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Replaced Review
Replaced is a gripping and gorgeous 2.5D action platformer, even though this AI-based adventure could do with a system update to completely iron out the bugs.
How low should blood pressure go? Science has the answer
New research suggests that aiming for a lower blood pressure target may deliver bigger heart health benefits than previously thought. Using large datasets and simulation models, scientists found that keeping systolic blood pressure below 120 mm Hg could reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and heart failure more than higher targets.
Breath carries clues to gut health
At-home breath tests could reveal insights about gut health, though their ability to assess food intolerances is not yet clear.
Springing into science
When people understand science, the whole community benefits. A scientifically literate community is a stronger community – one where people can navigate new technologies, evaluate information and participate in conversations that shape our future. Scientific literacy isn’t about memorizing facts. It’s about understanding how the world works well enough to make thoughtful choices within it. […]
'Dr. Pimple Popper' Sandra Lee Recalls 1st Signs of Stroke That She Dismissed
At age 55, Lee had a stroke but initially thought she was tired and stressed from filming her reality show and working as a doctor.
A negative side effect of ultra-processed foods you haven't thought about
Eating ultra-processed food is associated with negative health outcomes, but a new study is looking at an underexplored impact: muscle health.
Nastassia Harrison ’28 blends art and science in pursuit of physical therapy through the help of her scholarships
Although she grew up playing nearly every sport in Warren County, North Carolina, Nastassia Harrison ’28 has loved dancing since she was three years old. “My dad would put me in any...
Kent State football coach Mark Carney receives Josh Cribbs' approval
Former Cleveland Browns star Josh Cribbs visited Kent State University and shared thoughts on the state of his college team under coach Mark Carney.
Rep. Thomas Massie puts his Republican 'brand' against Trump's in Kentucky
Massie is touting his independence and trying to turn the president into an afterthought as he faces Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein next month in a tough GOP primary.
NFL Draft Source Program gets Pittsburgh businesses in the game
Michael Pattillo has a thriving spice and catering business. The end goal, though, of this classically trained culinary wiz is to work as a private chef. Now,...
Overwatch launches on Nintendo Switch 2 with performance issues, Blizzard confirms patch in the works
Overwatch just launched on Nintendo Switch 2 today, but things haven’t gone smoothly. Soon after release, players reported issues with the port – notably with performance. Blizzard promised that the new Nintendo Switch 2 version would run up to 60 frames per second. However, some fans thought that the Nintendo Switch 1 version was accidentally uploaded since the action felt...
Parenting and Politics: How to Talk to Kids about War
Parenting in times of conflict is never simple. But it is also an opportunity to raise thoughtful, compassionate, and courageous children with a strong moral compass.
OPINION | More than a vote: discovering my place in politics
In high school, I viewed politics as one of the most mind-numbing subjects imaginable. From my perspective, Congress was dominated by wealthy, older white men and my single vote felt insignificant, as though it could never truly represent me. Politics seemed distant, unrelatable and ultimately pointless. In 2024, however, Congress reached a record high of...
More than a vote: discovering my place in politics
In high school, I viewed politics as one of the most mind-numbing subjects imaginable. From my perspective, Congress was dominated by wealthy, older white men and my single vote felt insignificant, as though it could never truly represent me. Politics seemed distant, unrelatable and ultimately pointless. In 2024, however, Congress reached a record high of...
Trump deletes Jesus image after backlash
The president claimed he thought the image depicted him as a doctor
How This CU Denver Student Discovered His Passion for Politics
At 12 years old, Mario Quinones Rabelo wasn’t obsessing over video games or watching content creator MrBeast on YouTube. That’s how old he was when his Campus resources, helpful advising, and valuable community partnerships helped this student dream bigger than he ever thought possible.
‘I thought it was me as a doctor’: 10 of the best political excuses ever
From Boris Johnson to Rudy Giuliani, top politicians have come up with some imaginative justifications for alleged misbehavior.
The biggest takeaways from the new RFK Jr. tell-all, from addiction to affairs
An unauthorized biography on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is detailing the ups, downs and inner thoughts of the famed family member-turned-health secretary.
10 thoughts and tidbits on Sixers vs. Magic play-in tournament game
Ahead of the Sixers’ play-in tournament game vs. the Magic, here are 10 thoughts and tidbits.
Jan-Werner Müller awarded University professorship, reflects on democracy and academic freedom
Jan-Werner Müller, scholar of democratic theory and the history of political thought, was named Class of 1943 University Professor of Politics. He sat down with the ‘Prince’ to discuss his research, teaching, the role of political theory, and concerns about student engagement and academic freedom on campus.
Anthropic's AI Assistant Claude Is Now Available in Microsoft Word
If you're using Word, you can now try out an alternative AI tool to Copilot, though it's only in beta testing for now.
Universe is expanding faster than expected: Scientists struggle to explain cosmic acceleration
Science News: Not only is the Universe expanding, but its expansion is actually happening at a speed higher than was thought possible until recently. For many years.
Nige and Zia set out plan to send ‘Boriswave’ traitors to the gulag
Farage and sidekick are still sore about how the Tories handled Brexit, although new mates Braverman and Jenrick are forgiven
‘Little House on the Prairie’: Netflix Reboot Debuts Teaser Trailer
'Even though they were all alone, they were happy because they were a family — and they were together.'
Get on ‘board’ with Aspen’s newest charcuterie board business
Borde + Kurv offers handmade boards, along with baskets, spanning everything from brunch to charcuterie to dessert — with thoughtfully sourced and mostly local produce evoking European flavor and tradition.
Prediction markets have exploded. What can they tell us about Oregon’s hottest primary race?
The state of the Republican gubernatorial primary has been hard to divine, but gamblers have thoughts.
Grinnell College sports social media teams bring the game online
DJ Damazo, assistant men’s basketball coach, said that about three years ago, the basketball team didn’t have a social media page at all. “I thought we were missing out on a chance to market our program to other students at Grinnell and probably, more importantly, like recruits,” Damazo said. Damazo decided to find students to...
Turning car battery acid into clean energy: A surprising breakthrough in plastic recycling
Science News: Plastic waste on a global level amounts to hundreds of millions of tonnes annually, although very little of that is recycled. On the other hand, corro.
Scientists were wrong about lifespan. Your genes matter way more than we thought
For years, scientists believed our lifespan was mostly shaped by environment and chance, with genetics playing only a minor role. But a new study from the Weizmann Institute flips that idea on its head, revealing that genes may actually account for about half of the differences in how long people live. By analyzing massive twin datasets—including twins raised apart—and using innovative simulations to filter out deaths from accidents and other external causes, researchers uncovered a hidden genetic influence that had been masked for decades.
Rosenior: Chelsea ‘nowhere near’ expectations against Man City
Liam Rosenior was highly critical of Chelsea’s second-half performance after they fell to a 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday. The Blues started brightly at Stamford Bridge and even thought t...
They Thought This Priest Was Poisoned. When the CT Scan Came Back, the Truth Was So Much Weirder.
Uh, how did that happen?
Close of polls nears in Hungary's most crucial election in decades
As record numbers of Hungarians head to the polls, the EU is preparing for two scenarios: continued obstruction under Orbán or a victory for Magyar that could reset relations, though Brussels remains cautious about both.
New research turns everything we thought we knew about yo-yo dieting on its head
A slowdown in federal science grants has Vermont researchers worried
Though leaders at the National Institutes of Health say they intend to allocate all the federally assigned dollars, changes in how they do so is disrupting the research of early career scientists.
⚠️ Concern for Mbappé! Not training with the squad after eyebrow stitches
Real Madrid completed training this Sunday with an absence that raised alarm bells, although the club is conveying complete calm. According to several media outlets, Kylian Mbappé did not go out onto...
Ira Winderman: Wins up, seed similar, season sideways for Heat
MIAMI — A better record. A similar play-in seed. But at least less drama, so there’s that. A year ago, when assessing a 37-45 season that delivered the Heat to the No. 10 and final play-in seed, the thought was of a net gain in escaping a half season of Jimmy Butler drama. Now, when assessing a record assured of finishing on the plus side of .500, the question is if the gain is tangible, ...
Get on ‘board’ with Aspen’s charcuterie board business
Borde + Kurv offers handmade boards, along with baskets, spanning everything from brunch to charcuterie to dessert — with thoughtfully sourced and mostly local produce evoking European flavor and tradition.
Seniors: Dennis Ouellette, 80
Ontario Orchards owner not slowing down as he grows his farm market By Stefan Yablonski The seeds for Dennis Ouellette’s career path were sown when he was 6 years old — and he isn’t slowing down. “Since age 6, I grew up an agriculturalist. That is 72 years. Started out with a 37-acre farm when I bought it from my parents and built it up to almost 300 acres. Brought it back down to around 200 acres now,” he said. The location of his business was just a barn, a horse barn, he said. “In 1967, it officially became Ontario Orchards Farm Market. My wife [June] and I graduated [high school] in 1964 and three years later we became Ontario Orchards. We have been here more than 60 years,” he explained. “It is the same location. We have expanded over the years as the customers mentioned different things; we have expanded to bring in different products. “What keeps me going is I totally enjoy what I am doing. I enjoy the people that I work with. The customers are wonderful. Mostly, more important than anything, is my family — my wife, my daughters, grandchildren, son-in-law — we are still very much a family business I’m not going to retire just yet.” He also enjoys the changing seasons. “Ontario Orchards is a four-season business. There is always something new; more energy, more interest. Not only for the business but for my staff, the people that work here. Things keep changing, changing. We are always looking forward to something new and exciting,” he said. They work with quite a number of local farmers within the area and throughout the state, throughout the country and from around the world.” “We do have things from different countries around the world. But specifically, we are very excited about the local. We have an over 200-acre farm. We sell just about everything we raise on that farm right here at the farm market. For example, we press cider year-round. We make baked goods every day, year-round. We sell our apples 12 months a year.” “Today, there are so many products in Ontario Orchards that we never would have thought of in 1967,” he continued. “I attribute a lot of that to my daughters. I like the young blood and new energy. That is very crucial to a business, it keeps it vibrant.” What’s his favorite part of the job? “I don’t have a favorite part. I enjoy it all. I have a lot of intertest in other things,” he said. “I have staff that knows so much. I can go to the staff and say, ‘I don’t know what this is, you tell me what this is.’ They are so knowledgeable. It is impossible for one person to know everything in this place. In the summer, staff is about 60; in the winter about 20, 25.” He added that he plans on being around for several more years.
Seniors: John Lemp, 70
Has been working for more than 50 years in the business — M. Lemp Jewelers in Syracuse — that his great-grandfather started in 1890 By Mary Beth Roach Don Lemp owns and represents the fourth-generation of the family business, M. Lemp Jewelers, but he still calls himself “a counter guy.” “I love interacting with couples. It’s a wonderful business. You’re celebrating marriages, engagements, births, anniversaries — all these different significant moments that people invite you into their lives for whatever brief period of time it might be to help them celebrate whatever their important occasion is,” he said. This is one of several reasons why Lemp, at 70, has been working for more than 50 years in the business that his great-grandfather started in 1890. Always located in the downtown Syracuse area, the store has been situated in the building that the family owns on East Fayette and Warren streets since 1971. He jokes that he’s been in the business so long he is now selling engagement rings to the second generation in some families. He also loves the opportunity to learn about the ever-changing industry and gemstones. “You have to know not only diamonds, but all the colored stones, from A to Z, from andalusite to zircons,” he said. Lemp said he had originally thought he wanted to become an attorney, but while working part-time in the store while attending college at Syracuse University, he decided to follow in the family business. His father, Walter D. Lemp Sr., and his mother tried to discourage their son from pursuing retail, reminding him of the hectic hours and lifestyle intrinsic in this business. But the younger Lemp [whose full name is Walter D. Lemp Jr.] prevailed. So, over the years, father and son got to work together in the family business for 35 years. And while many other jewelers retreated from downtown to suburban malls in the 1970s, the Lemps decided to stay downtown. And it’s a decision that Lemp Jr. feels it has worked out well. As he explained, downtown Syracuse is seeing a rebirth. One website, Point2Home.com, has noted that more than 6,000 people live there and the median income is about $62,000. In addition, according to the website that Lemp built years ago, the store can cater to customers throughout the country. His customers, whether from across the country or across Onondaga County, are just one reason that Lemp stays engaged in the business. His employees, the opportunity to continue to learn in an industry, and the challenge to continue to improve business are all other reasons, he noted. He’s also been able to travel to India to buy diamonds and he enjoys buying and selling estates. “I’d rather gallop in the corral than ride into the sunset,” Lemp said.
Seniors: Carol Watson, 72
Owner of Carol Watson Greenhouse and Landscaping in LaFayette enjoys her growing business — still puts in six-, seven-day weeks By Mary Beth Roach Carol Watson, the owner of Carol Watson Greenhouse and Landscaping, has been in gardens since she could walk. Literally. She said she learned to walk in her grandfather’s garden, which was next door to her current home and business in LaFayette. Today, at 72, she is running the business that her mother, Claire, opened in 1981 as Watson Greenhouse. Watson worked part-time for her mom until 1990, when she joined her full time. While she may not have had any formal horticultural experience, she said she learned so much about growing and raising plants from her mom, who had an abundance of energy and talent. Now, after 35 years in the business full time, Watson has no plans to retire, although she joked that she’d like a couple of days off a week. On her seven-acre site, complete with four greenhouses, Watson said her favorite parts of the job are working with and educating her customers; helping some of her young customers build terrariums; conducting occasional class field trips; and supporting local art by decorating the shop with an eclectic mix of pottery from at least four area craftspeople. A one-time employee of the former Dey Bros. department store in Syracuse, Watson said she loves merchandising and enjoys displaying unique pieces of art on shelves and even suspending from ceilings. “We’re creative. We also had top quality plants. We got a reputation of quality plants and unusual products,” she said. It’s tending to her customers and her plants, showcasing the unusual products, and hosting special events to benefit the community that keep her motivated to work six to seven days a week. “I just love it. I love taking care of the plants. I’m one of the few people that really enjoys watering,” she said. And while she has cultivated a solid customer base over the years, she remains savvy in her marketing efforts to draw in new customers. For example, she does a gardening segment on CNY Central television; her active Facebook page has thousands of followers; and she hosts a number of unique events and classes that not only introduce her shop to potential new clients, but some benefit nonprofits as well. About 13 years ago, when the local symphony orchestra was struggling, she said she wanted to help. So, partnering with the group, she began offering concerts, called Soirees, featuring the Syracuse Orchestra’s string quartet. Following up on a suggestion from a customer whose brother is a deejay in retirement, specializing in sock hops, she hosted the greenhouse’s first sock hop. Plants got moved back toward the walls to make room for dancing; a caterer was brought in, offering diner-like food; guests came in period outfits; and proceeds went to the Food Bank of CNY. She is excited about doing it again in October. Via her website, she promotes the greenhouse as an “oasis in the snow,” offering visitors the opportunity to pick up some decorating and gift ideas while taking in the floral and citrus scents. And she also caters to her four-legged friends. Over this past winter, she said, she came up with a “brilliant idea,” although at the time she didn’t appreciate just how brilliant it would become. Feeling it too cold outside to take her dog for a walk, she opted to bring it into the greenhouse. And before long, she was inviting people to bring their dogs into the big greenhouse as well. She looks forward to extending that invitation again this upcoming winter season. For Watson and her customers, the greenhouse is always in season.
“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.
OPINION: Gen Z’s political frustrations are causing an analog counterculture
Gen Z’s frustrations with political polarization and life in the digital world have led to a new counterculture. In seeking to divert from the mainstream, they have popularized rock music, tangible media, and analog systems. This pattern is as old as time, though its most unique aspect is the technological regression in the effort to be more present.
Early weight gain is linked to lifelong health consequences
Putting on weight earlier in life may be more dangerous than previously thought. Researchers found that early adulthood obesity significantly raises the risk of premature death, especially from major diseases like heart disease and diabetes. The longer the body carries excess weight, the greater the damage appears to be. Interestingly, cancer risk in women didn’t follow this pattern, suggesting other biological factors are at play.
Early weight gain is linked to lifelong health consequences
Putting on weight earlier in life may be more dangerous than previously thought. Researchers found that early adulthood obesity significantly raises the risk of premature death, especially from major diseases like heart disease and diabetes. The longer the body carries excess weight, the greater the damage appears to be. Interestingly, cancer risk in women didn’t follow this pattern, suggesting other biological factors are at play.
People Throw Away This Common Electronic Item Without Knowing It Holds 450MG of Pure 22-Carat Gold
You have almost certainly thrown this exact item in the trash without a second thought. Inside its forgotten shell sits a hidden payload of genuine 22-carat gold worth far more than the scrap value.
Borussia Dortmund vs Leverkusen
Borussia Dortmund prepares for matchday 29 of the Bundesliga as they welcome Bayern Leverkusen to the Signal Iduna Park on Saturday afternoon.Although Dortmund remains in second position in the table ...
Viewing Artemis II from the Science Central planetarium
One of their experts shared her thoughts on the monumental mission and how she is helping educate the community.
Scottie Scheffler has 2 shots in the water and his first round over par in the Masters in 3 years
Scottie Scheffler thought he was in good shape with two par 5s still to play in the Masters | NewsRadio WILK
What NHL analysts have seen in the Penguins' stunning rise from afterthought to playoff lock
NEWARK, N.J. — “It felt like the end was coming.” Ray Ferraro was like almost everyone around the hockey world. The ESPN analyst thought...
Science fiction becomes reality at USF's Engineering Expo
At the University of South Florida’s Engineering Expo, visitors can control a robotic catapult using nothing but their thoughts. It's one of dozens of hands-on exhibits drawing thousands of students and families to campus.
Microsoft starts removing Copilot buttons from Windows 11 apps
The underlying AI features are here to stay, though
How the FBI Extracted Deleted Signal Messages From a Defendant's iPhone
The FBI was able to pull Signal messages from a defendant's iPhone—even though that user had deleted the app. Here's how they did it.
2K Says Surprise ‘Borderlands’ Mobile Game Launch Isn’t An Accident
A new Borderlands game has launched on mobile, and has surprised everyone. Some thought it was an accidental launch, but it's not.
The ‘oldest octopus’ in the world isn’t an octopus after all, scientists find
The story of a 300-million-year-old fossil has been rewritten after scientists discovered that it doesn’t actually belong to the world’s oldest octopus as previously thought.
Unless you reboot every once in a while, your Mac will get kicked offline every 49 days
A new bug has been discovered that breaks all Mac networking every 49 days, 17 hours, two minutes, and 47 seconds. It's simple to get around the bug, though.
Sterling ticks higher, remains driven by Middle East developments
The pound inched higher on the dollar on Thursday and held onto the bulk of U.S.-Iran ceasefire-inspired gains the previous session, though with that deal looking fragile it failed to climb any further.
Scientists thought there was a black hole at the centre of our Galaxy. It turns out it may be something even stranger | BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Could Sagittarius A* at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy be not a black hole, but dark matter instead? A new study suggests so.
2XKO announces additional character, Fuse and content for 2026, but we're not sure if it's a good or not so good sign for the game
Getting more content in a fighting game is always a good thing though this reveal feels a little different than most.Riot Games announced today they are ramping up their planned content releases for 2XKO in 2026, which is leaving ...
Poll: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis loses support among Democrats
Gov. Jared Polis is losing steam among members of his party, particularly progressive Democrats, according to a recent poll. Other statewide Democrats also saw their favorability ratings drop, though relatively stable compared to the governor’s numbers, the poll conducted by the Colorado Polling Institute in late March said. Forty-four percent of respondents said they view […]
iPhone Ultra's Price Range Revealed
Apple reportedly plans to unveil its long-awaited foldable iPhone in September, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has revealed the device's supposed price range. Apple's foldable iPhone is rumored to be named iPhone Ultra In a report this week, Gurman said the foldable iPhone is expected to "cross the $2,000 threshold" in the U.S., although it is unclear if he is referring to the starting price or if only some configurations will surpass that price point.
Another Big Night for Democrats: Tuesday’s Wisconsin and Georgia Results
Democrats enjoyed another double-digit victory in a Wisconsin state Supreme Court race; their win will expand the liberal majority on the body to 5-2. Meanwhile, Republicans held GA-14, although it made for another Democratic overperformance.
Overwatch’s Next Hero Isn’t Who Fans Thought She Was
The game’s 51st hero looked a lot like a character from the novels
Kirk Cousins declares the Raiders' uniforms the 'best jerseys in pro sports'
New Raiders quarterback Kirk Cousins calls Las Vegas jerseys the "best in pro sports," though there may be an epic debate to be had about his declaration.
Ron DeSantis says Euro ties 'eroded' over Islamification, lack of support for Iran war
The Governor shared his thoughts with Fox News viewers Tuesday evening.
The ‘oldest fossil octopus’ is probably another animal
In 2000, researchers thought they found the oldest fossil octopus, which lived over 300 million years ago. But it may just be a half-rotten nautilus.
Apple has the lowest grades in laptop, phone repairability analysis
The MacBook Neo is a step in the right direction, though.
The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes
Pantheon Review by Walter Cummins The image of Alfred Tennyson I’ve carried for decades goes back to the childhood card game of Authors that depicts him with a stately continence sharpened by a jutting black beard. He’s formidable, his aura superior. Holmes opens his biography of the youthful Tennyson by describing the similar formality of the imposing Tennyson statue at Trinty College Cambridge, sharing the honor with other Trinity greats, including Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Babington Macaulay. Holmes doesn’t want to chip away at that statue but rather reveal its inner youthful core of the man—tall, handsome, and talented but unformed, emerging from a disturbed family of addicted or insane male siblings and four unusual sisters struggling under a violent alcoholic clergyman father. Alfred was certainly statuesque, but would he end up a block of unformed stone like his equally promising brothers? He was youngest of three equally regarded Tennyson brothers at Cambridge, all bright, handsome, and talented, in fact Alfred regarded by some as less promising than his elders who also wrote poetry. Yet Alfred wrote one of his major poems, “The Kraken,” at twenty, revealing both his talent, his interest in geological forces, and the haunting creature that embodied his anxieties. While Holmes focuses on Tennyson of the 1830s and 1840s, he can’t tell his story without exploring his involvement with the Victorian intellectual upheaval. Tennyson was fascinated by new scientific perspectives, following the latest findings as soon as books and articles were published. He was especially taken with Charles Lyell’s deep studies of geology and the discovery of fossils and a timeline of the planet’s development that did much to question fundamental religious assumptions. The impact of these discoveries is reflected in Tennyson’s poetry and led to the crisis in belief he shared with so many contemporaries. He was especially taken by the cycles of destruction and renewal that informed the struggles he confronted in In Memoriam, Maud, and Idylls of the King. Tennyson was only one of the eventual major figures at Cambridge at the same time, young men just beginning to realize their potential. Charles Darwin was at Christ College, although there is no evidence that he and Tennyson even met as students or later in life. Yet evolution became significant in Tennyson’s thinking and the issues of his poetry. One of Tennyson’s best and most important Cambridge friends was Edward FitzGerald, who became the translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and in their on and off relationship served as Tennyson’s harshest critic. FitzGerald was also a friend of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, the two of them partying in Paris as undergraduates. That connection led to a friendship between Thackeray and Tennyson. Others who came to play significant roles in Tennyson’s life were Thomas Carlyle, the Brownings, and the Pre-Raphaelites. Tennyson’s deepest friend at college was Arthur Hallam, who at twenty wrote a glowing review of Tennyson’s first poetry collection, travelled on European adventures with him, and fell in love with his sister Emily. Hallam was also regarded as one more very promising Cambridge student. His sudden death at twenty-two in Vienna from a stroke while travelling with his father devastated many friends, but perhaps Tennyson most of all. He did not write immediate poems of grief but took years to compile those collected in In Memoriam A.H.H., published in 1850, almost twenty years after Hallam’s death For all of Tennyson’s early poetic successes and successes, Holmes reveals him as an often troubled young man suffering periods of depression, fearing planetary upheaval, concerned about supporting himself, disappointed in romances, and worried that he would inherit the family’s mental illness tendencies. Yet despite his seeming withdrawals, he was always writing poetry that he kept private and would not let go, constantly revising. 1850 became a transformative year for Tennyson. He finally consented to publishing In Memoriam with a last-minute prologue that acknowledged God and perhaps convinced the religious Emily Sellwood to marry him after years of pursuit.. He opened up to Emily, revealing his struggles with fears of depression and “weird seizures.” The devastating event of that time was the stillborn death of his unnamed first son. It shook him, but Emily’s faith brought them closer and convinced him to believe in an afterlife. Two later sons survived. With the death of William Wordworth in April of 1950, Tennyson was named poet laureate at age forty-one, reluctantly accepting. It’s as if Tennyson’s life split in half in that year. He lived another forty years, now a recognized success, with the prestige of being an official poet writing patriotic verse, wealthy and revered, no longer the insecure young man seeking an outlet for his immense talent. He earned a place in the Authors deck, now dignified and in 1884 elevated to the peerage as Arthur, Lord Tennyson. Richard Holmes is the author of twenty previous books on the Romantics and Victorians, several of which received awards. The Boundless Deep was shortlisted for the 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He captures the complex vicissitudes of Tennyson’s youth, illustrated by frequent excerpts from the poetry, placing that life in the full context of the shattering discoveries that led to an upheaval of thought in the Victorian age.
Elephant Rumblings: The Caray Call
It’ll exist in my mind as simply iconic. Though after an intense scouring of the internet, I’ve come to realize that Chris Caray’s walk-off home run call from Sunday has garnered mixed reviews. Personally, I loved the in-the-moment nature of him screaming along with the ball as it slammed off of Brent Rooker’s bat and […]
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
Club sports athletes report minimal damage after Morning on the Green festival
Women's Ultimate Frisbee and Rugby Team Captains share their thoughts on the impact of the Morning on The Green Festival on the Lower Sports Complex fields.
Overwatch's Anran redesign is a massive improvement from Blizzard
Though it still features an 'Ozempic chic' nose
Earth’s most powerful ocean current didn’t form the way we thought
A colossal ocean current encircling Antarctica—stronger than all the world’s rivers combined—played a far more complex role in shaping Earth’s climate than scientists once thought. New research shows it didn’t form just because ocean gateways opened, but required shifting continents and powerful winds to align. This shift helped pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, contributing to a major cooling event that transformed Earth into the ice-covered world we know today.
iPhone Fold Enters Trial Production Phase Ahead of 2026 Launch
Apple partner Foxconn has started trial production on the iPhone Fold, according to Chinese leaker Instant Digital. Trial production comes before mass production, which Apple plans to start in July as long as no issues come up during the earlier testing stage. So far, Apple remains on track to launch the iPhone Fold in 2026, though the latest rumors suggest that it's not going to come out in September. Instead, it could launch sometime after the iPhone 18 Pro, debuting as late as December.
Do major concert tours really skip Seattle? Myth or truth?
For years, Seattle fans have wondered if the city is an afterthought when music stars plan their tours. We asked a professional.
Why Some Black Women Say the Best Thing They Did for Their Health Was Leave America
Germany’s universal health care system, though far from perfect, has become a refuge for those seeking care and stability.
Galaxy Z Fold ‘Wide’ will be easier to handle as One UI 9 leaks spout
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold “Wide” has been touched on in previous leaks, though recent One UI 9 screenshots add some...
Makai Lemon or Carnell Tate? | Prospect Pendulum With NBC Sports' Connor Rogers
NBC Sports' Connor Rogers compares several of the 2026 NFL Draft's top prospects in this week's Prospect Pendulum. Hear his thoughts on USC WR Makai Lemon and several of the classes top pass catchers.
Scientists discover hidden brain switch that tells you to stop eating
Your brain’s “stop eating” signal may come from an unexpected source. Researchers found that astrocytes—once thought to just support neurons—actually play a key role in controlling appetite. After a meal, glucose triggers tanycytes, which send signals to astrocytes that then activate fullness neurons. This newly discovered pathway could lead to innovative treatments for obesity and eating disorders.
Weekend News Roundup
It was an eventful long weekend for Jays news. The big one was that Alejandro Kirk fractured and dislocated his thumb on an Austin Hays foul tip late in Friday’s game. His actual prognosis won’t be known until he meets with specialists on Monday. In the best case scenario, though, it’ll be several weeks before […]
New study reveals hidden ocean chemistry
Findings reveal that nitrogen cycling in marine oxygen-deficient zones is far more dynamic than previously thought
Wes Lee New Album ft. Mick Jenkins: Growth & Fatherhood
Inside the mindset and message behind the music | News-Talk 1380 WAOK
Nampa City Council greenlights alcohol sales at two businesses
This story originally appeared in the Idaho Press. At its March 30 meeting, Nampa City Council approved sales for each business, though the types of alcohol each can serve differs based on city rules...
Shroud of Turin, claimed to be Jesus' burial cloth, contaminated with carrot and red coral DNA
An analysis of samples taken from the Shroud of Turin, the cloth thought by some to have been wrapped around Jesus, reveals a rich tapestry of animal and plant DNA. But what does it mean?
Who are the kings being crowned here in Colorado?
Though most of us celebrate “No Kings Day” on July 4, the Trump-deranged got a head start last weekend with rallies around the state. Attendees bravely fought oppression by blocking traffic for people with jobs. Rally-goers demanded freedom from tyranny, many right after voting to ban all but beige house paint at their HOA meetings. […]
What Sea Creatures Reveal About How Fast People Age
By Carole Tanzer Miller HealthDay ReporterSUNDAY, April 5, 2026 (HealthDay News) — This is no ordinary fish story. Researchers who videotaped every moment in the lives of 81 African turquoise killfish gleaned intriguing insights into the aging process that may also apply to humans. Though killfish ...
Bruce Springsteen ‘heartbroken’ by ex-bandmate’s death: ‘May she rest with angels’
He shared his thoughts on social media.
One way to live longer: Win the genetic lottery
We may have less control over how long we live than previously thought.
A Grip on Sports: A Hall of Fame weekend has unfolded in Spokane, though neither NCAA men's semifinal games reached that level
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Where were we? Oh, yes. Celebrating an incredible spring weekend with the thought basketball rocks. And “Roundball Rocks” as the soundtrack.
Double Take -- Sisco: America needs universal health care
Since the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2010, millions of people were able to purchase health insurance. For many of these folks, though, making the monthly payments has
Letters to Sports: Dodgers off to a roller-coaster start
Readers of the Los Angeles Times Sports section give their thoughts on the Dodgers, MVP candidates, UCLA basketball and more.
I thought I'd always use Chrome, until I tried this lightweight alternative
Everything feels faster on this minimal browser
A retired grandpa thought he was in good health — until he fainted during a bike ride
John Cantrell was enjoying his retirement until an unexpected condition forced him to choose between two kinds of heart surgery.
Scientists discover hidden gut signals that could detect cancer early
A new study reveals that gut bacteria and metabolites may hold the key to detecting serious digestive diseases earlier and more easily. Using AI, scientists found that biomarkers linked to one condition can often predict others, showing these diseases are more interconnected than previously thought. This cross-disease insight could lead to faster diagnoses without invasive procedures.
Fossils from China show complex life evolved millions of years earlier than once thought
Newfound fossils from China suggest that complex animals were around millions of years earlier than thought, among them possibly our vertebrate ancestors.
Are allergies genetic?
Although babies born from parents with allergies are also more likely to have them, there are a number of outside factors that affect whether and how someone develops allergies.
Game room owner says she thought business was legal following BCSO raid
Carrie Gutierrez said she was transparent from the start about her business, and said she believed it was a legal operation.
These overlooked brain cells may control fear and PTSD
Astrocytes, once thought to be mere brain “support cells,” are now revealed to be key players in fear memory. Researchers found they actively help form, recall, and weaken fear responses by interacting with neurons in real time. Changing astrocyte activity directly altered how strong fear memories became. This breakthrough could lead to entirely new treatments for anxiety-related disorders.
NFL execs have ‘conflicting’ thoughts on 49ers offseason
How did others around the NFL view the 49ers offseason?
New research suggests the microplastics health risk may not be as bad as we thought
However, that's definitely not to say microplastics aren't still a big problem, study authors warn.