News

Jeollanam-do – September 25, 2026 -- Researchers at Chonnam National University have demonstrated that dichloromethane, a widely used industrial solvent, can directly drive amide bond formation between carboxylic acids and amines, offering manufacturers a cheaper and less hazardous alternative to conventional coupling reagents. The findings, led by Professor Sunwoo Lee of the Department of Chemistry, were published online on July 6, 2026, and appeared in Volume 148, Issue 27 of the Journal of the American Chemical Society on July 15, 2026.

Washington – September 25, 2026 -- The Association of Financial Counseling, Planning, and Education (AFCPE) has received a 2026 ASAE Power of Associations Summit Award for its FINRA Foundation Military Spouse Fellowship, a program that has certified 743 Accredited Financial Counselors since 2006 and supported more than 288,000 military families through their required experience hours.

ASAE recognizes AFCPE for solving military spouse underemployment through credentialed career pathways

The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) presented the Summit Award to AFCPE for the Fellowship's dual impact: expanding workforce mobility for military spouses and strengthening financial readiness in military communities. The award was celebrated during ASAE's Summit Awards Dinner on September 22, 2026, at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.

Washington – – September 25, 2026 -- The American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL) has released "Quiet Leadership in Medicine: An Early-Career Clinician's Guide to Building Programs That Change Care," a book by Kardie Tobb, DO, MS, CPE, FACC, FASPC, FACOI, aimed at closing the gap between clinical training and organizational leadership skills for junior physicians.

Book targets clinicians at career start, not mid-career

AAPL positions the title as the first framework of its kind written explicitly for early-career clinicians rather than seasoned executives. The guide covers building stakeholder coalitions, framing clinical initiatives for hospital administrators, sustaining programs post-launch, and using routine interactions — rounds, follow-up emails, hallway conversations — as tools for institutional change.

San Francisco – September 25, 2026 -- COCOLAB®, the oral wellness brand behind Cocofloss®, has appointed Gayle Tait as Chief Executive Officer, effective Aug. 31, 2026, following three-year revenue growth of nearly 200%.

COCOLAB lands on Inc. 5000 list amid national retail expansion

The company secured a spot on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies and expanded distribution through Target and Walmart.com. Cocofloss® has won four Allure Best of Beauty Awards, including Best Floss in 2026, which the company states makes it the most-awarded dental floss on the market.

Tokyo – September 25, 2026 -- Cellid Inc. has entered a business partnership with Megane Top Co., Ltd. to jointly develop and commercialize augmented reality (AR) glasses under Megane Top's own brand, the companies announced.

Preorders open October 23 via crowdfunding platform GREEN FUNDING

The two firms will begin accepting preorders for the jointly developed AR glasses through the GREEN FUNDING crowdfunding platform starting October 23, 2026. Following the campaign, the product will be distributed through Megane Top's nationwide retail network, including its "Megane Ichiba" chain.

Washington – September 25, 2026 -- Gamblers scored 3.93 out of five on a standard financial literacy index versus 3.72 for non-gamblers, according to new research commissioned by the American Gaming Association (AGA), with 41% of gamblers classified as highly financially literate compared with 27% of non-gamblers.

Prediction market users overstate their mathematical ability, study finds

Sports bettors demonstrated the highest combination of mathematical confidence and objectively tested capability among all gambling segments surveyed. Prediction market users reported nearly equivalent confidence levels but performed on objective math tests at levels closer to non-gamblers, exposing a gap between self-assessed skill and actual ability.

New York City – September 25, 2026 -- Babylist opened a 20,000-square-foot showroom in New York City, featuring dedicated stroller test tracks, a Volvo vehicle for hands-on car seat installation practice, and a 600-square-foot model apartment where parents can test how baby gear fits into real living spaces.

Babylist targets the full early-parenting journey with an experiential retail format

The company said the showroom was built to let expecting and new parents interact with products across the entire early parenting journey rather than browse static displays. Chief Marketing and Experience Officer Jill Cress discussed the New York City site selection during an appearance on NYSE Live.

New York – September 25, 2026 -- Texture has released CommonGrid, an open, Wikipedia-style database that maps every U.S. electric utility, grid operator, power plant, and major grid asset into a single searchable model.

Texture builds a single registry from data once scattered across hundreds of sources

CommonGrid aggregates U.S. investor-owned utilities, cooperatives, municipal utilities, and federal power agencies alongside ISOs, RTOs, and balancing authorities into one connected graph. The dataset covers solar, wind, nuclear, gas, and hydro plants above 1 MW, transmission lines from 69 kV to 765 kV, every public EV charging station with network and plug-standard details, wholesale pricing nodes across seven ISOs/RTOs, substations normalized from OpenStreetMap at 69 kV and above, and utility programs, rebates, and tariff structures.

New York – September 25, 2026 -- Sixty-nine percent of enterprise technology decision-makers now weigh energy more heavily in AI and data infrastructure decisions than a year ago, according to new research from EnterpriseDB (EDB) presented at the United Nations Global Compact Leaders Summit this week. The survey of 300 respondents, conducted in September 2026, found reliability of supply cited by 49% of respondents as a leading energy factor, with cost and energy efficiency each cited by 48%.

Cambridge, Mass. – September 25, 2026 -- Zifo has been named runner-up in the 2026 CDISC AI Innovation Challenge for TLFGenix, its AI-driven pipeline for generating clinical trial tables, figures, and listings, marking the company's second consecutive year of recognition in the competition.

Zifo's TLFGenix converts statistical analysis plans into traceable clinical outputs

TLFGenix was recognized under Use Case 3: AI-Driven Tables, Figures, and Listings Generation, one of three use cases in the global competition. The system uses six specialized agents to digitize Statistical Analysis Plans into a structured logical model, profile ADaM datasets, generate an ARS-aligned analysis specification, produce R driver scripts, execute them in a network-isolated sandbox, and check schema and output consistency. Statisticians approve the analysis specification before code generation and sign off on each individual output.