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Green Bay area high school sports results for Saturday, April 25
High school baseball, softball, track and field, soccer and tennis teams were in action.
Appleton area high school sports results for Saturday, April 25
High school baseball, softball, soccer, track and field, and tennis teams were in action.
Scientists believe birds’ skulls hold clues to inner lives of long-extinct dinosaurs
Early birds were like ‘T rex reincarnated’, says scientist who believes avian skulls offer insight into dinosaurs’ behaviour
Trump Fires Board Members of Group That Oversees U.S. Science Funding
The dismissals from an independent board that oversees the National Science Foundation marked the president’s latest assault on scientific research organizations.
Blood vessels found in T. rex bones are rewriting dinosaur science
Dinosaur DNA may still be out of reach, but scientists are uncovering something almost as exciting—ancient blood vessels hidden inside fossilized bones. In a massive Tyrannosaurus rex nicknamed Scotty, researchers discovered a network of preserved vessels within a rib that once fractured and began healing 66 million years ago. Using powerful synchrotron X-rays from particle accelerators, they were able to peer inside the dense fossil without damaging it, revealing intricate, iron-rich structures left behind by the healing process.
Multiple siblings of Michael Jackson's 'second family' accuse him of sexual abuse and grooming in new lawsuit
Four siblings who previously defended Michael Jackson against child molestation allegations have filed a lawsuit against the singer's estate, accusing him of sexually assaulting each of them repeatedly.
Giant octopuses may have ruled the oceans 100 million years ago
Giant, fearsome octopuses may have once ruled the ancient seas, according to new research that flips the script on their evolutionary past. By uncovering exquisitely preserved fossil jaws hidden inside rock, scientists revealed that early octopuses from the age of dinosaurs weren’t shy, soft-bodied drifters—they were massive apex predators, possibly stretching up to 20 meters long and crushing prey with powerful bites.
At 'We Are the Future' summit, students hear about careers in politics, clean energy and construction
Students listened to political leaders, clean energy company managers and construction firm owners at the event at Nassau Community College.
East Hempfield Twp. sauce maker plans upgrades creating 60+ jobs
Lancaster Sauce Co. has a five-year plan to double its workforce and increase production capacity at its East Hempfield Township manufacturing facility, which recently changed hands for $13.75 million.
Green Bay area high school sports results for Thursday, April 23
High school softball, baseball, soccer, track and field, and tennis teams were in action.
Stunning 132 million-year-old dinosaur tracks are rewriting history
A long-standing mystery in southern Africa’s fossil record is beginning to unravel. After massive lava flows 182 million years ago seemed to erase evidence of dinosaurs in the region, scientists have now uncovered surprising new clues along the Western Cape coast. Dozens of dinosaur tracks, about 132 million years old, have been discovered in a tiny stretch of rock near Knysna—making them the youngest ever found in southern Africa.
Earliest octopuses were Kraken-like sea monsters, fossils show
Whale-sized, monstrous octopuses prowled the seas during the Age of Dinosaurs, snatching prey with their huge tentacles and crunching them with powerful jaws, fossils from B.C. and Japan suggest.
Colorado DA pursues assault charge against federal immigration officer, DHS condemns 'political stunt'
Colorado District Attorney Eric P. Murray charged an ICE officer with third degree assault in a move DHS calls unlawful and a political stunt.
Heating up for health: Researcher weighs in on the science behind saunas and hot tubs
Heat therapy is hot right now. Saunas are popping up in more backyards and fitness centers. And heat is part of the constant conversation around optimizing health and wellness. But the idea of leveraging ...
Heating up for health: Researcher weighs in on the science behind saunas and hot tubs
Heat therapy is hot right now. Saunas are popping up in more backyards and fitness centers. And heat is part of the constant conversation around optimizing health and wellness. But the idea of leveraging ...
Janet and Paris Jackson skipped the 'Michael' premiere
Janet Jackson isn't portrayed in the 'Michael' biopic and she skipped the premiere along with Paris Jackson. Here's why they both bowed out and what the cast is saying about leaving sexual assault allegations on the cutting room floor.
Popular pasta sauce brand is launching new device to record conversations
Prego is pivoting to…surveillance? The popular pasta sauce brand announced it’s launching a new device that records your family’s dinner conversations. KTLA’s Andy Riesmeyer has m…
Prego Pivots From Budget-Tier Pasta Sauce to Small Microphones That Listen to Your Family’s Intimate Conversations
Prego, the pasta sauce brand, announced a new lid-shaped device designed to record and preserve family dinner conversations.
Experience Science City's Brand-New "Jurassic Journey"
Shane and Kerrigan join Floor Lead Travis Brown at Science City to explore their new, interactive dinosaur exhibit.
Trump’s environmental policies mean dirtier air for CT
CT's air quality had improved over 50 years of increasingly rigorous federal regulations and enforcement. That progress is now under assault.
Wausau hosts action-packed slate of girls’ high school sports
Four local high school teams competed in softball and soccer on Monday.
Democrats urge OPM to scrap plans for ‘unprecedented’ access to feds’ health data
Citing “legal, ethical and security concerns,” lawmakers demanded that OPM end its efforts to collect claims-level health data on federal insurance enrollees.
Democrat Betty Yee exits California governor’s race
Betty Yee — a former state controller — announced Monday she was suspending her campaign, just over a week after fellow Democrat and former US Rep. Eric Swalwell left the race following sexual assault allegations that he denies.
Chamber names Small Business of the Year Award recipients - Wausau Pilot & Review
WAUSAU — The Greater Wausau Chamber of Commerce has announced the recipients of the 2026 Small Business of the Year Awards. The Awards were presented
This pasta sauce wants to record your family
Even dinner wants to listen to your conversations now.
Prego Has a Dinner-Conversation-Recording Device, Capisce?
The pasta-sauce company has partnered with the nonprofit StoryCorps on a device designed to record family conversations around the table and save them for all time.
Column: Swalwell scandal exposed flaws in top-two primary
California Democrats caught a huge break with Eric Swalwell’s sexual assault scandal.
How a Sault High graduate helped shape WWII radar and American science leadership
Bernie Arbic will use a PowerPoint presentation at Bayliss Public Library Thursday, April 23, at 6 p.m. to trace the life of DuBridge, from his days at Sault High School to national prominence in science
California Politics 360 Full Episode | Sexual assault allegations made against Eric Swalwell
Multiple women have now accused Swalwell of sexual assault or misconduct. He has repeatedly denied all accusations.
Homelessness update expected to lead discussion at Wausau Public Health and Safety meeting - Wausau Pilot & Review
By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review Homelessness, shelter trends and public safety pressures downtown are expected to draw close attention when
Report: DC police wanted to arrest Cory Mills after assault call
New reporting from the Washington Post provides more detail about a police interaction involving a Florida Congressman, with body camera footage offering
Is the Saudi sports boom over?
Also in today’s newsletter: Spurs on the brink of unprecedented relegation
Spare tire outside business leads to assault charges in Brook Park
Police arrested a Fairview Park man April 6 after he attacked a Cleveland man outside a multitenant industrial-office building on Brookpark Road.
Katy Perry is under investigation by Australian police over Ruby Rose sexual assault allegations from over a decade ago
Perry's rep denied the claims, calling them "categorically false." Warning: This story contains descriptions of alleged sexual assault.
From Endless Frontier to Enemy of the People: The Assault on Public Science
A review of Michael E. Mann & Peter J. Hotez, “Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World” (Public Affairs, 2025)
Green Bay area high school sports results for Thursday, April 16
High school softball, baseball and soccer teams were in action.
Appleton area high school sports results for Thursday, April 16
High school baseball, softball and soccer teams were in action.
Saudi Arabia and sports: What it owns, how much it has invested, and what now?
Breaking down Saudi Arabia's sports portfolio and what we're hearing about its future amid the uncertainty surrounding LIV Golf.
Justin Fairfax’s rapid rise in Virginia politics flamed out after scandal
Fairfax was elected Virginia’s lieutenant governor in 2017, but sexual assault allegations led to his political downfall.
10 dinosaur science books recommended by a paleontologist
Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and The Story of Birds, recommends 10 dinosaur books to dig into
South Africa's Malema faces political crisis after jail sentence in firearm case
Julius Malema, a polarizing figure in South African politics, faces an uncertain political future after being sentenced to five years prison on Thursday following his conviction for firing an assault rifle in public during a 2018 rally.
The Iran War Is Changing How Middle East Countries Spend on Sports
The Iran War is changing how Middle Eastern sovereign funds, like Saudi Arabia's PIF and Qatar's QIA, approach sports. LIV Golf may be the latest.
Wausau Chamber of Commerce annual business expo today
The Wausau Chamber of Commerce holds business expo, Rothschild
The Wausau Chamber of Commerce holds business expo
The Wausau Chamber of Commerce holds business expo, Rothschild
Police officer injured in Rochester mental health detention
A 24-year-old man will be charged with second degree assault after a police officer was injured trying to detain him on Wednesday evening.
UroFlow Claims Evaluated: Reviewing the Official Website Benefits & Ingredients to Support Prostate Health
A 2026 consumer information overview of how UroFlow presents its Saw Palmetto, Pygeum Africanum, Lycopene, and Tomato Sauce Trick ingredient references, official website benefit descriptions, pricing structure, and published guarantee terms for men researching natural prostate and urinary flow support supplementsLakeland, FL, April 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This article contains affiliate links. If a purchase is made through these links, a commission may be earned at no additional cost to the
Australian authorities launch investigation after Ruby Rose accuses Katy Perry of sexual assault
Actress Ruby Rose accused singer Katy Perry of sexually assaulting her in 2010. Now, Australian police tell CNN that an investigation underway.
LIV Golf to shut down? Saudi Arabia financiers may pull support, leaving PGA Tour rival at crossroads
Four years after its dramatic launch, LIV Golf may be going out with a whimper
Report: LIV Golf on verge of losing funding from Saudi investment fund, putting the tour's future in doubt
Greater Wausau Chamber set to host Business EXPO Thursday
The Greater Wausau Chamber of Commerce will host hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of attendees at the organization’s annual Business EXPO on Thursday, April 16.
LIV Golf's future may hang in balance as execs meet, per report
As its five-year battle with the PGA Tour drags on, the Saudi-backed golf circuit has reportedly called executives in New York for "emergency summit."
City and Olympic boss joust over who gets big Games contracts
Your morning catch-up: L.A. officials want more business from 2028 Olympic committee, another woman accused Swalwell of assault and more big stories
A crushed fossil revealed a dinosaur that shouldn’t have existed
A badly mangled dinosaur skull, once forgotten in a drawer, turned out to be a rare and important discovery. Reconstructed by a Virginia Tech student, it revealed a new species of early carnivorous dinosaur with unusual features never seen before. The fossil suggests some dinosaur groups were wiped out during the end-Triassic extinction, not just their rivals. It may represent one of the last survivors of an ancient dinosaur lineage.
Matt Crocker’s abrupt U.S. Soccer departure brings many questions. Here are the answers.
U.S. Soccer's sporting director is headed for Saudi Arabia. This is what it means for the federation – and what comes next at a pivotal time
The World Cup isn’t where Matt Crocker’s sudden exit will impact U.S. Soccer most
The federation sporting director's sudden defection to Saudi Arabia comes with bad optics on the cusp of a home World Cup
Atelerix Forms Strategic Partnership With JH Health Ltd to Expand Non-Cryogenic Cell Preservation Capabilities in the Middle East
NEWCASTLE, England, April 15, 2026--Atelerix, a biotech company revolutionising cell preservation and biological transport with its pioneering hydrogel encapsulation technology, today announced it has established a strategic partnership with JH Health Ltd, a Saudi Arabian company focused on medical and health-related technology. The partnership grants JH Health exclusive rights to use and distribute Atelerix’s hydrogel-based cell and tissue preservation solutions in the Middle East, significantl
Jump Rope with Bulbasaur in This Limited-Time <em>Pokémon Pokopia</em> Event
A new limited-time in-game event is coming to Pokémon Pokopia, and it’ll have you jumping for joy.
108 malicious Chrome extensions found stealing data and injecting ads into every page you visit — delete them right now
The extensions have different publishers but send all the data they steal to the same place
WATCH: Woman alleges violent sexual assault by Rep. Eric Swalwell in news conference with lawyers
Woman alleges violent sexual assault by Eric Swalwell: 'He raped me’
A day after Rep. Eric Swallwell said he would resign from Congress, a Beverly Hills woman detailed what she described as a violent sexual encounter with the Democratic lawmaker.
U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker quits to take role in Saudi Arabia
Matt Crocker quit as sporting director of the U.S. Soccer Federation on Tuesday, just two months ahead of the World Cup, to take a new job in Saudi Arabia.
U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker to leave role, set to join Saudi Arabian Football Federation
The 51-year-old is set to take a up a new role with the Saudi Arabian Football Federation.
Greater Wausau Chamber of Commerce to host annual Business EXPO
The Greater Wausau Chamber of Commerce will host hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of attendees at the organization’s annual Business EXPO on Thursday.
Ecuador and Saudi Arabia Will Face Off at Sports Illustrated Stadium in May During Final Preparations for the World Cup
MIAMI, FL (April 10, 2026) - Utilizing the last FIFA match window prior to the World Cup, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia will face off at Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, NJ on May 30th at 7:30 pm (ET). Both teams are laser focused on getting out of the Group Stage
Swalwell's 'best friend' in Congress turns on him after bombshell allegations torpedo his political career
Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., distanced himself from Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., calling him unfit for Congress after allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.
Rep. Eric Swalwell of California says he will resign from Congress after sexual assault allegations
The decision caps a swift political fall for the seven-term lawmaker, who had been seen as a frontrunner in California’s gubernatorial race.
Swalwell exits California governor's race after assault allegations
Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s abrupt exit from the race for California governor left his rivals scrambling to lock down his former supporters in a crowded contest with no clear leader, injecting more turmoil into the campaign to lead the nation’s most populous state.
Calls grow for Eric Swalwell to resign from House amid sexual assault allegations
The California Democrat suspended his campaign for governor amid sexual assault and misconduct allegations by a former staff member and at least three other women
New data suggests Trump’s assault on democracy may be stalling out
Three new reports give some surprising reasons for optimism.
Mid-America Science Museum opening interactive dinosaur exhibit April 25
Dinosaurs will return to Mid-America Science Museum starting April 25 with the exhibit "Expedition: Dinosaur."
Nukes and Nassau Hall: Inside Princeton’s Science and Global Security Program
Co-directors of Princeton's Science and Global Security Program Zia Mian and Alexander Glaser are working to understand nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and policies around disarmament alongside a team of researchers and visiting scholars.
Rep. Eric Swalwell suspends campaign for California governor after sex assault allegations
Rep. Eric Swalwell faced intense pressure to drop his bid for California governor after reporting Friday that prompted many supporters to drop their support for him
Swalwell faces pressure to resign from Congress as former staffers denounce alleged misconduct in new letter
A letter signed by more than 50 former staffers of Rep. Eric Swalwell described recent allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against him as “serious” and “credible,” while demanding he resign from Congress and drop his bid for California governor.
Calls grow for Eric Swalwell to exit politics over sexual assault allegations
An expanding number of Democrats, including fellow Californians, are asking their House colleague to quit his campaign for governor and resign from Congress.
California Democrats Rushed to Back Eric Swalwell — and Quickly Abandoned Him
Representative Eric Swalwell, a Washington figure, was largely unknown in the California State Capitol. But influential groups began backing him for governor in the weeks before he was publicly accused of sexual assault.
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
Accusation of sexual assault threatens Swalwell governor bid
The Democrat running for governor categorically denied any misconduct involving congressional staffers. Then the San Francisco Chronicle published an article quoting an alleged victim.
Candidates for California governor call on Swalwell to drop out after allegations of sexual assault
The Democratic congressmember came under pressure after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a former staffer alleged the congressmember sexually assaulted her.
Proto-mammals laid eggs, paleontologists finally confirm
Lystrosaurus fills in a major evolutionary gap.
No Charges for Wisconsin Mayor Who Removed Ballot Drop Box in 2024
A special prosecutor said a review of the incident found there was not sufficient evidence to charge Doug Diny, the mayor of Wausau.
Former sports radio host Mike Missanelli arrested for assault, officials say
Former long-time sports radio host Mike Missanelli was charged with simple assault and harassment after slapping his fiancé, court documents say.
Wausau Mayor Doug Diny won’t face charges over ballot drop box removal case
The review determined that the box didn’t meet the state’s definition of “ballot box” in part because it was sealed and didn’t have any ballots in it.
Brenda Alexander has the latest in entertainment headlines:
Are Kim K & Lewis Hamilton dating? Lil Nas X may have caught a break in his felony assault case, and Stephen Colbert's replacement has been announced.
Public health alert for frozen dino chicken nuggets retracted
FSIS retracted the public health alert for frozen, dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets after follow up testing found no elevated levels of lead.
Walmart's dino nuggets are safe to eat after high lead scare, USDA says
A public health alert for Walmart's Great Value dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, suspected of lead contamination, has been retracted.
MAGA Is Winning Its War Against U.S. Science
Source: NBER With all the other terrible news right now, you may not have noticed that Donald Trump is in the process of killing American science. OK, that’s an exaggeration — but not that much of an exaggeration. The Trump administration’s latest budget proposal calls for a gigantic increase in military spending combined with severe cuts to social programs. But as the chart above shows, it also calls for debilitating reductions in research funding. Furthermore, Trump appointees have already been strangling science by sharply reducing the rate at which research grants are approved. Here, for example, is the number of new grants approved by the National Science Foundation: Source: Nature Large numbers of existing grants have also been frozen or terminated, especially in the study of infectious diseases. Add to this a sharp drop in visas issued to foreign students, who often play a direct role in research and who help support academic departments that do research: Put all of this together, and much U.S. scientific research is set to come to a screeching halt — not a few years from now, but over the course of the next year or two. This new assault on U.S. science is taking place at a time when the role of American science in the world has already been greatly eroded. The chart below, based on research recently reported by the National Bureau of Economic Research, measures national strength in science by the share of publications in highly ranked journals. In the 1990s the United States had more such publications than the rest of the world combined. Since then we’ve dropped into third place — well behind China and slightly below the European Union. And this was before the Trump administration’s attack on science had time to take its full effect. Source Some erosion in U.S. scientific preeminence was inevitable given China’s growing sophistication and wealth. But we’ve also fallen behind Europe, even though everyone says that Europe is lagging economically and technologically. Claims about Europe’s underperformance are, in fact, dubious if one looks hard at the data. But it’s still striking to see America lagging. What’s going on? There are presumably multiple factors behind America’s scientific lag. But even before Trump II the growing hostility of the U.S. right to science surely had some negative effect. And since the rise of MAGA G.O.P. attitudes toward science in general have become overwhelmingly hostile. This is true even for the Republican rank and file: And while I haven’t been able to find good survey data, it’s obvious that the anti-science turn has been even more pronounced — and began earlier — among the Republican political elite. Chris Mooney published The Republican War on Science in 2005, and even then was describing a longstanding trend. Why have Republicans turned so anti-science? Part of the answer is that they believe that scientists don’t support them. And they’re right! A study of who scientists give money to shows that only a small percentage gave money to Republicans even 20 years ago, and that almost none of them donate to Republicans now: Social scientists have always been strongly pro-Democratic, while there used to be a significant number of physical, “hard” scientists supporting the GOP. But these days physicists are almost as uniformly Democratic, or at least non-Republican, as sociologists. Why are there almost no Republican scientists? It’s not a mystery. GOP political orthodoxy includes positions that are at odds with the scientific consensus on multiple issues, ranging from the validity of the theory of evolution, to the reality of climate change, to the efficacy and safety of vaccines. In each case the scientific consensus is solidly grounded in evidence. But even before the rise of MAGA the U.S. right was increasingly hostile to evidence-based policymaking — especially, of course, where the evidence is unfavorable to fossil fuel interests or quack medicine, both financial mainstays of right-wing politics. So scientists don’t support Republicans, and the feeling is mutual. Today’s Republican Party doesn’t like science or scientists. It doesn’t like having its preconceived views challenged by appeals to evidence. It knows that very few scientists are on its side electorally. In general, it sees scientific research as a threat to its grasp on political power. Add in MAGA’s combination of rabid anti-intellectualism and allergy to any hint of criticism, and one has the makings of a drastic anti-science turn in policy. “Ignorance is strength” might was well be an official MAGA motto. And as I said, we aren’t talking about something that will happen over the course of multiple years: The U.S. scientific enterprise is threatened with severe damage, even collapse, over just the next year. There are many reasons to find this prospect horrifying: Think of all the beneficial advances, affecting almost every part of life, that won’t happen because U.S. science — still crucial to the world — has been eviscerated. But think, also, of America’s international standing. Can a nation that has forfeited its role as a leader, or even a contender, in global science, still be a Great Power? No. MUSICAL CODA
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