def remove_annotations(s: str) -> str:
    """remove annotations from energy strings in NIST ASD"""
    # re_energy = re.compile("-?\\d+\\.\\d*|$")
    # return re_energy.findall(s)[0]

    # this is about 3.5× faster than re.findall, but it's less flexible
    # overall this can make a several hundred ms difference when loading
    return s.strip("()[]aluxyz +?").replace("&dagger;", "")