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"Marvel's Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing" extended into summer at Griffin Museum of Science and Industry
Sunday was set to be the last day of the "Marvel's Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing" exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. But the exhibit has been extended again.
"Marvel's Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing" extended at Griffin Museum of Science and Industry
Alonso hopes to stay in F1 beyond this season
Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso says he hopes 2026 will not be his final season in Formula 1.
Patients taking weight-loss drugs often make 5 critical mistakes, doctor warns
Experts say GLP-1 drugs offer benefits beyond weight loss, but common mistakes like skipped labs and poor nutrition can undermine results or cause harm.
Beyond the Athlete conference highlights mental health in sports
Students and community members gathered in McKinnon Hall for the first-ever Beyond the Athlete Conference. Leaders in sport spoke about the challenges that Black or African American and allied community members, identifying as women, face during and after their athletic career.
10 Best Sport Cities In Europe 2026 Per European Best Destinations
Going beyond trophies, European Best Destinations chose the top cities in Europe where you can watch sport, practice sport and live sport all year round.
Astrobotic's Detonation Engine Fires 4,000 Pounds of Thrust in Wild Test
The cutting-edge propulsion system could be used to power rockets to the Moon and beyond.
Celebrating Science, Visionaries, and Impact
The Academy's 2026 Spring Soirée brought together leaders across academia, industry, and beyond.
The Center Cannot Hold Part 3: Beyond Recovery
Experience The Center Cannot Hold, Part 3: Beyond Recovery, a powerful opera inspired by Elyn Saks’ journey of resilience, love, and mental health advocacy.
Linux 7.1 Removes Drivers For Long Obsolete Input Hardware: Bye Bus Mouse Support
Beyond Linux looking to remove old drivers due to the surge of AI/LLM bug reports, the Linux 7.1 kernel is also removing some old hardware drivers simply on the basis of long obsolete hardware
Letters to the Editor: Transactional leadership has its place in business, but not in war
'Let me suggest that, instead, a transformational leadership style that builds on knowledge, ideas, motivation and experience, among other attributes, to form results that will last beyond Band-Aid tr...
Letters to the Editor: Transactional leadership has its place in business, but not in war
'Let me suggest that, instead, a transformational leadership style that builds on knowledge, ideas, motivation and experience, among other attributes, to form results that will last beyond Band-Aid transactions that simply cover scabs,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
We must go beyond box checking when it comes to teaching reading
The science of reading isn't enough for Ohio children. Effective reading instruction must address skill and confidence together.
Singapore emerging as neutral ground as AI firms navigate Sino-US rivalry
Singapore is transforming from East-West gateway to neutral ground for the AI sector, with Chinese startups hoping to operate beyond government reach while U.S. firms seek foreign talent without the headache of stricter visa regulations.
Public-private partnerships go to space
Here are some of the most prominent commercial players in the new space race. Look beyond the rockets to the utilities...
Lyft to Buy Gett’s UK Taxi Business, Marking Its Third International Acquisition
Lyft Inc. has agreed to buy London black cab app Gett, its third acquisition in the past year, as the company works to expand its presence beyond the US.
Palantir: Why its political manifesto is causing a stir
The US tech company has posted a 22-point manifesto on X that goes well beyond typical corporate communications. Critics say it is evidence of "technofascism."
From Campus to Community: “Science & Storytelling” puts a human face on public health
At the Science & Storytelling event, speakers went beyond scientific language to forge genuine connections with the audience, putting human faces behind data
Focus at Four: College Station rising as a Summer sports destination
College Station is leveling up its summers. From the Savannah Bananas to international soccer, the city is landing big-time events to boost its local economy and put itself on the map beyond Aggie football.
Dozens of crashes into Long Grove bridge tracked by local business on ‘wall of shame'
A suburban chocolate shop is stepping beyond selling treats to track the dozens of times a historic bridge has been hit by truck drivers since 2020.
Good Times
For more information about upcoming events in Citrus County this weekend and beyond, go to the events calendar at www.chronicleonline.com, events, event calendar. Also, read the daily Local section of
CBL Scholars Program Opens Pathways to Business Law Careers - UC Law San Francisco (Formerly UC Hastings)
First-year law students and 2026 CBL Scholars Deniz Masjedi, Alvaro Flores, and Tavia Pappaly gain mentorship connections with leading industry professionals as they prepare for careers in business law. Created by the UC Center for Business Law San Francisco (CBL), the CBL Scholars Program aims to develop the next generation of business law leaders, supported by contributions from individuals and corporate sponsors. The highly competitive program provides funding along with academic and professional mentorship to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Scholars gain exposure to the Bay Area’s technology and venture capital ecosystems and access to UC Law SF’s broad network of senior legal professionals. Now in its sixth year, the CBL Scholars Program provides a scholarship and academic and professional mentorship to students entering the business law community from disadvantaged educational, economic, social, or physical backgrounds. The program is generously sponsored by the law firms Gunderson Dettmer and Goodwin Procter. Meet this year’s CBL Scholars: Deniz Masjedi, Alvaro Flores, and Tavia Pappaly. All three have secured summer associate positions at prestigious law firms. Deniz Masjedi: A Passion for Helping Founders Grow Companies Deniz Masjedi, who was born in Iran and moved to Southern California as a teenager, traces her interest in law to her family’s immigration journey and her desire to advocate for herself and her family. She earned a bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley, where she studied political science and sociology. At UC Law SF, she serves as a 1L representative for the Iranian Law Students Association and is active in the Business Law Society and Technology & Law Society. Next fall, she will serve as director of mentorship for the Technology & Law Society and director of professional development for the Business Law Society. She will join Sidley Austin this year as a 1L/2L summer associate. Q: What draws you to business law? A: Prior to law school, I worked in Cooley LLP’s Private Companies practice group as a corporate paralegal for three years, supporting over 100 venture-backed startups and venture capital funds. I found purpose in helping founders transform their vision into successful companies. It was incredibly rewarding being part of their journeys—from company formation and initial financing to major transactions such as M&A deals. What excites me most about this field is the potential for a small, innovative company to become the next Google or Zoom, shaping how people communicate and access information. I hope to continue supporting entrepreneurs and investors as a corporate attorney. Q: What does it mean to you to have been awarded this scholarship? A: As the first person in my family to attend law school in the United States, receiving this scholarship is a tremendous honor. My parents and I left everything behind so that I could enjoy the freedom to practice my religion without persecution and pursue a career in law as a woman. This award is an acknowledgment of my dedication to business law and motivates me to continue pursuing excellence in this field. It also recognizes years of hard work—learning a new language, navigating the college and law school application process, and ultimately building a career in the legal profession. Q: How will this scholarship help support your future goals? A: This scholarship will provide access to mentorship from leaders in the field, enabling me to develop the skills necessary to offer practical advice and effective representation to future clients. It also eases the financial burden of law school, letting me focus on my coursework and deepen my commitment to corporate law. As an immigrant, breaking into the legal profession has not always been easy, and the time that mentors have invested in me has been instrumental to my progress. This scholarship will allow me to continue building those relationships while positioning me to one day mentor others pursuing similar paths. Alvaro Flores: Inspired by Entrepreneurs The son of Mexican immigrants raised in San Antonio, Texas, Alvaro Flores says he has long been interested in how policy, markets, and culture shape society. He studied international relations and global economy at the University of Southern California, with minors in business finance and legal studies. His experiences span local political organizing, venture capital and startup work, and teaching entrepreneurship. At UC Law SF, he is involved in the Business Law Society, Technology & Law Society, and the Latinx Law Student Association. He will join Perkins Coie as a 1L/2L summer associate with the firm’s Emerging Companies & Venture Capital practice. Q: What draws you to business law? A: I’m drawn to stories of entrepreneurs whose simple ideas become companies that shape the economy and society. Spending time in venture capital and working directly with founders has shown me that many important decisions in the scaling process are ultimately legal ones, particularly how companies are structured and how capital is raised. Business law sits at the intersection of innovation and equity. It offers a way to stay close to the pace of technological change while also helping expand who gets to participate in it. There is something special about being part of that process here in the Bay Area, where the American Dream feels like it is reimagined in real time. Q: What does it mean to you to have been awarded this scholarship? A: I am truly grateful for the support and belief this scholarship represents. I see it not just as recognition, but also as alignment. The CBL Scholars Program’s focus on developing individuals who engage deeply with the business and technology ecosystem reflects the path I have been intentionally building. More than anything, it feels like an investment in that journey. I have been thoughtful about each next step–whether teaching, working in venture capital, or building multidisciplinary experiences–and this scholarship reinforces that those efforts come together in a meaningful way. Q: How will this scholarship help support your future goals? A: It allows me to focus more on developing as a business lawyer, without the distraction of financial constraints. Beyond that, the mentorship and access to the Bay Area network are just as valuable. I’m especially interested in working with early-stage companies and investors, so the opportunity to learn directly from people operating at a high level in that space is huge. Tavia Pappaly: Working in the Wine Industry Sparked Interest in Business and Law Tavia Pappaly spent five years in the wine industry before deciding to pursue law school with a goal of becoming a corporate transactions attorney. Pappaly says she wants to use her legal skills to help business grow and thrive. A first-generation law student from Fairfield, California, she is a member of the Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEOP) and will serve as vice president of social planning for the UC Law SF Sports Law Society in her 2L year. She plans to work as a summer associate at Gibson Dunn in San Francisco after her 2L year. Q: What draws you to business law? A: Business law brings together many of my interests and personal experiences. As the daughter of immigrants who grew up around a family-owned small business, I saw firsthand both the opportunities and challenges of building something from the ground up. That perspective, combined with my experience in the wine industry, solidified my interest in helping businesses of all sizes tackle evolving legal challenges. I’m excited to grow within the corporate law space and develop the skills and experience to support businesses at every stage. I’m deeply motivated to give back to immigrant communities and small business owners, whose experiences often intersect. By building a strong foundation in corporate law, I hope to support those working to create generational stability and to contribute in a meaningful way to the communities that have shaped me. Q: What does it mean to you to have been awarded this scholarship? A: Receiving this scholarship is incredibly meaningful to me. I take great pride in my background as a first-generation student and a woman of color, so being recognized for my potential in a field that has historically underrepresented those communities is both affirming and empowering. This program will help connect me to the resources and committed mentors that will help me succeed. Beyond that, it is no secret that law school is a significant financial commitment. This scholarship helps ease both the financial burden and the stress that comes with it, allowing me to focus more on my education and long-term goals. I am incredibly grateful! Q: How will this scholarship help support your future goals? A: This scholarship has already connected me with an incredible network of faculty, business law professionals, and like-minded students. The community fostered by the Center for Business Law is deeply supportive, and I’m excited to grow alongside my cohort. I truly believe this network will play an important role in helping me thrive in law school and position me for success in business law. As I have seen firsthand how impactful both financial scholarship and mentorship are, I hope to give back in this same way later in my career.
When Summer Screen Time Poses a Mental Health Risk for Teens
Beyond headlines and courtrooms, many families are seeking an answer to a more immediate question: How do we know when social media use is affecting a teenager’s mental health?
State prison officials are grappling with a crisis behind bars
NY1 went inside one of the state’s largest prisons — Green Haven Correctional Facility — for an exclusive look beyond its walls.
CommUnity Conference to spotlight civic health, engagement across Wisconsin and beyond
The University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh will bring together students, community members and civic leaders for a day of dialogue, learning and connection at the upcoming CommUnity Conference, focused on strengthening civic health at the local, state and global levels.
Beyond DTC: Finding the Best Business Model for Your Brand with Molly Sims and Randy Goldberg
The best brands aren’t choosing between online and in person retail—they’re doing both, intentionally. Bombas co-founder Randy Goldberg and YSE Beauty founder Molly Sims break down how to expand your model without diluting your brand.
The Death of Public Health
During the recent measles outbreak, the largest in more than 30 years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. refused to clearly recommend the measles vaccine, saying instead that it was a “personal decision,” and that parents should “do their own research.” Similarly, during her recent confirmation hearing for United States Surgeon General, Casey Means was questioned by Senator William Cassidy (R, La). “You’re the nation’s doctor,” said Cassidy. “Would you encourage [a mother] to have her child vaccinated!” “I’m not an individual’s doctor,” Means said. “And every individual needs to talk to their doctor before putting a medication in their body.” In June 2025, Marty Makary, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said that COVID vaccines for pregnant women should be a “personal choice”, even though every other country in the world recommended the COVID vaccine during pregnancy due to a higher risk for severe disease. It doesn’t end there. On January 5, 2026, RFK Jr. reduced the number of routinely recommended vaccines from 18 to 10. For vaccines that protected against influenza, COVID, and rotavirus, parents were urged to speak with their doctors—to make an individual choice. (On March 16, 2026, in a ruling by a federal court in Boston, RFK Jr.’s revised schedule was invalidated.) What’s happening? Why are public health officials moving away from making recommendations for the public? The origin of this change might be rooted in the first two years of the COVID pandemic. In 2020, during the first year on the pandemic, we didn’t have anything to stop a virus that was killing hundreds of people a day and could be spread asymptomatically. We didn’t have antivirals until October, monoclonal antibodies until November, and vaccines until December. All we could do was restrict travel, close businesses, shutter schools, and mask, isolate, quarantine, test, and social distance. During the second year of the pandemic, when we had vaccines to prevent COVID, people couldn’t go anywhere without their vaccine cards. They couldn’t go to their favorite bar or restaurant or sporting event or place of worship without proof of vaccination. Some people were fired from their jobs for refusing to get vaccinated. For many, this was seen as massive government overreach and energized what has been called the “medical freedom movement.” Indeed, a headline in the New York Times declared, “How Health Freedom Became a Winning Rally Cry.” As expressed in the comments of RFK Jr., Casey Means, and Marty Makary, the medical freedom movement focuses on the individual not the community—the opposite of public health. In an article titled “Ethics and Social Value Judgments in Public Health,” ethicists from Yale University distinguished public health from medical freedom. “Public health policies,” they wrote, “are population oriented. Because individual health affects the health of others, public health measures regulate individual behavior to achieve population health goals. All raise questions about how individual autonomy and freedom should be balanced against public health interests…which respects individuals’ sovereignty over their bodies and actions as long as their actions do not harm others.” The medical freedom movement fails to recognize that it often limits the freedom of others. For example, a parent who is afraid to send a child to school where many of the students are unvaccinated. Or immune compromised children who depend on those around them to for protection. The question then becomes “Freedom for whom?” Is it your right, in the name of medical freedom, to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection—and in so doing, take away the freedom of others? In Four Essays on Liberty, Isaiah Berlin sums it up best. “Liberty for the wolves,” he wrote, “is death to the lambs.” Thanks for reading Beyond the Noise! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe
Beyond the Promises: Africa, Power, and the Politics of Climate Action
Renewed uncertainty around US engagement, including signals of potential funding reductions, institutional disengagement, and a second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, has reintroduced questions about the durability of global climate commitments.
Business Beyond the Beach Talk Show: Monica Matteo-Salinas
🎙 Welcome to the Business Beyond the Beach Talk Show! 🌴 The Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce is proud to present Business Beyond the Beach, the brand-new Chamber talk show created in partnership...
Sen. Mark Warner's daughter dies of juvenile diabetes and other health issues at 36
The death of Madison Warner, 36, rendered lawmaker and wife "heartbroken beyond words."
America’s health care crisis continues to add insult to injury
We need to demand that our leaders in Augusta and Washington commit, beyond just expression of “concerns,” to voting to improve, not dismantle, our health care system.
Oscar Health Launches Consumer Marketplace For Insurance Beyond Its Own
Oscar Health launched a new health marketplace to connect consumers to major individual health insurance plans as well as supplemental coverage beyond what it sells.
OVAC Honors Doug Huff For Contributions To High School Sports
WHEELING – During his storied sports writing career, Doug Huff’s influence on high school sports stretched beyond the Ohio Valley and across the United States. MaxPreps made that clear when it placed him eighth on the list of the most influential people in high school football history. The Ohio Valley Athletic Conference joined MaxPreps in […]
Editorial
Whether we're learning about our neighbors on the prairie, or what it's like on moon and beyond; remember that science is critical to understanding our world.
Metro Creator Doesn't Think 2039 Should Be 'Called a Game'
Dmitry Glukhovsky, the creator of Metro, has said on social media that Metro 2039 should go beyond being called just a game.
Curing U.S. Health Care, Part I
In 2008, much to their own surprise, leading Democrats unified around a program of major health care reform. Policy wonks had spent years developing the concepts behind what eventually became Obamacare; big Democratic victories in the 2006 midterms and the prospect of controlling both Congress and the presidency made it possible to imagine turning those ideas into reality. During the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama advocated similar plans, based on those ideas, for expanding insurance coverage. And it happened! The Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. When it was fully implemented in 2014, millions of Americans got health insurance: Impressive as the raw numbers are, they don’t tell the whole story. Before the ACA, even upper-middle-class Americans often found it impossible to get health insurance if they had pre-existing medical conditions. Many Americans were trapped in jobs they wanted to leave but couldn’t for fear of losing their employment-based coverage. Meanwhile, dire predictions from the usual suspects about runaway costs proved wrong. In fact, overall U.S. medical spending has grown much more slowly since the ACA was enacted than before. But the U.S., alone among advanced nations, still falls far short of providing universal health care. As you can see from the chart above, 8 percent of the population was still uninsured in 2024, a number that is set to rise over the next two years as a result of Republican policies. True, many of the uninsured in 2024 were undocumented immigrants, who we don’t try to cover. But there are still a lot of uninsured. Moreover, a significant number of Americans who have health insurance are in fact underinsured. As a result, they are at risk of incurring devastating healthcare costs and are sometimes forced to forgo needed care. This number is set to rise sharply in the next two years as a result of Republican policies adopted under Donald Trump. And not only is the U.S. unique among advanced countries in its under-provision of health care coverage, it also incurs by far the world’s highest healthcare costs per capita. So now may well be a good time to get behind a new push for major health reform — an effort, if you like, to finish the job begun under Obama. Today’s primer is devoted to the economics of health reform. During his failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Donald Trump famously complained, “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.” Actually, we did know — and it’s not that complicated. Health economists understand the principles very well. And because health policy varies greatly among advanced nations, we know a lot about what works and what doesn’t. This will be the first in a series about health reform. Beyond the paywall I’ll address the following: 1. Why markets can’t be trusted to deliver healthcare 2. Routes to universal healthcare 3. What works? In a follow-up post I’ll discuss the pros and cons of different approaches, and possible paths forward for the United States.
Opinion: Systemic failures in New Mexico health care oversight extend beyond Mark Erasmus case
A local attorney says one disgraced surgeon is a symptom of deeper corporate and oversight failures in New Mexico health care.
Google is quietly building something that could transform the lineup beyond the Pixel 11
Two words: Pixel Glow.
Fox News Entertainment Newsletter: Heather Locklear dating Lorenzo Lamas, reality star suffered stroke
The Fox News Entertainment Newsletter brings you the latest Hollywood headlines, celebrity interviews and stories from Los Angeles and beyond.
Moving Beyond Pro: Apple Leaks Reveal 4 New ‘Ultra’ Tier Devices for 2026
New Apple leaks suggest 4 "Ultra" devices arriving in 2026, including a $2,000 foldable iPhone and the powerful MacBook Ultra.
Super Niño 2026: Between science and sensationalism
Beyond the inherent uncertainty in forecasts, current oceanic and atmospheric conditions are already showing meaningful signals.
Beyond Prompting: Using Agent Skills in Data Science
How I turned my eight-year weekly visualization habit into a reusable AI workflow
Apple to Unveil iOS 27 in June With These New Features Beyond Siri
Apple is expected to unveil iOS 27 during its WWDC 2026 keynote on June 8, and the update should be released in September. Below, we outline some of the new features that are rumored to be coming with iOS 27, beyond the long-awaited more personalized version of Siri. iOS 27 will reportedly support 5G satellite internet connectivity, although this functionality might be limited to the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models with Apple's next-generation C2 modem.
Fortnite Loses Two Game Modes, But 'Save The World' Goes Free On Xbox & Beyond
Pro Vocals and Pro Drums have also joined Fortnite Festival
Trump administration embraces quest to stamp out the events of Jan. 6
In his second term, the president has doubled down on efforts to reframe public perception of the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, in court and beyond.
Amazing America 250: Talladega Superspeedway Buzz Brings Business from Around the Nation
TALLADEGA, Ala. — The thunder of engines at Talladega Superspeedway is famous nationwide, but just beyond the track, another kind of momentum is building—one po
High school sports top performers from Wednesday went above and beyond
They put up huge days at the plate, on the mound and at the net. Here are Wednesday's 19 high school sports top performers.
OpenAI’s Codex Mac app adds three key features that go beyond agentic coding
OpenAI is releasing a new version of its Codex desktop app today. The latest Codex update adds three key features...
Vermont Natives Provide Entertainment Through Community, Connection, and Headlocks
A Vermont organization has delivered heated rivalries, daring smackdowns, and unique athleticism for decades — and now, it’s back in Barre. Green Mountain Wrestling (GMW) was founded 30 years ago, when Vermont lacked a professional wrestling scene and was rarely the target for major industry events. Launched by Gary Langevin, the group operated out of Newport from 1996 through 2003. During the organization’s early years, Adam Lash began helping with events. A wrestling fan and teenager eager to join the industry, GMW became a career springboard. “As I got older, I became more involved in the broader professional wrestling industry beyond
Amazon MGM Studios unveils its ambitious theatrical slate for 2026 and beyond at CinemaCon
The studio’s upcoming lineup includes 13 theatrical releases in 2026 and highly anticipated titles in 2027 like 'The Thomas Crown Affair' and 'Spaceballs: The New One'
Safe2Eat in 2026 – Science-backed guidance for all Europeans!
Now in its sixth year, Safe2Eat remains a flagship EU-wide initiative designed to make food safety science accessible and relevant to everyday life. By translating complex scientific knowledge into practical guidance, the campaign helps consumers better understand how food safety works and how it supports their health and wellbeing.Growing reach across Europe and neighbouring countriesSince its launch, Safe2Eat has steadily expanded its geographical scope. From an initial group of 9 participating countries, the campaign reaches 23 countries across Europe and beyond in 2026. This year’s edition...
Beyond the Dialysis Machine: Shaping the Future of Kidney and Cardiovascular Health
At Yale School of Medicine, Christopher El Mouhayyar, MD, works at the forefront of managing dialysis treatment in patients while addressing underlying disease.
TMZ Gets Political
The tabloid TMZ is ripping elected officials with a searing scrutiny beyond even what it usually reserves for celebrities, becoming an improbable fount of accountability.
In Louisville, one naturalist connects stargazing, science and conservation
Dan Price, a NASA solar system ambassador and volunteer naturalist at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum, discusses how dark skies connect astronomy, bird migration and the possibility of life beyond Earth.
A new way to detect life beyond Earth without knowing what life looks like
Researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) and National Institute for Basic Biology have developed a new method to detect extraterrestrial life without relying on traditional biosignatures. By modelling how life might spread between planets, they demonstrate that life could be detected through statistical patterns across planetary populations rather than on individual planets. This "agnostic biosignature" approach could assist in guiding future searches for life beyond Earth.
Beyond the aroma: The science-backed reason your grandmother boiled Rosemary
Discover how boiling rosemary can purify your indoor air, remove pollutants, and promote better health. Learn the science behind this ancient practice and how to easily incorporate it into your daily routine.
Beyond the Algorithm: The business of fun
Depending on the setting, Chris Davenport might describe his career in a number of ways, but if he had to distill it into a single phrase, he would probably say: professional risk manager. Over decades in the mountains...
Beyond brains: How CCHS’ science team grew, triumphed, and bonded
Built from scratch. the Concord-Carllsle team placed ninth out of 78 at the recent Massachusetts State Science Olympiad.
Partington still has 'hope' Iraola will stay at club
Speaking on the Cherries Unpicked podcast, former Bournemouth midfielder Joe Partington says he still has "hope" that Iraola will decide to stay at the Vitality Stadium beyond this season, despite not committing his future yet. It's not over until the fat lady sings, I suppose, and the Bournemouth fans will hold out hope because they've not had any news that it could still mean it's positive.
What Happens in California Governor’s Race After Eric Swalwell Stepped Down?
For Democrats, the drama is reverberating well beyond the state.
Housing and homelessness: Solutions at the intersection of public health and public safety | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Leaders across public health and public safety convened for this Studio conversation that moves beyond emergency response toward prevention, housing-first strategies, and long-term solutions.
Machine Learning As A Transformative Tool for (Exo-)Planetary Science
The exploration of planetary bodies in our Solar system and beyond relies on the processing
Business Briefs April 13, 2025: Business news in the Berkshires and beyond
In light of current events, Greylock’s leadership recognized the importance of awarding funds to organizations dedicated to providing human services.
Op-Ed: Protecting Taxpayers Means Looking Beyond the Politics of Short-Term Rentals
Santa Barbara is on the verge of making a consequential decision about short-term rentals—but without first answering a basic question: what will it cost?
Bengals’ mid-round targets hinted with latest NFL draft visit
Another Bengals visit hints at what the team might want to do in the second round and beyond.
Protecting Taxpayers Means Looking Beyond the Politics of Short-Term Rentals
Santa Barbara is on the verge of making a consequential decision about short-term rentals — but without first answering a basic question: What will it cost?
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.
Fox News Entertainment Newsletter: Kelly Ripa’s secret signal, ‘Charlie’s Angels’ star on price of fame
The Fox News Entertainment Newsletter brings you the latest Hollywood headlines, celebrity interviews and stories from Los Angeles and beyond.
Fox News Entertainment Newsletter: Kelly Ripa's secret signal, 'Charlie's Angels' star on price of fame
The Fox News Entertainment Newsletter brings you the latest Hollywood headlines, celebrity interviews and stories from Los Angeles and beyond.
“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.
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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.
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On plant health and embracing new plant-breeding techniques in South Africa
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