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Popular pasta sauce brand is launching new device to record conversations
Prego is pivoting to…surveillance? The popular pasta sauce brand announced it’s launching a new device that records your family’s dinner conversations. KTLA’s Andy Riesmeyer has m…
Our unsung hero of science: Friedrich Miescher, the man who discovered DNA
Working on human pus in a medieval castle, Miescher discovered a substance that would eventually unlock our understanding of how life works.
'Heated Rivalry' Author Rachel Reid to Receive THR Canada Honor
Reid will receive the Changemaker Award and take part in an onstage conversation May 28 in Toronto.
Mara Brock Akil And Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove Share How Storytelling Shapes Black Maternal Health
On Saturday, April 18, In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda brought together elected officials, TV and film writers, creators, and community leaders for a powerful conversation unpacking how media narratives can impact policy.
Prego Pivots From Budget-Tier Pasta Sauce to Small Microphones That Listen to Your Family’s Intimate Conversations
Prego, the pasta sauce brand, announced a new lid-shaped device designed to record and preserve family dinner conversations.
Patriots' Mike Vrabel says he's met with team, had 'some difficult conversations' after photos with Dianna Russini emerged
Vrabel broke his silence on the matter Tuesday.
Gemini for Google Home Just Got Way More Contextual
Beginning today, Continued Conversation has arrived in early access on Gemini for Google Home. The beauty of this is, you don't need to follow up with "Hey Google" every time you need to ask or...
Google now lets you have full conversations with Gemini for Home
Google announced today that it is upgrading the Gemini for Home service with a "continued conversations" feature.
Rep. Blake Moore discusses health care affordability
Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, vice chair, House Republican Conference and member of the House Ways and Means Committee and its Subcommittee on Health, joined Bill Gassen, president and CEO of Sanford Health and AHA chair-elect, for a fireside chat. While the conversation covered topics including health care access and regulation, the overarching theme was making health care more affordable for both patients and hospitals and health systems.
PGA TOUR and Front Office Sports Announce Content Agreement
The multi-year deal will bring fans closer to the business stories that dominate conversations through content from key PGA TOUR moments.
Alzheimer’s drugs offer little benefit, major review finds – and the reasons go deeper than the science
Alzheimer’s research shows what happens when funding pressures and vested interests corrupt the pursuit of scientific truth.
New Program Explores the Intersection of Spirituality and Mental Health
The new YSM program, in collaboration with Yale Divinity School, is fostering spiritually informed conversations within psychiatry.
The Conversation: As Renaissance Fairs Become Big Business, Can They Retain Their Counterculture Roots?
Renaissance festivals now sit at an uneasy crossroads between countercultural expression and commercial spectacle.
This pasta sauce wants to record your family
Even dinner wants to listen to your conversations now.
Prego Has a Dinner-Conversation-Recording Device, Capisce?
The pasta-sauce company has partnered with the nonprofit StoryCorps on a device designed to record family conversations around the table and save them for all time.
Do Arsenal need 'different style' for forwards to flourish?
It is rare for a team to be challenging for the title without a forward in the conversation for team of the season, but it is difficult to argue against the fact that is where Arsenal are. Manchester City's Erling Haaland and Antoine Semenyo will undoubtedly be in contention for the end-of-the-season awards while past title-winners have boasted the likes of Mohamed Salah, Sergio Aguero and Didier Droga. Arsenal's available forward options of Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli, Noni Madueke, Eberechi Eze and Gabriel Jesus undoubtedly have their strengths - but it feels a stretch to call any of them ruthless match-winners.
Nac Safe Place brings mental health conversation to Nacogdoches brewery
In 2023, nearly 5,000 Texans died by suicide, according to the CDC. One Nacogdoches organization is working to change that - one conversation at a time.
Nac Safe Place brings mental health conversation to Nacogdoches brewery
In 2023, nearly 5,000 Texans died by suicide, according to the CDC. One Nacogdoches organization is working to change that - one conversation at a time.
6 ways your smartwatch is lying to you, according to science
Smartwatches aren’t always as accurate as you might think. In some cases, you’d be better off listening to your body.
Is Alberta really ‘following the science’ on trans healthcare?
As Alberta shields its ban on youth gender-affirming care from legal challenge, new research raises urgent questions about the real-world consequences of restricting access.
Upper Valley spring sports preview: Softball
Oxbow It’s hard to have a conversation about Upper Valley softball without talking about the perennial juggernaut that is Oxbow High. The Olympians enter 2026 coming off yet another undefeated season at 18-0 and another VPA Division III state championship after defeating BFA-Fairfax 13-0. Oxbow has won the state title five years in a row. […]
Liverpool receive boost in pursuit of summer transfer target
Liverpool’s Midfield Reset Gains UrgencyLiverpool’s summer plans are beginning to sharpen into focus, and one name now sits firmly at the centre of the conversation: Camavinga. The French midfield...
Final FHSU Science Café is April 27; '150 Conversations'
" /> FHSU Science and Mathematics Education InstituteThe Fort Hay
Archana Puran Singh flags 13–14 hour shifts, no lunch breaks, lack of basic facilities on film sets: ‘Kanjoosi is a mentality’
The conversation around long working hours and lack of basic amenities on film sets is refusing to die down, with more actors sharing first-hand exper.
The podcast bringing together MAHA and public health for hard conversations
“These sides aren't talking to each other. And there's a lot riding on it”: The hosts of “Why Should I Trust You?” on bringing together MAHA and public health.
Politics Friday: Keeping up with the legal jousting between state, federal governments
Coming up Friday at noon, a conversation with Attorney General Keith Ellison. Later, a look at the debate over data centers.
Sphere Entertainment in talks to build venue at Nashville East Bank scrapyard
Sphere Entertainment Company recently entered into conversations with the owners of Nashville’s East Bank scrapyard property about developing a potential venue, according to people familiar with the discussions. Axios reported last month that representatives tied to the Las Vegas Sphere had been in discussions with Nashville executives about bringing a smaller version of the high-tech concert venue to the market. A spokesperson for the scrapyard ownership group declined to comment, and Sphere Entertainment did not respond to a request for comment. More discussions occurred as recently as the past two weeks, the Nashville Business Journal reported, though the status of […]
‘Today’s Dylan Dreyer Admits How Social Media Makes Her Feel ‘Insecure’
Dreyer and NBC News' Vicky Nguyen got into a conversation about kids and social media.
How Islamophobic rhetoric leaves an impact on the mental health of Muslim Americans
Negative portrayals of Muslims shape public attitudes and lead to increased discrimination, often resulting in hate crimes and psychological harm.
Bears insider sounds off on potential trade for Dexter Lawrence
Chicago Bears beat writer Kevin Fishbain believes the team should definitely have a conversation about trading for Dexter Lawrence.
Trump put Vance in charge of Iran peace talks. He’s now quizzing people on his vice president’s performance
With Vice President JD Vance, a one-time Iran war skeptic, now tasked with brokering a deal to end it, President Donald Trump has been monitoring his progress closely and inquiring with various friends and advisers how they’d rank his performance, according to three people familiar with the conversations.
Jose Mourinho Has Entered the Newcastle Conversation
Newcastle United are approaching decision time on Eddie Howe’s future as the manager of the side. An awful end to the season and a team that cannot escape their never-ending struggles, currently sitting in the very lower half of the Premier League table, simply screams for action. Howe remains in charge and, seemingly, for some […]
How our surroundings shape health: A conversation between environmental scientists | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
For more than 50 years, Jack Spengler has advanced our understanding of how environment shapes health through pioneering research on the importance of air quality, healthy buildings, and climate resilience.
Flutter Entertainment Stock (FLUT) Opinions on Citi Downgrade
Citi Downgrade Triggers Alarm: Social media erupted today after Citigroup double-downgraded Flutter Entertainment to sell, citing mounting U.S. business risks for its FanDuel unit. Users dissected concerns over slowing growth, intensifying competition, and potential regulatory hurdles. The stock tumbled in premarket trading amid the fresh bearish call.Profitability Doubts Mount: Conversations highlighted slashed EBITDA forecasts and reduced buyba
Women and Family Health Research Community to host coffee-and-conversation interest meeting, April 22
The event invites scholars from across Marquette who are interested in advancing the health and well-being of women and families.
As renaissance fairs become big business, can they retain their counterculture roots?
To what extent has the line between playful community space and commercial spectacle been blurred?
Seeing women govern encourages support for women in politics – with no apparent backlash among men
After the main Namibian party started alternating candidates between men and women, female representation in the National Assembly nearly doubled.
Health information delivered as a video game can bridge the communication gap between patients and providers
By letting people make choices and experience the outcomes of those choices, gaming provides a much more hands-on way of learning about health.
DeepL, known for text translation, now wants to translate your voice
DeepL says its tech could be used for real-time translation with meeting tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams
How Dangerous Is Anthropic’s New AI Model? Its Chief Science Officer Explains.
Just how fast is the future coming at us, and how worried should we be? Last week, Anthropic announced Claude Mythos, the latest in what has become the leading family of AI models. In a very short time, AI models from Anthropic and other companies have become shockingly powerful at coding. But Mythos stands out because it is not just able to write code that can hack into critical systems, like those that run financial companies, but also to analyze systems and find and string together vulnerabilities in them, allowing Mythos to evade even sophisticated defenses. Anthropic chose to release Mythos to only about 40 leading corporations, so they could analyze the model’s capabilities and prepare countermeasures, in an effort it calls Project Glasswing. The release of Mythos—and the prospect of similarly powerful AIs to follow—has caused tremors at the top levels of Washington and corporate America. Jared Kaplan, co-founder and chief science officer at Anthropic, is at the center of this breakthrough. We sat down with Kaplan so he could walk us through just how powerful Mythos is, what the implications are for issues like our personal privacy, and what comes next. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Sean Fischer: For the layman, how is Claude Mythos different—more powerful, more dangerous—from previous models released by Anthropic? Jared Kaplan: I think most people have experienced the fact that our computers get faster and faster over time and over many decades. There’s this very smooth trend where every 18 months, maybe, computer processing power doubles. I think AI is on a trend in which it’s improving maybe 10 times faster than that. A lot of the earliest work that I did in AI was around identifying this scaling trend in AI. Claude Mythos is the latest model from Anthropic, but it’s not different because it’s qualitatively different. It’s really just kind of the culmination of the trend of AI models getting smarter and smarter at all kinds of general capabilities, from reasoning to software engineering to scientific research to knowledge work. For us, it was the first model to demonstrate very elite-level cybersecurity capabilities. It wasn’t because we trained Claude Mythos to focus on cybersecurity, but it was because, as a byproduct of its general intelligence and its general ability with software, it’s particularly good at identifying vulnerabilities in software and how to exploit them.
'Show me the money'
What happens when a former senator, a prior governor, a previous representative, and a political advocate talk about corporate money in politics? The exact scenario played out at the MSU-hosted discussion titled “Money, Transparent Elections and the Montana Experience,” at the end of last week. Audience members experienced a bipartisan glimpse into corporate influence, how it is built, spent on campaigns and challenged by voters. A candid conversation emerged between guest speakers former Montana U.S. Senator Jon Tester, former Attorney General and Governor Marc Racicot, previous state senator and representative Jeff Mangan, and political advocate Michel Beckel. The conversation between the four guests circled back to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a landmark 2010 Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations, unions, and associations to spend unlimited amounts of money influencing elections. The decision concluded independent political spending is a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment, directly leading to the rise of massive political action committees and ‘dark money’ in U.S. elections spending. Tester was the first to address the ‘black elephant’ in the room. Responses to moderator questions are edited for clarity and brevity. “We are seeing unbelievable sums of money being put out trying to influence people on how to vote,” Tester said. “Oftentimes the truth goes out the window before the campaigning even starts.”
Acclaimed astrophysicist and electric slam poet blend science and storytelling in upcoming UCSC lecture
The second annual Landesman Lecture features UC Santa Cruz professor Enrico Ramirez Ruiz in conversation with slam poet Jasmine Schlafke—blending science, poetry and storytelling to explore our deepest origins and shared humanity. The lecture series is made possible by UC Santa Cruz faculty retirees, Edward (Ed) and Miriam Landesman.
Springing into science
When people understand science, the whole community benefits. A scientifically literate community is a stronger community – one where people can navigate new technologies, evaluate information and participate in conversations that shape our future. Scientific literacy isn’t about memorizing facts. It’s about understanding how the world works well enough to make thoughtful choices within it. […]
Get Real With SOMD Politics: Michael Bennett Discusses Data Centers, Housing And Taxes
CALVERT COUNTY, Md. — On a recent episode of “Get Real with Southern Maryland Politics,” host Chris Hill sat down with Calvert County Commissioner District 3 candidate Michael Bennett for a conversation covering his background, priorities, and vision for the county. Bennett, who moved to Calvert County in 2014 on a military transfer, described the county as […]
Communicating About Measles for Health Professionals
Join our upcoming webinar to get the latest data, learn evidence-based communication approaches, and get practical tools to help professionals navigate conversations about measles vaccination, respond to concerns, and support informed decision-making.
A new approach to brain health, one neuron at a time
Neuroscientist Paul Nuyujukian likens the brain to a stadium full of people. To eavesdrop on the crowd you could put a microphone in the middle of the stadium. But to understand the conversations you need to record individual people. He thinks about the brain the same way. To understand brain disease, he studies neurons—one at a time. And his insights are shedding light on a big global issue—stroke. The World Health Organization predicts one in four adults will have a stroke in their lifetime. Strokes can cause death, or lead to paralysis or speech problems. But there’s still a lot researchers don’t know about how the brain recovers from an event like a stroke. Nuyujukian directs a lab at Stanford University that studies how the brain controls movement, including after neurological events like stroke. We get into how he does this, and why he hopes his research could eventually help people who’ve been paralyzed. Email us your questions about the brain – or anything else to do with science at shortwave@npr.org. We may turn it into an episode in the future!Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
Get Real With SOMD Politics: Roy Alvey Discusses Spending, Development And County Priorities
ST. MARY’S COUNTY, Md. — On a recent episode of “Get Real with Southern Maryland Politics,” host Chris Hill sat down with St. Mary’s County Commissioner President candidate Roy Alvey for a wide-ranging conversation about his background, priorities, and vision for St. Mary’s County. A lifelong St. Mary’s County resident, Alvey emphasized his deep roots in the […]
Why rural hospitals in Pennsylvania and across the country are closing in increasing numbers – 5 myths about rural health care
Rural hospitals have high fixed costs, low patient volume and a large portion of patients insured through Medicaid, which typically pays less than private insurers.
Just kidding about the separation of church and state?
You may recall the old truism the three things you shouldn’t discuss at a cocktail party are religion, politics, and, well, that last one often depends on the situation. But those first two tend to be commonly warned against as topics for conversation in polite society. So, guess what we are going to talk about […]
Pope Leo’s resolute response to Trump attack reveals a man of God, not politics
Pope Leo XIV does not claim to direct political outcomes. He claims the right, and the duty, to judge them.
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.
How to help someone experiencing a mental health crisis
If you know someone is in a mental health crisis, experts say the best thing to do is to spark a conversation and connect them to resources and professional help.
From Vision to Reality: Sports Complex Initiative Takes Center Stage at April Greenville-Pitt Power Luncheon
A major community initiative is coming into focus this April, and local leaders will have a front-row seat to the conversation. Andrew Schmidt, President &
Hospitals roll out chatbots, looking to reclaim their role in patients' health conversations
A handful of hospitals are launching their own chatbots, a risky bet aimed at better serving current patients and gaining new ones.
The top 10 most challenging positions in sports
The Panther has crafted a comprehensive list of the toughest positions and events across all sports based on conversations with Chapman athletes. Which will take the top spot?
Africa is losing health workers when it can least afford to – a pattern rooted in colonial history
Health workers consistently move from poorer countries to richer ones, a pattern that tracks closely along lines drawn by colonial history.
Artemis II crew used modern photography to tell the visual story of their lunar journey – and update some classic Apollo images
A space historian explains how the Artemis II crew reimagined some Apollo-era photos and found spectacular new angles.
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
Rural Mental Health Hub Offers Tools, Training, and Support
A new program from Rural Minds gives farmers tools to recognize mental health struggles, start conversations, and offer support.
Politics Friday: High tensions at the Capitol as lawmakers tick down the to-do list
State lawmakers are back from a short break. Friday at noon, a conversation with two lawmakers about the remainder of the session, where it stands and what can get done.
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.
Talk back: Tech deal promotes conversations between journalists and those who follow their stories
A media deal is offering a peek into a future where journalists have more than just a one-way conversation with the people following the news. British broadcaster Sky News is leasing technology from...
Al Gore to Lead Keynote Conversation at 2026 Sustainability in Entertainment Honors Hosted by THR and the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance
IMDb, the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content.
May elections: what five politics experts are looking out for
Five experts tell us what they will be keeping their eye on during the May elections in England, Scotland and Wales.
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.
WATCH: Conversations on ways to improve health care in North Carolina
On Thursday, April 16 at 9:00am ET, Axios Live will host an event in Raleigh looking at the key issues shaping the health of North Carolinians.
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...
A conversation with Sir Michael Marmot
How the realization that health outcomes are directly tied to social status led to a framework to reduce health inequalities.
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.
Forage 2026 | A balancing act: The science of silage
The discussion about what to feed beef cattle throughout the year is among the most important conversations for the operation. For many, silage is a consideration. Galen Erickson, Ph.D., Nebraska Cattle Industry Professor of Animal Science and Beef Feedlot Extension Specialist, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,...
RFK Jr. says he's launching a podcast to expose 'lies' that have made Americans sick
The show will launch next week and feature Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine crusader who has reshaped the country’s health policy, in conversation with doctors, scientists and agency staff.
UNITE HERE shakes up NC politics: A conversation with Maria Hernandez
This spring, UNITE HERE Local 23 played a key role in unseating conservative Democrats and replacing them with progressive candidates in North Carolina's primary elections. An active member of Local 23 in Charlotte spoke with Facing South about how they mobilized voters amid a climate of fear.
Dunlap fields questions from voters during Bangor town hall
In a wide-ranging town hall conversation in Bangor Tuesday night, Democratic 2nd Congressional District Candidate Matt Dunlap said he will not be accepting money from Political Action Committees and will prioritize issues that matter to Mainers.
‘One of the most dysfunctional places’: One lawmaker on Lansing’s challenges
Calling the state capitol “one of the most dysfunctional places” in America, Democratic State Rep. Alabas Farhat joins the pod for a candid conversation about the challenges facing Lansing
Marketplace - Business News & Economic Stories for Everyone
Marketplace raises the economic intelligence of the country through the unorthodox story, casual conversations and unexpected angles on the news.
Brewing Better Health highlights the power of public health partnerships and celebrates National Public Health Week
A Brewing Better Health podcast conversation with Chad Kingsley, M.D., MBA, and Dean Muge Akpinar-Elci, M.D., MPH, on prevention, community health and what public health is.
Former NJ Gov. Chris Christie on Leadership and the Political Landscape
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) discusses leadership, the upcoming midterm elections, and the political landscape during a conversation hosted by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School.
From Jurassic Park to dreams of AI doom, pop culture shapes science more than we like to admit
We all know science influences books, movies and TV – but the influence goes both ways.
East Lansing Insider Podcast: A Conversation with Acorn Health
On this week's podcast, ELi Deputy Editor Anna Liz Nichols talks about autism awareness and acceptance with Paul Doher, national director of clinical quality for Acorn Health.
Close Up: Highlighting women in history and Iowa politics
The contributions of female pioneers in Iowa's political history and their ongoing impact, and a candid conversation with CBS News Correspondent Norah O'Donnell
A Conversation With Capital Group’s Head Of Experiential Marketing Ajith Krishnankutty On The Need To Evolve Events Into Marketing Channels That Build Brand + Drive Business Growth
Ajith Krishnankutty On The Need To Evolve Events Into Marketing Channels That Build Brand + Drive Business Growth
Lebanon’s political elites are using displacement and humanitarian crisis to delay elections again
With the return of Israeli forces, the Lebanese parliament scrapped elections scheduled for May. The move is a recurring theme in the country’s fractured politics.
Politics of Black hair: why grooming rules are under scrutiny across the diaspora
From schools in Ghana to workplaces in Britain, underpinned by the colonial roots of ‘respectability’, conversations around natural hairstyle persist
Politics Unusual: CEO of Partnership for NYC Fulop, former advisor on mental illness | FOX 5 New York
In this week's episode of Politics Unusual, FOX 5 NY's political reporter Morgan McKay speaks to Steven Fulop, the CEO and President of Partnership for NYC, about the potential impact of possibly increasing taxes on businesses. Also, a conversation with Brian Stettin, a former senior adviser on severe mental illness in the Adams administration.
Gemma 4 and what makes an open model succeed
Having written a lot of model release blog posts, there’s something much harder about reviewing open models when they drop relative to closed models, especially in 2026. In recent years, there were so few open models, so when Llama 3 was released most people were still doing research on Llama 2 and super happy to get an update. When Qwen 3 was released, the Llama 4 fiasco had just gone down, and a whole research community was emerging to study RL on Qwen 2.5 — it was a no brainer to upgrade. Today, when an open model releases, it’s competing with Qwen 3.5, Kimi K2.5, GLM 5, MiniMax M2.5, GPT-OSS, Arcee Large, Nemotron 3, Olmo 3, and others. The space is populated, but still feels full of hidden opportunity. The potential of open models feels like a dark matter, a potential we know is huge, but few clear recipes and examples for how to unlock it are out there. Agentic AI, OpenClaw, and everything brewing in that space is going to spur mass experimentation in open models to complement the likes of Claude and Codex, not replace them. Especially with open models, the benchmarks at release are an extremely incomplete story. In some ways this is exciting, as new open models have a much higher variance and ability to surprise, but it also points at some structural reasons that make building businesses and great AI experiences around open models harder than the closed alternatives. When a new Claude Opus or GPT drops, spending a few hours with them in my agentic workflows is genuinely a good vibe test. For open models, putting them through this test is a category error. Something else to be said about open models in the era of agents is that they get out of the debate of integration, harnesses, and tools and let us see close to the ground on what exactly is the ability of just a model. Of course, we can’t test some things like search abilities without some tool, but being able to measure exactly the pace of progress of the model alone is a welcome simplification to a systematically opaque AI space. Share The list of factors I’d use to assess a new open-weight model I’m considering investing in includes: Model performance (and size) — how this model performs on benchmarks I care about and how it compares to other models of a similar size. Country of origin — some businesses care deeply about provenance, and if a model was built in China or not. Model license — if a model needs legal approval for use, uptake will be slower at mid-sized and large companies. Tooling at release — many models release with half-broken, or at least substantially slower, implementations in popular software like vLLM, Transformers, SGLANG, etc due to pushing the envelope of architectures or tools. Model fine-tunability — how easy or hard it is to modify the given model to your use-case when you actually try and use it. The core problem is that some of these are immediately available at release, e.g. general performance, license, origin, etc. but others such as tooling take day(s) to week(s) to stabilize, and others are open research questions — with no group systematically monitoring fine-tunability. In the early era of open models, the days of Llama 2 or 3 and Qwen pre v3.5, the architectures were fairly simple and the models tended to work out of the box. Some of this was due to the extremely hard work of the Llama, Qwen, Mistral, etc. developer teams. Some is due to the new models being genuinely harder to work with. When it comes to something like Qwen 3.5 or Nemotron 3, with hybrid models (either gated delta net or mamba layers), the tooling is very rough at release. Things you would expect to “just work” often don’t. I’ve been following this area closely since we released Olmo Hybrid with a similar architecture, and Qwen 3.5 is just starting to work well in the various open-source tools that need to all play nice together for RL research. That’s 1.5 months after the release date! This is just to start really investing more into understanding the behavior of the models. Of course, others started working on these models sooner by investing more engineering resources or relying on partially closed software. The fully open and distributed ecosystem takes a long time to get going on some new models. All of this is lead-in for the most important question for open models — how easy is it to adapt to specific use-cases? This is a different problem for different model sizes. Large MoE open-weight models may be used by entities like Cursor who need complex capabilities in their domain, e.g. Composer 2 trained on Kimi K2.5. Other applications can be built on much smaller models, such as Chroma’s Context-1 model for agentic search, built on GPT-OSS 20B. The question of “which models are fine-tunable” is largely background knowledge known by engineers across the industry. There should be a thriving research area here to support the open ecosystem model. The first step is to understand characteristics of different base and post-trained models to understand what they look like. The second step is to tune pretraining recipes for open models so they’re more flexible. Interconnects AI is a reader-supported publication. Consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe For The ATOM Project and other Interconnects endeavors, we’ve put in substantial effort to measuring adoption trends in the open ecosystem. Everything takes a long time to unfold after a model is first publicly available — and adaptability is why. What we know for sure now, when Qwen has been going from strength to strength with its releases, is that technical staff across the industry has gotten comfortable working with Qwen models. Countless research methods and datasets were made to work with Qwen. It’ll take patience for any other model family to get to this point — a patience I’m not sure many open model builders have. This takes us to Gemma 4, Google’s latest open models. Gemma 3 was released more than a year ago, in March of 2025, and is a bit underrated. Gemma 4 comes in 4 sizes for now, with a bigger, MoE model of over 100B total parameters rumored but not released yet. The models we have today come in sizes of ~5B dense, 8B dense, 26B total 4B active MoE, and 31B dense. I’m most excited that they’re finally adopting a standard Apache 2.0 open source license. This’ll massively boost adoption. The standard of better licenses for strong open-weight LLMs was set by mostly Chinese open model labs in the last 1-2 years, and now U.S. companies are following suit. I will personally be so happy if the horrible Llama licenses and Gemma terms of service were an ~18-month transient dynamic of the industry being nervous about releasing strong open models. The Gemma 4 scores look very solid, the small models have incredible benchmark scores (especially in general domains like LMArena) and the 31B model rivals the recent Qwen 3.5 27B, which is the leading member of that class. The ~30B size range is an important one, as it’s accessible both to researchers and to enterprises looking to deploy the model in real use-cases. Where the 7B model scale is the default for tinkering and research, a 30B model is the default for seeing if an open model can unlock substantial value in your specific workflow — a good mix of intelligence, low price, tractability for downstream training, etc. This takes us back to the above adoption criteria I mentioned for open models and the bigger question — do I think Gemma 4 will be an overwhelming success? Previous Gemma models have been plagued by tooling issues and poorer performance when being finetuned. Gemma 4’s success is going to be entirely determined by ease of use, to a point where a 5-10% swing on benchmarks wouldn’t matter at all. It’s strong enough, small enough, with the right license, and from the U.S., so many companies are going to slot it in. I’m cautiously optimistic that Gemma 4 is going to work better here. Winds are shifting for open models built in America. We saw GPT-OSS go through a bumpy launch to become an overwhelming success. There’s a collective energy around the likes of Reflection, Arcee, Nemotron, Gemma, Olmo, and peers that show substantial demand for building new stacks around open models. There’s capital to be spent on AI stacks across the economy by those who want more ownership of everything, including the model. After launching The ATOM Project 240 days ago, the conversation is shifting into the next stage. Summer of 2025 was a crisis moment where the U.S. AI scene realized it can’t wait and figure out open models after building AGI. The two markets will capture different areas and proceed in parallel. Now that more companies in the U.S. are releasing strong models, we need to improve the ecosystem so that these models are easy to use, understand, and build value around. It’s the hard work to build another inflection point in these adoption plots I’ve been updating consistently, but that’s the work to be done. Join me in it. More data coming soon! Here’s a sneak peek:
BSAAC hosts LGBTQ+ sports panel to foster community and conversation
On Sunday, the Bowdoin Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (BSAAC) hosted a panel with former men’s lacrosse player Ben Chadwick ’11 to increase awareness of the LGBTQ+ athlete experience. Panelists shared some of the ways they felt supported in their identities as LGBTQ+ student-athletes. Many highlighted their peers, upperclassmen and coaches. “My teammates have always provided a […]
Pam Bondi’s extreme political loyalty to Trump wasn’t enough to save her job
It’s not unusual for presidents to select attorneys general who share their views and policy preferences. But Trump has gone far beyond what is usually done.
Public Preview: Your business apps, now part of every conversation - Microsoft Power Platform Blog
Bring your Power Apps into Microsoft 365 Copilot. In public preview, makers can enable conversational access to model-driven app data with Grids and Forms, with Custom Tools coming soon
In conversation with Craig Melvin, Rahm Emanuel says Dems lost focus
Rahm Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor spoke at Wofford College for a political discussion moderated by Craig Melvin
Classic Conversations: Entertainment journalist raps with the stars
Luther Vandross once told Barry Krutchik the meaning behind his middle name: Ronzoni (yes, like the pasta). Vanilla Ice was the first cover story he ever wrote, and he was
Classic Conversations: Entertainment journalist raps with the stars
Luther Vandross once told Barry Krutchik the meaning behind his middle name: Ronzoni (yes, like the pasta). Vanilla Ice was the first cover story he ever wrote, and he was
State budget overtime: Where talks stand around climate, immigration
It comes as conversations continue at a glacial pace around Hochul’s pitch to transform car insurance policy to lower rates and dial back the state’s 2019 climate law amid affordability concerns.
Pee changes how some mushrooms ‘talk’
Fungi communication networks are complicated, but urine may help translate their conversations.
Why Health Taxes Alone Won't Fix Malnutrition in Poor Countries
Health taxes on sugar seem to have captured the zeitgeist: Mexico's soda tax, the UK's sugar levy, South Africa's Health Promotion Levy, a sugar tax in the Philippines, and so on. The evidence on these policies suggests real benefits: (1) reduced consumption of sugary drinks, (2) measurable revenue for governments, and, (3) in theory, a nudge toward healthier choices. But the conversation is increasingly moving past sugar with increasing calls for health taxes on so-called ultra-processed foods.
What we’ve learned from citizen science: 5 projects that made a difference
From wombat and mozzie surveillance to deciphering climate history and spotting star explosions, citizen scientists are instrumental in contributing knowledge.
How polling failures, gambling legalization and political gridlock paved the way for the explosive rise of prediction markets
While media outlets are signing deals with Polymarket and Kalshi for their insights into the wisdom of crowds, gamblers are pouncing on opportunities to wager on geopolitics and celebrity weddings.
How Can We Improve Representation in Major Scientific Conversations?
Women, early-career researchers, and global scholars are still underrepresented in major scientific conversations. Explore how this manifests and hear from experts on what can be done to improve inclusion.
The revolution in dinosaur science started 50 years ago – here’s what we have learned
Scientific methods validated from modern life have brought dinosaurs to life in a testable way.
UNC Health tool helps families talk about cancer
WRAL Health Reporter Grace Hayba introduces us to the new tool by UNC Health, helping parents like her navigate the hardest conversations.