Today’s Big Story

What Makes Super Tuesday ‘Super’?

It’s all about the delegates. Here’s a closer look at what people are watching.

It may not be suspenseful, but it’s still important. Voters in 16 states and one territory will make their voices heard today in the biggest primary election day of the 2024 cycle. Also known as “Super Tuesday”, this biggest single primary contest day will result in over a third of delegates assigned to determine the Republican presidential nominee.

Just how “super” it is may be a matter of perspective. With the presidential nominees all but assured, the celebrated ritual lacks any real anticipation. Past results and opinion polls suggest that, by tonight, Trump will have in effect wrapped up the Republican nomination against Nikki Haley, his sole remaining challenger, who vowed to hang on … at least until today’s votes are counted.

Trump, who has won every presidential contest in which he’s appeared on the ballot and earned 122 delegates, needs 971 more to hit his “magic number” of 1,215. Once he receives that many, he’ll have won a majority of available delegates to the Republican convention this summer and will be considered the party’s presumptive nominee.

On the Democratic side, incumbent Biden has swept aside token challenges by Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota and the self-help author Marianne Williamson and is cruising to the nomination. Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, told The Guardian: “It never mattered less—I don’t know any political event that’s got more attention for being less relevant,” he said. “You know who the two nominees are and 70% of Americans would rather it not be so.”

While the presidential contest will receive a good amount of the attention, there are several significant down-ballot races as well since some states hold other primaries on the same day, reports ABC News. In California, there is the primary for the Senate seat to replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who died last fall. In North Carolina, the contest to be the next governor is taking shape with clear front-runners in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. And down in Texas, Democrats are again trying to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz—with nine candidates running for the chance. Of course, with votes happening in six time zones, the final outcome will not immediately be known, but results will start trickling in as polls close on the East Coast in the early evening.

Battle of the Chatbots

AI startup unveils new models that outperformed OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini

Has a digital gauntlet been thrown down? One of the newest entrants in the competitive world of artificial intelligence says its new models can outdo anything done by the world's biggest tech companies. Anthropic (for those who don’t follow tech media closely) is a company started by several former OpenAI employees. And on Monday, they said their new Claude 3 family of AI models perform as well as or better than those from Google and OpenAI.

According to The Verge, Claude 3 beat out OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google's Gemini 1.0 Ultra in some of the most common tests given to determine an AI's capabilities—everything from undergraduate-level expert knowledge to graduate-level expert reasoning. Anthropic also claims Claude 3 models can give near-instant results even while parsing dense material like a research paper.

The race is clearly on and it’s easy to see that underdogs can rise up, especially as the leading artificial intelligence companies have been distracted by one controversy after another. They say the computer chips needed to build AI are in short supply. And they face countless lawsuits over the way they gather digital data, another ingredient essential to the creation of AI (several media companies have already sued Microsoft and OpenAI over use of copyrighted work). Still, the technology continues to improve at a remarkable pace.

The Growing Trend of Green Burials

Traditional burials and cremation pollute the ground, emit carbon dioxide and are expensive. Would you go au naturale?

Every year, around 3.4 million people die in the United States. And burying them is expensive: a typical burial can cost around $10,000. That's a lot of money, caskets, and plots filling up cemeteries. Not to mention, traditional methods aren’t exactly sustainable or environmentally friendly.

According to National Geographic, “death care has remained largely unchanged in the United States ever since embalming and burial became the de facto method as far back as the Civil War.” Most people don’t even have access to other options: Burials and cremation are the only methods that are legal in all 50 states. But there’s a growing trend in green burials, reports NPR, which are not only better for the environment, but they can save families a lot on funeral costs.

Over the last few years, more people have been drawn towards natural burial options as they become available. In 2023, New York State became the sixth in the nation to legalize something called human composting. There’s also water cremation and mushroom suits. It’s a matter of stripping away the unnecessary. Of getting back to basics. As one manager of a park-like conservation cemetery put it: “We’re trying to help people come back to the concept that nature is enough.”

What’s Up With Eggs Recently?

There’s a reason why shells have become so fragile

Is something a little off right now when it comes to the nation’s eggshells? Have you brought a carton home from the supermarket only to find a shell or two already cracked?

Business Insider‘s Katie Notopoulos did. And when she investigated further, she actually unearthed the scientific reasons behind the eggshells having less structural integrity. Spoiler alert: remember the avian flu that surged around the globe last year? That’s to blame. What’s more fascinating is how it’s to blame, which takes us further into the way commercial egg production works.

Normally, a commercial hen starts laying eggs at about 5 months old and lays an egg a day until she's about 2 years old, at which point she's, uh, “retired” (let's just say there are no 401(k)s in factory farms). Sheila Purdum, a professor of poultry nutrition at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, told Insider that due to the large loss of flocks affected by avian flue, the remaining birds have been kept in production longer. And older chickens lay weaker eggs due to the loss of calcium just like with humans as they age. On the bright side, American egg prices appear to be normalizing (though they're still more expensive than in 2019). That means the worst of the flu outbreak is over and production is back up.

Tired of Diets?

Try Noom's Sustainable Approach

Ditch the yo-yo dieting and build healthy habits that stick. Noom's free 14-day trial helps you identify your unique motivators and challenges, understand what drives your behavior, and create solutions that fit your lifestyle. Develop practical strategies with easy-to-implement tools and techniques for overcoming roadblocks and staying on track. Celebrate successes with a supportive community of individuals who understand your struggles and offer encouragement and accountability. Break free from unhealthy patterns! Start your free trial today and build a life of sustainable health.

Give it time.