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How Columbus is leading the way on World Quantum Day
World Quantum Day spotlights the future of computing, and Ohio State is helping make Columbus a leader in quantum research, security and jobs.
New, massive study finds only half of social science findings replicate
The University of Virginia led the work, highlighting the ongoing challenges in the reliability and reproducibility of research.
Health Sciences Symposium celebrates student research - News
The Interprofessional Education Health Sciences Symposium was recently held in the Oscar N. Harris Student Union, bringing together students from… More on this post
Advertisers demand billions of dollars from Google in escalating monopoly battle
Alphabet Inc.’s Google is facing billions of dollars in potential damage claims as part of mass arbitration tied to the company’s online search and advertising technology businesses, which courts have ruled were illegal monopolies.
Google’s Spotlight-like desktop search bar for Windows is available for everyone
Another way to google.
Adopting, advancing and adapting to AI
In Penn State's Eberly College of Science, researchers are leveraging AI in a myriad of applications and instructors are finding innovative ways to incorporate AI into their classrooms. But what is artificial intelligence, and are people really talking about the same thing when they say AI?
Simon Cherry Receives ESMI Award for Significant, Long-Term Contributions to Imaging Science
The Distinguished Research Professor of biomedical engineering has received the 2026 ESMI Award from the European Society for Molecular Imaging. Among the most prestigious honors in imaging science, the award celebrates a researcher for their outstanding contributions to the interdisciplinary field.
Websites that hijack your back button must stop by June 15 or face Google's wrath
Google says it could penalize back button hijacking by demoting websites in search ranking.
Some people don’t lose weight with GLP-1s. Evidence is building that the drugs are helping anyway
The majority of people who start taking GLP-1 medicines with the hope of losing weight, the drugs can quiet cravings and help them shed stubborn pounds. But research is also continuing to reveal GLP-1 medicines’ benefits independent of weight loss — even if people gain weight.
GLP-1 medicine improves liver health independent of weight loss, study finds
Researchers at Toronto's Sinai Health have found that semaglutide—the active ingredient in popular weight loss drugs that mimic the gut hormone GLP-1—acts directly on a subset of liver cells to improve ...
UCF Materials Science Undergraduate Researcher Awarded DOE Internship at National Lab
Deneé Lichtenberg is advancing new methods for recovering rare earth metals — groundbreaking work she’ll continue at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
What I’ve learned from 25 years of automated science, and what the future holds: an interview with Ross King
We’re excited to launch our new series, where we’ll be speaking with leading researchers to explore the breakthroughs driving AI and the reality of the future promises – to give you an inside perspective on the headlines. Our first interviewee is Ross King, who created the first robot scientist back in 2009. He spoke to […]
Dangerous Microsoft Windows Update Warning—Do Not Download
As security researchers warn about a dangerous Microsoft Windows update that isn’t, users must pay close attention to what they are actually downloading.
How Silicon Valley Is Turning Scientists Into Exploited Gig Workers
Tech elites are enriching themselves by plundering STEM institutions—and offering researchers scraps.
Adobe fixes PDF zero-day security bug that hackers have exploited for months
It's not clear how many people were compromised by this hacking campaign, but a security researcher said the hackers were targeting victims since at least November 2025.
Google Search tackles sites that try to stop you from leaving when you hit the back button
Websites will have to stop acting like clingy exes and let us go without a fight.
Small business R&D tax credit proposal makes progress in CT legislature
State lawmakers have moved along a proposal to expand access to research and development tax incentives for small businesses, an effort that has failed in previous legislative sessions.
UNCG Celebrates Undergraduate Researchers and Their Mentors
UNCG announces the winners of the 2026 Thomas Undergraduate Research and Creativity Expo and the recipients of the Thomas Undergraduate Research Mentor Awards.
Lung Cancer Research Foundation Grants Team Science Award Focused on Curing EGFR-Mutant Lung Cancers
/PRNewswire/ -- The Lung Cancer Research Foundation (LCRF) announces the first recipients of its LCRF Team Science Award on Advancing Therapies Toward Curing...
Scientists discover why bread can cause weight gain without extra calories
Bread and other carbohydrate staples may be doing more than just filling plates—they could be quietly reshaping metabolism. In a surprising twist, researchers found that mice strongly preferred carbs like bread, rice, and wheat, abandoning their regular diet entirely. Even without eating more calories, they gained weight and body fat, not because they overate, but because their bodies burned less energy.
“Hiding science in really fun things”: Kids gets hands-on with real research in Denver
Squishy Science Sunday, part of APS’ Global Physics Summit, welcomed 1,500 visitors to a local museum.
College of Science and Notre Dame Research inaugural Days of Service: A look back at 2025
Katrina Conrad and Barbara Calhoun, who both administer the science and patient advocacy minor in the College of Science, volunteered at Ronald McDonald House …
Student Spotlight: Erin Jones | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Learn how a working research professional makes the most out of her career and her education by pursuing the MHS online and part-time.
Major gift promises to accelerate Princeton University’s leadership in quantum science
The gift from Andy Florance ’86 and Heather Florance will support the Princeton Quantum Initiative and will accelerate the next generation of quantum science research and discovery at the University.
Physicists just witnessed pinpricks of darkness moving faster than the speed of light — without breaking the laws of relativity
For the first time, researchers measured singularities in combined light and sound waves moving faster than the speed of light. The findings have implications in fluid dynamics, optics and many other fields.
Millions of Floridians Will Bear the Brunt of Trump’s Health Cuts
(Bloomberg) -- Millions of people in the US are expected to lose their health coverage in coming years because of shrinking funding for federal programs. Few states would suffer a bigger blow than Florida.Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expired in December. More than $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid safety-net programs are on the horizon. Across the US, in excess of 14 million people are expected to lose health insurance through 2034, according to health-policy research nonprofit KFF.Flor
QPS Missouri expands clinical research to patients in Springfield
Springfield residents with chronic conditions can now join more clinical studies as QPS Missouri expands its research efforts.
STAR Seminar- Reimagining Youth Sport as a Brain-Based Environment for Mental Health
Youth mental health challenges are rising globally, yet one of the most accessible youth-serving systems — sport— remains underutilized as a public health strategy. This Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar explores how insights from developmental neuroscience, trauma research, and sport-based youth development can transform everyday sport experiences into environments that promote regulation, connection, and resilience.
What are the odds? CMU sports betting class explores statistical, cognitive sides of gambling
In 2018, Ron Yurko was researching sports analytics as a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University when the Supreme Court legalized sports betting. Suddenly,...
Jan-Werner Müller awarded University professorship, reflects on democracy and academic freedom
Jan-Werner Müller, scholar of democratic theory and the history of political thought, was named Class of 1943 University Professor of Politics. He sat down with the ‘Prince’ to discuss his research, teaching, the role of political theory, and concerns about student engagement and academic freedom on campus.
30 Under 30 Europe Science & Healthcare 2026: The Founders Using AI To Empower Patients And Unlock Scientific Mysteries
These young entrepreneurs, researchers and doctors are improving healthcare, empowering patients and building the hardware of the future.
Carbon removal project supports Maine’s blue economy, broader marine health
MIT researchers introduce a chemical-free approach to balancing ocean acidity that protects marine life and could have huge impact on the global aquaculture market.
Scientists finally know where the Colorado River’s missing water is going
For years, water managers have been puzzled as the Colorado River kept delivering less water than expected—even when snowpack levels looked promising. New research reveals the missing piece: spring rain, or rather, the lack of it. Warmer, drier springs mean plants are soaking up more snowmelt before it can reach rivers, fueled by sunny skies that boost growth and evaporation. In fact, this shift explains nearly 70% of the shortfall, tying the mystery directly to the long-running Millennium drought.
Quantum systems can remember and forget at the same time, scientists discover
Quantum systems can secretly “remember” their past—even when they appear not to. Scientists found that whether a system shows memory depends on how you look at it: through its evolving state or its measurable properties. Each perspective uncovers different kinds of memory, meaning a system can seem memoryless and memory-filled at the same time. This discovery could change how researchers design and control quantum technologies.
Bethel conference highlights how ‘better science occurs’ with local knowledge at the table
Researchers and local experts gathered in Bethel in early April to share and compare environmental knowledge at the Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference, particularly across issues facing the Yukon-Kuwkoksim Delta.
Two Yale student scientists named Goldwater Scholars
Two Yale juniors have received the prestigious Goldwater scholarship, which supports students interested in research careers in the fields of natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics.
Arctic marine science exhibition opens in Anchorage on May 15
The exhibition will include how communities and western scientists are working together, how all life in the water impacts the health of ecosystems, the importance of science communications, and intricacies of the research vessel itself.
Trump officials consider physician, a Fox News regular, for top vaccine post
Houman Hemmati is under consideration to lead the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. A final decision has not been made.
CU Boulder lab researching science of avalanches
Colorado has seen how deadly avalanches can be. Vriend has been studying avalanches for more than a decade. While we often see the dramatic images of avalanches, not much is known about what really ...
Fluoride in drinking water has no effect on IQ or brain function, major study shows
The new research is the first to measure community water fluoridation exposure during childhood in the U.S. and any potential impact on cognition up to age 80.
Cleveland Clinic Launches ‘Good Science’ Video Series
The series of short videos is aimed at helping people better understand research and health information.
Why Young People Are Poised to Save Movie Theaters, In-Person Entertainment
A National Research Group study finds that Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences express the highest interest in leaving their homes for movies, entertainment
Center for Economic and Social Research Joins Schaeffer Institute, Building on USC’s Strengths in Social Science and Policy Impact - April 13, 2026
The move advances USC’s role as a hub for social science research and policy translation. - April 13, 2026
A decade in, the Baton Rouge Health District plans its next 10 years
For the past decade, Baton Rouge’s largest health systems, hospitals and research institutions have been engaged in an exercise that may seem counterintuitive on its face. In an industry defined by competition—for patients, for employees and for research dollars—the city’s health care leaders are attempting to prove that collaboration can be just as powerful. The […]
Communication, Science & Society Initiative awards four interdisciplinary grants
The Communication, Science & Society Initiative, a research partnership between Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences in the College of the Liberal Arts, has announced the grant recipients from its 2025 request for proposals.
Imaging science research gives new clarity on what color helps eyes focus best
Research by RIT assistant professor Benjamin Chin published in Science Advances may help determine which wavelengths helps the eye focus best.
Geography Graduate Students Receive National Science Foundation Award Offers for the 2026 Graduate Research Fellowship Program
Congratulations to our first year graduate students; Danielle Losos, Emily Nagamoto, and Lauren Palermo for receiving award offers from the National Science
Ann Brach Appointed Executive Director of Transportation Research Board at National Academies
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine announced today that Ann Brach has been named the executive director of the Transportation Research Board (TRB).
GW Hosts U.S. and Finnish Leaders for Energy Innovation Seminar | GW Today | The George Washington University
Diplomats, researchers and policymakers convened at the Elliott School to explore resilient energy systems, Arctic research and transatlantic collaboration.
Dr. Richard Finn recognized for advancing liver cancer treatments
Dr. Finn has been named a 2026 Blue Faery Award for Excellence in Liver Cancer Research honoree and will receive the Lifetime Impact Award.
Men and women with obesity face very different hidden health risks
New research reveals that obesity affects men and women in surprisingly different ways. Men are more likely to develop harmful abdominal fat and signs of liver stress, while women show higher inflammation and cholesterol levels. These differences could help explain why health risks vary between sexes. Scientists say this could lead to more tailored treatments for obesity.
NSF announces 2026 Graduate Research Fellowship Program award offers
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced that it has made offers and will award 2,500 Graduate Research Fellowships for the 2026-2027 academic year...
UNC researcher works to make AI more reliable in health care
Researchers at UNC Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health are tailoring AI to make it more reliable for solving health problems.
Business Travel Market Expected to Reach USD 2,095.4 billion by 2031, at a CAGR of 9.5%: Allied Market Research
Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "business travel Market by INDUSTRY (Government, Corporate), by SERVICE (Transportation, Food and Lodging, Recreation), by TRAVELER (Group, Solo): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031". According to the report the global business travel market, valued at USD 689.7 billion in 2021, is projected to reach USD 2,095.4 billion by 2031, expanding at a CAGR of 9.5% over the forecast period — more than tripling in size within a d
The Science of Strength: New Study Casts Doubt on Training to Failure
New research shows going all out may limit strength gains. Here’s the smarter way to build strength and muscle
Nukes and Nassau Hall: Inside Princeton’s Science and Global Security Program
Co-directors of Princeton's Science and Global Security Program Zia Mian and Alexander Glaser are working to understand nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and policies around disarmament alongside a team of researchers and visiting scholars.
South Plainfield HS Environmental Science Club Members Research 100 Years of Plastic
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ - Last month, the Borough turned a century old and members of the South Plainfield High School Environmental Science Club joined in the celebration with a research project that...
❝Anti-rights groups: why we need a smarter politics of naming
As movements working to undermine universal human rights protections become more influential, the language used to call out these “anti-rights” groups also needs closer scrutiny, or else risks being self-defeating, writes Nicolas Agostini, human rights advocate and researcher.
Business owners react after Uptown burglaries as NOPD searches for suspect
Police said the same suspect is believed to be responsible for all three break-ins, which happened early Sunday morning.
Scientists were wrong about lifespan. Your genes matter way more than we thought
For years, scientists believed our lifespan was mostly shaped by environment and chance, with genetics playing only a minor role. But a new study from the Weizmann Institute flips that idea on its head, revealing that genes may actually account for about half of the differences in how long people live. By analyzing massive twin datasets—including twins raised apart—and using innovative simulations to filter out deaths from accidents and other external causes, researchers uncovered a hidden genetic influence that had been masked for decades.
Making light spin with a gold nanorod
Controlling photon spin, or the handedness of light, is useful for storing and transmitting information. However, generating circularly polarized light typically requires complex or chiral structures. Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science show that hitting a gold nanorod slightly off-center with an electron beam causes the light around it to rotate. This method offers a simpler way to control photon spin and could accelerate the development of smaller, more efficient optical and quantum devices.
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines advocates for affordable health care
While a vial of insulin takes as little as $2 to manufacture, it can cost consumers $250 in the United States. Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, an international advocacy organization that has chapters at universities including UCLA, raised awareness about medication unaffordability during its annual North American conference at the Neuroscience Research Building from April 3 to 5.
“I stopped digging through folders”: How OmniSearch changed the way I find files on Windows 11
OmniSearch blends instant results, previews, and cleanup tools into one powerful search experience.
New research turns everything we thought we knew about yo-yo dieting on its head
Mississippi Museum of Natural Science hosts 2026 NatureFEST
JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – The Mississippi Museum of Natural Science (MMNS) hosted its annual NatureFEST on Saturday. Community members were able to experience and learn about the tangible research by sc...
GSK sees blockbuster potential in targeted cancer therapy after promising early data
British drugmaker GSK's experimental targeted cancer drug Mo-rez has blockbuster potential, its head of oncology research has told reporters, after early data showed the drug helped shrink tumors in patients with advanced, hard-to-treat cancers.
Park inequality in Southern California creates health risks, especially during the heat
Park-wise, the region has long been a land of haves and have nots. But a new study from researchers at UC Irvine and Chapman University shows that not all parks are created equal.
A slowdown in federal science grants has Vermont researchers worried
Though leaders at the National Institutes of Health say they intend to allocate all the federally assigned dollars, changes in how they do so is disrupting the research of early career scientists.
We’re losing 338 spoken words every day | BBC Science Focus Magazine
We've been nattering less and less each year since 2005, according to research on more than 2,000 people across three continents
Scientists Finally Crack the Mystery of Water’s Strangest Behavior After Decades of Research
A hidden transition between two forms of liquid water may explain its most puzzling properties.
Science & Medicine: Pain researchers have their eyes on ending chronic pain
A UT Health San Antonio researcher is working to map the nerves involved in jaw pain as part of a federally funded consortium aimed at developing the first targeted, non-opioid treatment for chronic pain, research he hopes will give millions of suffering Americans their lives back and ultimately reverse or even prevent pain in the first place.
AI health questions? 4 chatbot prompt tips to get the most accurate answers
AI chatbots can still get medical questions wrong, according to new research.
How The Narrative Is Shifting For Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) After Guidance Reset And Target Cuts
Flutter Entertainment’s fair value estimate has been reduced from US$207.44 to US$197.35, lowering the modeled upside by about 4.9%. That change aligns with more cautious research following weaker Q4 results and lower 2026 guidance. At the same time, analysts continue to discuss long term execution and valuation questions from both bullish and bearish perspectives. Read on to see how these revised targets fit into the evolving story and what to watch as new data emerges. Stay updated as the...
University of Idaho opens new meat science center in Moscow
MOSCOW, Idaho — The University of Idaho opened a new meat science innovation center that gives students more room for classes and expands research and production.
How aggressive breast cancer turns off the immune system
Researchers are launching a new project to crack the mystery of aggressive breast cancer, where predicting disease progression remains a major hurdle. By studying how tumors interact with and suppress the immune system, scientists aim to identify new biomarkers that reveal how the cancer evolves. Using real patient samples, the team hopes to turn earlier discoveries into practical clinical tools. The goal: more precise, personalized treatments that can outsmart even the most dangerous tumors.
110,000-year-old discovery rewrites human history: Neanderthals and Homo sapiens worked together
The first-ever published research on Tinshemet Cave reveals that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant not only coexisted but actively interacted, sharing technology, lifestyles, and burial customs. These interactions fostered cultural exchange, social complexity, and behavioral innovations, such as formal burial practices and the symbolic use of ochre for decoration. The findings suggest that human connections, rather than isolation, were key drivers of technological and cultural advancements, highlighting the Levant as a crucial crossroads in early human history.
Hidden weak spots in HIV and Ebola revealed with breakthrough nanodisc technology
A new nanodisc-based platform lets scientists study viral proteins in a form that closely mimics real viruses, revealing how antibodies truly recognize them. This approach uncovered hidden interactions in viruses like HIV and Ebola that traditional methods missed. By recreating the virus’s membrane environment, researchers can better understand how immune defenses work. The technique could speed up the development of more effective vaccines.
UBS Raises Petco Health and Wellness Company, Inc. (WOOF) Target Amid Growth Strategy
Petco Health & Wellness Co. Inc. (NASDAQ:WOOF) is one of the best cheap penny stocks to buy that aren’t scams. On March 16, UBS raised its price target on Petco Health & Wellness Co. Inc. (NASDAQ:WOOF) to $4.00 from $3.50, while keeping a Neutral rating. The positive stance underscores the research firm’s confidence about the […]
Coaching search shows UNC Basketball still an elite job
The extraordinary events around the search Hubert Davis’ replacement reveal just how unique the UNC job is.
“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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Early weight gain is linked to lifelong health consequences
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In praise of popular science
As a kid, I was enthusiastically and unreservedly in favor of a manned space program. Our destiny lay in the stars, I figured. Get people out there. We need Star Trek here and now. As I got older, I became rather disenchanted with the idea. Humans are expensive, fragile, and inefficient as space cargo. We could flood the solar system with 100 robotic probes for the price of any single manned mission and get back just as useful data. Besides, it turns out space travel is dangerous. Tusk is a reader-supported publication. To support this work, please become a paid subscriber. Subscribe When it came to the recent Artemis II mission, my cynical side didn’t really see the point. Flying around the Moon and back is literally something we did before I was born, and I once owned a Members Only jacket. Apollo 8 circled the Moon ten times and returned to Earth safely the same month that “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” was released. What was the point of repeating a feat that far braver people once did with tin foil and slide rules? Yet I’ve surprised myself with how moving I’ve found the Artemis II mission to be. The photos have been stunning. The crew has been professional and engaging. There have been modest but important milestones — the farthest humans have travelled from Earth; the first woman, person of color, and non-American to leave low-Earth orbit; innovations in communication, and more. One thing that really stood out is that this is really NASA at its finest. Not that this is the most important mission they ever pulled off, but they did this in a competent way that celebrated the achievements and kept the crew and the science at the forefront of the project. This wasn’t some billionaire throwing celebrities or cars into orbit as a vanity project — this was a collective effort to send experts in to do a job and come home safely. We don’t see that sort of thing much these days. I’m guessing few people would describe many government agencies as inspiring, but this one counts for me. We’re living through a profoundly anti-science era, in which pathbreaking, lifesaving discoveries like mRNA vaccines are routinely downplayed or even vilified. As I’ve noted previously, this era is something like that of the Red Scare in the 1940s and 50s, in which “egghead” professors were portrayed as out of touch or even hostile to regular Americans. One of the things that helped break that spell was Sputnik — the Soviet communications satellite that demonstrated that the United States was falling behind in crucial scientific research and applications. Its launch triggered a new appreciation for American science and goaded the federal government into supporting research universities and labs. I’m not saying that Artemis is the equivalent of Sputnik, but it potentially reminds people that there’s some value to scientific endeavors and the human faces attached to them. Despite my love for the show “For All Mankind,” I’m far from convinced that there’s any real value to putting colonies on the Moon or Mars that would justify the capital investment and the massive health risks to the astronauts. But sending scientific good will ambassadors on a trip into space once in a while? Bring it. Share
UT Dallas researchers using body movement to predict mental health crises
2026 Frontiers in Science: Advancing Space Exploration
One day after the historic Artemis II launch, the College of Sciences welcomed more than 150 researchers, students, and community members to its signature Frontiers in Science conference.
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Research Days slam winner highlights role of cortisol in health
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TikTok as an engine of entertainment consumption and conversion
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How science is rewriting the rules of marine taxonomy, one seaweed at a time
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Scientists turn 'mess' into breakthrough: Chaotic design unlocks next-generation optical devices
Researchers from the Monash University School of Physics and Astronomy have flipped a long-held assumption in optics, showing that deliberately introducing controlled disorder into ultra-thin optical ...