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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.
To the editor: Target Chicago to draw new business
With the sheer number of economic development agencies and organizations operating in our region, why aren’t we aggressively targeting businesses in the ...
Fury dominates Makhmudov and calls out Joshua next
Tyson Fury marks his return to the heavyweight mix with a composed points win over Arslanbek Makhmudo, before immediately turning ringside to call out Anthony Joshua.
Trump wants to paint a White House office building with ‘magic paint.’ Experts advise against it
President Donald Trump privately advocated for painting an ornate federal office building next to the White House with a “magic paint with silicate,” CNN has learned. But ahead of a key vote on exterior changes to the sprawling Gilded Age structure, a panel of experts is warning the so-called magic paint could be incompatible with the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s granite exterior.
Nintendo Prime: Nintendo is spreading fake information internally to patch leaks
Nintendo is an extremely secretive company but in recent weeks they’ve sprung some leaks and it isn’t the first time that it has happened. YouTuber Nintendo Prime says he has heard from his sources…
John Nolan, ‘Batman’ actor and uncle to Christopher Nolan, dead at 87: reports
Actor John Nolan, widely known for his roles in “Batman” and “Person of Interest,” died at age 87 on Saturday, according to multiple media reports. Local British outlet Stratford-Upon-Avon Herald f…
Android has a Secret Update Menu You Likely Didn’t Know About
Keeping your Android phone up-to-date should be a straight-forward task. You have updates for apps in the Google Play store and system updates that show up at some point in most... #Apps #Google
It’s Time To Forget About The MacBook Air
Apple’s MacBook Neo has disrupted the PC laptop market while leaving the MacBook market relatively intact. Is there value in Tim Cook disrupting the MacBook Air?
Babies too young for MMR vaccine become ‘sitting ducks’ in measles outbreaks
Babies too young to be vaccinated are among the most vulnerable in a measles outbreak and depend entirely on herd immunity.
“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.
Apple Highlights Photos Shot on iPhone During NASA's Mission to Moon
As we previously reported, astronauts aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft used the iPhone 17 Pro Max to take selfies of themselves with the Earth in the background during the Artemis II mission around the far side of the Moon last week. Now that the crew members have safely returned to Earth, Apple's CEO Tim Cook and marketing chief Greg Joswiak have both turned to social media to congratulate them on their successful mission and highlight the iPhone's involvement.
Borderlands 4 Nintendo Switch 2 copies apparently spotted in the wild despite the game being put on hold indefinitely
There’s been an interesting development with the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4 as the game has now been spotted at retail. You may originally recall that the port was planned for release last October. However, it was delayed just a few days before release. Then in February, we heard that development had been paused. That brings us to...
Max Muncy, high-octane Dodgers set for rematch vs. Rangers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are the first 10-win team in the majors, and they largely have gotten there with a potent offense.
Photo Of Cameron Brink, LeBron James Grabs Basketball World's Attention
WNBA star Cameron Brink was at Crypto.com Arena on Friday night to watch LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers square off against the Phoenix Suns. Unfortunately for the Lakers, this month hasn't been very kind to them. A few days ago, All-Star guard Luka Doncic suffered a grade 2 hamstring ...
Apple @ Work: How to add an existing Mac to Apple Business Manager without wiping it
A new open source script called add2abm allows IT administrators to retroactively add configured Macs to Apple Business Manager without erasing the hard drive.
Hungary’s Viktor Orban struggling for political survival ahead of vote
Hungarian prime minister and his Fidesz party face first closely contested polls in Sunday's parliamentary election.
Your nose could detect Alzheimer’s years before symptoms begin
Losing your sense of smell might signal Alzheimer’s far earlier than expected. Scientists found that immune cells in the brain actively destroy smell-related nerve fibers after detecting abnormal signals on their surfaces. This damage begins in early stages of the disease, well before cognitive decline. The discovery could help identify at-risk patients sooner and improve treatment timing.
Two simple eating habits linked to lower weight, study finds
A major study suggests that when you eat could play a key role in staying lean. People who fast longer overnight and start their day with an early breakfast were more likely to have a lower BMI years later. Scientists think this is because eating earlier aligns better with the body’s internal clock. But skipping breakfast as part of intermittent fasting didn’t offer the same advantage—and may even be tied to unhealthy habits.
Unusual airborne toxin detected in the U.S. for the first time
Scientists searching for air pollution clues stumbled onto something unexpected: toxic MCCPs drifting through the air for the first time in the Western Hemisphere. The likely source—fertilizer made from sewage sludge—points to a hidden route for contamination.
A simple guide to staying fit without needing a gym membership
Fitness pros say it’s still possible to build strength, improve endurance and support overall fitness goals from home, both safely and effectively.
Skyrim’s massive RP server that replaces NPCs with players just broke a new record
Skyrim’s massive new 750 player roleplay server is transforming the 2011 classic into something entirely unprecedented.
I found the ‘memory cheat code’ for ChatGPT — and it fixed my worst problem with AI
One simple prompt stopped ChatGPT from “forgetting” everything mid-conversation — and it completely changed how I use it
Omar Cooper Jr. NFL Draft Profile
Doug watches the college film to assess Omar Cooper Jr.'s strengths and weaknesses as well as what it likely means for his NFL future.
Barcelona face major setback in race for teenage midfield sensation
According to SPORT, Barcelona are closely monitoring Kennet Eichhorn, a highly-rated 16-year-old currently developing at Hertha Berlin. The youngster has emerged as one of the most promising midfield...
Chelsea monitoring Nottingham Forest’s Murillo
Chelsea have shortlisted Nottingham Forest centre-half Murillo as the Blues search for defensive reinforcement this summer, according to Jacob Steinberg.Chelsea desperately need an experienced defende...
Framework CEO warns AI boom may lead to a scenario where "personal computing as we know it is dead”
Framework CEO Nirav Patel warns that the AI boom and a “winner-takes-all” scramble for chips and storage could drive up component costs and push consumers toward cloud-leased, closed devices, effectively ending personal computing as traditionally understood. While acknowledging progress in repairability across the industry, he positions Framework’s upcoming Next Gen Event as part of a renewed pledge to defend user ownership through upgradable, repairable hardware and local control over data and computation.
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
Yankees Not Making Excuses Over Brutal Offensive Showings
The New York Yankees haven't been playing the type of baseball they were expected to when entering the season over the past few days, and it's resulted in some tough losses. Offensively speaking, the Yankees only scored seven runs in the three games against the Athletics, including a shutout in the third game of the set.
'Historic milestone': FSU now effectively owns TMH as city transfers hospital assets
'Historic milestone': FSU and the city of Tallahassee announced Friday evening that the legal transfer of the city-owned hospital assets are complete after a controversial process that divided the community.
Can sports media really change the way you look at sports?
While stats are helpful, very rarely do numbers tell the full story.
How will NASA get the Artemis II crew safely back on Earth? Here's the science behind splashdown
While splashdown can be harrowing – the spacecraft will hurdle through the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound and reach temperatures in the thousands of degrees – NASA has been doing it for decades.
Pontiac Once Ran A Super Bowl Commercial Featuring An Option That Was Cancelled Almost Immediately Because The Suits Freaked Out
Super Bowl commercials have always been a big deal, right from the beginning. You have a massive captive audience, suitable primed on beer and nachos to be as suggestible as possible. That’s why carmakers have always been some of the most eager purchasers of Super Bowl ad time, and why they’ve tended to use it […]
Update on Proposed Dissolution of SBE Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF) -
On Friday, April 3, 2026, it was reported that interim leadership at the National Science Foundation announced during an internal all-staff meeting that they would preemptively start making moves to dissolve the SBE Directorate in [...]
Scientists turn 'mess' into breakthrough: Chaotic design unlocks next-generation optical devices
Researchers from the Monash University School of Physics and Astronomy have flipped a long-held assumption in optics, showing that deliberately introducing controlled disorder into ultra-thin optical ...
'I am thinking about it,' Kamala Harris says of 2028 presidential bid
Former Vice President Kamala Harris says she’s actively considering another presidential bid | 100.1 FM and AM 1020 KDKA
Microplastics in our bodies: What health experts are starting to see
Join leading medical experts, including cardiologists and public health researchers, for a timely conversation on the emerging science around microplastics and the human body.
Pokemon Champions Review
Pokemon Champions brings competitive battling to the masses but fails to adequately explain all of its intricacies.
Title X Funding Restored, but New Rules Raise Concerns
By HealthDay Staff HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, April 10, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Federal funding for reproductive health clinics is back on track, but some new rules appear to stray from the original goals. Clinics that rely on the Title X program have now received their funding after the Trump ...
This superconductivity dies then comes back to life
A strange new kind of superconductivity has been uncovered in uranium ditelluride (UTe2), where electricity flows with zero resistance—but only under extremely strong magnetic fields that should normally destroy it. Even more surprising, the superconductivity disappears at first and then dramatically reappears at even higher fields, earning it the nickname the “Lazarus phase.”
Peru's Dysfunctional Politics Are an Economic Time Bomb
Peru has gone through three presidents since October, yet markets have largely yawned: Country risk has edged up only marginally, credit default swaps remain well below their five-year average and the currency has even gained against the dollar.
"This is not a game that is about to face some sort of imminent shutdown" - Marathon reportedly had a budget of $200m, and while player numbers are dipping, team morale remains good
Marathon reportedly had a development of over at least $200m, and likely over $250m.
Make Your MacBook Battery Last Longer With This Setting
If you own a MacBook and work from home, it's easy to have your laptop plugged in for hours on end without thinking about the long-term battery life implications. Fortunately, Apple recently added a setting that lets you cap how high your Mac's battery charges, and if you own an iPhone that was released in the last few years, you may already be familiar with it.
St. Petersburg Council advances $600M infrastructure bond proposal to Committee
Council took up the item without debate, reflecting desire to at least advance the conversation through the process despite likely debate.
What public health can learn from the MAHA movement
“What MAHA has built, in a relatively short time, is social capital,” writes Monica L. Wang.
Artemis II has cosmic plans that rely on Colorado's space science
The unit that has deep roots with Denver's Lockheed Martin splashes down on Friday evening.
'Death of a Salesman' review: The timely Broadway revival feels as urgent as ever
Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf, and Christopher Abbott lead a stellar cast in a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' that feels as timely and urgent as ever. Read EW's review.
KAMIKURA: Weaponization of religion in U.S. politics
In the U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, the founders did not mention any god. In god's absence on paper, the founders reinforce the separation of church and state. The First Amendment, passed in 1789 and ratified in 1791 in the Bill of Rights, states that Congress may not do anything to legislatively restrict the free practice of religion. But in the current political climate, the state and church are becoming increasingly intertwined.
Is the Options Market Predicting a Spike in Tencent Music Entertainment Stock?
Investors need to pay close attention to TME stock based on the movements in the options market lately.
What's really behind Phillies' recent offensive drought
The Phillies have gone cold again, but the numbers suggest the lineup isn’t entirely broken — it just isn’t clicking in its current order.
Borders Railway extension business case due by late 2027
It could ultimately pave the way for extending the rail line from Tweedbank to Carlisle.
Healthy Petaluma’s Ben Spierings named to North Bay Business Journal’s Forty Under 40
“The scale of need often far exceeds the capacity of local funders, and the idea of shifting the responsibility entirely to philanthropy is neither sustainable nor equitable.”
Andy’s Produce’s Josh Skikos named to North Bay Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 of 2026
“We prioritize sourcing from regional growers whenever possible and actively support the farming community through partnerships with local producers and organizations like the Sonoma County Farm Bureau.”
James Webb telescope spots 'stingray' galaxy system that could solve the mystery of 'little red dots'
A study of the fascinating galaxy system nicknamed "The Stingray" suggests that mysterious little red dots could be a phase in the evolution of galaxies powered by actively feeding black holes, rather than a distinct class of objects.
Arts and Entertainment Agenda, April 10-16
Aspen 2026 Shortsfest final days, April 10-11 Aspen’s 2026 Shortsfest, recognized as one of North America’s premier short-film festivals and the only Academy Award-qualifying festival dedicated solely to shorts, wraps this week. The “In Conversation...
Trump Totally Wants to Appoint His Own Pope, Doesn’t He?
Apparently, the White House and the Vatican are feuding. The historical precedents for this kind of power struggle are so absolutely delicious.
3L Rachel Sadler Charts Path in Brain Health, Technology, and Policy Through UC Law SF’s Health Law Concentration - UC Law San Francisco (Formerly UC Hastings)
3L Rachel Sadler studies health law and policy at UC Law SF while researching the legal implications of neurotechnology and other emerging tools that may affect human cognition. 3L student Rachel Sadler shares how UC Law SF’s Health Law Concentration prepared her for a career focused on the intersection of brain health, government policy, and technology. Gained a detailed understanding of how U.S. health care is regulated and where policy reform is needed through coursework and research. Interned with state and federal agencies that regulate health care services and worked with a major health care provider’s bioethics department. Plans to pursue a career focused on protecting cognitive liberty and mental privacy as new technologies reshape healthcare. 3L Rachel Sadler: The Health Law Concentration has given me fluency in one of the most complex regulated industries and the tools to become an effective advocate for better health policy. Before coming to law school, I spent a decade teaching and working with teachers and administrators on high school programming for multilingual learners. Healthcare kept emerging as the most powerful driver of student outcomes. I wanted to understand how to make effective policy change in this area and how to use existing law to defend people’s health rights in California. Through the concentration’s coursework, I gained a sophisticated understanding of how U.S. healthcare is regulated. I also learned where the pressure points for reform exist. The courses gave me space to develop what became my central research interest: how law and policy can be built to protect human cognition and healthy brain development, particularly regarding new technologies such as generative AI and neurotechnology. The health law faculty were instrumental in that process, genuinely invested in helping me and other students define and pursue our own intellectual vision. During law school, I interned at the General Counsel’s Office for Region IX of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I also externed at the California Department of Justice’s Health, Education and Welfare Division. Additionally, I externed at Kaiser Permanente Northern California’s Bioethics Department. Alongside those placements, I conducted extensive independent research on mental privacy and emerging neurotechnology, working closely with Professors Emily Murphy and George Horvath. That research became the throughline of my law school experience and the foundation of my current policy focus. I must also credit Nicole Ozer of the Center for Constitutional Democracy (CCD), whose deep knowledge of California privacy law and the public-interest privacy landscape deeply informed my work. I currently serve a research assistant with the CCD, where I spearhead the development of K-12 educational resources in partnership with law faculty and students. I’ve found UC Law SF to be an ideal place for second-career, nontraditional students. There is a tremendous diversity of life and career experience here, and I felt fully welcomed into the community, despite returning as a student at a different stage of life. I came to law school wanting to promote equity in California’s healthcare system. I am leaving with a sharper and more specific ambition: to build a policy career focused on protecting cognitive liberty and mental privacy from technological intrusion. This is both an urgent and underserved area of law, and I want to be part of defining this landscape going forward. Whether as a practicing attorney or a policy advisor, I plan to work on these issues after law school. I strongly recommend UC Law SF and the Health Law Concentration. When I arrived in law school, I worried the concentration would be narrow and that my non-clinical background would be a disadvantage. The opposite was true. The health law faculty thinks about health expansively, encompassing social determinants of health, structural inequity, and emerging technologies alongside the regulatory mechanics of the industry. The faculty are accessible, intellectually generous, and genuinely invested in students’ development. I found my research vision here, and I deeply appreciate the concentration’s role in this. The Evidence of Success series highlights UC Law SF students as they share how the College’s opportunities equip them with the experience, skills, and confidence to excel in the legal profession.
Mohegan appoints Joe Soper Vice President of Sports & Entertainment
Mohegan on Thursday appointed Joe Soper as Vice President of Sports & Entertainment. Soper will oversee strategy and programming for Mohegan Sun’s entertainment and work collaboratively acros...
Rare, violent rift discovered in Ngogo chimpanzee group from 'Chimp Empire'
The largest group of wild chimpanzees known to scientists has permanently split in two — something that is extremely rare.Scientists with Arizona State University and The University of Texas at Austin are the first to clearly document the permanent divide and the intergroup violence that followed. The study draws on three decades of field observations of the Ngogo chimpanzees of Kibale National Park, Uganda, a population featured in the Netflix documentary series "Chimp Empire."
This Week in Sports Trivia: April 9, 2026
How closely were you following the sports news this week? Find out and test your knowledge by taking The Athletic's weekly quiz.
Standout Michigan LB Jimmy Rolder works out privately with Saints
The New Orleans Saints have some work to do on the defensive side of the ball, and could look to draft Michigan linebacker Jimmy Rolder.
Galaxy S25 and S24 users get AirDrop and 3 new camera filters
With new One UI 8.5 Beta updates, Samsung has fresh perks for the users of Galaxy S25 and S24 series: AirDrop sharing and three new camera filters. Samsung just dropped One UI 8.5 Beta 9 and Beta 2 updates for the S25 and S24 series, respectively. Changelog of both updates carry exact the same content, […]
Pokémon Champions Developer 'Sincerely Apologizes' For Launch Issues, Details List of Bugs to be Fixed
Following a rocky launch, the maker of Pokémon Champions has apologized for the game's various technical issues and released a list of bugs it's currently planning to fix.
Democrats Are Obsessed With the Wrong Senate Races
Sherrod Brown and Roy Cooper aren’t driving the political conversation, but their races may ultimately decide the Senate majority.
'It should have been five or six'
Jamie Carragher says the gulf between Liverpool and Paris St.Germain in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final was "absolutely startling". The Reds, who failed to register a shot on target at Parc des Princes, have a two-goal deficit to overturn in next week's second leg.
The Best Restaurants to Book in London Right Now
Must-visit places include an unlikely British power dining room and a great-value Japanese spot.
Weekly Entertainment Report, April 9-12: Live music and lively arts in Southern NH » Nashua Ink Link
Go out and find some live music and lively arts this weekend.
Smokers are more likely to develop dementia, research finds
Weekly Entertainment Report, April 9-12: Live music and lively arts in Southern NH
Live music and lively arts - go out and find some!
Your DNA has a secret “second code” that decides which genes get silenced
Not all parts of our genetic code are equal, even when they appear to say the same thing. Scientists have discovered that cells can detect less efficient genetic instructions and selectively silence them. A protein called DHX29 plays a key role in this process by identifying and suppressing weaker messages. This finding reveals a hidden layer of control in how genes are used.
Banner Health seeks help identifying man hit by car in central Phoenix
Banner Health is asking for the public’s help in identifying a severely injured man who was hit by a car in central Phoenix earlier this year.
Who Is Funding the 2026 Midterm Elections? A Lot of the Money Is Untraceable.
A lot of the money flowing into the political system is ultimately untraceable.
'No one knows what they are': Researchers discover new type of cell that's seen only during pregnancy
A new map of the "maternal-fetal interface" reveals a new type of cell, as well as the types of cells most likely to be affected in conditions like preeclampsia.
How Sisters in Public Health is changing who gets to lead
Angela Frazier had a vision. As a master’s student in public health, she looked around at the women in her program and saw something that troubled her. Talented, committed women were navigating a demanding field largely on their own, without mentors who looked like them, without spaces to process the weight of the work, and … Continue reading How Sisters in Public Health is changing who gets to lead
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 […]
Apple MacBooks slow down after 49 days due to "macOS time bomb"
The Apple MacBook, iMac and Mac mini suffer from a macOS bug that effectively acts like a time bomb. After a timer reaches a certain value, new TCP connections can effectively no longer be established, causing many apps and websites to stop working.
Could the 49ers trade out of the first round?
The 49ers are sitting at No. 27. Could they move out of the first round entirely?
Social support, sleep and pain management linked to mental health in later life
Older Canadians who are socially connected, physically healthy, and spiritually engaged are significantly more likely to experience complete mental health, according to a new nationally representative ...
iPhone Air 2 and iPhone 18e Reportedly Launching Early Next Year
Apple plans to release an updated iPhone Air and a lower-end iPhone 18e early next year, according to the latest word from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In a report this week, he said Apple plans to unveil the two devices in spring 2027, alongside a standard iPhone 18. If so, Apple will likely announce the trio of devices in March or April next year. It is unclear if there will be a live-streamed event.
Generations Of Damage: WHO Warns Of Middle East Health Collapse Amid Funding Shortfall
“The Middle East is among the most water-stressed regions globally. The Gulf hosts approximately 400 desalination plants producing 40% of the world's
Jamie Dimon warned high taxes would push business out of New York, but the city is honing its edge over Miami in attracting top talent, report finds
More skilled professionals are moving to New York than Florida, according to a white paper from real estate firm JLL shared exclusively with Fortune.
Nancy Guthrie Kidnappers Likely Made This Fatal Mistake, Says Investigator
The 84-year-old mom of Savannah Guthrie has been missing for ten weeks.
Nancy Guthrie Kidnappers Likely Made This Fatal Mistake, Says Investigator
The 84-year-old mom of Savannah Guthrie has been missing for ten weeks.
Bicycle bell designed to defeat noise-cancelling headphones
Škoda's DuoBell is designed to be heard by people wearing high-end headphones, inexpensively blowing through active noise cancellation without being ridiculously loud or unnecessarily "smart." It's a "simple analog solution"…
Advocates Remain Bullish About Turning the Waterfront Park Bowl Into an Entertainment Plaza
Peter Johnson and his fellow board members have persistently sought public and private support to transform the Bowl into a privately maintained public asset that’s filled with tiered lawns, a marketplace and live music.
Apple very cautious about iPhone Ultra sales; Samsung wins concession
A new report suggests Apple is being extremely cautious in its expectations of demand for its most expensive ever smartphone,...
Rumor: 007 First Light delayed indefinitely on Nintendo Switch 2 [update: summer delay]
Original: Rumor has it that the Nintendo Switch 2 version of 007 First Light has been hit with its own delay. 007 First Light was originally planned for release for all platforms on March 27, 2026. IO Interactive later pushed the launch back to May 27, 2026, and last we heard, the new date also applied to Nintendo Switch 2....
ASUS Resorts To Deceptive Practices, Raises The Prices Of Its Snapdragon X2 Elite Laptops Shortly After Reviews Go Live
Almost immediately after views of ASUS’ Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme and Snapdragon X2 Elite laptops went live, the company raised prices
From classroom to the pros: Rice sport analytics program turning data into opportunity
Rice’s sport analytics program, a relatively new and still rare undergraduate major, is quickly becoming a pipeline into professional sports.
Alex Vindman internal poll shows him within striking distance of Ashley Moody
The Republican incumbent remains largely unknown to voters, according to a PPP survey.
Arsenal’s season will be judged on results and nothing else
Forget the performances, forget how they score their goals and ignore the noise; Arsenal's season will be defined purely on results.
Business Formation Statistics Monthly Data Release
Explore timely and high frequency information on new business applications and formations.
Scientists Have Found a New Neurodevelopmental Disorder Hidden in Our Genes
And it may be relatively prevalent.
Viewpoint: FP10 should remain open, excellent and secure
Europe is right to worry about research security. Foreign interference is real. So is the misuse of sensitive knowledge. Universities working in sensitive areas such as AI, quantum, semiconductors and advanced materials cannot afford to ignore the geopolitical environment around them.But Europe is in danger of drawing the wrong conclusion, one that would increase, not reduce, its strategic vulnerabilities.If the EU applies an “EU preference” logic to the next Framework Programme for research and innovation (FP10), it will weaken one of its greatest strategic assets: a research system built on openness, excellence and international collaboration. In the name of security, Europe could end up advancing science more slowly, innovating less effectively and making itself less attractive to global talent and partners in advanced science and technology.That would be a serious mistake.The EU preference included in Article 10 of the proposed European Competitiveness Fund may make sense in some industrial or deployment contexts, but is far harder to justify when applied to collaborative research in advanced science and technology, where excellence and global connectivity are crucial. Research is not procurement. It does not thrive when isolated. It advances through access to the best ideas, the best people, the best facilities and the best data, wherever they are found. This is why FP10 should not simply absorb industrial policy logic by default. Doing so would risk importing instruments that are ill-suited to research and that ultimately increase vulnerability rather than resilience.For universities of science and technology, the issue is especially acute. These institutions sit at the frontier of knowledge and technology creation in the very fields Europe sees as critical for its future competitiveness and resilience. They know better than most that security risks are real. But they also know that openness and security are not opposites. In practice, they have to be made to work together. Research security is not about closing doors. It is about building resilience through collective responsibility, trust, proportionate safeguards and better governance. That is a fundamentally different approach from default restriction.The risks of non-collaborationThe real danger in the current debate is that Europe talks too much about the risks of collaboration and not enough about the risks of non-collaboration. Those risks are strategic too. Cut researchers off from international networks and Europe loses access to knowledge, data, infrastructures and talent. Slow down global collaboration in critical technologies and Europe slows down its own progress on cutting-edge science. Make participation rules unpredictable and Europe weakens its attractiveness to researchers and investors alike.In other words, over-restricting collaboration will create strategic vulnerabilities, particularly in advanced science and technologies.This point is often underestimated in policy discussions that frame openness mainly as a value to be defended. Europe’s scientific strength, technological development and long-term competitiveness depend on remaining connected to the best research ecosystems in the world. For a continent that wants to accelerate deep tech, strengthen industrial capacity and reduce strategic dependencies, weakening the excellence base would be self-defeating. That does not mean ignoring risk. Quite the opposite. Universities are already strengthening due diligence, internal governance, awareness-raising, screening procedures and compliance support. Across Europe, institutions are working to manage risks linked to foreign interference, sanctions, export controls and the misuse of research. The right response is not complacency. It is better risk management. But that means targeted, evidence-based and proportionate measures, not blunt top-down restrictions with wide spillover effects. In the daily reality of universities, openness and restriction often coexist. The real challenge is how to apply safeguards without sliding into securitisation that damages academic freedom, open science and international cooperation. Restrict partners, not nationsMore restrictive treatment of collaborators from European Economic Area members Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, or from Switzerland and the UK, is strategically very difficult to justify. These are deeply embedded partners in Europe’s research and innovation ecosystem. Beyond that, Europe should still resist default exclusion and instead rely on case-by-case assessment. The relevant question is not nationality in the abstract. It is the actual risk profile of a collaboration: the institution, the affiliations, the field, the knowledge involved, the intended use and the safeguards available. Screening should focus on institutions and affiliations rather than nationality alone. Related articlesParliament ‘misreads’ link between Horizon Europe and ECF, Commission official saysFrustration grows at governance gap in next Horizon EuropeIf EU preference logic is imported into research without careful calibration, the likely result is a chilling effect. Researchers may step back from legitimate and beneficial collaboration, even where risks are manageable. International partners may see Europe as less predictable. And Europe may end up undermining the very excellence base it needs to compete, scale up and lead in strategic technologies, thereby increasing its dependence on others.FP10 should do the opposite. It should remain open by default, with restrictions used only exceptionally, and then on the basis of clear evidence. It should integrate research security into open science and research integrity frameworks, not set them against each other. And it should recognise that academic freedom, scientific excellence and responsible international collaboration are not obstacles to Europe’s security, they are part of it. Europe needs stronger tools to protect itself. But it also needs the discipline to avoid measures that would weaken it and increase its strategic vulnerabilities in the process. In FP10, that means staying open, excellent and secure.Louise Drogoul is senior advisor for innovation and sustainability at the Cesaer university association.
Executive Summary: A Patients’ Bill of Rights To Lower Health Care Costs
CAP’s plan would limit unjustified premium increases; reduce deductibles by reining in outlier hospital prices; and replace prior authorization with independent, evidence-based clinical review to lower health care costs and increase access to timely care.
Swalwell campaign denies online claims that congressman behaved inappropriately with staffers
A spokesman for Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate, on Tuesday denounced online claims that the congressman had inappropriate relationships with young congressional staffers.
Rollback of state minority business program will damage Harris County’s tax revenue, legal filing says
The comptroller's action, according to the lawsuit, will damage the stability of the county's procurement system, narrow the universe of potential bidders and reduce investment, workforce development and tax revenues in Harris County. The comptroller's office could not immediately be reached for comment.
As Job Stability Shifts, AI Platforms Aim to Remove the Barriers to Business Ownership
Skills that have made someone successful in a corporate career can certainly translate to work as an entrepreneur, but owning a business is a separate challenge entirely. Costly start-up fees, overhead, marketing, managing multiple software systems and expensive staff are some of the many reasons st
🤯 Too old? Neuer back in prime mode against Real
Manuel Neuer once again came under fire after conceding two goals in Freiburg on Saturday. He did not look particularly good on either goal and even completely missed the ball once in the six-yard box...