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Four things to watch as RFK Jr. defends his health agenda on the Hill
Vaccines and turmoil at the agencies under his leadership are expected to be hot topics.
Gaubert Oil expanding fuels business
The company has agreed to buy the wholesale and transportation division of Mississippi-based Buffalo Services, giving it a foothold in The Magnolia state.
Boilermaker Business: How I Narrowed Down My College Options
Emilee Balzer shares how campus visits and personal connections led her to Purdue University's Mitch Daniels School of Business.
In the House, Republican Plans Go Awry Amid Party Divides
Fresh off a two-week break, lawmakers returned to turmoil in the House, where legislation to reopen the Department of Homeland Security is stalled and the G.O.P. is struggling to keep its agenda on track.
Scientists Use AI to Map Ocean Currents in Incredible Detail
Understanding ocean currents is important for work such as weather forecasting, climate research, search-and-rescue operations and oil spill response.
Donald Trump messed with the wrong pope
Trump fought with Pope Francis before. He’s finding Pope Leo XIV to be a tougher foil.
Business owners 'spooked' by oil price surge, national survey shows
A monthly national barometer of small business optimism released by the National Federation of Independent Business shows a dip in March.
Japan Pledges $10 Billion to Help Countries Cope With Oil Prices
With supply chains at risk, the aid to Southeast Asian nations is aimed at securing the availability of oil-based products, including medical equipment.
Trump predicts oil prices will drop ‘tremendously’ despite recent surge
President Donald Trump sits down with FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo to discuss escalating Middle East tensions, his warning to Iran on nuclear weapons and why he believes gas prices will drop ahead of the midterms.
Medical scans and chips: the hidden fallout of the Iran war for China
Four months ago, a dozen academics and researchers from China’s top oil and gas producers issued a warning buried in an academic journal: the nation’s quest for self-sufficiency had a critical weak spot.
War Exposes Gaps in India’s Clean Energy Push
The country’s creaking electricity grid is lagging behind its push for renewable sources — just as its growing economy hungers for oil stranded by war.
Asian shares mostly rise after Wall Street rallies on lower oil prices
Asian shares are mostly rising, echoing the rally on Wall Street that came as oil prices eased on hopes the United States and Iran may try again on talks to end their war.
Opinion: Utah’s volatile inner-party politics
Turmoil in the Mideast and the nation’s economy are intensifying fissures between parties and within them. What does this mean for Utah politics?
Beyond the aroma: The science-backed reason your grandmother boiled Rosemary
Discover how boiling rosemary can purify your indoor air, remove pollutants, and promote better health. Learn the science behind this ancient practice and how to easily incorporate it into your daily routine.
Oil Price Spike Erodes Small Business Confidence, NFIB Says
Small business optimism dipped below its 52-year average for the first time in a year in March, driven by the Iran war and the subsequent surge in oil
U.S. wholesale prices surged 4% last month during the Iran war
The surge in prices complicates the work of the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve, who have faced intense pressure from President Donald Trump to lower their benchmark interest rate. But some Fed policymakers are inclined to raise rates instead, as higher energy costs increase the inflation threat.
Toilet tech is the next frontier of health data — but it might mean putting a camera on your bowl
The Post tried three of the latest toilet health trackers to see if they're worth opening your wallet — and your bathroom door.
US small business sentiment falls to 11-month low in March
small-business sentiment dropped to an 11-month low in March as a surge in oil prices because of the war in Iran overshadowed the benefits from low taxes, a survey showed. The National Federation of Independent Business said on Tuesday its Small Business Optimism Index dropped 3.
US small business sentiment falls to 11-month low in March
U.S. small-business sentiment dropped to an 11-month low in March as a surge in oil prices because of the war in Iran overshadowed the benefits from low taxes, a survey showed.
Iran war hurting global economy as IMF meeting begins; oil falls on peace hopes
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Iran: Israel’s Oil Depot Strikes Endanger Environment, Health
Israeli attacks on four oil depots around Tehran on March 7, 2026 may cause long-term health and environmental harm for civilians.
Australian business sentiment crashes in March on worries about fallout from Iran war
Australian business confidence plunged last month by a magnitude only seen during financial crises as the Iran war gave rise to a global oil shock, a survey showed on Tuesday.
Careful, huge spoilers are out for James Bond game 007: First Light, following an Indonesian Game Rating leak
IO Interactive's 007: First Light spoilers have surfaced online alongside other upcoming video game leaks.
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.
OPEC lowers second-quarter global oil demand forecast on Iran war
OPEC on Monday lowered its forecast for world oil demand in the second quarter, citing the impact of the ongoing war in the Middle East, a copy of its monthly oil report seen by Reuters showed.
Oil prices jump on US plans to blockade Iranian ports in Strait of Hormuz
Oil prices climbed Monday, after the US military said it would implement a shipping blockade in the Strait of Hormuz — a move that could test the current ceasefire while further tightening global oil supply.
Oil price tops $100 a barrel again after Trump announces strait of Hormuz blockade
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Baker Hughes sells Waygate unit to Hexagon for about $1.45 billion
Oilfield services provider Baker Hughes sold its Waygate Technologies unit to Swedish industrial technology group Hexagon for about $1.45 billion in cash, the two companies said on Monday.
Stop wasting time on hair myths: 5 science-backed secrets that can actually grow your hair
If you’ve ever gone down the rabbit hole of “hair growth hacks,” you already know how confusing it gets. Oil this, don’t oil that. Cut your hair, don’t cut your hair. Everyone seems to have an opinion - and half of it contradicts the other half.So let’s simplify things.Here are 5 science-backed habits that actually support better, healthier hair growth. No overnight miracles - just real, practical changes that make a difference over time.
IMF director says shock from US-Iran War is 'baked' into the economy
War has ravaged the Middle East for 43 days, but the damage could take years to repair amid tension at the Strait of Hormuz and damaged oil hubs.
Science Pub: Investigating the Lithium Rush
Lithium has been described as “white gold,” the next oil, or a kind of savior from climate change. Consumers are
Oil prices surge after failed US-Iran peace talks, Trump's blockade
Vice President JD Vance traveled to Pakistan on Saturday to engage in peace talks with Iran. However, the two countries failed to reach a deal.
Oil prices rise after Trump threatens to block passage through Strait of Hormuz
Oil prices topped $100 a barrel again on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US would blockade “any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” threatening to further disrupt oil flows.
Florida State freshman linebacker shining at spring practice
Florida State true freshman linebacker Karon Maycock has been putting on a show during spring practice.
Natrona County health and food inspections (4/3/26–4/9/26)
CASPER, Wyo. — The Casper-Natrona County Health Department inspects restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, mobile food units, commissaries and
Philippines says any energy deals with China must respect its sovereignty
The Philippines said on Sunday that any decision to pursue oil and gas cooperation with China would be made strictly in line with its constitution and respect its sovereignty.
Why reopening the Strait of Hormuz won’t be enough to solve shipping woes and high oil prices
Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is proving to be difficult. But even if the vital waterway fully opens and oil and other necessary cargo sail out, it won’t be enough to return things to normal.
Former ‘Citgo 6’ political prisoner sees ‘karma’ in Maduro ouster, but Venezuelan oil won’t rebound until there’s true regime change
Former 'Citgo Six' captive sees democratic elections as the only way to build international business trust in Venezuela again.
Life on Mars? Tiny cells just survived shock waves and toxic soil
Mars may be hostile, but it might not be entirely unlivable. In lab experiments, yeast cells survived simulated Martian shock waves and toxic perchlorate salts—two major environmental threats on the Red Planet. Their secret weapon was forming protective molecular clusters that shield critical cellular functions under stress. Without these defenses, survival plummeted, pointing to a potential universal strategy life could use beyond Earth.
“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.
Trump, sounding like Biden, says he deserves more credit
America’s last two presidents have spent years as political foils. Both feel the American public does not give them enough credit.
In praise of popular science
As a kid, I was enthusiastically and unreservedly in favor of a manned space program. Our destiny lay in the stars, I figured. Get people out there. We need Star Trek here and now. As I got older, I became rather disenchanted with the idea. Humans are expensive, fragile, and inefficient as space cargo. We could flood the solar system with 100 robotic probes for the price of any single manned mission and get back just as useful data. Besides, it turns out space travel is dangerous. Tusk is a reader-supported publication. To support this work, please become a paid subscriber. Subscribe When it came to the recent Artemis II mission, my cynical side didn’t really see the point. Flying around the Moon and back is literally something we did before I was born, and I once owned a Members Only jacket. Apollo 8 circled the Moon ten times and returned to Earth safely the same month that “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” was released. What was the point of repeating a feat that far braver people once did with tin foil and slide rules? Yet I’ve surprised myself with how moving I’ve found the Artemis II mission to be. The photos have been stunning. The crew has been professional and engaging. There have been modest but important milestones — the farthest humans have travelled from Earth; the first woman, person of color, and non-American to leave low-Earth orbit; innovations in communication, and more. One thing that really stood out is that this is really NASA at its finest. Not that this is the most important mission they ever pulled off, but they did this in a competent way that celebrated the achievements and kept the crew and the science at the forefront of the project. This wasn’t some billionaire throwing celebrities or cars into orbit as a vanity project — this was a collective effort to send experts in to do a job and come home safely. We don’t see that sort of thing much these days. I’m guessing few people would describe many government agencies as inspiring, but this one counts for me. We’re living through a profoundly anti-science era, in which pathbreaking, lifesaving discoveries like mRNA vaccines are routinely downplayed or even vilified. As I’ve noted previously, this era is something like that of the Red Scare in the 1940s and 50s, in which “egghead” professors were portrayed as out of touch or even hostile to regular Americans. One of the things that helped break that spell was Sputnik — the Soviet communications satellite that demonstrated that the United States was falling behind in crucial scientific research and applications. Its launch triggered a new appreciation for American science and goaded the federal government into supporting research universities and labs. I’m not saying that Artemis is the equivalent of Sputnik, but it potentially reminds people that there’s some value to scientific endeavors and the human faces attached to them. Despite my love for the show “For All Mankind,” I’m far from convinced that there’s any real value to putting colonies on the Moon or Mars that would justify the capital investment and the massive health risks to the astronauts. But sending scientific good will ambassadors on a trip into space once in a while? Bring it. Share
Pro-Palestinian activist refuses to condemn political violence after threat against her is foiled
After a Molotov cocktail plot against a pro-Palestinian activist was foiled, Nerdeen Kiswani refused to condemn political violence, blasting Zionist aggression.
(LETTERS) Letter to Barrasso, Hell’s Half Acre science and funding question
Oil City News publishes letters, cartoons and opinions as a public service. The content does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oil City News or its
Climate change is outpacing evolution. Scientists are using DNA to catch up
Climate change is moving far faster. Marine heat waves, record wildfires and coastal development are pushing these systems beyond their limits as climate change, driven by emissions of fuels like oil...
Vitali Prakapenka of the University of Chicago receives the 2026 Gopal K. Shenoy Excellence in Beamline Science Award
Vitali Prakapenka of the University of Chicago is the recipient of the 2026 Gopal K. Shenoy Award for Excellence in Beamline Science for his decades of contributions to the GeoSoilEnviroCARS beamline at the Advanced Photon Source.
Cuban president defiant despite Trump pressure to resign
Miguel Diaz-Canel vows to resist US pressure as Trump escalates threats, tightens oil blockade on the island.
Countries are turning against U.S. fossil fuels after Iran war
As economies in Asia and Europe reel from the energy disruption, leaders make plans to permanently replace imported oil and gas with homegrown energy.
How the White House tried – and failed – to push a candidate out of a Republican state Senate primary in Indiana
With Trump’s sights set on unseating Indiana lawmakers who opposed his redistricting effort, his aides and allies feared a third candidate could play spoiler in one race.
Oil prices tick up amid doubt on Iran war ceasefire; Chinese factory gate costs increase for first time in four years
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
White House Warned Staff Not to Engage in Insider Trading Amid War With Iran
The directive came amid a surge of suspiciously well-timed trades on oil and prediction markets just ahead of crucial moments in the conflict.
‘We need new blood’: Texas voters look for leadership changes, fresh faces this election year
Some vocal Texas voters say they want to get rid of politicians who've served the state for decades. Much of that sentiment can be boiled down to a preference for younger candidates with new energy — or even older ones who buck long-held status quo.
Even astronauts get constipated in space
NASA packed laxatives on Artemis II for a reason.
AI micro-dramas are shaking up Chinese entertainment
Regulators threaten to spoil the fun
AI-generated micro-dramas are shaking up entertainment in China
Regulators threaten to spoil the fun
Oil price rises as markets question durability of Middle East ceasefire
Gas prices also increase, while global stock markets slip back after strong rally on Wednesday
Oil rises and Asian stocks fall amid worries over ‘fragile’ ceasefire deal in Middle East
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Strait of Hormuz traffic still stalled despite US-Iran ceasefire
Movements are dominated by smaller, risk-tolerant operators, while mainstream oil majors and large global shipping firms remain absent.
TRADING DAY Markets gorge on huge TACO
World markets soared on Wednesday and oil had its biggest fall in five years, as investors gave a hearty welcome to the ceasefire in the Iran war. The question now is whether this is just a mega-relief rally, or a major turning point in sentiment.
Oil is crashing, but don’t expect $3 gas anytime soon. Here’s why
Oil futures are plunging – but it could still take weeks or months before gas prices are dramatically lower.
Motorola’s next Razr Ultra leaks in wood-grain and purple-blue colors, and I can’t wait [Gallery]
Motorola is gearing up for its next Razr launch, with new Razr Ultra renders surfacing this week to spoil the...
Battles over business regulation resume in California's Capitol with new legislation
Lawmakers discussed bills that allow lawsuits against business monopolies and businesses that affect climate change.
Oil prices plunge 15% to below $100, stocks surge and dollar slumps after Trump announces US-Iran ceasefire
Investors relieved by news of two-week ceasefire and temporary reopening of strait of Hormuz
Asian benchmarks jump after oil prices sink in response to the Iran ceasefire
Asian shares are surging as oil prices plunged after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire that includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran-linked hackers have disrupted multiple US industrial sites
Iran-linked hackers have successfully targeted and caused disruptions at multiple US oil and gas and water sites in recent weeks, according to a federal advisory released Tuesday and three sources familiar with the investigation.
TACO trade is back as oil falls, stock futures rise on US-Iran ceasefire
About 90 minutes before the deadline he set, President Trump paved the way for a relief rally in markets.
Leonard Leo Is Still Trying to Crush His (Imaginary) Enemies with Disgusting Amounts of Money
The conservative legal activist thinks “radically woke culture” is the problem with America right now—not the climate-destroying oil and gas industry he lavishly supports.
Dallas County GOP chair's precinct reversal brings turmoil in party
The GOP will vote April 20 on whether to oust West as chair after he broke from the group’s earlier agreement to hold precinct-based voting for this year’s primary and runoff election days.
Oil rises above $110 as Trump deadline looms for Iran to reopen strait
IMF head warns Middle East war will lead to higher inflation and slower global growth
Red lights are flashing on the scarcity of oil
Six weeks ago, the world was practically swimming in crude oil. The market was oversupplied and prices were low and stable. But now, some parts of the energy market are acting like the world is on the verge of running dry.
U.S. service sector cools in March, inflation heating up amid Iran war
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has boosted global oil prices by more than 50%
UConn coach Dan Hurley is the most complicated man in American sports
He’s the guy who plugs lemongrass and eucalyptus oil infusers into his office walls, right next to the gladiator mask he keeps on hand.
On plant health and embracing new plant-breeding techniques in South Africa
The major challenge currently confronting South Africa’s agriculture is the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. For many farmers across the country, the most urgent tasks are both securing sufficient vaccines and rolling them out quickly in the coming months, particularly as the beef and dairy industries continue to suffer big losses. There is also pressure on sheep, goats, and other livestock to prevent the disease from spreading. As efforts to get the country through this monumental challenge continue, I believe it is important to sharpen our focus on the broader task at hand: strengthening biosecurity. This covers both animal and plant health. In recent years, we haven’t focused much on plant health, except a few times, such as when we had a goss’s wilt scare in the maize industry, a few cases of citrus black spot, or cases of sclerotinia in sunflower seeds. But the fact that South Africa managed to control the outbreaks of these particular diseases when they occurred a few years ago was due to organized agricultural and government scientific capabilities, and, most importantly, the availability of crop protection or agrochemicals necessary to address some of them. Therefore, as the animal health division in the Department of Agriculture focuses on the pressing challenge of the day, the foot-and-mouth disease, there is an opportunity for the plant health division to assess if they have all the requirements to tackle any outbreak that may occur on fruits, vegetables or crops in future. The challenge with crop diseases is that they can spread quickly and cause much more rapid damage in the field than we typically see with livestock. Therefore, speed is everything in ensuring the appropriate controls are available. I raise this as an important area, particularly given the drastic climate variation we observe across the country. The production conditions in some areas have changed noticeably over time, which may introduce new risks. The other essential part is ensuring that South Africa has access to the best crop protection technology available in the market. Many technology developers worldwide have operations in South Africa. Therefore, the Department of Agriculture, along with the Agricultural Research Council, must continuously interact with technology developers to assess the various crop protection technologies they are releasing globally and determine their suitability and need in South Africa. This will require a proactive approach from the government, unlike the current approach, in which technology developers typically approach regulators with new technologies. The government, recognising the food security risks, must take a proactive approach to ensure that South African farmers have access to the latest crop protection technologies, thereby safeguarding the country’s food security. Beyond crop protection, we must never forget that South Africa’s agriculture is key to ensuring that the country is the most food-secure country at the national level in sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa is also the only African country in the top-40 global agricultural exporters, having more than doubled since 1994 on the back of the adoption of high-yielding seed cultivars. South Africa has been the only African country to adopt a bold approach to embracing science and adopting genetically engineered seeds for grains and oilseeds in the early 2000s. Since then, we have seen crop yields improve noticeably, contributing to the gains we mentioned above. But ensuring that South Africa improves further is not a given. The key lies in South African regulators’ attitudes towards new technologies. We have to maintain a progressive approach and not give in to the politics of non-food and non-scientific voices that shout on the sidelines. Food security is national security, and the government must ensure we progress, leaning on science. Therefore, the registration of high-yielding new genomic techniques is required. South Africa cannot afford to fall behind the EU, the USA, South America, and many of its competitors in global agriculture. The Department of Agriculture’s crop science division must adopt a progress-and-science-embracing approach for the good of the country. Thanks for reading AgriView! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe Share
Asian shares mostly gain while oil prices keep rising
Asian markets that are open for trading are mostly rising as investors continue to closely watch the war in Iran, soaring oil prices and what President Donald Trump might say next
Asian shares mostly gain while oil prices keep rising
Asian markets that are open for trading are mostly rising as investors continue to closely watch the war in Iran, soaring oil prices and what President Donald Trump might say next.
Trump says 'good chance' of deal with Iran on Monday
"I'm considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil" he added
Natrona County health and food inspections (3/27/26–4/2/26)
CASPER, Wyo. — The Casper-Natrona County Health Department inspects restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, mobile food units, commissaries and
FULL SHOW: Inside INdiana Business 4/5/26
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Saudi Arabia's non-oil business activity shrinks in March amid conflict, PMI shows
Saudi Arabia's non-oil private sector activity contracted in March for the first time since August 2020, as the war in the Middle East snarled up supply chains, a business survey showed on Sunday.
The global oil crisis is turning into an everything crisis
One month into the war in Iran, a growing shortage of crude oil is threatening to morph into something worse: a shortage of nearly everything.
Final Four 2026: South Carolina stifles, stuns UConn to end Huskies' undefeated season short of a championship; tensions boil over late
Major Marvel reunion spotted on 'Daredevil: Born Again' season 3 set
'Daredevil: Born Again' season 3 will be a major Marvel reunion. Set photos spoil juicy new casting additions.
International News: Bids In For Brisbane Entertainment Precinct; War Roils Touring & More
AUSTRALASIA
Microsoft says Copilot is for entertainment purposes only, not serious use — firm pushing AI hard to consumers tells users not to rely on it for important advice
These might be boilerplate disclaimers, but they kind of contradict the company's ads and marketing.
Save the Michaels is out of business
Another addiction services provider will take over the nonprofit's last facility, following months of financial and organizational turmoil.
Spoiler Alert! Devils Rout Caps Behind Bratt, Hughes
Look at the Devils delivering maximum damage to a pair of Metropolitan Division rivals this week, although in very different ways. First, on Tuesday, they rolled over and played dead for a hapless Rangers team that got two points that won’t help them in their race to the bottom for Gavin McKenna. Forty-eight hours later […]
Exclusive: Oil giants show early interest in US Gulf deepwater field stake, sources say
European energy majors TotalEnergies and Shell are among companies eyeing a majority stake in one of the U.S. Gulf's most promising sites, three sources with knowledge of the process said, as interest in North American energy prospects rises due to the Middle East conflict.
Energy markets start tuning Trump out after repeated Iran war whiplash
President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to tamp down the surging price of oil by telling investors what they’re eager to hear: The war in Iran is almost over.
Trump speech on Iran war, recent remarks on oil, NATO, daycare costs land with a thud
Trump's meandering speech did little to assuage U.S. allies and world markets concerned about the conflict's ongoing disruptions to the global oil supply.
Mortgage rates rise for fifth straight week as Iran war continues to roil markets
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage rose this week to 6.46%, according to the latest Freddie Mac data released Thursday. That is up from last week's reading of 6.38%.
It Sure Looks Trump Is About to Fire Pam Bondi
The president’s dissatisfaction with his attorney general is finally boiling over.
Branching out: Farmers and scientists team up to see how trees can reshape the future
Nate Lawrence is an ecosystem scientist at the Savanna Institute. “If we can robustly quantify how trees are improving something – let's say maybe improving water quality – then there's probably a way that we can plant more trees as a result of that finding,” he explained.
Space now has 10 toilets
Artemis II's four astronauts share one toilet—and it already had issues.
Potatoes on the moon? Oregon State University scientists show it could work
Researchers grew potatoes in soil that mimics the powdery sediment on the moon's service. With just a little added compost, the plants produced a decent haul of potatoes.
Sharing her passion for science
By Danielle Rush Communications Specialist, Indiana University Kokomo Hisako Masuda, Indiana University Kokomo professor of biochemistry, was honored by the Indiana Academy of Science (IAS) as its 2026 Distinguished Scholar. The award is given to an individual who is recognized by the IAS as having an exceptional record of scholarship. Recipients are selected from nominations submitted to its awards committee. “I was surprised,” said Masuda, who joined IU Kokomo’s faculty in 2013. “I feel there are many good scientists in the Academy, so I wasn’t expecting it at all.” Patrick Motl, dean of the School of Sciences, said the Academy recognizes up to one member per year, and that Masuda is the second or third IU Kokomo faculty member to receive the commendation. “Clearly this speaks to the strength of Dr. Masuda’s accomplishments in research and scholarship and that her work stands out amongst her peers in Indiana,” said Motl, who received the award in 2019. “Many of the institutions that participate in the IAS are undergraduate institutions or primarily undergraduate institutions, but even having that caveat, Dr. Masuda has built and maintains a very active research program in her lab, working exclusively with undergraduates. She is passionate about science and can share that passion with her students. To carry on a quality research program with so many students involved in so many projects is truly remarkable and I am glad that the IAS acknowledged that for Dr. Masuda.” The IAS specifically commended her for involving more than 50 undergraduates in her research in bacterial metabolism, genomics, and their phenotypic plasticity at IU Kokomo, and publishing 23 articles with many student co-authors. Masuda’s current work primarily focuses on biodegradation and chemical repurposing of nylon. Using soil bacteria, her lab studies bacterial biodegradation of nylon and other environmental pollutants. She applies principles of green chemistry while developing a method to convert nylon waste into other nontoxic polymers. In collaborative work with health scientists, her lab investigates gut microbiomes of Indiana native birds as well as human subjects in a clinical study. She became interested in converting plastic waste while earning her Ph.D. at Rutgers University, working on methods to remove environmental waste not using chemicals or other intrusive methods. She learned about Nylon 11, which is used in pipes for transferring oil, interior components for cars, catheters, and in other industrial hard plastics. Nylon 11 is nontoxic, she added, so it is safe to include students in the research. “Those are considered to be nonbiodegradable, and have to go to a landfill,” she said. “I thought if we could come up with a way to biodegrade it, that would make some kind of impact.” Eventually, she wants to develop a product that would convert nylon waste to something useful, and to reduce waste and microplastics in the environment. “That would be my goal at some point, that we can make that change, and also make people more aware of their use of plastics,” she said. “I hope students stop to think about what we can do as scientists to address issues currently impacting us.” She appreciates the IAS for its support of scientific research at Indiana institutions, and IU Kokomo and the School of Sciences for providing funding for students to attend the Academy’s annual meeting. She added that IU Kokomo has also supported her research with funding from the School of Sciences and Academic Affairs. “Without that, I couldn’t do my research,” she said. Masuda has also earned a Senior Research Grant from the IAS, IU Kokomo’s Distinguished Research Award, and the IU Kokomo Junior Faculty Annual Research Award. She is a Fellow of the Indiana Academy of Science. Education is KEY at Indiana University Kokomo.
Why Trump’s Iran Address Failed to Soothe Markets
Oil surged and stocks sold off after the president delivered an unclear case for continuing the war in the Middle East.