A collaborative ecosystem driving real-world innovation in cancer care
IMAGINE is designed as an open innovation lab, enabling clinicians, mathematicians, AI developers, imaging scientists, engineers, design experts and medtech companies to collaborate on real-world challenges. By working within a hospital environment, the consortium ensures that innovations are informed by real patient needs and can be safely and rapidly translated into practice.
The IMAGINE consortium unites a comprehensive group of partners from across the healthcare innovation ecosystem:
Academic and Research Institutions: UMC Utrecht, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital/Netherlands Cancer Institute, Radboudumc, Catharina Hospital, Eindhoven University of Technology, Utrecht University and its incubator UtrechtInc, and the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI).
Industry Partners: Philips, Elekta, KALCIO Healthcare, and Tesla Dynamic Coils.
Educational Institutions: Fontys University of Applied Sciences, University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, and The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
Together, these partners are advancing the development, validation, and clinical implementation of image-guided technologies to improve cancer care and future-proof the healthcare system.
Elon Musk has started multiple successful companies that have accomplished incredible technological feats. His latest ambition may be significantly more difficult to achieve: starting a new American political party for the masses.
Citing his disappointment in President Donald Trump and his massively expensive domestic policy bill, Musk said he would form the “America party” the day after the “Big, Beautiful Bill” passes, if Congress approves it. Musk has called Democrats and Republicans the “uniparty” because government deficits have risen dramatically under administrations and Congresses controlled by both parties. He says he wants to build a fiscally conservative party that reins in spending – although he’s presented few other details of what the party’s platform might be.
Experts in campaign finance and political science say there’s a reason no third party has ever truly successfully challenged America’s two-party system: It is financially and legally difficult to create a new party, and voters and candidates are hesitant to join.
“Third-party movements in the US have generally arisen out of some sort of set of deep-seated grievances,” Emory University political science professor Alan Abramowitz told CNN. “It was not just some wealthy person who’s decided they wanted to start a third party.”
It’s not clear how much if any preparation has been done to stand up the party. A spokesperson for Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, declined to comment.
A senior White House official brushed off Musk’s criticism of the bill. “No one really cares what he says anymore,” the source said.
Two Republicans close to the White House said that it was also unclear how Musk’s threats might play out in the midterm elections.
“Of course, members don’t want to be primaried,” one of the sources said. “It’s unclear if he’s actually going to get involved. A few weeks ago he apologized and called Trump.”
Musk may be the richest person on Earth, but he could also encounter some financial resistance himself. Former DOGE adviser and Trump supporter James Fishback said he is launching his own super PAC to counter Musk’s money in congressional races.
Fishback, who runs an investment firm, said he will provide $1 million in initial funding to the super PAC, which will be called FSD PAC, an abbreviation for Full Support for Donald.
He told CNN that the super PAC will work to back Trump’s agenda “and against anyone who threatens to sabotage that agenda,” including Musk.
American political parties are governed by laws and rules not just from the Federal Election Commission but also from the states, including around which parties can appear on ballots.
“The system is sort of set up to almost make it impossible for third parties to be successful,” Abramowitz said.
Funding a new party has its own hurdles. The McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2022 set strict limits on donations to political parties. The current limit is just under $450,000 spread across different party purposes. Musk would need thousands of co-donors to help him fund his party, said Lee Goodman, an attorney and former chair of the FEC.
“One very wealthy individual cannot capitalize a new national political party, the way he might start a business, because of federal contribution limits,” Goodman told CNN. “The prospect of a wealthy founder seed funding a national party to participate in federal elections around the country is not feasible in the current regulatory system.”
Bradley Smith, another former FEC chair and who is now a law professor at Capital University Law School, said there are some ways around the current regulations.
“There is some case law suggesting that some of the organizational activities of a party and starting a party right can be funded with larger contributions, until it actually qualifies for party status under the election commission regulations,” Smith said, but he noted it’s complex and difficult to do.
“You can fund super PACs all you want. But you can’t fund a political party, as a strange part of American law,” he added.
Super PACs are not legally allowed to coordinate spending with parties or candidates, although previous candidates have tested these limits, as nothing prohibits coordination when the information is shared publicly. “Coordination has, in fact, become commonplace,” the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center has said.
Then there’s getting on the actual ballots. States have different rules, such as requiring a certain number of signatures.
“It would take years and might require changes in laws around the country that currently favor two major political parties,” Goodman noted
Beyond the legal and logistical hurdles, there’s convincing candidates to join and voters to cast their ballots for them.
Despite varying approval levels, party loyalties remain strong, Abramowitz said, especially among Republicans, who have coalesced around Trump.
“The biggest obstacle is just that it’s very difficult to convince people to vote for a third-party candidate because the argument is always ‘you’re wasting your vote. You’re voting for someone who has no chance of winning elections,’” Abramowitz said.
Candidates may also be wary. Democrats are unlikely to run under the America Party because “Democrats hate Elon Musk,” Abramowitz said. And Republicans “have clearly shown that they’re much more attached to Donald Trump than they are to Elon Musk.”
Republicans highly approve of Trump, according to CNN Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten’s aggregation of available polling data. Some 90 precent of Republicans approve of Trump’s performance thus far in this presidency, and he is doing better in approval ratings five months into the presidency than former Republican presidents. And in 96% of the 2024 primary races where Trump endorsed, those candidates won.
If creating a new political party proves too difficult, Musk could still hold a lot of sway through his super PAC, to which he can send unlimited funds. That PAC can then support independent candidates, who could also have an easier time getting on ballots.
“Independent spending, individually or via a super PAC, remains the most legal and practical mechanism for a wealthy individual to have a say in national politics,” Goodman said.
CNN’s Kristen Holmes and Fredreka Schouten contributed reporting.
Jyothi Yarraji, the national record holder in the women’s 100m hurdles with a personal best timing of 12.78s, was last seen in action at the Taiwan Athletics Open last month, where she won the gold medal in her event after clocking 12.99s.
The Indian athlete also clocked 12.96s to win gold at the Asian Athletics Championship in May.
Jyothi Yarraji’s injury also ends her bid to compete at the 2025 World Athletics Championships, which is set to take place from September 13 to 21.
An Asian Games silver medallist, Yarraji had begun her 2025 season with a gold in the 100m hurdles and 200m race in the National Games in February before bagging top spot in the 100m hurdles at the Federation Cup.
She also successfully defended her Asian Championships title in Gumi, the Republic of Korea.
Indonesia will look to continue its winning form in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers when it takes on Pakistan in its next qualifier on Wednesday.
The Garuda Pertiwi started its campaign with a 1-0 win over Kyrgyzstan and faces Pakistan next, a side that lost 0-8 to Chinese Taipei in its previous match.
When and where will Pakistan vs Indonesia be played?
The AFC Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers will be played at the Indomilk Arena Stadium in Banten, Indonesia.
The match is scheduled to kick off at 8:00 pm local time (6:30 pm IST).
How to watch Pakistan vs Indonesia AFC Women’s Asian Cup qualifier?
The AFC Women’s Asian Cup qualifier, Pakistan vs Indonesia, will be broadcast on Indosiar and can be live streamed on Vidio Sports.
In the previous match, it was Isa Warps who had struck the winner in the 68th minute, and will be an usual suspect to find the goal against Pakistan too.
The qualification round comprises 34 teams divided into eight groups. The winner of each group will advance to the Asian Cup, set to be played in Australia next year.
Earlier reports blamed several medications including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), statins, and antihypertensive agents for triggering microscopic colitis. However, a Swedish study of adults aged 65 years or older found that most of these drugs didn’t increase the risk.
METHODOLOGY:
Although medications are viewed as the main modifiable risk factors for microscopic colitis, research has been limited by nonpopulation-based samples, small and selective cohorts, and study designs vulnerable to immortal time, surveillance, and other biases.
Researchers analyzed prescription records, hospitalizations, medical diagnoses, and gut biopsy findings of more than 2.8 million Swedish individuals aged 65 years or older to determine whether any of the previously implicated medications increased the risk for microscopic colitis.
Target trials — one for each medication — were emulated by including only those without a history of inflammatory bowel disease or microscopic colitis, at least one healthcare encounter in the previous year, no use of a drug from the same class in the prior 180 days, and no known contraindications; the effect of initiating each medication with either not starting it or selecting an alternative therapy was compared.
The primary outcome was biopsy-verified microscopic colitis, with researchers estimating 12- and 24-month cumulative incidences for the risk for microscopic colitis.
TAKEAWAY:
Both 12- and 24-month cumulative incidences for the risk for microscopic colitis were < 0.5% under all treatment strategies.
Estimated risk differences at 12 months and 24 months were close to null for the initiation of antihypertensive medications vs calcium channel blockers, initiation of NSAIDs vs noninitiation, initiation of PPIs vs noninitiation, and initiation of statins vs noninitiation.
However, the initiation of SSRIs vs mirtazapine showed an estimated 12-month risk difference of 0.04% (95% CI, 0.03-0.05); similar results were observed for the estimated 24-month risk difference.
The use of NSAIDs, PPIs, and SSRIs was tied to more colonoscopy exams with normal biopsy results, suggesting that the apparent rise in microscopic colitis after starting an SSRI may have reflected unmeasured bias from ongoing differences in medical care.
IN PRACTICE:
“Our study demonstrated that, contrary to the previous belief, it’s unlikely that medications are the primary triggers for microscopic colitis,” the lead author commented in a press release. “Clinicians should carefully balance the intended benefits of these medication classes against the very low likelihood of a causal relationship with MC [microscopic colitis],” the authors concluded.
SOURCE:
This study was led by Hamed Khalili, MD, MPH, Gastroenterology Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. It was published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
LIMITATIONS:
The Swedish registries do not capture primary care visits, so any symptoms or diagnoses recorded there that might have prompted a colonoscopy went unmeasured. Incomplete colonoscopy records may have obscured why participants actually underwent the procedure. Furthermore, the absence of data on smoking status, body weight, laboratory results, and contraindications could have biased the findings.
DISCLOSURES:
This study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the Swedish Research Council, and the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Some authors declared receiving consulting fees, serving on advisory boards, receiving financial support, and other ties with certain pharmaceutical companies.
This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
Vitol, a leader in energy and commodities, and Breakwall Capital (“Breakwall”), a credit investment firm that services the energy industry, announced today the formation of Valor Mining Credit Partners, L.P. (“VMP” or the “Partnership”).
VMP will seek to make structured credit investments in mining companies in the Americas. It will primarily target event-driven financing opportunities focused on debt refinancing, acquisition funding, and development capital, providing companies with flexible solutions to accelerate growth and drive shareholder value.
VMP will be managed by Breakwall, which has an established track record of successfully investing credit capital across all aspects of energy and energy-adjacent value chains and of facilitating the growth and improvement of conventional, renewable, and “next generation” energy companies. This is the second energy credit focused partnership between Vitol and Breakwall. Valor Upstream Credit Partners, L.P. (“VCP”), which is focused on North American upstream oil and gas credit investments, has made over $1 billion in commitments since its launch in June 2023.
Christopher Abbate, Jamie Brodsky, and Daniel Flannery, the Managing Partners of Breakwall, stated: “We are thrilled to partner with Vitol on this new investment strategy. The mining of natural resource deposits and raw materials is a critical, capital-intensive business, and a funding gap exists as the lending landscape is challenged by a lack of capital availability from banks and other direct lenders. We see a tremendous opportunity to bridge an unmet need in the marketplace by providing well-structured credit solutions, as we look to deploy innovative capital solutions across all facets of the energy value chain.”
Ben Marshall, Head of the Americas, Vitol, added: “With the launch of VMP we look forward to expanding our investments in the energy and mining sectors, in partnership with Breakwall. Vitol has long been committed to investing in solutions across the energy spectrum, from traditional solutions to renewables, and we are keen to deploy our capital across a range of opportunities.”
Music that evokes an emotional response may influence the specificity of memory recall, new research suggests.
Investigators found that participants who were shown a series of images of everyday items before listening to music were more likely to remember only general details of the photos if they experienced a more emotional response to the music, while those who had a moderate emotional response were more likely to recall specific details.
Stephanie L. Leal, PhD
“Most people think that emotional things are better remembered, but they actually aren’t. It’s just parts of the memory that are affected, not the whole memory,” co-investigator Stephanie L. Leal, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), told Medscape Medical News. “One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to music and memory.”
Interestingly, familiarity with a song was not associated with either general or detailed memory.
“We played the same songs for everybody, but importantly, everyone responded differently. So I think personalization and taking individual preferences into account is going to be important for interventions,” said Leal, who is also director of the Neuroscience of Memory, Mood, and Aging Laboratory at UCLA.
The findings were published online on July 23 in The Journal of Neuroscience.
Memory Complexities
As previously reported by Medscape Medical News, previous research has shown that both music appreciation and participations are tied to improvement in executive function and memory.
For this study, researchers wanted to dive into the complexities of memory, including the possible connection between music and differing aspects of memory.
“We tend to remember more of the gist of something emotional that happened and not as much of the details. So we wanted to see if music could boost certain parts of memory but not all of the parts,” she said.
Many previous music studies have included older individuals, especially those with dementia. For this project, investigators chose instead to assess a younger population because they wanted to use their data as a “baseline” before moving on to further research in groups that are older and/or have impaired conditions such as depression or Alzheimer’s disease, Leal said.
“We wanted to see what happens in healthy people first and then apply it to other populations,” she said.
The study included 130 healthy undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 35 years from Rice University, Houston.
During the initial phase of memory formation — called the “encoding” phase — each participant was shown 128 images of common household objects and asked to choose whether the object should be considered as an indoor or outdoor item.
Participants then donned headphones and listened to 10 minutes of classical music pieces, ambient soundscapes, or silence while they filled out questionnaires about their medical history.
After the music ended, participants spent about 20 minutes filling out additional questionnaires, including a rating of the music or sounds they heard on the basis of emotional arousal, positive or negative reaction, or familiarity.
They then viewed a set of 192 images that included some they hadn’t seen before (foils) and others that were identical (targets) or similar (lures) to the photos viewed earlier. Participants were asked to classify an image as old or new, allowing the researchers to measure target recognition — a measure of general memory — or lure discrimination — a measure of detailed memory.
Big-Picture Recall
General recall of the images was greater among those who experienced either low or high emotional response to music than among those who experienced moderate changes in emotional arousal (P for both < .001).
More detailed memories were reported by those who reported only a moderate emotional response to music than those who reported a low or high emotional response (P for both < .001).
There were no significant associations between memory of the images and song familiarity or whether a song was happy or sad.
“Overall, music modulated both general and detailed memory, but individual differences in emotional response were crucial — participants listened to the same music yet responded differently,” the investigators wrote.
“These findings suggest that music interventions may not uniformly enhance memory, emphasizing the need for personalized approaches in treating memory and mood impairments,” they added.
The research suggests that a high emotional response may cloud details more than a moderate response.
“Yes, the idea is that if something is very emotionally arousing, maybe we don’t want to remember the details associated with it. Maybe we just want to remember that general feeling or the bigger impact of that event, whether it’s positive or negative,” Leal said. “Maybe we just want to take the ‘big picture’ from that.”
Early Days
Commenting on the findings for Medscape Medical News, Daniel L. Bowling, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California, noted that the study “follows the general trend” of research that breaks down large concepts, such as memory, into specific features.
Daniel L. Bowling, PhD
Bowling, who is also director of the Music and Brain Health Lab at Stanford, was not involved with the current study.
“This showed different levels of responses to music that were differentially related to varying types of memory that you might want to target,” Bowling said.
For example, if a clinician’s purpose is cognitive training, with more of an emphasis on details, “you might want more moderate levels of [emotional] arousal. But if you want more big-picture stuff, which could be critical when asking people about their life, then higher levels of arousal may be better,” he added.
He noted that because the researchers used almost a “pretreatment,” with music used before the recall task, it would be interesting to know if using such a pretreatment before taking a test could possibly improve performance.
There are interventions, some of which Bowling is involved with, that are looking at supporting arousal and attention during studying.
A controlled study comparing these things and looking systematically into effects on different types of memory would be helpful, “but we’re really at the beginning of figuring all of this stuff out,” he said.
Although the current study has some limitations and needs to be replicated, “any kind of talk toward systematic effects of different musical parameters or emotional modeling starts to help us bring this into the scientific-medical realm. And that’s a real strength here,” Bowling concluded.
The investigators reported having no relevant financial relationships.Bowlingreported consulting for and owning stock in Spiritune, an app that develops playlists for different purposes, including improved workflow.
Formula 1 returns to Silverstone this weekend for the British Grand Prix – and tyre suppliers Pirelli have confirmed the compounds that will be in play.
This year Pirelli have gone one step softer in their range, bringing the C2 as the hard tyre, the C3 as the medium and the C4 as the soft.
Drivers will get two sets of the hard tyre (marked white), three sets of the medium tyre (marked yellow), and eight sets of the soft tyre (marked red), as well as access to the green intermediate tyre and the blue full wets, should they be required.
An extra set of softs is reserved for those who reach Q3 in Qualifying, while all drivers must use at least two different slick compounds during the race, providing the track is dry.
On the decision to bring a range that is one step softer than at last year’s British Grand Prix, Pirelli’s weekend preview says: “The aim, shared with the FIA, F1 and the teams, is to create a wider range of strategy options for the race.
“In 2024, when the C3 was the soft, it was used by just a few drivers in the closing stages of the race following the rain. This year, as the medium, it is bound to play an important role, probably in several phases of the race.
“For those aiming for a one-stop race, the stints will have to be managed very carefully, while accepting a longer total race time. Also a consideration in this equation is the fact that the time taken for a tyre change is not very long (around 20.5 seconds) and while challenging, overtaking is possible.”
In terms of the conditions that can be expected at Silverstone, the tyre manufacturer adds: “The circuit is in almost year-round use with four and two-wheeled racing categories and so it provides good grip right from Friday’s first free practice session, aided by the fact the surface is rated medium-low in terms of abrasiveness.
“Despite taking place at the height of summer, the English weather can often be unpredictable with very changeable temperatures and wind and rain suddenly putting in an appearance, turning the tables during the race, as was the case last year.”
For more information about Pirelli’s F1 tyres, visit pirelli.com.
Five people, including a senior local administrator, were killed when a roadside bomb struck a government vehicle in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, injuring 11 others, according to local police, cited by news agency AP.The attack occurred in Bajaur, a tribal district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, long seen as a haven for militant groups. Among the dead was Assistant Commissioner Faisal Sultan, a senior government officer. District police chief Waqas Rafique said the wounded had been rushed to hospital, with several in critical condition.
Terrorists Bleed Pakistan Army; Over A Dozen Soldiers Killed In Suicide Attack | Shehbaz Sharif
Although no group has claimed responsibility, officials suspect the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to be behind the attack. The group has been responsible for a string of recent assaults targeting security personnel and civil servants in the region. TTP is closely linked to the Afghan Taliban and has gained renewed momentum since the fall of Kabul in 2021.
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Do you think community engagement can help reduce militant activities in tribal areas?
This bombing follows a deadly suicide attack last Saturday in North Waziristan, another restive district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where 16 soldiers were killed when a militant rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a military convoy. That attack was claimed by the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban.Pakistan has seen a surge in militant violence along its western border, with over 290 people mostly security personnel killed in attacks this year alone.
