Talent Forum. It was the fourth stop in the series this year, following events in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang, Shenzhen’s Qianhai, and on HKU’s main campus. The programme covered a remarkable distance in one afternoon. HKU’s Xiao-Jing Wang discussed computational neuroscience, intelligence, and the prefrontal cortex—before even delivering his inaugural public lecture to students back in Hong Kong. His colleague Bing Zhang took us from the Big Bang to artificial intelligence. Tsinghua’s Xue Lan asked how AI might reshape the institutional infrastructure underpinning higher education. There were lively panels featuring industry leaders from JD.com, Xiaomi, Haier—and Kaiser Y Kuo on the closing panel discussing innovation and international connections. I cannot pretend to have followed every detail of the brain models or the astrophysics. The talk that stayed with me was closer to something we have covered before: Zhou Zhonghe 周忠和 on papers, evaluation, and scientific trust. Zhou is a palaeontologist, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is also editor-in-chief of The Intellectual (知识分子), China’s leading science commentary platform. His subject was uncomfortable enough for a room full of successful academics: what happens when the system for recognising good science starts rewarding something else? Part of my interest came from our sister newsletter, The East is Read, which covered the controversy around “Geng Tongxue” in May. A PhD dropout from Beihang University, Geng has publicly challenged papers by prominent researchers through detailed online allegations of manipulated images and fabricated data. At Tongji University, an investigation into a challenged Nature paper found academic misconduct, and the dean of its life sciences school was removed. The affair brought doubts about academic integrity well beyond laboratories and university committees. How could someone outside the established hierarchy spot problems in papers that had passed through prestigious journals and institutions? And what, exactly, had all that prestige guaranteed? Zhou approached these questions through two essays published in July by The Intellectual: one by Wang Xiaodong, director of the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, and a response by Wang Liming, of Shanghai’s Shangsi Institute of Natural Sciences. Both began with the controversy over Geng. Their arguments deserve a wider audience, so I want to put parts of them alongside what Zhou said on Saturday. Wang Xiaodong’s starting point is evolution. A research system selects for the behaviour it rewards. Grants, jobs, journals, talent programmes, and prizes collectively determine which scientists prosper and which practices get passed down from advisors to students. “Whatever the system rewards is what it will evolve to produce,” he writes, citing the ancient Chinese saying: The King of Chu loved slender waists, and many in the palace starved to death. That is a more demanding diagnosis than saying there are dishonest people in science. Punishing a fraudster does not change the selective environment that made a particular kind of research profitable. His account also gives scientific success an awkward role in the story. As Zhou put it on Saturday, science became a victim of its own success. Once research became central to industry, national power, and economic growth, universities and laboratories expanded, and public money followed. That created an administrative need for rapid decisions: who should get the next grant, the next laboratory, the next appointment? The difficulty is that the true value of a discovery may take years or decades of testing and building to become clear. Resource allocation cannot wait that long. Publication counts, journal prestige, impact factors, and citations therefore become convenient ways to make an instant judgement. “The real problem is not that these indicators have no value,” Wang Xiaodong writes, “but that they are trying to answer a question that only time can answer.” Telling administrators simply to stop counting papers will never be enough. They still have budgets to distribute and appointments to make. Something has to replace the shortcut. Zhou described the consequences inside publishing. Papers acquire ever more requirements: a complete story, polished presentation, extensive datasets, and accessibility to readers beyond the immediate field. Individually, those demands sound reasonable. Together, he warned, they produce formulaic “eight-legged” papers 八股文 and rigid reviewing, while genuinely original or non-consensus work struggles to get past journal editors—some of whom wield immense gatekeeping power despite having limited laboratory experience themselves. Meanwhile, the demands for sprawling, “complete” narratives have fuelled a wider replication crisis. Wang Xiaodong uses a mahjong metaphor to describe the result: put the complex papers published by the exact same lab over several years side by side, and they often look like “Thirteen Orphans” (十三不靠)—every tile completely unrelated to the next, and none of them reproducible by outsiders. Zhou also spoke frankly as an editor who has trouble finding reviewers. Everyone wants someone else to review their work; qualified senior researchers have little time to return the favour. The labour is anonymous, unpaid, and brings almost no institutional recognition, so it increasingly gets passed down to postdocs and graduate students. And while anonymity protects reviewers from rank and personal favours, hyper-specialisation means an author’s most qualified reviewer is often a direct competitor, shielded from accountability. The protection and the problem coexist. Wang Liming takes the argument a step further. The decisive change, in his essay, is the instant conversion of academic honour into material resources. Once a paper can be cashed in for funding, a job, students, commercial investment, or even a company valuation, scientists are alienated from their work: they must keep minting this “research currency” to keep their teams alive. He is careful not to romanticise the past. The old world of gentleman scientists—financially independent figures like Boyle and Darwin who needed nothing from external funders—was also a closed club that excluded people without inherited wealth, women, and much of humanity outside the West. Professional science allowed ordinary people, himself included, to become researchers. Nobody should want to undo that. The problem, in his account, is an exchange system that becomes too uniform and too difficult to correct. His most pointed Chinese example is the “hat” (帽子): the prestigious talent designation that brings continuing access to money, laboratory space, students, and institutional influence. “If papers are the circulating currency of the research system, then a ‘hat’ is a bond that pays interest over the long term,” he writes. A paper at least requires another round of peer review. A title in the Chinese context can lock in a judgement made years ago and turn it into permanent status rent, regardless of whether its holder is still doing good science. Here, official institutions hire, organise, and evaluate scientists. Unlike honours awarded by autonomous academic communities in the West, a Chinese “hat” blends non-scientist administrative power with state authority. Once granted, it turns a past judgement into permanent status rent that is nearly impossible to revoke—because taking a hat off would imply that official authority erred in putting it on. Both Wangs see China as experiencing, at compressed speed, pressures present across global science. Research expansion, rising investment, publication growth, and elaborate evaluation metrics arrived in China within two or three decades rather than two or three centuries. Zhou agreed with that international framing—noting that recent US White House science policy documents and the new president of the US National Academy of Sciences, a fellow palaeontologist who recently visited Zhou’s institute in Beijing, have raised strikingly similar warnings about consensus-bound peer review, short-term project grants, and the replication crisis. Still, Zhou emphasised that China’s traditional hierarchy, personal networks (guanxi), and the ethos that “a good scholar becomes an official” (学而优则仕) amplify those pressures at home. So what would change things? Here Zhou’s tone differed from the call for a revolution in scientific trust in Wang Xiaodong’s essay. As an evolutionary biologist, Zhou favoured patchwork repair (修修补补). Living systems survive through accumulated adjustments; dramatic mutations are usually fatal. Science cannot return to a small, slow-moving pastoral era, especially after the successive accelerations of professionalisation after the Second World War, the internet, and now artificial intelligence. But it can alter the local environment in which researchers work. He pointed to domestic experiments designed to support unconventional research and diversify funding, including Tencent’s New Cornerstone Investigator Program, the Xplorer Prize, and the Future Science Prize. He also mentioned participating in reviews for “major non-consensus projects” under the National Natural Science Foundation of China. One guiding principle he recalled was wonderfully direct: “Failure is allowed; corruption is not” (允许失败，不允许腐败). That distinction would mean quite a lot if taken seriously. An honest attempt that fails should not have to disguise itself as a success to survive an assessment. Wang Liming’s essay adds a sharp caveat to the optimism about new domestic funders. Multiple organisations do not automatically produce multiple ways of judging science. If the same pool of senior domestic scientists makes the decisions through the same two-round review procedures, it is still “fake diversity.” He argues for three distinct kinds of money: broad baseline funding governed by fair procedures; patient funding for questions that take ten years; and non-consensus funding based on individual taste, deliberately empowering a few genuine experts to make biased, contrarian bets on eccentric ideas that would inevitably be averaged out by a committee. Replacing one monopoly with another achieves little; a healthy ecosystem needs variance. Zhou’s proposals for publishing were similarly concrete: strip papers of their resource-allocation burden and return them to recording discoveries and establishing priority; separate dissemination from evaluation, as eLife and Peer Community In do; adopt more modular “micro-publications” and real-name endorsements; recognize the labour of editors and reviewers; and give replication work proper credit rather than treating it as an unpublishable dead end. AI makes every part of this debate more urgent—and Zhou wove it throughout his talk. In his own preparation, he used AI to survey the declining influence of academic monographs, noting how tools are already changing how scholars gather information. More fundamentally, he placed AI as the latest great acceleration in scientific history: just as the internet sped up the pace of research and tightened external resource pressures, AI is compressing the cycle again. In the essays Zhou cited, AI cuts both ways. Wang Xiaodong expects large language models to erase much of the English-writing disadvantage long faced by Chinese scientists, further swelling the flood of papers coming out of Chinese labs. Wang Liming sees AI accelerating both ends of the trust crisis: it lowers the cost of paper mills and fabricated images just as quickly as it lowers the cost of automated image forensics, data auditing, and code reproduction. “Whoever builds the verification layer wins,” Wang Liming writes. His proposed alternative to the static, packaged “story paper” is a continuously versioned “unit of discovery” containing a falsifiable claim, raw data, analysis code, experimental parameters, and an ongoing log of independent checks—where negative results and failed replications are recorded rather than buried. Zhou ended his keynote by bringing AI back to the question of scientific honour and credit. Citing a recent Intellectual discussion on “What AI Means for Mathematics” featuring Fields Medalist Deng Yu 邓煜—at a moment when AI is already batch-solving mathematical conjectures, as HKU Vice-President Lin Chen noted in his opening remarks—Zhou agreed that human researchers must remain the principal agents: AI is a tool that frees scientists from tedious calculation to think about deeper, messier real-world problems. Yet that partnership creates a thorny new evaluation problem. When a breakthrough is made with AI, what is the human contribution and what is the machine’s? And since AI models distil centuries of accumulated human scholarship, is it right that the credit and value flow so heavily to the private AI companies building the tools? The old struggle over how to assign scientific honour is acquiring a whole new layer. What I took away was a serious discussion of how science can remain trustworthy as its scale, incentives, and tools change. These were scientists with real standing inside China’s system questioning how that standing is produced, and proposing changes that would affect their own institutions and peers. That made the afternoon at HKU’s Beijing Centre worthwhile. At the close, Wang Feng, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at HKU, said the value of the forum series—which heads to Hangzhou in December and cities like Chengdu early next year—would lie in the real cooperation it helped bring about. The university has plenty to celebrate: this week it topped the QS Asia rankings for a second consecutive year, alongside its 11th-place position in the QS World University Rankings 2027. For me, bringing this debate to an audience beyond the people who review papers and allocate grants was a useful contribution. Share [ The East is Read PhD dropout’s exposé forces an academic fraud reckoning in China A former doctoral student turned blogger has shaken China’s academic establishment by publicly accusing prominent university scholars of fabricating data and manipulating papers, triggering investigations at several leading institutions and drawing rare attention from state media… Read more 5 months ago · 43 likes · 8 comments · Yuxuan JIA ](https://www.eastisread.com/p/phd-dropouts-expose-forces-an-academic?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=47580)
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