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University of Richmond Robins School of Business Ranked as Top 20 Undergraduate Business School
The University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business ranked in the top 20 of the annual by Poets&Quants for Undergrads, the leading online publication for undergraduate business education news.
Sports Bar Streaming Setups Complicated as EverPass, DirecTV Evolve
How do sports bars keep up with the streaming revolution? A mix of satellite and digital distribution has some stores asking the government for help.
Peace of mind was Mikaela Shiffrin's biggest victory in 2026 Winter Olympics
Olympic legends Mikaela Shiffrin and Simone Biles are fierce advocates for athletes prioritizing their mental health.
'BTS: The Return' review: The world's biggest boy band, without a clear direction
The documentary is an intimate, surprisingly revelatory look at BTS in transition — and the complicated process of figuring out who they are now.
What events are happening in the South Bend area from March 23 to 29?
A variety of events will keep you busy this week. Attend a screening event, catch a concert, attend a lecture or play.
‘Anyone but Labour’ or ‘anyone but Reform’? Clash of animosities likely to define May local elections
While Labour braces for a rout that could see off Starmer, a rising drive to keep out Farage is complicating expectations
River Cats top Giants in exhibition at Sutter Health Park as fans welcome baseball’s return
"Finally, the drought is over between football and the start of baseball."
Letters: Newspapers hold a position in our democracy, unlike any other business
I read with interest Duke Truby's viewpoint about a newspaper print medium being a "business" in the strictest sense. As such, that business should cater to its customers and clients.
Commentary: Keep Kentucky judges judging and leave politics to politicians
A provision in House Bill 534 would invite judicial candidates to disclose their political party affiliation and their current and past voter registration, including “communicating political values or viewpoints consistent with his or her party affiliation.”
The 3DFX Voodoo Lives Again In An FPGA
The 3DFX Voodoo was not the first dedicated 3D graphics chipset by any means, but it became the favourite for gamers among the early mass-market GPUs. It would be found on a 3D-processing-only PCI …
Lessons from Binghamton led alumni award winner to public health
Clare Biging ’16 is an epidemiologist and public health advocate at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Locally-based behavioral health group to open first Louisville office
The location will provide individual, couples and family therapy.
Man Born with ‘Butterfly Syndrome’ Is Fighting for Change for ‘the Worst Disease You’ve Never Heard of’ (Exclusive)
Ohio resident Shane DiGiovanna, who has the rare disorder epidermolysis bullosa (EB), is advocating for legislation to help cover costly medical bandages for patients with the disease, which is also known as ‘butterfly syndrome.’
Business closed after new Ohio law banning intoxicating hemp products went into effect
Senate Bill 56 grants law enforcement the authority to remove intoxicating THC products from unlicensed retail locations,
Educational Service Center awarded Teach Computer Science 2.0 Grant
The Educational Service Center of the Western Reserve has been awarded $584,614 through the Ohio Teach Computer Science 2.0 State Grant, a competitive initiative funded by the Ohio Department of Higher Education. As part of an $8 million…
Nasal swab may catch Alzheimer's disease earlier — here's how it works
Student researchers bring Kentucky State University science to Posters-at-the-Capitol
With lawmakers just steps away, three Kentucky State University undergraduates presented research on cattle health, soil amendments and food safety at the Capitol Annex on March 5, bringing student-led agricultural […]
Your Thymus and Your Healthspan
Our thymus gland plays a central role in the development or our immune system, specifically for supporting T cell development (how these cells got their name, maturation and differentiation in the thymus) and discriminating between self and foreign, non-self antigen proteins with production of dendritic cells. As we age, our thymus gland shrinks—the process known as involution—with progressive change from spongy to fatty tissue, with loss of functionality. But this process, with respect to timeline and extent, markedly varies from one person to the next. And to make things even more complicated, our thymus gland anatomy and precise location in the chest also is highly variable. So the famous Frank Netter diagrams from the 1960s (such as at left below) don’t capture the remarkable heterogeneity that a random set of 12 chest CT scans (below at right). What I consider as 2 landmark papers in Nature this week (here and here) used AI to quantify health of the thymus in 2 large cohorts, and then correlate the metric to a broad array of health outcomes. In this edition of Ground Truths, I’m going to cover three questions: (1) How was thymus health determined by AI?; (2) How is thymus health linked to key clinical outcomes? and (3) Are there ways we can promote a healthy (aka rejuvenate) thymus gland in our later years? Subscribe 1. How was thymus health determined by AI? This was accomplished by extensive work developing and validating an AI pipeline for 2 stages, the first for localization and segmentation of the thymus bed, and the second to quantify a digital marker, termed the thymic health score. There’s a lot to this algorithmic development, so I won’t go into all the details, but just provide a rudimentary outline of what was done. The 1st stage used supervised learning with 2 radiologists reviewing 2,461 chest CT scans. That work trained a 3D U-Net model to automatically identify the thymic bed’s 3D cropped region using center of mass coordinates, which reached 99.8% accuracy. The 2nd stage used a foundation model that was pre-trained with SwAV (which stands for Swapping Assignment between multiple Views), a self-supervised model, that generated a high-dimensional thymus representation of 4,096 features. That compares to the radiology reductionist and subjective scoring of 0 to 3 where 0 means the thymus is fully degenerated and fatty, and 3 is considered dense, intact glandular soft tissue. Notably, the self-supervised learning (SSL) performance was superior to supervised (AUC ~0.75 vs 0.55, respectively) reflecting the shallowness of the 0-3 classifier vs SSL’s holistic, self-taught AI. The thymic health score ranged from 0 to 100, with the highest number indexed to fully preserved thymic health. The algorithmic work extended to explainability with both Shapely value distribution, meaning the model was holistic not relying on any “magic” pixel, and occlusion sensitivity, demonstrating the model’s performance was not affected by ribs, sternum, lung tissue, but rather focused on the thymic bed directly. Below are a few saliency maps from the occlusion sensitivity that indicate the thymic bed focus, not affected by neighboring structures, using the jet color scale. Now the AI was ready for processing ~25,000 CT scans, each over 30 MB files, from the 2 large participant cohorts to provide a thymic health score, it did so in less than 14 hours, which is less than 2 seconds per scan! Share 2. How is thymus health linked to key clinical outcomes? The two cohorts were the National Lung Screening Trial, NLST (N=25,031) and the Framingham Heart Study, FHS (N=2,581) each with baseline demographics and long term follow up of >12 years for health outcomes. From the NSLT, you can see below that increased age and body-mass index were correlated to reduced thymic health. And, overall, men had reduced thymic health scores compared with women. There are a lot of graphs in the paper for outcomes, for both the NLST and FHS cohorts. To simplify the major outcomes, below is a composite Figure with striking reduction of all-cause mortality and for the different causes of death. The results were consistent between the 2 cohorts. For example, the cardiovascular mortality hazard ratio average was 0.57 in NLST and 0.38 in FHS (weighted to be 0.53 for the aggregate). The reduction of mortality also extended to digestive diseases and pulmonary disease (data not shown below). Lung cancer incidence was reduced by 36% for high vs low thymic health (Figure below, with a panel -incidence and b panel-mortality, adjusted for age, sex, BMI, smoking status). Notably, there was a smoker’s paradox: lower incidence and improved survival for lung cancer in smokers who had a high thymus health score. Smoking was associated with lower thymic scores whereas alcohol was not. Higher thymic health was linked to higher HDL cholesterol, lower triglycerides, lower fasting blood glucose, and lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Inflammation biomarkers, such as C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, were elevated in the people with lower thymic health scores. In their second paper, the same team looked at the relationship between thymic score and outcomes for 3,476 patients receiving cancer immunotherapy. The non-small cell lung cancer progression-free survival was reduced in patients with low thymic health score. A parallel relationship for survival was seen for other types of cancer including melanoma, breast, and kidney with a 44% lower risk among high thymic scores (Figure). A similar pattern was seen with different immune checkpoint inhibitors. The thymus health score outperformed programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1)and tumor mutation burden (TMB) assay of the tumor and was an independent prognostic marker of progression-free survival. In this dataset, a direct connect with thymus score and adaptive immune function was noted with a correlation before cancer treatment for both T-cell diversity and thymus T-cell production (a metric known as T cell receptor excision circles). Thymus Removal Study There is a highly relevant citation about thymus function before moving onto ways to rejuvenate it. In 2023, a very important study of thymus removal during cardiothoracic surgery was published, with 1146 patients undergoing thymus removal vs 1146 matched controls (mean age 55 years). The adverse outcomes for thymus removal were striking, with a 2.9 higher risk of all-cause mortality and doubling of cancer incidence, 1.5 fold increase in cancer mortality, and 1.5-fold increase in autoimmune diseases. The immune function showed marked compromise after thymus removal, as reflected by CD4+ and CD8+ T cells (Figure below) Share Ground Truths 3. Are there ways we can promote a healthy (aka rejuvenate) thymus gland in our later years? In recent months we’ve learned a lot about the process of thymus involution and the pathways by which this may be modulated. Thymus involution is primarily due to loss to thymus epithelial cells (TECs) and there are 2 subtypes with different functions: the cortical, responsible for positive selection of T cells, and the medullary, for negative selection. When adipose tissue infiltrates the thymus, thymic adipocytes are pro-inflammatory, knocking out T-cell output. Likewise, systemic inflammation, or “inflammaging,” from smoking, obesity, and chronic stress promote thymic adipocytes. Now, from preclinical studies, we know about key pathways that account for these processes. Historically, back in 2014, FOXN1 was recognized as a single master transcription factor essential for TEC function, with studies in mice with forced FOXN1 upregulation leading to thymus regeneration. That laid the foundation for potential regrowth of quiescent thymus cells. It took awhile to find pathways to accomplish this goal and to even refute its role as the master regulator. The Liver-Thymus Axis Feng Zhang and his team recently showed that injection of an mRNA vaccine to the liver encoding DLL1, IL-7 and FLT3-L in combination, factors known to support thymopoiesis (Figure), successfully enhanced immune function in aged mice. However, the effect was transient. The FGF21 Story Two reports in 2025 addressed the thymus gland’s production of FGF21, a growth factor (fibroblast growth factor 21) and its control of thymus involution. This growth factor is also produced by the liver, but it doesn’t have impact on the thymus in aged rodent models. In contrast, The liver’s hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) has been shown to reverse senescent TEC structural changes. Growth hormone stimulates production of insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in the liver and the thymus. Two small studies in human participants (TRIIM, for Thymus Regeneration, Immunorestoration, and Insulin Mitigation) of 6 and 50 people, respectively, treated with combined human growth hormone, metformin and DHEA, suggested the potential of slowing epigenetic aging and improving thymus mass and function. But the combination of drugs, small sample, and lack of controls make conclusions murky. Increased thymus FGF21 led to increased CD8 T cells in old mice and extended healthspan and improved physical performance. Building on the previous FOXN1 data, ablation of β-klotho, the obligatory co-receptor for FOXN1, accelerated thymic aging. The benefit to FGF21 was confirmed in a companion paper using an FGF21 knock-in mouse model showing thymus enlargement and increased TECs throughout the lifespan. (schematic Figure below). The accompanying editorial for these 2 papers speculated: “The proposed link between age-associated thymus involution and organismal aging is intriguing, and suggests we might seek to achieve systemic rejuvenation by counteracting thymic involution.” Other Factors Lessons from the Axolotl (Mexican Salamander) In an elegant set of experiments of the axolotl (Figure), known for its complete thymus regeneration after total surgical removal, mediators were identified. Surprisingly FOXN1 was dispensable. But midkine, a growth factor, appeared to be the driver, the initiator of thymus cell growth, survival, and repair. Other components that contributed were Postn+ (periostin-expressing mesenchymal niches) and Ccl19, a chemokine protein from the bloodstream. RANK and RANKL RANK (receptor activator of nuclear factor κB its ligand (RANKL) have been considered key regulators of medullary TECs. In a study of both aged mice and human thymus cell cultures, their key role was confirmed, with multiple benefits of resorting TEC function, recruitment of progenitor cells, and T cell development. Subscribe Summing Up This body of work strongly supports the health of the thymus gland as a critical regulator of human healthspan, not just a correlate or link. The new landmark studies are reinforced by the regenerative biology experimental models that have shown, via an array of mediators, that healthspan of aged mice is at least in part dependent on thymus gland function and its critical role for maintaining adaptive immunity. It sure seems that we’d be better off having an immune reservoir of naive T cells instead of a profile in older adults of exhausted, low quality, memory T cells, with a senescent phenotype. It is striking that we ignored the importance of the thymus gland for many decades. A wake-up call was the results of the thymectomy matched control study reviewed here, with the opposite of high thymic health score improved health outcomes. The convergence of AI and healthspan here is notable. The exceptional and laborious work for developing and validating (no less explaining) the AI to quantify thymus health set the foundation for probing the connect the major health outcomes in two cohorts with extensive follow-up. We’ve never had a way to meaningfully quantify the thymus gland before, so this represents important leverage of supervised, self-supervised, and transformer models. The study wouldn’t have been possible without AI. And it begs the question as to whether there are ways we can maintain our thymus at a high health score. But it’s not so simple to rejuvenate our thymus. There are multiple risks including the induction of autoimmunity, increasing the risk of cancer, and inducing a pro-inflammatory state. For example, factors that increase TEC proliferation could compromise the medulllary negative selection process and leak out auto-reactive (self-attacking) T cells. Thymic cells could be induced to proliferate, but we know, for example, that growth hormone and IGF-1 are associated with an increase risk of cancer. If thymus rejuvenation doesn’t clear out the accumulated senescent cells in older adults, then inflammation within the gland could block the production of TECs. Keeping these risks in mind, we now have identified many ways to keep our thymus healthy as we age that undoubtedly will be tested in clinical trials going forward. Ultimately, the benefit-to-risk tradeoffs will be defined. In the meantime, we have desperately needed an immunome. As I’ve stressed in multiple prior Ground Truths, we have no test in the clinic to assess a patient’s immune status! It was very encouraging for me to get an email from Hugo Aerts, the senior author of the landmark papers in the days after they were published: “I also wanted to say that your Substack on “Why We Need an Immunome” was inspiring for this work. We found it a very compelling perspective and greatly enjoyed reading it.” Just having an assessment of a person’s immune status via a chest CT scan, with millions of these performed per year, might help in guiding the right immunotherapy for cancer (e.g. more intensive, combinations for those with low thymic health scores) and help define people who are increased risk for age-related diseases of cancer, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative. The main theme of Super Agers is that we now have many layers of data (genetics, proteins, biomarkers, organ clocks that can be integrated via multimodal AI) for us to define a person’s specific risk decades before one of these age-related diseases leads to symptoms, enabling prevention. From the new studies this week, we can add thymus health score as yet another way to understand a person’s risk, a window into their adaptive immune system and healthspan. And perhaps someday we will be able to safely rejuvenate the thymus, or maintain its health through one’s life, and use the thymus health score to monitor. NB: I wrote this post (No A.I.) A Quick Poll Loading... ********************************************************************* Thanks to Ground Truths subscribers (now > 200,000) from every US state and 212 countries. Your subscription to these free essays and podcasts makes my work in putting them together worthwhile. Please join! If you found this interesting PLEASE share it! Share Ground Truths Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Please don’t hesitate to post comments and give me feedback. Let me know topics that you would like to see covered. Leave a comment Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. It enabled us to accept and support 47 summer interns in 2025! We aim to accept even more of the several thousand who will apply for summer 2026.
Kennedy’s latest MAHA-approved plan could supercharge peptide boom
He indicated that the FDA will soon widen access to the small proteins, which biohackers tout as therapies for a range of ills
VoidStealer malware steals Chrome master key via debugger trick
An information stealer called VoidStealer uses a new approach to bypass Chrome's Application-Bound Encryption (ABE) and extract the master key for decrypting sensitive data stored in the browser.
Rising toll: Are NC sports betting protections enough?
With two years of legalized sports betting in the books, public health advocates, researchers and counselors suggest changes.
Oscar-Winning Alumnus Returns to Pasadena’s ArtCenter for Entertainment Design Expo
One week after winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, KPop Demon Hunters co-director Chris Appelhans returns today to ArtCenter College of Design, the Pasadena campus where he studied illustration, for the college’s third annual Entertainment Design Expo. The expo, known as ENTX, opens the Hillside Campus to the public for a full day of gallery exhibitions, game playtesting, animation screenings and interactive experiences featuring work from more than 200 ArtCenter students and alumni. General admission is free with advance registration. Two industry panels — including Appelhans’s talk — require $15 tickets. Appelhans, who graduated from ArtCenter with a bachelor of fine arts in 2002, co-directed KPop Demon Hunters with Maggie Kang. The animated film, produced by Sony Pictures Animation and released on Netflix, became the streaming platform’s most-watched film in history, according to Netflix, and swept awards season with wins at the Golden Globes, the Annie Awards and the Grammys before taking the Oscar on March 15. His talk and audience Q&A is scheduled from noon to 1 p.m. in the Ahmanson Auditorium. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. The film’s ArtCenter ties extend beyond its co-director. Art director Angela Sung, cinematographer Gary H. Lee, visual development artist Celine Kim and painter Simon Baek are all ArtCenter graduates who worked on the production, according to the college. The free portions of ENTX include a concept design showcase, a production design gallery, a model gallery, a stop motion studio preview, an alumni gallery and a KPop Demon Hunters fan art gallery. Visitors can also playtest games designed by ArtCenter students. An Animation Shorts Showcase runs from 2 to 3 p.m. and includes “Boy, I’m Scared,” a capstone short by ArtCenter graduate Lindsey Tenaglia that was named a semifinalist for the 2025 Student Academy Awards in the animation category. Also screening
This floating time crystal breaks Newton’s third law of motion
Scientists have created a new kind of time crystal using sound waves to levitate tiny beads in mid-air. These particles interact in a one-sided, unbalanced way, breaking the usual rules of motion and creating a steady, repeating rhythm. The system is surprisingly simple yet reveals complex physics with big implications. It could help advance quantum computing and deepen our understanding of biological timing systems.
White House navigates vaccine politics, midterm risks in CDC director search
The Trump administration faces complicated political dynamics as it seeks someone to helm the key public health agency suffering a prolonged leadership vacuum.
FYI BR: Here are the upcoming Holi and Easter festivities in Baton Rouge
Plan for pictures with the Easter Bunny, festivities at the LSU Rural Life Museum and more.
White House navigates vaccine politics, midterm risks in CDC director search
The Trump administration faces complicated political dynamics as it seeks someone to helm the key public health agency suffering a prolonged leadership vacuum.
'Education and communication key to voter turnout' in Jersey
Researcher says more work is needed to increase Jersey's low voter numbers.
Arizona softball walks off ASU to even series
Arizona softball earned a walk-off win over ASU Saturday night, though not the kind the Wildcats may have been expecting through the first part of the game. Arizona jumped out to an 8-0 lead, then allowed the Sun Devils to claw all the way back before Regan Shockey delivered a walk-off single in the seventh […]
Teaching Health Through Food: Kayla’s Passion for Nutrition
In celebration of National Nutrition Month, Renee Dease met with Special Olympics Michigan staff member, Health Messenger, and athlete, Kayla Cornell, to talk about how she empowers Special Olympics athletes to build healthier habits through practical cooking skills and nutrition education. Check out their conversation below.
Black Family Wellness Expo brings people together for day of health education
The Black Family Wellness Expo returned to Roselawn Saturday.
Photos: Costly error as LSU drops series to Oklahoma
An error in the eighth inning by LSU helped lead to the game winning run for Oklahoma in the final game of the series on Saturday, March 21, 2026 at
I let AI pick my Oscars ballot. It messed up oddly, but still won.
Alistair Barr's AI-assisted Oscars ballot, powered by Anthropic's Claude, outperformed despite missing some categories.
79 Brilliant Memes That Brought Science And Humor Together
Let’s be honest—complex physics theories and mind-bending math problems can leave most of us staring blankly, wondering what just happened. But one thing most of us can understand is a good meme about them. Somehow, even the most complicated subjects become instantly relatable when they’re turned into a clever joke. And that’s exactly what we’ve got for you today, pandas. We’ve rounded up a bunch of science and math memes that take these “serious” subjects and give them a fun twist. You might no
Buffalo Museum of Science hosts DinoFEST this weekend
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The Buffalo Museum of Science got a little prehistoric Saturday. This weekend is DinoFEST where the museum educates visitors about paleontology, geology, and offers hands on …
Fantasy baseball updated Reliever rankings for 2026
Catch up on USA TODAY Sports' updated 2026 Reliever rankings ahead of the fantasy baseball season.
Senate blocks amendment on transgender athletes during weekend session
The amendment that was blocked by a 49-41 vote would create potential penalties for educational institutions that receive federal funding
Reddit is weighing identity verification methods to combat its bot problem
Steve Huffman, Reddit's CEO, said that using biometrics is the "most lightweight way" to verify that it's a human.
Who is Jazzy Davidson? True freshman guard leads USC into March Madness
Jazzy Davidson leads the USC women's basketball team in every major statistical category. Now, she leads the Trojans into March Madness.
Why Buc-Ee's Received An 'F' Rating From Better Business Bureau
Buc-ee's is a beloved Texas-based gas/convenience store chain with dozens of locations across the U.S. So why did it get an F from the Better Business Bureau?
NCDHHS launches new program looking to expand number of mental health providers in state
In North Carolina, the demand for social workers in the state is growing as substance use and mental health service needs increase. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services launched the Public Service Leadership Program, a collaboration between the NCDHHS and 25 higher education institutions in the Social Work Coalition on NC Work Development, to help with that demand.Alongside the announcement of the new program on March 2, the NCDHHS released its first “State of North Carolina’s Mental Health and Substance Use Services Workforce Report” supported by UNC’s Behavior Health Workforce Research Center and Sheps Health Workforce NC.
The reality of death and the Trinitarian “science” of salvation
Readings: • Ez. 37:12-14 • Psa. 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 • Rom. 8:8-11 • Jn. 11:1-45 We live in a time of astounding scientific breakthroughs and unprecedented medical marvels. In my lifetime alone, we’ve witnessed men landing and […]
Local Business Spotlight: Educational Foundation of AACPS
The Education Foundation of Anne Arundel County Public Schools is helping bridge gaps, support innovation, and create new opportunities for students and educators throughout the county. In this wee…
Not all business owners: How Business for Good is building a new voice in San Diego
Business for Good, a network of San Diego business leaders, advocates for progressive causes in the region.
Crimson Desert Hears Your Complaints And Will Fix The Controls
Pearl Abyss says its listening to Crimson Desert players' complaints about the complicated controls and will patch in new options ASAP.
DNA building blocks on asteroid Ryugu, bacteria that eat plastic waste, and more science news
Catch up on some of the most interesting science stories from this week.
Physicists created an electron 'catapult' that moves particles at 'extraordinary' speed
Using a new method, physicists found a way to 'catapult' electrons across solar materials in quadrillionths of a second.
ChatGPT Took a Science Exam Designed by College Professors and Scored a Low D, and That Should Worry You
Confident. Clear. But a new study suggests ChatGPT's polished tone might be masking something far more troubling about how it actually reasons.
Skin therapy business opening with celebration next month in the Poconos
The new location will offer customized skin rejuvenation treatments, including advanced exfoliation, LED light therapy, and modern facial technologies.
Skin therapy business opening with celebration next month in the Poconos
The new location will offer customized skin rejuvenation treatments, including advanced exfoliation, LED light therapy, and modern facial technologies.
Woman shot at Time Out Sports Bar in Seminole, sheriff’s office says
Video: Catch up on recent top stories from across Tampa Bay SEMINOLE, Fla. (WFLA) — The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after a woman was found with a gunshot wound at Time …
When health insurance costs $2,500 per month, families make tough choices
A self-employed couple already had to dip into retirement savings for health costs. Now, they are skipping vacations and canceling streaming to afford health insurance.
Inside Fidji Simo's quest to make OpenAI profitable
Nearly 8 months into her job as OpenAI's CEO of Applications, Fidji Simo must start minting money while convincing staffers the mission hasn't changed.
High Gas Prices, Driven Up by the Iran War, Loom Over the Midterms
The war has complicated the Republican message on affordability. Democrats see an opportunity to drive their economic message while tying President Trump to an unpopular overseas conflict.
Striking Down Pentagon Press Limits, Judge Vindicates Independent Journalism
The ruling cut deeper than left-versus-right politics, declaring that the policy imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is unconstitutional.
Data Science Use Cases: 15 Real-World Applications Transforming Enterprise Operations
Explore 15 enterprise data science applications across manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and finance — with case studies, code examples, and proven outcomes.
Police responding to business explosion in Carroll County
According to a spokesperson for the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department, the explosion occurred Friday afternoon at the address of Catoctin Mountain Growers.
David Botstein, Gene-Mapping Pioneer, Dies at 83
His method of locating genes in human DNA allowed researchers to find disease-causing genes, and later to map the entire, sprawling human genome.
Whitman School Announces Alumnus, Business Leader as 2026 Convocation Speaker
Steven W. Barnes ’82, H’19, a senior advisor at Bain Capital and former Board of Trustees chair, will address graduates at the May 9 ceremony.
How to watch 2026 NCAA swimming and diving championships
It's time for the 2026 NCAA swimming and diving championships! Here's how to catch the action on ESPN+.
Baughman earns Southern Weed Science Society outstanding educator award
Todd Baughman, Ph.D., has, received the Southern Weed Science Society Outstanding Educator Award recognizing a range of education activities.
Why cats always land on their feet, according to science
Why do cats always land on their feet? It’s one of science’s most enduring mysteries in the realm of pets.
Building scientists in Charlottesville: Inside the UVA Innovation Hub
The award-winning partnership between the city schools and UVA’s School of Education expands learning into the community.
Reparations Committee opens up applications for Black Business grant program
The city’s Reparation Committee, in collaboration with Oakton College, is launching a grant and training program to support Black entrepreneurs at
Left's political targeting makes a comeback as prominent Democrats advocate for harassment
Fox News contributor Ben Domenech criticizes Democrats including Gov. JB Pritzker and Rep. Maxine Waters over rhetoric targeting Republican and Trump officials on ‘The Faulkner Focus.’
Family-focused venue The Block Jax opens in Deerwood with food vendors, live music, dog park & more
Whether you want to catch the big game or take the family out for a night, The Block Jax, Jacksonville’s first outdoor food hall, made its debut on Friday with a grand-opening celebration continuing through Sunday.
Belkin Charging Case Pro for Switch 2 review: A more elegant solution
The pro version of Belkin's Switch 2 charging case is a more sophisticated and versatile power solution. But it’s also more expensive, so unless you're comfortable shelling out an extra $30 for the same basic features, you're probably better off sticking with the non-pro option.
After weeks of hype, Crimson Desert debuts to high player counts but "Mixed" Steam reviews, citing "disjointed graphics", lovable cats, "awful" UI and more
Pearl Abyss' single player RPG spin-off Crimson Desert released last night, and has had a rocky debut.
A Physicist Said Heaven Has a Literal Address. The Science World Is Reacting Just Like You’d Expect.
A former Harvard physics lecturer and science communicator has said that heaven could have a physical location. And he knows exactly where it is.
The R.I.-based pharmacy giant also owns health insurer Aetna and pharmacy benefit manager Caremark, allowing it to control how medications are priced, prescribed, and dispensed
CVS owns health insurer Aetna and pharmacy benefit manager Caremark, allowing it to control how medications are priced, prescribed, and dispensed.
At UN, Holy See allies question reliance on hormonal treatments for women
The event was co-sponsored by the Fertility Education and Medical Management Foundation, a U.S.-based group that created an app that encourages women to track their cycles.
Angelo Cataldi’s rant against Philly sports media continues, this time targeting Reuben Frank
Cataldi, who spent 33 years at 94.1 WIP, has spent the better part of a week criticizing the coverage of Philly sports.
Google Unveils New Process For Installing Unverified Android Apps
It’s no secret that Google really doesn’t like it that people are installing Android applications from any other source than the Play Store. Last year they proposed locking everyone int…
“Loyal Slaves” and Campfire Entertainment in Frank Vizetelly’s Confederate Camp
Frank Vizetelly’s illustration titled “Night Amusements in the Confederate Camp” appeared in the Illustrated London News on January 10, 1863. It was one among a number of wartime scenes that Vizetelly captured for the newspaper. Subscribe Following the war, the illustration appeared in a number of books, including John O. Casler’s Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade (1893) and Campfires of the Confederacy (1898) by Ben La Bree. The scene depicts a Confederate camp at night with an enslaved man, most likely a camp servant, performing a dance around a fire with the music provided by a soldier playing a banjo. Another enslaved man looks on at the right. Vizetelly likely witnessed the scene—one that would have been common throughout the war. It’s a wonderful example of the way in which Confederates—slaveowners and nonslaveowners alike—experienced the presence of slave labor in the army. Vizetelly was deeply sympathetic to the Confederate cause. His depiction of the enslaved man as more than happy to entertain the very people who were fighting to keep him enslaved was precisely the kind of image designed to reassure a British audience that slavery was benign, and by implication, that Britain need not feel morally troubled about recognizing or supporting the Confederacy. Share Just as importantly, the sight of a dancing slave reassured Confederates themselves that the institution of slavery remained secure even after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. I’ve come across this illustration many times before and I plan on using it in my next book project on the role of enslaved labor in the Confederate army during the Gettysburg Campaign, but this is not the reason I am sharing it with you today. It has to do with where I recently found it, which came as a complete surprise and is incredibly revealing. Let’s take a look.
Contributor: A Democratic takeover of the Senate is now imaginable
For the first time, prediction markets are indicating Republicans will lose both chambers in November.
Allegheny County health board considers fracking impacts
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AEO Engine logo representing the launch of the new "AEO Engine AI Search" podcast, hosted by Aria Chen and focused on
New dispute emerges around Subnautica 2’s early access release
Lawyers for the ousted—and now partially reinstated—leadership team of Unknown Worlds, the studio behind Subnautica 2, are crying foul over news that the game will be released into early access in May. The release announcement earlier this week was made improperly, potentially “damaging the game and sowing additional confusion among the Subnautica community,” the lawyers said in a letter sent on Tuesday to Vice Chancellor Lori Will of Delaware’s Court of Chancery. In their letter, the lawyers also floated the idea of asking Will to find Krafton in contempt of the court’s ruling. The letter was sent just one day after Will’s bombshell ruling that publisher Krafton had breached its contract with Unknown Worlds’ executive team, when it fired them last June. The new issue isn’t necessarily the May early access timeframe, but how the news was announced. The letter and Krafton’s response have not been previously reported. A quick recap of prior events: Subnautica 2 is an unreleased, underwater survival adventure and the most-wishlisted game on Steam. Last year, longtime Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill, along with studio co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, were fired by Krafton. They swiftly sued, saying the publisher had terminated them to avoid paying out up to $250 million in potential performance-based bonuses. The studio leaders had hoped to earn that with an early access release of the game, which Krafton had blocked. The publisher argued in court that Subnautica 2 wasn’t ready, which the ousted execs disputed. On Monday, Will ruled that Krafton had violated its contract, firing the execs to avoid the performance payouts, and that it had to reinstate Gill and give him full authority over any early access release for Subnautica 2. On Tuesday, IGN reported on a new memo issued that day to Unknown Worlds staff by Steve Papoutsis, the executive Krafton had put in charge of Unknown Worlds after the 2025 firings. In the note, Papoutsis said that Subnautica 2 had passed a key development milestone “last week” and that he and Krafton had determined the game “is ready for Early Access release in May.” This news appeared to catch the lawyers for Gill, Cleveland and McGuire by surprise. On Tuesday night, they sent a letter to Will expressing “serious concerns” about whether it would be possible to forge an agreement with Krafton consistent with the judge’s order. Papoutsis’ memo was a problem, they wrote. He didn’t have the authority to declare anything about Subnautica 2’s release. As of 9am ET on Monday, March 16, the effective date of Will’s order, Papoutsis wasn’t CEO of Unknown Worlds. Gill was. And, per Will’s order, only Gill could make Subnautica 2 release decisions. They continued: Krafton self-servingly announced the launch without any regard to its impact on the game, the team, or the community—let alone this Court’s Opinion. Announcing the release of a game is momentous, and it is typically accompanied by significant marketing activity, fanfare, and community coordination. And most importantly, the announcement is carefully designed to maximize excitement for the game. That entire process was supposed to be driven by Mr. Gill. However, in defiance of the Court’s Opinion, Krafton has now taken that away, further damaging the game and sowing additional confusion among the Subnautica community. The lawyers speculated that Krafton had “intentionally leaked” Papoutsis’ memo and then issued an official statement to confirm the leak. Game File is a reader-supported publication. My reporting is only possible through support from readers like you. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe On Wednesday, lawyers for Krafton defended their client in their own letter to vice chancellor Will, saying nothing they did violated her order nor showed contempt: Papoutsis’s message was simply celebrating the UW employees’ efforts toward a past event: Krafton’s pre-Opinion determination that Subnautica 2 was ready for Early Access release. There was nothing improper about conveying the results of the milestone review or thanking the development team for their dedication and talent. They added that Gill could still make his own call about Subnautica 2’s release: In his role as CEO, Gill will be able to assess independently his views on the state of Subnautica 2 and the appropriate release schedule; nothing in Papoutsis’s message alters Gill’s authority or discretion. Vice chancellor Will has not responded to the letters and doesn’t necessarily have to. Both parties were previously ordered by Will to confer this week and submit a proposed judgment consistent with her ruling. The letter from Gill’s attorney’s this week doesn’t indicate whether he would or would not support a May release for Subnautica 2. But it could limit his options. And, if Gill’s lawyers are right, the lack of marketing fanfare around the leak of the May date could dull the launch of the game. Any harm to Subnautica 2’s launch is an extra sensitive issue given the context of the legal dispute: millions of dollars of payouts are on the line, tethered to the scale of the game’s initial performance. In her ruling on Monday, Will noted that there was obvious “bad blood” between Gill’s side and Krafton but that the two would need to work together: “They can—and must—act in good faith to navigate their remaining contractual relationship.” Item 2: A new kind of couch co-op game A highlight of GDC each year is the Alt.Ctrl showcase that features games played with extremely experimental controllers. Perusing this year’s offerings last Friday, I found a game controlled with giant scissors, another with big toothbrushes and one that amounted to dumpster diving. My favorite was Pivot, a co-op game about collectively maneuvering a couch. It was developed by students at the University of Utah’s masters of arts and engineering games program. Players lift and tilt the physical couch in order to control the position of a virtual one. That virtual one is moving through an obstacle course on-screen, while being pursued by a giant skull. Developer Nishant Verma told me at GDC that the couch is made of styrofoam (this became more evident as I watched!) and that the name was a riff on an episode of the sitcom Friends. Item 3: In brief… 🚫 Ubisoft is laying off more than 100 workers at its Red Storm studio, as the North Carolina location known for decades for its Tom Clancy games, ceases in-house game development, VGC reports. 👀 On Monday, Nvidia’s revealed its DLSS 5 AI-driven graphics technology that purports to improve game graphics… and it has been roasted about it by the media and the online gaming public for the remainder of the week. The tech changed the faces of characters in footage from Resident Evil Requiem, Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC, drawing accusations of giving carefully art-directed games the generic look of AI “slop.” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had said on Monday that “DLSS 5 is the GPT moment for graphics—blending handcrafted rendering with generative AI to deliver a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression.” By mid-week, Huang was telling Tom’s Hardware that the new tech’s critics were “completely wrong” because game-makers could still “fine-tune the generative AI” to suit their game’s aesthetics.
The politics behind the SAVE Act
Commentary: Voting should not depend on navigating bureaucracy, locating old documents, or overcoming financial and logistical barriers.
Bloomberg: Google begins testing dedicated Gemini app for Mac
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GOP hardliners wavering on support for Bondi subpoena after testy briefing
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Google Begins Testing Gemini Mac App to Match ChatGPT and Claude
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Recreation, entertainment top Foy Ranch wish list
By JUNO OGLE Daily Press Staff Outdoor recreation and entertainment were the top two results from a recent survey seeking input on what the city of Bayard could do with the 675 acres of the Foy Ranch it purchased last year — but finding out exactly what that means to people was the object of a public visioning workshop held Tuesday. “Outdoor recreation is kind of a catch-all, and we’d...
Florida GOP’s divisions, cancel culture and Alligator Alcatraz: IFP
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Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps
The "advanced flow" will be available before verification enforcement begins later this year.
This is Android’s new ‘advanced flow’ for sideloading apps without verification, includes one-day waiting period [Gallery]
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University of Montevallo’s Stephens College of Business Sales Team Earns Top Finish at National “Selling with the Bulls” Competition
The University of Montevallo’s Stephens College of Business Sales Team earned a fourth-place overall finish in Flight 2 at the prestigious Selling with the Bulls Intercollegiate Sales Competition, hosted by the University of South Florida Muma College of Business. Widely regarded as the “toughest test in sales education,” the competition featured 168 student competitors representing… Continue reading University of Montevallo’s Stephens College of Business Sales Team Earns Top Finish at National “Selling with the Bulls” Competition
'The Africans' lecture, Comedy for a Cause, flamenco performance and more events this week
Put these on your calendar ...