Cosmetic companies would have to take extra steps to ensure that any products containing talc are free of asbestos under a federal rule proposed Thursday.The proposal from the Food and Drug Administration and mandated by Congress is intended to reassure consumers about the safety of makeup, baby powder and other personal care products.It follows years of lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson and other companies alleging links between talc-based baby powder and cancer.Despite the lawsuits, research has found mixed evidence of a potential link between cancer and talc, although the possibility has been recognized for decades because of how it is mined.Talc is a mineral used to absorb moisture or improve the texture, feel and color of cosmetics. It is mined from underground deposits that are sometimes located near the toxic mineral asbestos. The risk of cross contamination has long been recognized by cosmetic companies.But recent FDA-sponsored testing hasnt uncovered any safety issues. Since 2021, laboratory analysis of more than 150 cosmetic samples has come back negative for asbestos, according to the FDA.Still, concerns about the risk prompted Congress to pass a 2023 law requiring the FDA to release new industry standards for asbestos testing.Dr. Linda Katz, the director of the FDAs Office of Cosmetics and Colors, said in a statement that the agency has carefully considered the scientific evidence and complex policy issues related to detecting and identifying asbestos in talc and talc-containing cosmetic products.We believe that the proposed testing techniques are appropriate methods to detect asbestos to help ensure the safety of talc-containing cosmetic products, Katz said.The long-running litigation against J&J alleges that the companys talc baby powder caused women to develop ovarian cancer, when used for feminine hygiene.A J&J subsidiary has proposed paying roughly $8 billion to settle tens of thousands of lawsuits. As part of the deal, the subsidiary would declare bankruptcy, although that proposal has been challenged in court by the Justice Department.J&J removed talc from its baby powder in the U.S. market in 2020 and then internationally in 2023. The company says it continues to stand by the safety of its products.Determining the root cause of cancer is difficult, especially in cases of ovarian cancer, which is a relatively rare form of the disease. Even large studies in thousands of women might not gather enough data to show a clear connection or definitively rule one out. The American Cancer Society says that, if there is an increased risk of cancer due to talc, it is likely to be very small.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.Matthew Perrone, AP Health Writer

Designed by Left Coast Tiny Homes, this tiny home is their flagship model and dubbed the Tantalus. It was constructed with excellent craftsmanship and amazing attention to detail. The home is available in different sizes, ranging from 24 to 30 feet in length, and 8.5 to 10 feet in width. You can choose the perfect size for your tiny home! The house features an open-concept floor plan and has plenty of natural light which makes it feel spacious and welcoming. It merges a modern exterior with a lovely interior, creating a contemporary and elegant space that feels sophisticated and yet homely.Designer: Left Coast Tiny HomesThe Tantalus Tiny Home seems simple and yet sophisticated. The exterior is marked by clean straight lines, an asymmetrical roof, slimline trim work, and strategically placed windows that are a clever addition. The home is clad in black standing seam metal with a timber accent wall and intricate exterior lighting fixtures. The interior is quite elegant and cozy. It features a spacious floor plan that includes a large open-concept kitchen and living room. It also contains a private bathroom at one end, and an easy-to-access sleeping loft which is ideal for a couple.As you enter the home, you are welcomed by the living room. The living room is quite spacious and includes a full-size sofa and a coffee table, as well as a vaulted ceiling with exposed rafters and expansive windows. The kitchen is linear, and equipped with a modern snack bar with two stools, and a cushioned storage bench. It also includes a full range, venting hood, full-size fridge, and storage for different cooking essentials. Generous windows mark the entire home, allowing natural light to stream in generously. The windows also provide lovely views from different angles, allowing the residents to feel connected with the outdoors even when they are inside the house.The home also features a large bathroom with a modern design. A pocket door separates the bathroom from the kitchen. The bathroom is furnished with a walk-in shower with a glass door and other basic amenities. A vanity with a backlit mirror and a wood-slat accent wall adds some elegant touches. The sleeping loft is placed above the bathroom, and it can be accessed via a staircase with built-in storage and underlit treads. The loft contains a queen-sized bed, wardrobe, and a standing landing. It is highlighted with a calm and subtle neutral patelle, and a skylight that allows light to fill up the space.The home is priced at around USD$ 179,500 $230,000, and it serves as a comfy and cozy living space that will meet the daily requirements of its residents, while also creating and maintaining a deeper connection with nature.The post This Cozy & Delightful Home Is The Perfect Option For A Downsized & Efficient Lifestyle first appeared on Yanko Design.

Over five years on from its announcement, we still dont quite know whatEverwildis, and other than its initial announcement trailer, all we know about the game is that it has had a torrid development cycle marked by reboots, delays, and what have you. But after prolonged radio silence from Rare and Microsoft on the title, the former has, at the very least, acknowledged the project again at long last.Taking to Instagram with a Happy Holidays message, Rare has also showcased new artwork showcasing the game. The new piece of artwork showcases a large tree beneath a bright sky, and a human figure and a mystical deer-like creature standing in the trees shade. Obviously, it doesnt give much away for what the game itself is going to be, but it does offer another glimpse at the aesthetic that its going for. Check it out below.As per reports from earlier this year, development onEverwildhas finally started progressing well. Though theres still no word on when the game will finally be ready to release or, at the very least, shown off again, past reports have suggested that the games core loop will be similar toViva Pinata. Read more on that through here. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rare Ltd (@rareltd)

TheLike a Dragon(formerlyYakuza) franchise is known for delivering massive games with copious amounts of content, though as a smaller-scale spinoff, the upcomingLike a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaiiis obviously not going to be quite as expansive as, say,Infinite Wealthwas. According to developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, however, you can still expect a substantially longer experience than the previous spinoff, 2023sLike a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name.Speaking in an interview with Automaton Media, RGG Studios director Masayoshi Yokoyama revealed thatPirate Yakuza in Hawaiiis going to be about 30 percent longer thanLike a Dragon Gaiden, echoing similar previous statements. According to Yokoyama, the development team didnt necessarily set out to make a bigger game thanGaiden, with the runtime instead being a byproduct of the story and its demands. Its more like the volume ended up increasing due to the story, he said.The map is huge, theres a bunch of places to visit, and there are still features we havent announced yet. The volume increased by itself, Yokoyama added, before stating that the longer runtime will be reflective of the games price, which is $10 higher thanLike a Dragon Gaidenslaunch price.As per How Long To Beat,Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Namesmain story is about 12-13 hours long, though the game can be closer to 20 hours with a good number of side quests added in, soPirate Yakuza in Hawaiishould presumably be a 15-25 hour-long game, based on what Yokoyama says.Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaiiis due out on February 21 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Large language models (LLMs) built using transformer architectures heavily depend on pre-training with large-scale data to predict sequential tokens. This complex and resource-intensive process requires enormous computational infrastructure and well-constructed data pipelines. The growing demand for efficient and accessible LLMs has led researchers to explore techniques that balance resource use and performance, emphasizing achieving competitive results without relying on industry-scale resources.Developing LLMs is filled with challenges, especially regarding computation and data efficiency. Pre-training models with billions of parameters demand advanced techniques and substantial infrastructure. High-quality data and robust training methods are crucial, as models face gradient instability and performance degradation during training. Open-source LLMs often struggle to match proprietary counterparts because of limited access to computational power and high-caliber datasets. Therefore, the challenge lies in creating efficient and high-performing models, enabling smaller research groups to participate actively in advancing AI technology. Solving this problem necessitates innovation in data handling, training stabilization, and architectural design.Existing research in LLM training emphasizes structured data pipelines, using techniques like data cleaning, dynamic scheduling, and curriculum learning to improve learning outcomes. However, stability remains a persistent issue. Large-scale training is susceptible to gradient explosions, loss spikes, and other technical difficulties, requiring careful optimization. Training long-context models introduce additional complexity as attention mechanisms computational demands grow quadratically with sequence length. Existing approaches like advanced optimizers, initialization strategies, and synthetic data generation help alleviate these issues but often fall short when scaled to full-sized models. The need for scalable, stable, and efficient methods in LLM training is more urgent than ever.Researchers at the Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence, Renmin University of China, developed YuLan-Mini. With 2.42 billion parameters, this language model improves computational efficiency and performance with data-efficient methods. By leveraging publicly available data and focusing on data-efficient training techniques, YuLan-Mini achieves remarkable performance comparable to larger industry models.YuLan-Minis architecture incorporates several innovative elements to enhance training efficiency. Its decoder-only transformer design employs embedding tying to reduce parameter size and improve training stability. The model uses Rotary Positional Embedding (ROPE) to handle long contexts effectively, extending its context length to 28,672 tokens, an advancement over typical models. Other key features include SwiGLU activation functions for better data representation and a carefully designed annealing strategy that stabilizes training while maximizing learning efficiency. Synthetic data was critical, supplementing the 1.08 trillion tokens of training data sourced from open web pages, code repositories, and mathematical datasets. These features enable YuLan-Mini to deliver robust performance with a limited computing budget.YuLan-Minis performance achieved scores of 64.00 on HumanEval in zero-shot scenarios, 37.80 on MATH-500 in four-shot settings, and 49.10 on MMLU in five-shot tasks. These results underscore its competitive edge, as the models performance is comparable to much larger and resource-intensive counterparts. The innovative context length extension to 28K tokens allowed YuLan-Mini to excel in long-text scenarios while still maintaining high accuracy in short-text tasks. This dual capability sets it apart from many existing models, which often sacrifice one for the other.Key takeaways from the research include:Using a meticulously designed data pipeline, YuLan-Mini reduces reliance on massive datasets while ensuring high-quality learning.Techniques like systematic optimization and annealing prevent common issues like loss spikes and gradient explosions.Extending the context length to 28,672 tokens enhances the models applicability to complex, long-text tasks.Despite its modest computational requirements, YuLan-Mini achieves results comparable to those of much larger models, demonstrating the effectiveness of its design.The integration of synthetic data improves training outcomes and reduces the need for proprietary datasets.In conclusion, YuLan-Mini is a great new addition to evolving efficient LLMs. Its ability to deliver high performance with limited resources addresses critical barriers to AI accessibility. The research teams focus on innovative techniques, from data efficiency to training stability, highlights the potential for smaller-scale research to contribute to the field significantly. With just 1.08T tokens, YuLan-Mini sets a benchmark for resource-efficient LLMs.Check out the Paper and GitHub Page. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our60k+ ML SubReddit. Asif RazzaqAsif Razzaq is the CEO of Marktechpost Media Inc.. As a visionary entrepreneur and engineer, Asif is committed to harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence for social good. His most recent endeavor is the launch of an Artificial Intelligence Media Platform, Marktechpost, which stands out for its in-depth coverage of machine learning and deep learning news that is both technically sound and easily understandable by a wide audience. The platform boasts of over 2 million monthly views, illustrating its popularity among audiences. [Download] Evaluation of Large Language Model Vulnerabilities Report (Promoted)

Welcome to Streaming Rewind, a weekly breakdown of the new and noteworthy as we work to help readers wade through the absolute deluge of television series and movies in the streaming space.Welcome to Christmas and New Years limbo, where the time is made up and the date doesnt matter. Theres a limited number of releases this week, because Hollywood typically just shuts down for the last month of the year, but that doesnt mean there arent a few surprises. The Beyonc Bowl (Netflix) If youre not a football fan, you may not have known that Beyonc did a halftime special for the Ravens vs. Texans game on Christmas (thats right, Netflix does football now too). In said special, she performed some of the songs from her Cowboy Carter album live for the very first time. If youre a member of the Beyhive who wasnt willing to sit through a football game to watch Queen Bey perform, Netflix released a stand-alone special of the performance today. And, for those wondering, Netflix did, indeed, manage to host two whole live events on Christmas day without its typical buffering issues.Squid Game is Back for Round 2 (Netflix) Its been a Netflix week! The highly anticipated second season of Squid Game finally dropped, ironically resulting in many across the industry working during Christmas and continuing the trend of Netflix completely missing the point of the series. Reviews have been mixed due to it being painfully obvious that Seasons 2 and 3 were meant to be one complete story rather than split in half, but our critic Shannon Miller liked the season. If youve already finished your binge, check out how Squid Games Season 2 ending sets up Season 3. PlayThe Order (On Demand)Nicholas Hoult has yet another film out on demand, this time alongside Jude Law and Jurnee Smollett. The films been met with early acclaim, and is based on a true story (and adapted from Kevin Flynns novel The Silent Brotherhood) centered on a string of bank robberies in the Pacific Northwest. You may have seen it during its brief theatrical run when it released on December 6 but, if you missed it, its available for purchase now.New and Notable: Gladiator II December 24 (On Demand)Y2K December 24 (On Demand)Doctor Who Christmas Special December 25 (Disney+)Thats, well thats pretty much it for this week. You can check out the few titles that are available on PVOD up above in the New and Notable section and, if you havent caught up just yet, there are a few options from last week that are still noteworthy. The Simpsons Christmas Special, O Cmon All Ye Faithful springs to mind! You can check out our review of the special if youre not sure if you want to spend your precious lounge time on it. Dont forget that What If? Is dropping new episodes weekly, and that Star Wars: Skeleton Crew and Creature Commandos are in the middle of thier runs as well!

About SyncWithSyncWith is a small, passionate, engineering-led company on a mission to simplify data access for marketers, product managers and business owners everywhere. We help teams connect their data with tools they already know, like Google Sheets and Looker Studio, giving them the power to see all their key metrics in one place. Since our start in 2020, over 1,500 marketing teams have chosen SyncWith to keep their data accessible and actionable. We're growing fast, profitable and looking for talented people who love building software that makes an impact.The RoleWere looking for a Senior Full Stack Engineer who thrives on crafting intuitive web experiences and wants to take on a lead role in building out our user-facing products. Youll be hands-on, working across our stack (Typescript, Node, Remix, React, Tailwind) to bring features from idea to launch. If youre someone who enjoys the challenge of creating great software without red tape, values clear communication and wants to work directly with a small, tight-knit team, this might be the perfect fit.What Youll DoLead Development: Take charge of our web applications, driving new features and improvements that make a real difference to our users.Full Stack Ownership: Youll work across front-end and back-end, taking responsibility for delivering features that meet user needs from start to finish.Impactful Engineering: Ship code thats maintainable, well-tested, and loved by users, adapting based on feedback from analytics and real-world use.Develop Features to Grow User Base: Engage users by developing and iterating on new features, running experiments to drive success.Data Processing Optimization: Improve and scale our data processing infrastructure to enhance speed, cost-efficiency, and robustness.Collaborative Culture: Youll work closely with the founders and the team, contributing to the companys growth with your ideas and skills.About YouExperienced and Efficient: Youre a senior engineer whos shipped robust, maintainable software in fast-paced environments.UI/UX Enthusiast: You appreciate good design and know how to build intuitive, user-friendly interfaces that look great and perform well.Problem Solver: Youre a skilled debugger with a knack for diving deep to identify and resolve root causes of issues.Clear Communicator: You can articulate complex ideas clearly, debate solutions constructively, and collaborate effectively with teammates.Self-Starter: You take ownership of your work, enjoy working autonomously and get excited about seeing your code in the hands of users.Passionate Builder: You care deeply about building software that makes an impact.Relevant Bachelors Degree: You hold a degree in computer science, computer engineering or related field.Our Tech StackFrontend: Remix, React, Typescript, Tailwind, FigmaBackend: Node/Express, TypescriptData: Postgres for primary storage, SQLite for aggregationHosting: Render.com, AWS, and GCPTools: Amplitude Analytics, Sentry, Linear, Slack, GitHubAPIs: Integrations with platforms like Facebook Ads, Google Analytics, and ShopifyWhy SyncWith?Competitive Compensation: $135,000 - $155,000 USD per year, plus options, a health spending account and 4 weeks of vacation.Flexible Work Environment: Work fully remotely within PST/EST time zones, enjoying flexible hours, minimal meetings and plenty of autonomy to focus on meaningful work.Impact-Driven Culture: Be part of a small, dynamic team where your work directly impacts our users and the company's success.Growth Opportunities: Collaborate closely with founders, contribute to the company's direction and shape a product that helps teams harness the power of their data.Autonomy and Efficiency: We value end-to-end ownership, efficiency and meaningful contributions without the red tape.What's Next?Excited to build impactful solutions with a passionate team? Wed love to hear from you! Apply using the link below.Our Streamlined Interview ProcessHeres what you can expect as we get to know you better:Application Submission: Start by completing the application form to share an overview of your experience and skills.Video Submission: Record a brief 1-2 minute video introducing yourself, your background and why youre excited about joining SyncWith.Discovery Call: Join us for a quick 15-minute chat to explore your fit for the role and learn more about your goals.Interview: Engage in a deeper conversation with our founder to discuss your experience and technical skills.Were excited to meet you and explore how you can make an impact at SyncWith!

Residents of Sarasota have access to a decent selection of fast and budget-friendly internet plans. We've done the work to find the best internet service providers for Sarasota households.

St. Petersburg has a few good internet options, including a light presence of fiber internet. Here are CNETs top picks for the best broadband in the area.

If you're a St. George resident, TDS Telecom is the default internet service pick, but it's got competition. Here are the best providers in the city, according to CNET's experts.