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While the volcano is located in what’s now Indonesia, living organisms across

For athletes across all sports, few experiences are as agonizing as being forced to leave competition with a sudden muscle cramp. These painful, uncontrolled spasms – formally known as exercise-associated muscle cramps^[1] – have frustrated athletes, coaches

In “The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI^[1],” the futurist Ray Kurzweil^[2] imagines the point in 2045 when rapid technological progress crosses a threshold as humans merge with machines, an event he calls “the singularity.”

Although

Related Topics: Military Headlines^[7] Pete Hegseth^[8] Pentagon^[9] Department of Defense - DoD^[10] Policy^[11]

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WASHINGTON -- In just the past four fiscal years, Congress appropriated, with virtually no public debate, in excess of $100 billion more than any president sought for more than 2,000 weapons programs, according to a government watchdog group’s database and recent Pentagon reports.

And there is more on the way this year.

House and Senate Defense appropriators from both parties have proposed allocating, between their two fiscal 2026 spending bills, $52.2 billion for 1,403 “program increases” to the Pentagon’s weapons budget request, according to a previously unreleased database from Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that monitors government spending. That’s more than double the amount that was being proposed for such additions in the two bills combined at this stage of the process just two years ago.

Some of the proposed spending infusions pending this year may be jettisoned when lawmakers reconcile the two spending bills. But if only half of the $52.2 billion survives into law, the amount of money involved, while a fraction of the Pentagon budget, would still surpass the current funding of the Commerce, Interior or Treasury departments. And the $52.2 billion pending for fiscal 2026 would come on top of the $156.2 billion in additional defense spending appropriated this summer via reconciliation.

The Taxpayers for Common Sense database^[1] and analysis^[2] is the latest in an annual series of reports by the group that CQ Roll Call has analyzed and reported on.

That Congress adds defense dollars for programs that benefit constituents is hardly new. But the scale and expense of the phenomenon, which occurs mostly out of public view at the direction of anonymous lawmakers, is not well-known. And what the military is getting for these expenditures has not been demonstrated.

“Some of these increases may be worthy investments, but without justification requirements, how are we to know?” Gabe Murphy, policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, said in an interview. “When lawmakers are allowed to anonymously direct funds to companies that contribute to their campaigns or that they hold stock in, abuse is inevitable. The solution is transparency.”

Following the Money

The $52.2 billion in weapons program increases under consideration in fiscal 2026 comprises the House bill’s proposed $19 billion for 779 different projects and the Senate measure’s proposed $33.2 billion for 624 initiatives.

For some of the items at issue, the proposed funding increase would boost spending for a program proposed by the Pentagon. But this year, as usual, most of the items, 75% in the fiscal 2026 proposals, weren’t requested at all.

In fact, with a handful of exceptions, 3% of the fiscal 2026 proposals, these programs aren’t even on the armed services’ annual lists of “unfunded priorities” that didn’t make the budget.

Rather, these funding hikes are driven by lawmakers, though for the most part the sponsors’ identities are not known. While members of Congress who sponsor earmarks for nonprofits and government entities must be listed in a table in reports accompanying spending bills, no such requirement for disclosure exists for the far costlier “program increases.”

The overwhelming majority of the programs that benefit from program increases are never discussed in open hearings or other public forums. Instead, they are merely inserted by the hundreds each year in tables accompanying spending bills.

The vast majority of these spending boosts are for mostly obscure military research and procurement programs -- not, for the most part, for high-profile jets, ships or combat vehicles. The boosts typically cost $30 million or less apiece in any given year’s bill.

Moreover, to the degree the topline spending allowed in the Defense bills is not sufficiently increased in any given year to accommodate these member priorities, appropriators must allocate less than the military sought for other programs.

The House added 274 program increases to its fiscal 2026 bill via floor amendments this year, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Each addition was offset by a subtraction to a Pentagon request for some other program.

Both chambers’ defense spending bills proposed billions of dollars less than the administration requested for operations and maintenance spending, even though the Defense Department had a backlog of $271 billion in deferred facilities maintenance and repair in 2024, according to an April 2025 study conducted by the Government Accountability Office. That proposed reduction in operations and maintenance spending in the fiscal 2026 Defense bills has enabled appropriators to recommend spending more on program increases, even though the bills, unlike floor amendments, do not identify one-to-one offsets.

Parochial Projects

Congress has a duty to shape, not just accept, a president’s budget request. And proponents of the surge in weapons program spending say it provides a way for small companies with promising technologies to see work flourish that might otherwise be neglected -- although sometimes the additions, particularly the costlier ones, go to the larger companies.

Often the money boosts are proposed by members of Congress who have a parochial interest in the factory that stands to get the contract. These politicians’ campaign political action committees in many cases receive contributions from the companies that benefit from the additional spending.

The typical program increase is listed in a funding table with only a few words of description, and its congressional author remains unmentioned. These line items include systems or technologies that perhaps only one company makes.

Three years ago, then- Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jon Tester, D- Mont., issued a press release celebrating how the fiscal 2022 Defense spending bill “delivers” for Montana and is “making targeted investments” in the state.

He listed a half-dozen Montana businesses that would benefit -- even though the competitions had yet to be held, though in at least one case the funding was a follow-on to a competition held the previous year, as the increases sometimes continue from year to year.

Top Contractor ‘Wins’

The fiscal 2026 bills include page after page of program increases, many with inscrutable names, such as $5 million for “Thin Wing Actuation” and $7 million for “Layered Tanks.”

Other program increases go to more recognizable weapon names, and these generally require more funds than the smaller-scale initiatives.

In at least a few of these higher-profile cases, members publicly take credit for what some call a “win” in obtaining funding.

For example, Sen. Susan Collins, R- Maine, the Appropriations Committee chair, touted in a July press release how she had “secured significant funding and provisions for Maine” in the Defense bill.

These included $282.5 million not requested by the Defense Department for Pratt & Whitney’s F-35 jet engines, called F135s, made in the company’s facility in North Berwick, Maine. The company is a contributor to the campaign of Collins, among many others, according to OpenSecrets.org^[3].

A Senate aide noted that multiple senators, not just Collins, have backed funding boosts for the engine.

Collins said in the July press release that she also was able to secure bill language prohibiting the consideration of any alternative engine for the F-35. Asked this month about the additional engine money, Collins defended its necessity in a statement and indicated she supports the program for national security reasons, not parochial or selfish ones.

“These investments are necessary to ensure America’s armed forces have the resources needed to counter threats from adversaries,” Collins said.

Another major contractor that has netted unrequested funds is Boeing. The company would receive, for instance, $360 million in the Senate’s fiscal 2026 funding bill for a dozen Apache helicopters that the Army has said it doesn’t want to procure.

The helicopters are built partly in Huntsville, Ala. Sen. Katie Britt, R- Ala., heralded the spending in a press release after the Appropriations Committee, of which she is a member, approved the bill, which the Senate has yet to debate.

Boeing contributes to the campaign and leadership political action committee of Britt, among others.

The fiscal generosity for weapons projects favored by Congress but not the Pentagon is a thoroughly bipartisan phenomenon.

Democratic Sens. Richard J. Durbin and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois issued a statement this year trumpeting their success in garnering $88.5 million that the Pentagon did not ask for to upgrade Humvees at the Rock Island Arsenal in their state.

Durbin is a member of the Appropriations Committee, while Duckworth serves on Armed Services.

The work is performed by AM General. The company has contributed to Durbin’s campaign and its parent company, KPS Capital Partners, to Duckworth’s.

Ben Gash Garmisa, a spokesperson for Duckworth, said the senator “has always supported and will continue to support Rock Island Arsenal, as well as programs that ensure our troops are best equipped to execute their missions.”

Garmisa said the Humvees at issue are “critical to several Army capabilities, including medical care and evacuation, that other tactical vehicles cannot perform and for which the Army has yet to identify a capable replacement.”

‘Shadow’ Budget

Much of this spending may be worthwhile -- but, if that is the case, it doesn’t appear that any disinterested observer can prove it.

The Government Accountability Office and the Defense Department Office of the Inspector General have confirmed they haven’t assessed the degree to which these scores of billions of dollars have led to useful weapons.

The appropriations measures say the contracts awarded with this funding must be put out for competition. But the audit agencies have also not reviewed how many of the hundreds of awards parceled out with the funding over the years have attracted more than one bid.

Competition can be legally waived if, for example, only one company is suited to build a certain product.

Moreover, lobbyists and aides have confirmed that, in many cases, the intended recipients of the funding are known from the start.

That is either because the process being funded is proprietary to one company, or the company is already an incumbent builder of the weapon, or the military services know which lawmaker proposed the funding and which entity is expected to receive the money and they tailor the competition’s terms accordingly. CQ Roll Call has reported on previous program increases for fiscal 2022, fiscal 2023, fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025.

Still, for the most part, the identity of these programs’ champions in Congress and the justification for the spending for the overwhelming majority of these projects remains unknown to all but Appropriations Committee members and staff.

“Congress has made important strides to increase transparency over formal earmarks, but thanks to a technical distinction without a practical difference, backdoor earmarks in the Pentagon budget have been thriving in the shadows,” said Murphy of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

© 2025 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Visit cqrollcall.com.^[4]

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One in four adults suffer a stroke in their lifetime, leaving around half of them with residual damage such as paralysis or speech impairment because internal bleeding or a lack of oxygen supply kill brain cells irreversibly. No therapies currently exist to repair this kind of damage. "That's why it is essential to pursue new therapeutic approaches to potential brain regeneration after diseases or accidents," says Christian Tackenberg, the Scientific Head of Division in the Neurodegeneration Group at the University of Zurich (UZH) Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Neural stem cells have the potential to regenerate brain tissue, as a team led by Tackenberg and postdoctoral researcher Rebecca Weber has now compellingly shown in two studies that were conducted in collaboration with a group headed by Ruslan Rust from the University of Southern California. "Our findings show that neural stem cells not only form new neurons, but also induce other regeneration processes," Tackenberg says.

New neurons from stem cells

The studies employed human neural stem cells, from which different cell types of the nervous system can form. The stem cells were derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, which in turn can be manufactured from normal human somatic cells. For their investigation, the researchers induced a permanent stroke in mice, the characteristics of which closely resemble manifestation of stroke in humans. The animals were genetically modified so that they would not reject the human stem cells.

One week after stroke induction, the research team transplanted neural stem cells into the injured brain region and observed subsequent developments using a variety of imaging and biochemical methods. "We found that the stem cells survived for the full analysis period of five weeks and that most of them transformed into neurons, which actually even communicated with the already existing brain cells," Tackenberg says.

Brain regenerates itself

The researchers also found other markers of regeneration: new formation of blood vessels, an attenuation of inflammatory response processes and improved blood-brain barrier integrity. "Our analysis goes far beyond the scope of other studies, which focused on the immediate effects right after transplantation," Tackenberg explains. Fortunately, stem cell transplantation in mice also reversed motor impairments caused by stroke. Proof of that was delivered in part by an AI-assisted mouse gait analysis.

Clinical application moving closer to reality

When he was designing the studies, Tackenberg already had his sights set on clinical applications in humans. That's why, for example, the stem cells were manufactured without the use of reagents derived from animals. The Zurich-based research team developed a defined protocol for that purpose in collaboration with the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University. This is important for potential therapeutic applications in humans. Another new insight discovered was that stem cell transplantation works better when it is performed not immediately after a stroke but a week later, as the second study verified. In the clinical setting, that time window could greatly facilitate therapy preparation and implementation.

Despite the encouraging results of the studies, Tackenberg warns that there is still work to be done. "We need to minimize risks and simplify a potential application in humans," he says. Tackenberg's group, again in collaboration with Ruslan Rust, is currently working on a kind of safety switch system that prevents uncontrolled growth of stem cells in the brain. Delivery of stem cells through endovascular injection, which would be much more practicable than a brain graft, is also under development. Initial clinical trials using induced stem cells to treat Parkinson's disease in humans are already underway in Japan, Tackenberg reports. "Stroke could be one of the next diseases for which a clinical trial becomes possible."

These results, recently published in PLoS Computational Biology, show that this flexibility depends on the balance between two types of inhibitory mechanisms, which regulate the interaction between slow (theta) and fast (gamma) rhythms. Thanks to this mechanism, the brain can select different sources of information, such as sensory stimuli from the external environment or stored sensory experience from memory.

To reach these conclusions, the researchers combined computational models with experimental recordings in the hippocampus, a brain region crucial for memory and navigation. They observed that in familiar environments, where sensory experiences are already known, neurons favor a direct communication mode that facilitates transmission from the entorhinal cortex to the hippocampus. In this mode, the reactivation of established memory is prioritized. By contrast, when facing novelty, the brain activates another mode that integrates memory reactivation with novel sensory inputs. In this mode, memory updating is prioritized.

Until now, it was thought that the phase of slow brain rhythms organized the amplitude of faster activity; however, this study demonstrates that the relationship is bidirectional: "This work provides a mechanistic explanation of how the brain flexibly changes communication channels depending on the context," says Dimitrios Chalkiadakis, first author of the study. "By adjusting the balance between different types of inhibition, circuits define which inputs to prioritize, whether from memory-related pathways or from new sensory information," highlights the researcher.

Through a theoretical framework integrating electrophysiological data from rats exploring new and familiar environments, the experts identified two modes of operation: in one, feedforward inhibition leads to gamma-to-theta interactions, while in the other, feedback inhibition produces theta-to-gamma interactions. Neuronal circuits in the brain naturally implement both modes of inhibitory connectivity. The study shows that the transition between them is continuous, and prioritizing one or the other depends solely on the strength of synaptic connections between neurons in the circuit. This allows the mode of operation to be flexibly adjusted to context and cognitive demands.

Beyond memory

The study suggests that this flexible form of coordination between brain rhythms could extend to other cognitive functions, such as attention. In fact, recent work in humans shows patterns consistent with the computational model. This points to a general principle of the brain: the balance between inhibitory circuits is key to directing information within its complex network of connections.

"Our results help unify opposing views on how brain rhythms of different frequencies interact," explains Mirasso. "Rather than being purely local or inherited from earlier regions, these rhythms emerge from the interaction between external inputs and local inhibitory dynamics. This dual mechanism enables the brain to optimize information processing under different conditions," adds Canals.

Beyond memory and navigation, the findings could extend to other cognitive functions. Looking ahead, the researchers intend to expand their model to include a greater diversity of neuronal types and architectures specific to each brain region. The aim is to better understand how this balance is altered in pathologies such as epilepsy, addiction, or Alzheimer's disease: "Studying these dynamics at a mechanistic level could ultimately inspire new therapeutic intervention strategies," both authors conclude.

This work was made possible thanks to funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities through the R&D Project Program (Knowledge Generation and Research Challenges) and from the Spanish State Research Agency through the Severo Ochoa Centers of Excellence and the María de Maeztu Units of Excellence Program.

NASA’s search for evidence of past life on Mars just produced an exciting update. On Sept. 10, 2025, a team of scientists published a paper^[1] detailing the Perseverance rover’s investigation of a distinctive rock outcrop called Bright Angel on the edge of Mars’ Jezero Crater^[2]. This outcrop is notable for its light-toned rocks with...

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A...

Employers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics – commonly called the STEM industries – continue to struggle to attract female applicants^[1]. In its 2024 jobs report, the National Science Board found that men outnumber women^[2] almost 3-to-1 in STEM jobs that require at least a bachelor’s degree and over 8-to-1 in STEM jobs...