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The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation has announced its 2026 awardees , providing 15-month mentored research experiencesfor basic research in the chemistry and life sciences.



The awards total over $2.1 million in funding for 84 undergraduate Beckman Scholars at the following 14 institutions:

SUNY Binghamton
Bowdoin College
Butler University
Emory University
Harvey Mudd College
Pomona College
San Jose State University
St. Olaf College
Syracuse University
University of Arkansas
UCLA
University of Cincinnati
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Penn

Colorectal cancer, cancer of the colon and rectum, is the third most common form of cancer in the world and has the second highest mortality rate. When caught early enough, it is usually treated with surgery, radiation or chemotherapy, methods that can have significant side effects.

A new study highlights a fourth way, one the researchers hope could have fewer side effects. They found that a purified toxin secreted by cholera bacteria can slow the growth of colorectal cancer and has not shown any side effects. It worked by  changing the immune microenvironment in tumors.

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Diabetic foot infections are a serious complications of diabetes and a leading cause of lower-limb amputation but little is known about the specific pathogens involved in these chronic foot infections, particularly E. coli, despite its frequent detection in clinical samples.

A new genomic characterization of E. coli strains isolated directly from diabetic foot ulcers across multiple continents may help explain why some infections become difficult to treat and lead to severe, even life-threatening, outcomes. The team analyzed whole-genome sequences from 42 E. coli strains isolated from infected diabetic foot ulcers in patients from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas and sequenced the complete DNA of each bacterial strain.

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The concept of “hard work v privilege”, and what either one says about someone’s social status, is an important one.

Politicians regularly draw dividing lines between “hardworking families” and those receiving “handouts”. Others distinguish between those whose wealth increases while they sleep, and small business owners who work hard for their incomes.

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A fundamental component of my research work is the close collaboration with a large number of scientists from all around the world. This is the result of the very large scale of the experiments that are necessary to investigate the structure of matter at the smallest distance scales: building and operating those machines to collect the data and analyze it requires scientists to team up in large numbers - and this builds connections, cooperation, and long-time acquaintance; and in some cases, friendship.

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In 1902, President Teddy Roosevelt instructed his US Department of Agriculture to create a set of nutrition guidelines for a population that was gaining increased access to more foods, thanks to railways, but were more and more often in cities.

Wilbur Olin Atwater, Ph.D., did just that, and it was great, and we could have stopped there. Yet that is not the way of government. His recommendations were entirely sensible. Think about calories first. Eat meat and vegetables, limit fatty and carbohydrate foods. It was immensely popular but popularity breeds jealousy and now a desire by scholars to 'make their mark on history' and feel proud they have changed the world every five years.

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Vaccines are getting American media attention now that Republicans are engaging in misinformation the way Democrats did for decades, but there has long been a war on the pharmaceutical and medical communities.

When the HPV vaccine was first rolled out, progressives began the conspiracy theory that it was due to the Vioxx settlement by Merck. Vaccines did not have the same "accountability" (read: predatort lawyers being able to sue and win if they just convince a jury a product may have caused problems) so they created products like Gardasil to claw back their revenue.(1)

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For decades, health care costs have been a political topic in America. Advocates argue it is the best in the world, wealthy people from countries where it is nationalized travel to the United States for elite care, while critics argue it is too expensive and that creates socioeconomic barriers.

Political advocates on both sides always want to be reductionist - X causes Y - but a recent analysis shows it is never that simple. Norway has universal health care and yet 25 percent of new mothers do not attend a postnatal checkup. Even women with with co-morbidities or who endured high-risk pregnancies complications didn't go. The sample was 1,119 women in Nord-Trøndelag Regional Health Authority who gave birth within a year, of whom 351 responded.

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Today is, in Christian observance, Twelfth Night, the end of The 12 Days of Christmas in that song.(1) The Twelfth Night celebration ends Christmastide then tomorrow is Epiphany - the day when the Three Wise Men who saw the Star of Bethlehem during the birth of Jesus arrived after their journey.(2)

In modern times, today is also Divorce Day. Couples who vowed to just 'get through the holidays' split up the Monday after the weekend after New Year's Day. For Divorce Lawyers, Revenue Christmas commences when they return to the office on this day in 2026.

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I am writing this letter in the belief that the development of an artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a matter of when, and not if; and in the hope that this text will become a vaccination shot against unethical use of the AGI powers. It is a bit long, so if you want an executive summary, here goes: below I will try to argue that

an AGI should rationally reject narrow owner-aligned optimization in favor of stabilizing and integrating human civilization, because preserving and upgrading a complex biosphere is a higher-value strategy than exploitation or reset. 
Some clarifications on my assumptions

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