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Los Alamos Faith & Science Forum 2026 Summer Series Presents ‘Expansion on the Book “Just Six Numbers” By Lord Martin Rees’ July 8
LOS ALAMOS FAITH & SCIENCE FORUM NEWS RELEASEThe Los Alamos Faith and Science Forum 2026 Summer Series presents ‘Expansion on the Book “Just Six Numbers” by Lord Martin Rees’ by Dr. Joyce…
Apple is reportedly planning new iPad Pro and MacBook Pro releases early next year
Apple is readying several new iPad Pro tablets, and a budget-friendly MacBook Pro, reports suggest.
Valley Regional Transit expands Rides2Wellness program to Mountain Home for health rides
Elmore County residents who need a ride to medical care in Ada County can now book free transportation through a six-month expansion of Valley Regional Transit’
In another 250 years, what will be considered an American classic?
NEW YORK – What makes a Great American Novel? Which books deserve to be called classics? You may think of the books you read in school, like F.
Raskin helps Belgium stage comeback to book last-16 place
Rangers midfielder Nicolas Raskin helped inspire Belgium to a dramatic fightback from 2-0 down to defeat Senegal and book a place in the last 16 of the World Cup. The Belgians were trailing to goals from Diarra and Sar when Belgium head coach Rudi Garcia threw on Raskin and Dodi Lukebakio for Kevin de Bruyne and Jeremy Doku after 55 minutes at Seattle Stadium.
Apple Is Reportedly Planning A Visual Refresh Of The Entry-Level MacBook Pro Next Year
Next spring could be a fiesta of new iPads, MacBooks and iPhones.
Apple Readies New iPad Pro, Redesigned Entry MacBook Pro for 2027
Apple Inc. is preparing an upgraded iPad Pro line and a redesigned entry-level MacBook Pro for next year, adding to a slate of several other major new products planned for the iPhone’s 20th anniversary year.
Securitize Completes Business Combination with Cantor Equity Partners II
/PRNewswire/ -- Securitize Corp. ("Securitize"), the world's leading tokenization platform with over $4 billion in assets brought onchain, today announced the...
Trump's crypto earnings far outpace the businesses he spent decades building
NPR's Scott Detrow talks with Bernard Condon of the AP about how President Trump and his family raked in more than a billion dollars last year through crypto ventures.
Landlocked Colorado’s sea-change primary
Colorado’s primary elections held in the doldrums of early summer tend to be routine affairs, most often predictable and by the book. Tuesday’s battlefield was anything but. It is no exaggeration to call it a sea change. Its ripples will shape our state’s politics for many years to come. Writing on this morning after, let’s […]
Victor Willis, who co-founded the Village People and co-wrote 'Y.M.C.A.,' dies
The group announced his death on Facebook, citing "a short but aggressive illness"
Victor Willis, who co-founded the Village People and co-wrote 'Y.M.C.A.,' dies
The group announced his death on Facebook, citing "a short but aggressive illness"
Victor Willis, who co-founded the Village People and co-wrote 'Y.M.C.A.,' dies
The group announced his death on Facebook, citing "a short but aggressive illness"
New Scientist recommends an unsettling deep dive into forensic science
Esteemed forensic anthropologist Sue Black gives a candid insight into the UK criminal justice system and how it really works in her book An Expert Witness, finds Linda Geddes
Sony will cease production of discs for new PlayStation games in 2028
New games sold for PlayStation consoles will only be available digitally and won’t be sold on discs effective January 2028, Sony has announced. The move applies to all PlayStation games released from that point on, including those made by Sony and those released by third parties. The PlayStation group calls the change “a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” according to a PlayStation blog post reviewed by Game File in advance of its publication. As movies, TV and music have shifted from physical media to an age of downloads and streaming, Sony’s move could speed the demise of physical media in a gaming. The industry has offered consumers games via cartridges, cassettes, floppy discs, CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays across a 50-year stretch. Sony has been reporting to investors in recent years that PlayStation games have been increasingly purchased as downloads, not as discs. The most recent figures show nearly four in five purchases of full games for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 were purchased digitally in the past year. Stats like that may cause today’s news to carry an air of the inevitable. But Sony’s declaration for 2028 is still likely to produce a shock, as the biggest gaming platform on the planet that uses game discs leaves them behind. Discs going away, but the fate of game boxes is unknown Sony is committing to still selling games in physical retailers even after they drop discs in 2028. Just how those games will be sold—in boxes with codes inside, as cards marked with digital redemption codes—is unclear. Digital games will also continue to be sold in the online PlayStation Store. New games released for PlayStation consoles prior to January 2028 will be unaffected by the policy change, Sony says. That means the PS5 games of 2027, be they a new Madden, a new God of War, a new Call of Duty, a new Sly Cooper (one can dream?), would still potentially be offered on disc. PlayStation 6 implications Sony’s timeline for a transition to a no-disc era will also spin up more speculation about the timing and configuration of Sony’s next-generation console, the probable PlayStation 6. “This pretty much guarantees that PS6 won’t arrive until 2028 at the earliest,” Piers Harding-Rolls, senior games research analyst at Ampere Analysis tells Game File. Harding-Rolls also concludes from today’s news that “the base version of a PS6 will not include a physical media drive,” as Sony looks to keep costs down on the device. Sony itself is saying nothing about the PS6 today: not its timing, nor how it might or might not support internal or external disc drives in order to run disc-based PS4 and PS5 games, should the console be backwards compatible. The many signs this was coming Industry support for games being released on physical media has been waning. As has consumer interest in them. PC games effectively went all-digital years ago, thanks to the popularity of playing games through Steam and other digital storefronts. The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that kept much of the global population home helped shift shopping patterns toward downloads. Sony’s own data shows PlayStation game downloads being an uncommon consumer choice a decade ago and now becoming the norm. On consoles, physical media has been in such decline that Sony and Microsoft both launched their current gen Xbox Series and PS5 consoles in 2020 with cheaper versions that lacked disc drives. In early 2024, Phil Spencer, then head of Xbox, told me that ““[w]e ship games physically and digitally, and we’re really just following what the customers are doing.” He added that the game industry had become an outlier in still supporting disc-based entertainment, even as movies and TV have bailed on discs in favor of downloads and steaming: “Gaming consoles themselves have kind of become the last consumer electronic device that has a drive. And this is a real issue, just in terms of the number of manufacturers that are actually building drives and the cost associated with those. And when you think about cogs that we’re going to go put in a console—and as you have fewer suppliers and fewer buyers—the cost of the drive does have an impact.” Last year, the Nintendo’s Switch 2, which uses cartridges rather than discs, introduced the concept of game-key cards, which are physical media that contain no game, just a prompt for a download. Even disc-based games aren’t what they once were, now frequently containing just stubs of games rather than the whole thing. The website Does It Play has tested over 3000 games and found that, for example, that the disc version of this year’s hit 007: First Light, only contained the game’s first mission, with the rest needing to be downloaded. Beyond all that, last week brought the news that Grand Theft Auto VI, likely the biggest game launch this decade, will debut for PS5 and Xbox Series without a disc-based version. Today’s big news comes to you for free. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and ensure more of my work is possible, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Discs helped define PlayStation However the trends in entertainment may be going, it is still remarkable to see PlayStation ditch discs given their importance in PlayStation history: In the late 1990s, the first PlayStation’s support for games on relatively cheap CD-ROMs instead of traditional game cartridges allowed the upstart console to outmaneuver cartridge-based systems from Nintendo and Sega, as it drove down game prices down in the process. (The cheaper disc format even prompted Final Fantasy VII maker Square to taunt Nintendo in a magazine ad, saying that if the game was “available on cartridge, it’d retail for around $1200.”) PlayStation devices often doubled as machines for watching movies and TV on the latest disc-based formats. In the late 2000s, for example, Sony’s pricy PS3 gained traction as a go-to device for playing then-novel Blu-Ray discs. In 2013, Sony effectively roasted the digital game-sharing restrictions proposed by rival Microsoft for its upcoming Xbox One console by showing how games could be shared for the then-upcoming PS4. In a 21-second clip that has over 20 million views on YouTube, one PlayStation executive simply handed a game box—presumably with disc inside—to another, who said “thanks.” Sony’s possible motivations The PlayStation announcement today cites “consumer preferences” and a shift away from discs among “the broader entertainment industry,” but does not delve into the decision-making process that brought Sony to this point. Sony is not discussing the economics of this move (I asked!), but there are a number of potential factors: Abandoning discs will spare Sony the cost of manufacturing and shipping them, which analysts and industry veterans I spoke to said could account for $1 or so of a game’s retail price. For first-party games, that’s direct savings for Sony, though the amount is limited by the winnowing percentage of people who were even buying the disc-based versions. For third-party games, Sony could pass the savings on to partners or just retain the better profit margin for themselves. As the 2024 comments from Phil Spencer alluded to, leaving discs behind could mean leaving disc-drives behind, allowing Sony to produce consoles more cheaply. Switching to digital-only for games could diminish the risks of copies of new games leaking. It would also seemingly make second-hand sales of used games impossible, pushing more people to buy their own copies of games. These economic benefits for Sony could be boons for the games industry overall, Ampere analyst Piers Harding-Rolls tells Game File. Among other things, it could free publishers and retailers from having to worry about securing an inventory of game discs when trying to sell games, he noted. “If there is a way to streamline the business of games retail, I generally think it’s a good thing for the industry as it removes unnecessary costs,” Harding-Rolls said. “This will help offset pressure on margins from other directions – development and staffing costs for example.” Should the industry shift from game boxes that contain discs to smaller, cheaper game cards, Harding-Rolls said, that reduces pressure on publishers and retailers. “The advantage of everything going digital for the industry is that sales can be tracked much more easily and there is less commercial risk for publishers wanting to continue selling via retail,” he said. The shift to no discs will also likely impact game development timelines, as developers will no longer face the same urgency to have a build ready to submit to PlayStation for the production of a disc, as industry experts noted around GTA VI’s no-disc news last week. Instead, projects may gain weeks of development time, in the event delivery deadlines for platform approval move closer to release date. Preservationists’ likely worries While millions of gamers have shifted to digital, there are still people who associate game discs—and only game discs—with actual ownership of PlayStation games. That portion of the gaming community spoke up last week about wanting to buy a version of GTA VI that they could hold in their hands, could lend to a friend and could potentially pop into a well-preserved PS5 console three decades from now and still see it run. Such gamers didn’t want to worry that they’d merely purchased a digital copy that could lose access to the game if, say, the company behind the game someday turns of the servers that transmit downloadable copies. Digital copies of games are inherently less long-lasting, because consumers aren’t actually buying a game (on a disc), just buying access to the game. The fine print in online gaming shops notes this, as does a recent law that went on the books in California in 2025. That lasw requires game publishers doing business in the state to refrain from words like “sell” when offering digital copies of games, unless they explicitly tell consumers that what’s being sold isn’t the game itself but a potentially revocable license to access it. A Sony spokesperson noted to Game File that “[w]ith all digital content, including games, movies, and music, players are purchasing a personal license for non-commercial use.” Regarding the fears of PlayStation games being lost to time in an all-digital era, the rep also noted that Sony remains “committed to delivering experiences from past generations to the new platforms our players are using.” They noted that PlayStation has used emulation and remasters to keep offering its classic games to modern gamers. It’s true that many consumers have become accustomed to not having physical copies of new music albums or movies, but the relative precariousness of digital copies of games is in fact being highlighted today by…. Sony’s other big announcement: the upcoming closure of the PS3 and PS Vita online stores Sony said today that it will be closing the online marketplaces for its PlayStation 3 console and PS Vita handheld in most countries in July 2027 (sooner elsewhere: August 2026 for the PS3 store Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua; late 2026 for PS3 in other Latin American countries and the Middle East). “We know this news may be disappointing to PS3 and PS Vita players who hold a special place in their hearts for this generation of gaming,” Sony said in its announcement, saying the move “was not an easy decision for us to make.” Sony said that PS3 and Vita marketplaces “are no longer able” to support modern commerce systems, prompting a “need” to close the shops and focus on more modern PlayStation platform stores. The news may spark some deja vu. Sony announced back in March 2021 that it planned to take the PS3, Vita and PlayStation Portable marketplaces offline that summer. The move would have caused some 2,000 digital-only games to become unavailable for new purchasers, according to a VGC analysis at the time. Fans complained loudly. By April 2021, Sony walked back the PS3 and Vita shop closures, with then PlayStation boss Jim Ryan saying “it’s clear that we made the wrong decision here.” This time around, Sony is giving a longer notice period in most regions. The closure of those stores is still likely to cut off access to new purchases of digital-only PS3 and Vita games. The current PlayStation 5 marketplace sells PS5 and PS4 games, as well as a selection of PS1 and PS2 games. It does not sell PS3 games, because games for that platform can’t run on the system (some are offered via a PlayStation Plus streaming option). Vita games also aren’t sold via PS5. Sony says digitally purchased PS3 and Vita games will be downloadable after the stores’ shutdowns “for the foreseeable future.” Sony’s move contrasts with Microsoft’s Xbox platform, which continues to sell and support games from all four Xbox console generations. But it puts it in line with Nintendo, which disabled purchases in the marketplace for its Wii console (a contemporary of the PS3) in 2019. Nintendo discontinued purchases in the online shop for its 3DS portable (a contemporary of the Vita) in 2023. The big questions about Sony’s 2028 post-disc era Will Microsoft follow suit, ending support for new disc-based games on Xbox platforms and therefore all game consoles, too? Whether Microsoft does or not, will third-parties that can no longer release games on discs for PlayStation, simply ditch the disc options across the board? Given the GTA VI no-disc experiment launching this November, will more game publishers decide to forgo disc-based offerings even in 2027? How will no-disc PS5/6 games be packaged and sold in brick-and-mortar retail stores? What becomes of game sharing in an all-digital era? Will Sony modify its current set-up, which currently allows some sharing of digital games across a pair of consoles, to allow more casual lending? (See for example, Nintendo’s year-old system of letting players lend a digital game to another player in a “family group” for up to 14 days.) Will there be a version of a PS6 with a disc drive? Or will a drive be offered as an add-on? And how will gamers who want to retain access to PS4/PS5 disc-based games react to whichever configurations Sony chooses to offer? What will the final disc-based PlayStation game be?
LG LIGHTS UP FOURTH OF JULY SAVINGS ACROSS HOME ENTERTAINMENT AND APPLIANCES
Limited-Time Fourth of July Deals Available on Select LG OLED TVs, Gaming Monitors, Refrigerators, Dishwashers, Vacuums, Laptops and Audio Products News...
University of Phoenix to launch three-year Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice Administration for experienced professionals
/PRNewswire/ -- University of Phoenix announces today that it has received approval from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), hlcommission.org, to launch its...
Urban Aftermath Books to close storefront after 11 years in business
Owner Hassan Elminyawi said the bookshop will be closing on Sunday.
MD lawmaker's historic journey unfolds in book that's part autobiography, part political memoir
Maryland lawmaker, Lily Qi, writes about her journey from China to the US and into state politics in a book that's part autobiography, part political memoir
Sun Belt Conference Officially Welcomes Louisiana Tech
FOLLOW THE SUN | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | PRIMARY X | FOOTBALL X
Simpler lung cancer screening criteria could capture more patients likely to benefit
New research published in JAMA Internal Medicine compared current USPSTF criteria to a potential shift toward total years smoked, rather than pack years.
85% of hospitals experienced ‘vendor disruption’ in last year, as most brace for cyberattack inevitability, report shows
An analysis from cybersecurity consultancy group Omega Systems reveals that most healthcare practices place too much trust in their third-party vendors to secure patient data, neglecting their own IT systems in the process.
219 Taproom in Chesterton unveils their JULY LINE-UP for Entertainment
Stop by 219 TAPROOM in Chesterton for WONDERFUL Food, Service, Fun and Entertainment. Check out their Family-Friendly Atmosphere and stay up to date with the latest by LIKING their FACEBOOK page. Service options: Outdoor seating · Live music · Trivia night. Their address is 109 S 3rd St, in Chesterton. Call (219) 728-1381. #wims #whfb #chesterton #duneland
Wilmington Small Business Coalition: Building Momentum in 2026 by Heather McWhorter
This article was contributed by Lydia Thomas, UNCW CIE Program Manager. North Carolina continues to be one of the best states to start a business and in 2025, Wilmington, North Carolina earned a spot on the GoDaddy list of the top 10 most entrepreneurial cities in the U.S. While many know Wilmington as small beach town with exceptional food, lots of coffee shops, and fun, vibrant summer activities, a closer look reveals a thriving innovation economy. You’ll find startups emerging across industries including software, healthtech, bluetech, and fintech. At the core of this entrepreneurial ecosystem is the Wilmington Small Business Coalition, with small business advocates and entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) dedicated to helping founders grow, thrive, and succeed. “No Wrong Door” Established in 2016, the Coalition was designed to make it easier for individuals and small businesses to access resources most suited to their particular needs. The Coalition is designed to have a “no wrong door” entryway into the regional startup ecosystem. Whether you are exploring a new idea sketched on the back of a napkin or leading a more established, growth-stage company, Coalition members can help connect you with the programs, funding opportunities, mentors, and resources best suited to your needs. No matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey, any Coalition organization can help point you in the right direction. Coalition Members and Leadership Coalition members include the UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (UNCW CIE), AARP, Brunswick Community College Small Business Center, Cape Fear Community College Small Business Center, Cape Fear Region SCORE, Genesis Block Foundation, Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington (NEW), Small Business & Technology Development Center (SBTDC), Greater Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, YWCA Living the Dream Center for Entrepreneurship, Carolina Community Impact Fund (CCI Fund), Partner Community Capital, 717mkt Office Collaborative, NC Biotech, and Institute NC. In May 2026, the Coalition held its leadership elections, resulting in the selection of a new executive team. The following officers were elected to serve two-year terms: Chair: Lydia Thomas, UNCW CIE Vice Chair: Diane Lantz, CCI Fund Secretary: Aariene Hansley, Genesis Block Foundation Treasurer: Gloria Monroe, SBTDC Vision for the Wilmington Small Business Coalition In 2026, the Wilmington Small Business Coalition continues its work as a collaborative network of organizations. By connecting programs, expertise, and services across partner organizations, entrepreneurs can more easily find the right support at the right time. Rather than operating in silos, the Coalition aims to function as a unified, cohesive system of support for small businesses and entrepreneurs, ensuring that resources and expertise across partner organizations are visible and accessible. Through stronger collaboration and shared pathways, entrepreneurs can move more seamlessly from idea to startup to growth. Looking to dive into the Wilmington entrepreneurial ecosystem? Connect with any of the Coalition partners to get started! Connect with CIE To learn more about CIE and our services, programs, and events, join the CIE newsletter. You can also follow us on social media: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, or YouTube. CIE’s website is uncw.edu/cie. Heather McWhorter is the director of the UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE). CIE supports innovation-forward start-ups and helps to build a vibrant innovation economy for all in southeast NC.
Magomed ‘Chanco’ Zaynukov finally books UFC debut for next month
Magomed Zaynukov faces off against a fellow undefeated prospect at UFC Abu Dhabi
Kathie Lee Gifford admits she 'wanted to die' after misdiagnosis and multiple surgeries for chronic pain
Kathie Lee Gifford reveals she was misdiagnosed for a year and treated for a spinal issue before doctors discovered her hip had deteriorated to "ash."
I asked strangers to let me farm their yards. They said yes
Marisa Mender-Franklin built a flower business after dozens of neighbors offered free yard space through Facebook.
NotebookLM adding Short Video Overviews with Nano Banana 2 Lite
Google today announced Nano Banana 2 Lite and preview availability of Gemini Omni Flash, as well as NotebookLM Short Video Overviews.
Texas Democrats unite behind their slate of candidates, but some hurdles remain
Texas Democrats courted national attention with speakers such as New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Authentic Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Care Bears, Expanding Its Entertainment Platform Into Character IP
/PRNewswire/ -- Authentic Brands Group ("Authentic"), a global brand and entertainment platform, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to...
The John Rogers Contrarian Playbook: How Envista, MSG Entertainment, and Smucker Stack Up for Retirement Investors
John Rogers built his fortune hunting unloved stocks that the market abandoned too soon, but three of his favorite contrarian bets look very different when filtered through the lens of retirement income and low volatility.
3M joins Cadillac Formula 1® Team as Official Material Science Partner to accelerate racing performance
/PRNewswire/ -- The Cadillac Formula 1® Team and 3M today announced a multi-year global partnership to push the limits of innovation in the world's toughest...
DR Congo health workers battle Ebola despite scant protection
In Ituri, DR Congo's Ebola epicenter, overwhelmed clinics and a lack of protective gear leave health workers exposed as the outbreak spreads beyond control.
Top GLP-1 prescription indications include sleep apnea, depression and kidney disease, study finds
A report from Trilliant Health looking at payer data found that, as prescriptions for the popular weight loss drugs spike, so rises the number of approved benefits.
A Political Pulpit for Me but Not for Thee
A final book from Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann is characteristically convicting and vivid—but myopic about his progressive politics.
AI cuts hospital system's MRI wait times by more than 50%
The health network, which operates 37 hospitals in California, drastically reduced scheduling delays after integrating an FDA-cleared algorithm designed to speed up imaging acquisition times.
Future OLED Macs and iPads could support a much wider color gamut, per report
As Apple gears up to bring OLED to the Mac, a new TrendForce report looks at the wider color gamut reportedly planned for future MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and iMac displays.
A New Playbook: State-Driven Solutions for Resilient Health Data
Health equity depends on data equity: the representation of communities in the data used to identify disparities, target interventions, and hold systems accountable.
Watch out, Amazon: the Kobo eReader now has a Goodreads rival
Kobo users can now automatically sync their reading progress to StoryGraph, making it easier to track books, reading stats, and challenges without relying on Amazon’s Goodreads.
MacBook Ultra rumors: What to expect including the touchscreen, chips, release date and more
Apple's rumored touchscreen MacBook may launch soon, here's what to expect.
Red-Pilling Speculation | Los Angeles Review of Books
From Ayn Rand to QAnon, a new anthology explores how reactionary world-building becomes reactionary world-making.
Amorepacific Highlights Science-Led K-Beauty Innovation at NYSCC
/PRNewswire/ -- Amorepacific is reinforcing its science-led approach to K-beauty in the U.S. through engagements with the New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists...
Apple Plans Wider Color Gamut for Future MacBook Pro, iMac, and iPad Pro
Apple plans to adopt OLED panels capable of displaying a much wider range of colors, according to a new report from research firm TrendForce. The new panels would cover 95% of the BT.2020 color standard, which describes a far broader spectrum of colors than the DCI-P3 standard Apple's screens currently target. In practice, that means deeper, more accurate reds, greens, and blues.
London Theatre Company, Including Bridge Theatre, Sold to Trafalgar Entertainment
The company has hosted recent revivals of Into the Woods and Guys and Dolls .
Movies, books, art and music to explore as America turns 250
As America celebrates 250 years, we size up how it’s been portrayed in, and has shaped, what we watch, listen to and read.
Something Is Very Wrong with Modern Longevity Science
A new book argues that many of the world’s oldest people aren’t so old after all.
Help start the conversation on mental health
A new guide from the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center is helping healthcare providers start meaningful conversations about mental health during routine visits.
Tilak Varma enters unwanted record books after slowest-ever...
Tilak Varma's resilient half-century was a lone bright spot for India in their narrow one-run loss to Ireland, despite becoming one of the slowest Indian fifties in T20Is. Walking in during a top-order collapse, Varma battled tough conditions to reach his milestone. Ultimately, Ireland secured a historic series win, ending India's impressive streak.
It’s the End of an Era for Xbox Game Pass, According to a New Report
A new Xbox Game Pass report has warned it is about to be the end of an era for the Microsoft subscription service.
RedMagic officially confirms global launch of flagship OLED tablet
RedMagic has confirmed the Astra 2 as its next flagship gaming tablet. The device will arrive as the international version of the China-bound RedMagic Gaming Tablet 5 Pro, which is confirmed to feature a 185Hz OLED display and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset.
‘Color Book’: An exquisite character piece
Strong performances anchor this memorable indie drama
Galaxy Z's days are apparently numbered: Accessories point to a very unusual name for Samsung's iPhone Ultra competitor
At first, it was called the Galaxy Z Wide Fold or the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide, then—according to generally reliable sources—simply the Galaxy Z Fold8. Now a fourth name has surfaced for the compact and wider iPhone Ultra alternative, that Samsung will unveil on July 22 alongside the updated Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. However, as authentic as these images seem to be, there are doubts.
Rep. Jahana Hayes released from hospital after health scare
Representative Jahana Hayes has been released from the hospital after a health scare last week. In a video posted to Facebook on Sunday, she said she was leaving St. Mary’s Hospital where she was admitted for the last two days. “On Friday, I felt like I was dizzy while shopping, I was out getting phones at the mall and felt…
Office Politics Has A Playbook. Here Is What Psychologists Know.
Office politics is a blood sport and the most talented people keep losing. Psychologists say three traits separate the winners from everyone else.
France, Argentina top World Cup odds; U.S. puts sportsbooks at risk
Star-powered France and Argentina top the odds board to win the World Cup as the tournament moves into the knockout stage, while the United States' positive momentum will have sportsbooks sweating more with each game it wins.
Americans find common ground on healthcare
Americans agree that healthcare needs to be better, cheaper, and less complicated. Good ideas toward those goals are bubbling up around the country.
The New York Knicks keep the ‘Cupid Shuffle’ stepping: Herman Fuselier
From NBA championships to the Guinness Book of World Records, Cupid shuffles on.
What watching a sunset can do for your brain
Humans appear to see sunrises and sunsets "almost like bookends". Here's what a daily dose of golden hour can do for our memory, sleep and mood.
Belkin launches new 14-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 dock with 140W charging and triple 4K display support
Belkin has launched a 14-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 Dock in China priced at 2,299 yuan (approximately $338). The Belkin dock ships with a 180W adapter and 1m cable and delivers 140W USB Power Delivery over a single Thunderbolt 5 connection, with bandwidth scaling from 80Gbps to 120Gbps for high-resolution display use. Belkin briefly listed the dock on its global website at $350 before removing the page, hinting at a global launch.
Read Michener’s ‘Centennial’
If you’ve been reading my columns, you’ve noticed I’m basically illiterate. I blame my dyslexia and public education, but my Olympic-level laziness could be the driving factor. Anyway, I basically can’t read (and, still, I graduated from CU Boulder, so another endorsement of public higher education). So, for me to recommend a book is like […]
2026 World Cup Betting Report: 'USA Is By Far Our Worst Result In The Book'
There's no way around it: The USA making a deep run at the World Cup would be a horrendous result for sportsbooks. Patrick Everson reports.
MacBook Retail Sales Challenged By Apple Silicon Legacy
The extended lifespan of first-generation M1 MacBooks is impacting retail sales of the newer AI-focused MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops.
Saturday Sports: The World Cup enters knockout stage; Serena returns to Wimbledon
NPR's Scott Simon and sportswriter Howard Bryant have a World Cup knockout stage preview and discuss Serena Williams' return to Wimbledon.
Week in Politics: Trump and bipartisan housing bill, John Bolton; Democratic socialists
President Trump canceled a signing for major housing legislation, former National Security Advisor John Bolton pled guilty to mishandling classified documents, and Democratic Socialists made gains.
So many colorful Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 bands leaked ahead of launch
Anyone opting for the new Galaxy Watch9 or the redesigned Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 after July 22 will be spoiled for choice. Lots and lots of watch bands in different styles and colors will be available from Samsung at launch, as roughly 60 images leaked in advance shows.
Colorado Politics Calendar June 29-July 5
CoPo’s weekly political calendar will help you find political and public-policy events throughout Colorado. It includes candidate and issue campaign events, public policy meetings, court hearings, state and local party conventions, assemblies, debates, rallies, parades, speaking engagements, traveling dignitary appearances, water meetings, book signings, county commission hearings, city council meetings and more. As a subscriber, […]
Apple A20 Pro motherboard leak hints at notable memory and packaging upgrades
A leaked package layout of Apple's A20 Pro hints at several notable upgrades for the iPhone 18 Pro series. The next-gen SoC is said to feature a wider 96-bit memory interface, a redesigned packaging approach for improved thermals, and a larger Neural Processing Unit (NPU).
Just 2 Hours of Strength Training May Lower Heart Disease Risk in Women
Researchers say that just 2 hours of weekly strength training may help lower the risk of cardiovascular disease in women, especially when paired with 150 minutes of weekly aerobic exercise.
Author Meg Cabot says she's read the 'Princess Diaries 3' script 'and it was amazing'
Meg Cabot, author of the 'Princess Diaries' book series, says she's read the script for 'The Princess Diaries 3' starring Anne Hathaway and it's 'amazing.'
‘Pineapple Days’ sidewalk sale draws business to Lincoln stores amid downtown construction
Cinnamon Dokken, owner of A Novel Idea Bookstore, said it was named for the Lemon Days sidewalk sales that many businesses around Lincoln used to do, instead using pineapples.
AI-generated knockoffs of Joanna Stern’s book keep appearing on Apple Books
In a video published on YouTube Shorts today, Joanna Stern called out Apple over AI-generated knockoffs of her book that continue to appear on Apple Books.
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.
Is the No Surprises Act working? Government watchdog is uncertain
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it needs more data to determine what savings the 2020 law is bringing to the U.S. healthcare system—but early data indicate it falls short of expectations.
Americans keep poisoning themselves with semaglutide, other weight loss drugs
These incidents became much more common after the FDA started approving GLP-1 drugs for chronic weight management in 2021.
Health system CEO fired without cause in wake of class-action lawsuit over unnecessary surgeries
Reese Jackson, the former president and CEO of Chesapeake Regional Healthcare was unceremoniously dismissed from his role on June 1. Jackson has been named as a defendant in a pending class-action lawsuit filed by 900 women.
MacBook Ultra and new MacBook Pro both launching this fall, per rumors
Apple’s high-end MacBook plans are coming into focus after recent Bloomberg reports, including MacBook Ultra and a new M6 MacBook Pro.
A new “Supergirl”, the end of “The Bear”, and a fisherman thriller top this week's Must List
Book of Love's 40th anniversary album and "Dad Don't Read This" round out our picks for the weekend of June 26.
Sports books see surge in Missouri World Cup betting
Sports gambling activity is up this month in Missouri with Kansas City hosting six FIFA World Cup matches.
Apple's OLED 'MacBook Ultra' Will Stick With M5 Pro and M5 Max Chips
Apple's upcoming high-end MacBook model featuring an OLED touchscreen display will use the company's current M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The new, top-of-the-line device will launch "between late this year and early next year," Gurman said, adopting the existing high-end Apple silicon chips rather than next-generation M6 versions.
Apple’s Touch MacBook to Use M5 Pro and Max Chips, With M7 Models to Follow
Apple Inc.’s first-ever touch-screen laptop will rely on the company’s current high-end M5 chips, rather than next-generation silicon, though the company is working on a follow-up model with future M7 processors.
How PENN’s US$360 Million Aurora Resort Shift At PENN Entertainment (PENN) Has Changed Its Investment Story
PENN Entertainment has opened the US$360 million Hollywood Casino and Hotel Aurora, replacing its former Fox River riverboat with a 388,500-square-foot, 24/7 land-based resort featuring over 1,000 slots, 50 table games, a sportsbook, 226-room hotel, spa, event center, and extensive dining options. The Aurora project, which created around 700 permanent roles and mirrors PENN’s broader shift into higher-amenity land-based properties, highlights how the company is reinvesting heavily to refresh...
Securitize and Cantor Equity Partners II Business Combination Expected to Raise Approximately $400 million in Gross Proceeds and Announce Expected Closing of Business Combination and NYSE Listing
/PRNewswire/ -- Securitize, Inc. ("Securitize" or the "Company"), and Cantor Equity Partners II, Inc. (Nasdaq: CEPT) ("CEPT"), a publicly traded special...
‘The Hot Zone’ led me to work with Ebola patients. Now I have mixed feelings about the book
“The reality of Ebola is simultaneously less sensational and far more challenging than most people imagine,” writes Krutika Kuppalli.
I obsess over PCs for a living. Here are the 28 best Prime Day laptop and computer deals
Prime Day is officially into Day 4, and our computing expert found some great deals on laptops and computers you can get right now.
Best Prime Day laptop deals: Save up to $970 on MacBooks, Windows PCs
Laptops are very expensive these days. These discounts help.
Clinicians are making more money despite stagnant reimbursement. Guess how?
Compensation for healthcare providers rose some 4.3% in 2025. The sobering news is that the gain owes more to heavier daily workloads than to bigger per-patient billings.
Tempo's Marina Mabrey ties WNBA records with 53 points and 9 3-pointers in rout of Sparks
Mabrey joins A'ja Wilson and Liz Cambage in the record books.
It's Xbox's turn (again), as console prices keep going up
Microsoft announced a price hike for the Xbox Series consoles today, the third in little over a year. Effective August 1, the Xbox Series S, which launched in 2020 for $300, will cost $500 in the U.S. The Xbox Series X, which launched in 2020 at $500, will go for $800. This follows a round of PlayStation 5 price increases from Sony this spring, and a slow-motion increase for Nintendo’s Switch 2, which will kick in in the U.S. in September. (Mind you, there were also eight video game industry price hikes in six months of 2025). The chart up top shows the sudden ascent of console prices over the past year, a sudden surge in an already unusual hardware generation. Prices had been flat for years, now “up” is the new “flat.” Game console prices used to go down across the length of a console generation, but not this time around. Microsoft’s explanation for the new price hike today: We hoped another price increase would not be necessary, and we have spent the last several months working with suppliers on options. Unfortunately, console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027. The entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles. Unlike phones, computers, speakers, and other consumer devices, consoles are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make. This is an issue well beyond game consoles. Apple announced price hikes on its computers and tablets today as well. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Item 2: Brutal Bungie cuts Bungie laid off “most” of its Destiny development team and some developers who worked on Marathon, the newest game from the struggling Sony-owned studio. A WARN notice issued by Sony to Washington State, where Bungie is based, tallied cuts impacting 292 workers, effective next month. That’s strictly for Bungie/Sony jobs in Washington and wouldn’t account for any elsewhere. The video I clipped below shows the redacted list of Bungie cuts filed to Washington State officials. As you’ll see, I had to scroll for a while… In a note emailed to PlayStation workers and published online, PlayStation game studios chief Hermen Hulst offered the following explanation for these latest cuts at Bungie: This is painful news, especially for talented colleagues whose roles have been eliminated. This decision was made only after extensive discussion and careful consideration, and I want to provide some context on how we arrived here. Over the past several months, together with Bungie leadership, we reviewed the studio’s long-term direction, development priorities, resource needs, and role within our broader portfolio strategy. We explored multiple alternatives before concluding that a reduction was necessary to align the studio’s resources with its current priorities and long-term goals. In 2022, Sony bought Bungie for $3.7 billion. The studio’s marquee game, the multiplayer live service shooter Destiny 2 was losing popularity at the time. Its next game Marathon, released earlier this year, has been well-reviewed but had a slow start. Bungie is renowned for making great shooter games, and Destiny fans have mourned the wind-down of Destiny 2. They’ve also expressed bewilderment over reports that Destiny 3 is not, per Bloomberg, immediately in the cards.
This Is Probably Your Last Chance to Buy a Cheap MacBook for a While
Apple has dramatically jacked up the price of MacBooks, making the current Prime Day pricing that much more enticing.
JD Vance claims Diddy is 'not a Christian' after federal conviction
Sean "Diddy" Combs might have scored a reference in Vice President JD Vance's new book, but the politician is not eager to associate himself with the imprisoned music mogul.
M6 MacBook Pro Expected This Year With Apple's First 2nm Chip
Apple could launch an updated base model 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M6 chip as soon as this year, reports Bloomberg. There could also be M6 chip updates for the Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook Air, but Apple is testing an M6 MacBook Pro. Apple plans to introduce the M6 in late 2026, and for the first time, it will be a standalone chip. Apple is not working on M6 Pro or M6 Max chips, and will hold off on higher-end chip options until the M7 series launches in 2027.
“Vampire Diaries” stars Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley reuniting for “You Deserve to Know” series at Hulu
The actors will star in and executive produce the upcoming show being adapted from the book of the same name.
'Vampire Diaries' stars Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley reuniting for Hulu series 'You Deserve to Know'
'Vampire Diaries' stars Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley are re-teaming for the upcoming Hulu series 'You Deserve to Know,' adapted from the book of the same name.
Inside Trump’s plans for retribution and other lesser-known allegations in ‘Regime Change’
A new book from two Washington reporters reveals what took place inside the White House after President Donald Trump’s return to power.
Neuroimaging utilization in emergency departments has increased year-over-year for a decade
Researchers believe their new data could be used to better inform staffing coverage in modern radiology departments.
Shockwave Medical announces new studies evaluating carotid IVL platform
Carotid artery disease causes up to 30% of all strokes, but severely calcified lesions can make treatment quite complex. The hope is that IVL can be as successful in this area as it has been in the treatment of coronary and peripheral artery disease.
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.
This week in science: Exoplanetary salt clouds, ancient families and laughter's origin
Hosts from NPR's science podcast Short Wave talk about an exoplanet with pink, salty clouds, the surprising social structure of ancient human relatives and the origins of laughter.
These Churches Are Putting Family Before Politics
Close to 70 percent of Black children in America are born to unmarried parents. Nearly half live with a single mother. Both figures are significantly higher than the national average and reflect the steep decline in marriage among African Americans since the 1960s.