Human pregnancy can easily be taken for granted as a natural and regularly occurring event, but it is the product of the complex, coordinated function of two bodies, mother and baby, that has evolved side by side with other important human adaptations. For the first time, researchers have established how a complex disorder associated with pregnancy spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB) has been shaped by multiple evolutionary forces.

The article, Accounting for diverse evolutionary forces reveals mosaic patterns of selection on human preterm birth loci was published in the journal Nature Communications on July 24.

Preterm or premature birth, medically defined as labor starting at 37 weeks of gestation or earlier (instead of the usual 40 weeks), affects more than 15 million pregnancies each year and is the leading cause of infant mortality worldwide. Both the associated medical conditions of the mother which cause sPTB and the outcomes of sPTB on an infants health have been well-defined. It is not well understood, however, how and why genetic factors influence sPTB and birth timing. A team of scientists led by Antonis Rokas, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Biological Sciences and director of the Vanderbilt Evolutionary Studies Initiative and Tony Capra, associate professor of biological sciences, set out to demystify this element of pregnancy and human life.

The research, co-led by postdoctoral scholar Abigail LaBella and by M.D./Ph.D. candidate Abin Abraham, developed a computational approach to detect how evolution has shaped genomic regions associated with complex genetic traits, such as height or obesity. Our approach integrates techniques developed in labs from all over the world to quantify how natural selection has influenced genomic regions involved with complex diseases, said Capra. We hypothesized that parts of our genome involved in disease might experience contrasting evolutionary pressures due to their involvement in multiple and different traits.

This work was done in cooperation with Louis J. Muglia, co-director of the Perinatal Institute at Cincinnati Childrens and president and CEO of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and Ge Zhang, associate professor at Cincinnati Children Hospital Medical Center and collaborator at the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center-Ohio Collaborative. Zhang and Muglia recently completed the largest genome-wide association study (GWAS) on sPTB which identified multiple genomic regions associated with this complex disease. Preterm birth is a global health concern, affecting ten percent of pregnancies in the United States. Understanding the evolution of genomic regions associated with spontaneous preterm birth is a major step forward in how we understand the foundations of human life and provide the best possible care to mother and child, said Muglia.

Using this GWAS, the researchers found that genomic regions associated with sPTB have experienced multiple types of natural selection. From this information researchers can hypothesize why these risk-related genomic regions remain in human populations and what their potential functions may be. While we knew of a few examples of selection like negative selection acting on genes associated with spontaneous preterm birth, we uncovered that every type of selection we tested had acted on at least one genomic region. Our initial figures looked like a mosaic made up of all the different metrics we had tested, says Rokas.

The teams results suggest that genomic regions associated with sPTB have experienced diverse evolutionary pressures, such as population-specific selection, and provide insights into the biological functions some of these regions. It is difficult to study pregnancy in humans and we lack good models for laboratory studies, LaBella explains. We still have much to learn about the mechanisms through which human pregnancy is initiated. For example, the group uncovered differences in a region near the gene OPRL1, involved in both the relaxation of maternal tissues and pain perception during childbirth, that are specific to certain human populations. Population-specific differences in this region may contribute to the uneven risk of sPTB between human populations. This work is a part of a burgeoning field of evolutionary medicine, one of the types of interdisciplinary research that many of the investigators of the Vanderbilt Evolutionary Studies Initiative are engaged in, says Rokas.

Both Abraham and LaBella plan to continue to foster collaboration between medicine and evolution in their future research. Having this pipeline at our disposal opens up a range of new, exciting questions such as asking whether diseases of pregnancy, which involve two genomes, that of mom and baby, experience different evolutionary pressures than other complex genetic diseases, says Abraham.

This work will be critical for researchers studying the genetics of pregnancy-associated disorder and is of broad interest to scientists researching human evolution, human population genomics and how evolutionary analyses relate to complex diseases like cancer and heart disease. The research was supported by the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center-Ohio Collaborative, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and National Institutes of Health grants R35GM127087 and T32GM007347.

Read the original:

Vanderbilt develops computational method to explore evolutions influence on preterm birth - Vanderbilt University News

WednesdayJul29,2020at12:01AM

America is, and always will be, a work in progress. We've been evolving, good, bad, positive and negative since its birth.

Obviously we're still experiencing birthing pains that hopefully make us a better, stronger, more cohesive nation for all.

We are diverse, a soup of racial, ethnic, religious, social and cultural differences. These differences are the spices that flavor one of history's most successful countries to become a dominant world leader in so short a period. Every group has contributed to make America great, some at great expense.

There are those who live in the past, politically, economically and socially fearful. They share an inaccurate glamorized history that minimizes or omits exploitation and abuse of Black people, the stealing of lands and slaughter of Native Americans, plus similar abuses of Hispanics, Asian people, Jewish people or anyone perceived as "different."

This group can't or won't let go of a superficial fantasy myth of history. There's nothing glamorous. It's actually quite ugly. For them, eventually they will be forgotten by history's evolution, as the rest of America moves forward into a better future.

Let us all make common sense common again.

William M. Speicher, Creswell

Original post:

Evolution revolution - Opinion - The Register-Guard

There are about 3,500 species of mosquitoes around the world, but only a few are responsible for spreading infectious diseases to humans.

Scientists studied mosquitoes across sub-Saharan Africa and found that mosquitoes actually have wide-ranging palates.

"There's a huge diversity in mosquito preferences. Some like to bite humans and others don't like to bite humans at all," said the paper's co-author Noah Rose, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University in New Jersey.

"At first we thought that mosquitoes who lived around people would simply like to bite people and that those who lived in the forests wouldn't like to bite humans," Rose said. "We were really surprised that that wasn't the case."

While mosquitoes living near dense cities such as Kumasi, Ghana, or Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, showed increased willingness to bite humans, researchers found that city life alone didn't explain the mosquitoes' evolution. In fact, any mosquitoes living in large cities still preferred to bite animals rather than human hosts.

That's where the second factor -- dry climate -- comes in. In areas with harsh dry seasons, such as Africa's Sahel region, extending from Senegal to Sudan and Eritrea, mosquitoes evolved to have a strong preference for humans.

"Mosquitoes are dependent on containers of water for their larvae," Rose told CNN. "So in places with an intense long dry season, mosquitoes become very dependent on humans who store water."

The mosquitoes' evolution to bite humans is a by-product of their dependency on breeding in areas close to human city life. That means urbanization in the coming decades could lead to even more human-biting mosquitoes in the future.

Urbanization to spark further change in mosquitoes

The new research predicts this rapid urbanization will drive further mosquito evolution, causing a shift toward biting humans in many large cities by 2050.

"We should be watching these mosquitoes," said Rose, noting that the future of mosquito adaptations is still uncertain.

"We don't really know what will happen when the urbanization of sub-Saharan Africa moves beyond what we see in the present day. But we know something will happen and we think that it will be a shift to biting more human hosts."

That means the way mosquitoes spread disease could also change.

But in the short term, researchers said that climate change isn't expected to drive major changes to dry season dynamics that impact the mosquitoes' behavior.

Mosquitoes can thrive in different habitats

It took more than three years for the international team of scientists to conduct the research and collect mosquito egg samples from a wide range of habitats across 27 locations in Africa.

"I was surprised that immediate habitat didn't have much of an effect -- mosquitoes in forests and nearby towns had similar behavior," Rose said.

"We thought that maybe moving into human landscapes would be a key driver of attraction to human hosts. But it seems like mosquitoes fly back and forth too readily between these habitats for their behavior to diverge in many cases."

Mosquitoes can thrive in a "mosaic of habitats" within the same region, which makes preventing mosquito-bourne illnesses an even greater challenge, he added.

"Even if you got rid of the human-biting mosquitoes in one place, there's a huge diversity of mosquitoes in a habitat. They're really good at solving problems and surviving in different habitats," Rose said.

The World Health Organization has said mosquito control can effectively reduce the transmission of vector-borne diseases like Zika and yellow fever, but "mosquito control is complex, costly, and blunted by the spread of insecticide resistance."

Protect yourself from mosquitoes

For people living in or traveling to areas where mosquito-borne illness is prevalent, there are a few things you can do to prevent mosquito bites, according to the US Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health and WHO:

View original post here:

How mosquitoes evolved to be attracted to humans, and what that means for the future - CNN

Taylor Swift attends the NME Awards 2020 at O2 Academy Brixton on February 12, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)

Taylor Swift shows shes ever-evolving with her latest album, folklore.

Taylor Swift has become the rare pop star who seems too big to fail. In a music world that is more fractured than ever, composed of a number of microcultures that are often isolated from one another, Swift, over a decade into her career, still manages to transcend it all, making each new record release a true event.

Her latest record, released last Friday with just one day of advance warning, is no exception. Folklore, her eighth record and second in less than a year, is a change of pace for her, a sharp shift from last years Lover, which was an hours worth of pure bubblegum pop. Meanwhile, folklore is a more somber, understated affair, full of piano-based ballads that grapple with what happens when one loses the sort of love depicted throughout Lover. Largely produced by Aaron Dessner of The National, this new record is her best in several years and also shows a desire to break out of the pop world she has resided in the last decade and enter into a new, more decidedly mature arena.

This is not well-trod territory for her, but its not unfamiliar either. Tracks from Red especially give nascent signs of this more folk-based sound, most notably State of Grace, Treacherous, and All Too Well, which uncoincidentally are three of the best songs shes ever written. What is new is her commitment to it for an entire record. The difference is one of scope and aesthetics as much as one of mere instrumentation. Also notable is that while these songs almost certainly arose from personal experiences, they are not made specific to her in the lyrics. Here, she is more willing to tell stories that are not necessarily related to the experience of being Taylor Swift, making it seem more expansive even as the sound is more insular.

What separates folklore from her previous records then is less the stylistic trends she embraces musically than it is her stepping outside of this solipsistic vision and telling stories that may be about herself, but not explicitly. The mere fact that such a question can arise speaks to the difference between this and, for example, 2017s Reputation, which largely consisted of her trying to settle scores, coming off as the worlds sorest winner in the process. This tendency can make her work feel self-contained in spite of its popularity. Here though, Swift lets go of the binary narratives that have defined so much of her work in the past. The songs here are not about vindicating past behavior or excoriating former lovers, but trying to make sense of the way love arises and vanishes, the ways one tries to fill the spaces left when another leaves. If folklore is her most mature record yet, its not because of the more subdued acoustic style shes embraced, but because of the willingness to step away from her own life and imagine the lives of others, while still giving her own emotions room to breathe.

Take the last great american dynasty, which is about the heiress Rebekah Harness and betty, wherein she sings from the perspective of a teenager named James, ruing what he did to lose the titular Betty and fantasizing about winning her back. These songs arent unqualified triumphs, but they do show a promising way forward for her. More successful are songs like cardigan and hoax, which may be autobiographical, but are sung by a narrator who is at least distinct enough from the public persona of Taylor Swift, allowing anyone who has lost love to be able to find themselves in them. Its a fine line, but one she has walked in several of her best songs, here and elsewhere.

In spite of all this, folklore is less of an actual transformation than it is a gesture towards seriousness. Working with Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon functions as a way to signal that she has grown up and wants a new type of artistic, and not merely popular, success. Perhaps this is cynical, but considering Swifts continual evolution as a public figure, it seems like the new record is as much a calculated attempt to establish herself as a more serious artist, and judging by early reviews, its a gambit that appears to have worked.

folklore is a good record, her best in nearly six years, but it seems more like a solid Taylor Swift record than a fully successful attempt at an indie inflected folk record. Its hard to come up with a reason for this record to receive more acclaim than Phoebe Bridgers recently released Punisher or similar records like Julien Bakers Turn Out the Lights, though of course, what is being praised is not merely the music itself, but the evolution of Swift as an artist. Her unspoken demands to be taken more seriously have been well heeded. While the songs are good, it seems as if the novelty is being praised as much as the quality.

The most accidentally revealing lyrics on the record comes on mirrorball, when she sings, Ive never been a natural/all I do is try, try, try. Swift has consistently been one of the better pop songwriters of the last decade, but in light of how carefully crafted every aspect of her persona and her records are, little has ever quite felt fully organic. As much as she reveals of herself in her lyrics, it still feels like something is being held back; as clearly as she depicts her emotions in her songs, it nevertheless remains hard to know who she is behind the public presence. folklore may succeed as a record, but it comes no closer to solving that mystery, instead functioning as just another step on a carefully crafted trajectory.

For more, keep up with the Music section on FanSided.com.

Read the rest here:

Folklore is another step in Taylor Swifts continuing evolution - FanSided

WWE first ran an Evolution show in 2018 and it was a rousing success.

An all-woman show, they tore the house down at the Nassau Coliseum in New York, putting on a show that featured a raft of genuinely spectacular matches.

Every womans belt in the company was on the line on the card, including the NXT UK and NXT Womens Championships, while we also saw Trish Stratus and Lita return to the ring to take on Mickie James and Alicia Fox.

The main event saw Ronda Rousey beat Nikki Bella, successfully defending her RAW Womens Championship, but perhaps the best match of the night came in the semi-main as Becky Lynch battled Charlotte Flair.

The two had a Last Woman Standing match for the SmackDown Womens Championship and the Lass Kicker came out victorious.

Now, it appears that there is set to be a sequel in the offing.

Of course, both Becky and Ronda are currently away from the company but, nevertheless, it seems as though plans are accelerating.

Sportskeeda reports that sources within the company have said that WWE is exploring the possibility of a new Evolution show.

Of course, given the current Coronavirus pandemic, the show is likely to be staged behind closed doors as the Performance Center, much like WrestleMania.

Many figures within the company are said to believe that such an event is a no-brainer, given the goodwill it often generates.

And female figures within the company are pushing for it to happen, meaning we could get another all-woman spectacular before the year is out.

Amid the chaos caused by the global pandemic and the havoc wreaked on the wrestling schedule, it would certainly be a morale-booster for the women who bust their guts every single night in the ring.

And the fans would surely love it too; get it in our eyeballs!

Link:

WWE news: Evolution 2 set to take place in 2020 - GIVEMESPORT

With a 40-track deluxe reissue of the Orange Peels' 1997 debut album Square forthcoming, the band offer up a fresh look at "Something Strange Happens". The track appeared on bandleader Allen Clapp's 1993 solo album in addition to Square.There is also an alternate studio mix, a remastered version, and a brand new, previously unissued version available.

Listening to the track now, it's hard to believe that it didn't become more of a sensation in its time: Built on steady, power-pop rhythms and harmonies, featuring soaring vocals and memorable choruses, it has all the makings of a hit. Or at least the kind of hit that music critics imagine will be a hit. It's made of all the stuff that fans of Marshall Crenshaw, the Posies, and Big Star appreciate and, in its way, predicts the more recognizable elements of power punk and emo. The evolutions prove that at the end of the day if a song is great at its core, what it wears or doesn't wear hardly matters.

Clapp recently penned the follow observations for PopMatters on the song:

"Some songs are the result of crafting, pounding, tweaking, and wordsmithing. Others just show up, unannounced, and start playing, fully produced, in stereophonic sound inside a writer's head. 'Something Strange Happens' is the story of the latter. How one day, when my 24-year-old self was finishing up some routine shopping, this thing just arrived and played itself start to finish while I sat there stunned in the parking lot.

"And the song itself is mostly about the song's arrival. It turns out it was more than just music that was delivered into my consciousness that day. It was like a download from the universe, instantaneous and eternal, and it changed my whole perspective about life. Suddenly I could see my place in the world. How brief life is. How my strength would come from being vulnerable. How love comes from being open to possibilities. All of it was pouring out of this melody and these words. It was like coming face to face with God.

"Twenty-five years later, it's still as mysterious as the day it arrived. My life is tied to that song in some mysterious way. It comes to me around times of great change and reveals something new to me. Late in 2019, it showed up again, demanding my attention. It's not like I needed there to be another version of 'Something Strange Happens', it's more like the song wanted there to be another version. Or maybe I just wanted to see if I could still hit those high notes (and add some even higher ones).

"'Something Strange Happens (Autumn Fills the Skies)' makes the fourth and newest version of the song on this release. The remastered version from Square is here, as is an outtake from the Square sessions, the initial mix the band made with Bryan Hanna, and which may, in some ways, be a better, more expansive mix of the song. For historical perspective, the original four-track version of the song is here. The one that turned heads when it showed up on One Hundred Percent Chance of Rain back in 1994. The one I recorded hours after driving home from that Safeway parking lot."

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

More:

The Orange Peels Trace the Evolution of a Song with "Something Strange Happens" (premiere) - PopMatters

2020 has been a very weird year across the board thanks to the continuing scourge that is the COVID-19 pandemic. After months of lockdown and the normalcy of our everyday lives brought to a grinding halt, the world is trying to return to business as usual, often against the advice of medical experts. One notable example of this in the entertainment world is the growing attempt made by cinema chains to reopen for the masses in time to take advantage of what is left of summer. Thousands of theaters across the globe closed abruptly earlier this year after the spread of coronavirus became an unavoidable issue, and the cost to the film industry is reported to be several billion dollars.

As we face the very real risk that many of these cinemas may never reopen, the race is on to find ways to get people to go to the movies safely and spend their money on the films that were supposed to keep the big studios afloat, including the live-action remake of Disney's Mulan and Christopher Nolan's long-awaited Tenet. Even in the middle of a pandemic, Hollywood can't afford to let the summer blockbuster season disappear.

Hollywood is an industry notoriously allergic to change. They find something that works and they stick with it. For close to 40 years now, they have been beholden to the lucrative benefits of summer and the annual array of big-budget high-concept blockbusters they offer for audiences locally and worldwide. The logic behind it is pretty simple: The most profitable demographicsunder-25s and families with kids aged 7 to 17are all free from school over the summer and in need of flashy entertainment, preferably in a venue with air conditioning. A summer blockbuster is intended to be an Event, a thing you wait all year for that's hyped up to the nines. It's the reason you go to the movies.

The term "blockbuster" as it applies to film dates back to the 1940s. A blockbuster was a kind of aerial bomb used during the Second World War that gained its nickname because of the sheer force of its destructive power. Its first known use in reference to cinema came in 1943, when advertisements in various trade magazines described the war dramaBombardieras "the block-buster of all action-thrill-service shows!" Catchy. It evolved to define movies that were big on budget, spectacle, and scope, the sorts of stories that had to be seen on the biggest screen possible. As television became a dominant force in entertainment in the 1950s, studios poured more resources into these shiny new blockbusters, hoping that these lavish, extremely long, and obscenely costly epics would bring in audiences who would rather stay at home and watch Bonanza.

The blockbuster as we know it emerged in the 1970s when two dudes named George Lucas and Steven Spielbergheard of them?helped to radically change the game. The old studio system had come to an end the previous decade, and hot young new directors with greater creative freedom were making their mark on the art form. In 1975, Spielberg was a hotshot young director with one theatrical release under his belt and a couple of TV movies that had helped him to garner a reputation as one to watch. Jaws was only his second official movie, and, while the book it was based on had been popular, it wasn't an adaptation that anyone had high hopes for when it went into production. Then Lew Wasserman, then the chairman of Universal, attended a test screening, and he knew he had a mega-hit on his hands. He declared, "I want this picture to run all summer long." Jaws was given a wide release as well as an extensive marketing campaign that included plenty of TV spots that emphasized the thrills, the jump scares, and that now-iconic John Williams score. It was an unavoidable must-see event but one that had the critical clout to back up its hype (it received three Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture). Jaws became the highest-grossing movie of 1975 and was the highest-grossing film ever at the time, a title it held onto for two years until George Lucas introduced us all to Star Wars.

Star Wars followed a similar pattern to success as Jaws: It wasn't as rapturously received by some criticsPauline Kael infamously hated the moviebut it was still acclaimed enough to merit being seen as more than a mere sci-fi adventure title, akin to something Disney would make on the cheap. The marketing was highly effective, with Star Wars having a greater appeal to kids, and the film had a long initial theatrical run that kept it in viewers' focus for well over a year. You HAD to see it. This was less a mere movie than a burgeoning cultural phenomenon, one that remains a potent force in entertainment to this day. Once the box-office receipts poured in, other studios wanted to replicate the model being defined by Lucas and Spielberg: fast-paced, universally appealing spectacle, often with a genre twist, that would demand repeat viewings and inspire audience devotion.

The 1980s perfected the formula, with Lucas releasing more Star Wars movies and Spielberg making bank with creations like E.T. and Indiana Jones. Could it be spun into a franchise, like Beverly Hills Cop or Back to the Future? It was a blockbuster. Often a big name was involved, be it a director everyone knows, like Spielberg, an A-list actor like Eddie Murphy, or a familiar intellectual property. This, however, was not exclusively the case. Ridley Scott was a nobody when he made the wildly popular Alien. Tom Cruise was a 24-year-old with only a couple hits on his resume when Top Gun premiered. What these films had was a hook, something that inspired the masses and got people talking with fervor about them.

Things started to change in a big way in 1989, when Warner Bros. took a big leap and decided to adapt the decades-old comic book character Batman for the big screen and gave the job to an unknown former animator named Tim Burton. Batman was a recognizable property, but there was still no guarantee that audiences would be all that excited for a cinematic adaptation. Comics were seen as kids' stuff, and there hadn't been a major superhero movie hit since Superman, which had spluttered out after a number of underperforming sequels and audience fatigue. Batman sold a lot of tickets and even more merchandise, and so, of course, Hollywood scrambled to copy the new formula. Meanwhile, figures like Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, and James Cameron kept on trucking and reaping the benefits with their new way of cinematic business. Spielberg alone continued to shape the genre in his image with movies like Jurassic Park. Heard of it?

Yet the summer season wasn't wholly overrun by Batman knock-offs or the sort of blockbusters we come to expect. You could still release a rom-com like Clueless or a star-led comedy like Liar Liar and have it bring in the big bucks. Check out the highest-grossing movies of the '90s by year and you'll see a lot of unexpected titles that would never crack the top ten in 2020. Star power still counted for something, so Julia Roberts and Harrison Ford could guarantee a hit bigger than, say, The Fifth Element. So what changed by the time we hit the 2000s?

The blockbuster formula by and large remained the same: big budgets, high-concept stories, lots of spectacle, and a hook for fans. What changed was that this model became more attuned to pre-existing intellectual properties, helping to birth major franchises. TheLord of the Rings trilogy became a far greater success than even the most generous industry expectations had anticipated. The record-breaking Harry Potter books became films of equal power. The Star Wars prequels defied bad reviews to keep audiences intrigued. Then, of course, in 2005, a new age of superhero madness was born thanks to Batman Begins. The blockbuster formula was refined, as they started to appeal to slightly older audiences befitting the PG-13 rating. You didn't even need a big star at the helm. The property was the star, more so than ever.

By the time Marvel rolled into town and changed the game once more, we saw a whole new spin given to the summer blockbuster. First of all, the summer part became much more flexible. Nowadays, we start having conversations about the season in April and end them well into September. Summer is now half of the year, and that doesn't even get into the holiday season, another place where blockbusters tend to do very well.

While the timeframe may have expanded, the sorts of blockbusters we get have become greatly restricted now that we're in the era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's not enough to be a big-budget genre film nowyou have to be part of an expanded franchise, part of an instantly familiar brand, and you have to appeal to audiences worldwide. Markets like China are more valuable than ever, and studios work hard to appeal to those countries. Once upon a time, the idea of spending $100 million on one movie was considered an obscene rarity; now, it's seen as relatively inexpensive for a blockbuster, especially since spending three times that amount on one title is the norm. What this also means is that these films have to make even more money than before. A billion-dollar gross is the expected low point. Justice League was considered a flop for grossing less than $700 million thanks to its exorbitant budget and the increased expectations of the genre as a whole.

When the stakes are that high, the risks studios are willing to take decrease, even though the model that started it all with Iron Man was considered pretty risky at the time. More money was poured into these blockbusters that audiences had little to no reason to care about, titles that seemed to exist solely to follow the Marvel path step by step. Remember that big Robin Hood movie with Taron Egerton that was supposed to launch a whole franchise? Or Guy Ritchie's King Arthur film? Mortal Engines? Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets? John Carter? The Lone Ranger?

Plenty of movies have made lots of money and won over fans without the benefit of critical success, but you also can't force people to care about something they have little to no prior interest in. We may all know who Robin Hood is, but that instant familiarity with the concept doesn't mean we were all clamoring for a blockbuster version and five potential sequels. There was nothing about these movies that hooked in the tens of millions of paying customers needed just to break even, but studios continued to hope lightning would strike twice. It almost never does.

This risk-free approach also reinforces the most stubborn and limiting aspects of the industry. Executives have never been wild about investing in tentpole titles anyone other than cishet white dudes front and center, and even in the 21st century, that's still the assertion they work with. Marvel needed to make a solid decade of installments before letting a Black or female lead get their dues. The new Star Wars trilogy did put women and people of color up front on screen, but not behind the camera. Only a tiny handful of women directors have ever worked with a budget of $100 million or higher, even as such costs become the norm in the genre.

Studios are scared to deviate from the summer blockbuster model even as annual theatrical attendance numbers slip domestically and many of their current methods don't work in key international markets like China. The big threat they face comes from audiences' increasing preference for at-home entertainment, a problem they had to confront long before the pandemic forced us to stay at home with our Dark binge watches. Streaming services like Netflix may be breaking an old and increasingly archaic mold, but they're not ready to totally abandon old-school Hollywood tools. They're as invested in the blockbuster game as anyone else, even if they don't care so much about the rigidity of a release calendar.

Netflix movies like 6 Underground and The Old Guard, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, very much follow the expected standard of a blockbuster, but almost in a retro manner. The former may be directed by Michael Bay, but it's tough to imagine even the explosion king of Hollywood getting a major budget for an original action film, while the latter has superhero and comic book credentials but nothing on the level of recognition that Marvel's name brings. They're slightly cheaper affairs than their theatrical comrades but still feature big stars and, especially with The Old Guard, are designed to tap into that fandom frenzy that has people coming back for more, a feature that at-home streaming is built on. Perhaps a new age of the blockbuster can be given room to breathe via streaming and VOD, especially if Hollywood continues to double down on monstrous franchises that have become scarily too big to fail.

It remains to be seen how the film industry will, or whether it can, bounce back from the COVID lockdown. It's highly unlikely that Hollywood will be able to return to the status quo, and that applies to the blockbuster model. It's a sturdy business mold and it will endure, even as necessary changes are made, but they may end up being more radical than studios are willing to accept.

Read the rest here:

From Jaws to The Old Guard: The evolution of the summer blockbuster - SYFY WIRE

Warrior Nun represents a new direction for Hollywoods female superheroes, alongside Gina Price-Bythewoods The Old Guard, Captain Marvel and Salim Akils CW show Black Lightning.

A great many things aboutWarrior Nun, Simon Barrys new Netflix superhero drama (based on the Ben Dunn comicbook series Warrior Nun Areala), seem to be designed as inter-textual commentary on the genre itself. The show follows Ava (Alba Baptista), a quadriplegic orphan who seemingly kills herself, only to be reborn with superpowers (super-strength, rapid healing) after a nun presses an angels halo into her back. Ava soon learns that the bearer of the halo becomes the de facto Warrior Nun, member of an ancient, demon-battling Christian group called Order of the Cruciform Sword (OCS).

The thing is, for well over half of the shows first season, Ava wants to have nothing to do with the superhero gig, no matter what the OCS nuns or their leader, Father Vincent (Tristan Ulloa), tell her. More importantly, her attitude towards the entire history and the mythology of the OCS is one of bored impatience. At one point, as Father Vincent presents her with a comically oversized tome about the OCSs past and urges her to read soon, she says, Can we skip to the part where any of this has to do with me? This sentiment is reinforced time and again throughoutWarrior Nun; at every given opportunity, Ava reiterates, Im definitely not a nun. Even the shows tagline uses a bit of punning action to hammer it home: Fucks given? Nun

Warrior Nun, then, is a hyper-aware, sharp-tongued anti-superhero drama, a far more effective example of the same than Amazons asinineThe Boys, or the equally sophomoricKick-Assfranchise, both of whom end up reinforcing the same tropes they set out to parody.

Warrior Nun is currently streaming on Netflix.

It also has genuinely memorable characters like Shotgun Mary (Toya Turner, the show-stealer), the only member of the OCS not beholden to a nuns vows, and Sister Lilith (Lorena Andrea), the tightly wound up descendant of several earlier Halo Bearers/Warrior Nuns (can you name the villain in either of the Kick-Ass films? How about Jim Carrey or Nicholas Cages characters? I didnt think so). And when it comes to delivering the action,Warrior Nungets its fight choreography exactly right, a compelling mixture of kickass, close quarters hand-to-hand and superhero-style VFX.

The outspoken Ava represents a new direction for Hollywoods female superheroes, alongside Gina Price-Bythewoods filmThe Old Guard, Anna Boden/Ryan FlecksCaptain Marveland Salim Akils CW showBlack Lightning. To understand this evolution, one has to pedal back to the character that started it all for the (now-clich) strong woman in Hollywood, someone who wasnt technically a superhero at all Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) from Ridley ScottsAlien(1979).

From male fantasy to the monstrous feminine

Few Hollywood characters have been deconstructed to the extent Ellen Ripley has in the 40-odd years since she was first seen onscreen, there have been hundreds of academic treatises written on Ripleys appearance, her motivations and, inevitably, her feminism. Ripley is, essentially, a male fantasy about strong women.

Director Ridley Scott admitted that the character was initially supposed to be male but was changed into a woman fairly late into the pre-production process. Ellen Ripley was, at least in her origins, a response to the second-wave feminism in the 60s and 70s (Feminists! Equal pay is fine but put on some lipstick for Gods sake, says Kitty Forman, the Betty Crocker-esque matriarch fromThat 70s Show).

Think about it: while Ripleys world, of course, is a boys club with the usual amounts of sexism, we never see Ripley engaging with any of it. She just gets on with the job at hand and by the end of the film, shes the one left standing, not the sniggering guys who thought it was a mistake to send a woman into space to do a mans job as it were. This is along the lines of the patronising responses women receive when they complain about workplace sexism/harassment suck it up and keep working, women are told.

Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) from Ridley Scotts Alien (1979).

Oh, and then theres Ripleys infamous stripping scene, of course remember, these were the 70s, the era ofCharlies AngelsandWonder Woman, when strong women also had to be unrealistically attractive (That 70s Showhad parody scenes for both theAngelsandWonder Woman, wherein these impossible standards are lampooned). Director James Cameron, who would go on to direct Weaver in the movies sequelAliens(1986), later said that he disagreed with the stripping scene and it was one of the things that made him push back against the objectification of Ellen Ripley. Camerons version of Ripley is notably more foul-mouthed than Scotts (speaks volumes that the one line youll remember is Get away from her, you bitch!). Shes assertive, world-weary and completely in charge of the situation even as the violence and the carnage around her keeps escalating.

And yet, Cameron himself is hardly the nuanced thinker he mistakes himself for (rememberhis hare-brained attackon Patty Jenkins andWonder Woman?). InTerminator II, therefore, his strong woman had to be worse at parenting than an actual robot (whos already leagues ahead in the films second-most-important skill ie murdering evil machines). Strong women are strong because of that bad mother juice, dont you know?

If Sigourney Weaver was the most important figure for 70s and 80s women-led films, the 21st century belongs to Charlize Theron.

Fromon Flux(2005) andHancock(2008) toAtomic Blonde(2016),Mad Max: Fury Road(2017) and nowThe Old Guard(2020), theres no doubt that Theron is the pre-eminent action hero of the ongoing era. In fact, her filmography itself is a pretty good indicator of how the female superhero (as well as superhero-adjacent figures like her characters inAtomic BlondeandMad Max)has evolved over the past two decades while on Flux was still stuck at the altar of controlling male producers (director Karyn Kusama washed her hands off the final cut of the film, which included an abrupt and gratuitous scene of Theron in her undies, not unlike Ellen Ripleys underwear shots), Imperator Furiosa is a prime example of the monstrous feminine, a character who fights and kills like the men, but eventually leads the women of the film to the green place, a kind of eco-feminist utopia (notably, on Flux also ends with the discovery of a verdant Eden).

Brie Larson pioneered a new breed of the female superhero in Captain Marvel.

Fucks given? Nun

Warrior Nun engages with and upgrades the tropes of the female superhero in three major ways.

First, Ava enters a covert institution (the OCS), cleans it up from the inside (by fighting its corrupt elements), turns her back on her male mentor (Father Vincent, who turns out to be a traitor to the cause) and rearranges the playing field on her own terms. This basic storyline, ie women cleaning up an institution or a hierarchical structure, is followed closely byCaptain Marvel, too, for example Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) becomes a part of the Kree forces, but soon turns against them when she realises theyre the imperialist villains of the story. She fights and rather easily defeats her male mentor (Jude Law) to do so, telling him, I have nothing to prove to you. In Avas case, this particular confrontation will have to wait for the second season, but it promises to be kickass.

Second, Avas big reveal, ie her realisation that the OCS is based on a lie or at the very least an exaggerated, manipulative version of the events (the angels not an angel, the halos not really a halo), is rooted in historiography (the study of how histories are written). And historiography is all-important in the female superhero film: its how writers and directors tell us about women being written out of history. In the last half-hour ofThe Old Guard, we see how Charlize Therons immortal character Andromache of Scythia has influenced history down the ages, behind the scenes saving the lives of future doctors and soldiers and Presidents and Nobel Laureates, snowballing into a whole lot of good. InThor: Ragnarok, we see the super-villain/goddess Hela (Cate Blanchett) lamenting how her own father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) wrote her out of the history of Asgard.

Charlize Theron's iconic character, Furiosa, from Mad Max: Fury Road.

Third, Avas sexuality and how she negotiates it have been written superbly, so much so that theres no real analogue or comparison within the superhero genre for how good this aspect is. The trick is to not over-think it: far too many superhero films have their super-powered women treating sexuality as either a cumbersome necessity or in borderline fetishistic territory. Not so for Ava: shes a young woman whos definitely not a nun, and for much of the first half of the season, shes running around, crashing one summer house after another with a cute boy (you know, as one does). And as a final fuck-you to the Vatican, the cute boy has the initials JC (Im not saying it, you are!) and he believes that ultra-rich people donating their homes to him, even if temporarily, is a good thing.

Which is why personally, Ill be very disappointed if after all this, Ava takes up a nuns vows in the second season. But something tells me that the writers ofWarrior Nunare too smart for that.

Find latest and upcoming tech gadgets online on Tech2 Gadgets. Get technology news, gadgets reviews & ratings. Popular gadgets including laptop, tablet and mobile specifications, features, prices, comparison.

See the rest here:

Warrior Nun, The Old Guard and the (much-needed) evolution of the strong woman trope in Hollywood - Firstpost

INTERVIEW

Lisa Ronson, chief marketing officer at Coles, (LR)Zoe Wilkinson, journalist, Mumbrella (ZW)

ZW:What led you to choosing books for this collectable campaign?

LR: Well, there was sort of two main inputs into it.

ADVERTISEMENT

The first is it always comes back to our brand purpose of helping Australians live healthier and happier lives. And, we know that kids that have a love of reading or read books have better educational outcomes and theyre happier, happier kids. And so that aligns really well with our purpose. And then another piece of research we did showed that whilst 83% parents want to buy their kids books that will encourage their children to read, only 22% actually buy books regularly for their children. So on the basis of those two main inputs, it was a fairly easy decision.

ZW: And what was the process of selecting a particular series? How did you come to Andy Griffiths and Terry Dentons Treehouse series?

Andy and Terry have got the most successful Australian kids book series in the past decade. And when you look at the top 10 books that have been sold to a broad range of kids over that time period, theyve got five or six out of the top 10, so it was overwhelmingly working towards the Little Treehouse series, and working with Andy and Terry who are really passionate about kids literacy and reading, and getting more books in the hands of Australian kids. So we had very aligned objectives on that front.

Andy Griffiths is the author of the treehouse series

ZW: The books and the packaging are made from sustainable materials and can be fully recycled. Following some of the feedback that Coles received based on the environmental impact of the Little Shop Collectables, what role did considering the environmental impact of these collectables play in the campaigns development?

LR: It played a big role. Weve publicly announced that we want to be a more sustainable supermarket and based on our customer insights, consumers and our customers are getting increasingly aware of their footprint and plastic in the environment. So, in the vein of being very much customer led, customer-insight led, that played a part in the development of this program. We dont think that anyones going to want to recycle the books, but the option is very much there if they want to recycle them at the end of the campaign.

ZW: The first Little Shop Collectables campaign delivered incredible sales results for Coles and drove families to the store to spend more money. Did you have to think about the ethics of encouraging families to spend more money during COVID-19, considering the impact its had on family budgets?

LR: These programs have long lead times. Like any of our campaigns, we start planning them a long way out. So the planning was very much pre-COVID. But, what we do know is that Australians are coming in and theyre spending in our stores anyway, and they really like that additional reward for spending on the groceries that they were going to buy anyway. That was overwhelmingly the feedback from Little Shop one and Little Shop two. They felt that they were getting an exciting reward and exciting treat for doing the grocery shopping each week. So we were mindful of that. It just brings a little bit of a spark to the shopping experience and particularly for children.

ZW: The campaign targets childrens literacy and leverages Coles relationship with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. How will these causes set this campaign apart for previous campaigns? Did it come about with the partnership with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation in mind, or was that just a perfect fit?

LR: It was definitely with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation in mind because we are the largest private employer of Indigenous Australians in Australia. So its really, really important to us. And whats different about this collectable is definitely the Indigenous Literacy part of it.

But, were also launching our first storybook school competition where were looking for basically the next creative geniuses like Andy and Terry, and schools will win fantastic prizes. And every entry we get to that well donate books to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation because we wanted to make sure that underlying all of this is us using our size and scale to get the books in the hands of so many more Australian children. So it was a big part of how we built the campaign to take it to market.

ZW: This is your first major collectables campaign at Coles, how does it reflect the direction in which you want to take Coles as a brand?

LR: Ive talked about our purpose before, so thats very much front and centre for all of our marketing. And then our vision is to make Coles Australias most trusted retailer. So, I felt that campaigns like this one which have that excitement of the collectables that weve run in the past, but are making Australians healthier and happier very much at its heart is in line with where we want to go, because we are very much insight led, we listened to what our customers are saying to us, and were constantly striving to raise the bar with how we are surprising and delighting our customers. So were very much looking to do that increasingly and were looking at solutions and how we help solve our customers pains, pain points, and thats through not only campaigns like this, but campaigns like Whats for dinner? and helping lowering the cost of our customers weekly shops. Were really leaning into the things that mattered to them.

Ronson became Coles CMO in March 2019

ZW: Do you think that collectables will ever reach a point where theyve sort of run their course as a marketing concept? And what do you think would come next? Whats the next evolution?

LR: I think that so long as collectables remain interesting and they continue to evolve and innovate, I think theyre one of those things that Theyve stood the test of time. I mean I remember, and Im going to show my age here, collecting things like Smurfs and things like that at the petrol station. So they might come in and out of favour over the years, and theres been so many iterations, whether it be football cards that kids swap in the playground and that sort of thing, I think its just about keeping it current, keeping it interesting and bringing a little bit of excitement and delight to customers shops.

So whether theyll be in the same time of the year, every year into the future, I dont know, but well continue to, as I said, be insight led and monitor the interest of our customers to determine when we run them, what the shape of the programs are and how we run them.

ZW: The pandemic really put supermarkets in the spotlight, and because Coles staff are on the frontline, how has it changed the course of your marketing that was layed out for this year?

LR: Well in a lot of ways, at the height of the panic buying I had a section of my team focused on COVID-19 communications because Australians were increasing looking to the supermarket sector for information around hygiene, how we were sanitising our stores, social distancing, and product restrictions. So a lot of the team have been focused on those types of communications and also, interestingly, working with our competitors in the supermarket category to bring joint industry messages to Australians about the health and wellbeing of both our customers and also our team members.

A full-page ad in The Australian in March [Click to enlarge]

So it was very much about the more functional communications at one end, then continuing with the more aspirational and inspirational messages. And I think we started them back around Easter time and then in the middle, what are some solutions for the time and one of them was the Whats for dinner? live that we rolled out and are continuing to do because it was so successful with our customers.

Coles Whats for dinner? campaign

ZW: Whats for dinner? really kicked off in response to the impact COVID-19 had on your customers. Is that going to be something that continues throughout the year in different iterations, different forms?

LR: We launched it back in September of 2019. The simplicity of it, I think was the beauty of it at, you know pre-COVID, between three and six in the afternoon there was a large proportion of Australians that were getting anxious about what they were going to cook for their family or friends and themselves for dinner. So that at the beginning of the campaign, it was all about getting five ingredients or less on the table in 30 minutes or less and providing inspiration because the other point is people were getting stuck in a rut of doing spag bowl every Monday and then maybe something else on a Tuesday. So we were trying to mix it up and provide that little bit of inspiration that people were wanting to explore a little bit more in the kitchen.

And then coming into COVID the conditions were slightly different, so it was more around the inspiration and doing a lot more with some of the basic staples and looking at different cuisines, looking at very multicultural cuisines and just providing that overall inspiration from a lot of really credible chefs and cooks and great people that we work with currently and have worked with over the years.

And it just went down a treat, it was two and a half minutes every night, really simple, other tips from the chefs around chopping things and where do you put onions and garlic, and it was sort of really practical as well. Weve since evolved it to be under $5 per serve, which we know Australians are increasingly looking to value, so were trying to find those value solutions.

Its a great platform in short that were continuing to evolve based on the environment and what our customers are looking for.

ZW: And at the start of lockdown a lot of opinions in market were We need to ready ourselves for when we come out the other side of the pandemic, but now the opinions are starting to change in the belief that consumers priorities and focuses have completely shifted in this period, and that marketing will now never return to normal. Is that something you agree with?

Theres, as you said, a couple of schools of thought. Some people think that people will just bounce back. I ultimately think they will, but I think its going to take a lot longer than what we anticipated. I dont think people will go back to how we were straight away. I think its going to take months and years actually. And I think therell be some behaviours that will continue around things like basic washing your hands and sanitisation. I think well appreciate things more like travel, being able to go out for dinner, out for breakfast, those sorts of things. I think we might all just slow down a bit more, but then will that continue forever? Its really hard to say.

I do think its going to take quite a bit of time before we go back to how we were and how we market and how we live our lives, because marketing is ultimately a reflection of what our customers are wanting and how we can help solve some of their problems. So their problems will be different for a significant period of time. So we need to work with that and lean into it, and continue to be helpful.

More:

Coles' Lisa Ronson on the evolution of collectables and marketing through COVID-19 - Mumbrella

Pride as we know it today looks a lot different than when it first emerged back in the late 1960s as a protest for equality and recognition. Today, Pride is marked by a month of festivals, events and parades that celebrate and show support for LGBTQ2SIA+ communities.

As this year marks the 50th anniversary of the first Pride parade (held in New York City), we spoke to Matt Numer, an associate professor and head of the Division of Health Promotion in the School of Health and Human Performance and an advocate for LGBTQ2SIA+ health issues, about the history of Pride and why it is still so important to celebrate today.

Can you tell us a bit about the history of Pride and how it has evolved over the decades?

Pride started as a form of protest against fairly overt oppression, primarily from the police, I would say. We saw a lot of issues decades ago with police attempting to out people, arrest people for engaging in what at the time they called homosexual activities. People are pretty familiar with the rise of the gay rights movement with the Stonewall Riots, when police attempted to raid bars. What they would do is they would go in and they would particularly target people transgressing gender norms. Today, we might call them drag queens; the way we define people has also evolved over the years. But they would drag people out and publish their names and attempt to have them fired, and all sorts of things like that. In Canada, you had the bath house raids in Toronto, where they would go and purposefully target people engaged in sex activities. Out of that, Pride became a protest a march very similar to the protests we see today with the Black Lives Matter movement. I think thats where it gets its historical roots.

How has it evolved? I think in many ways Pride is still a form of protest and a form of garnering attention, though it may not necessarily be for the same cause and it may take on different forms today. Today, when we think of Pride, most people just think of the celebration, parties, drinking, the parade in particular. But it is still calling attention to the fact that theres a community of people out there who have been historically marginalized and continue to be in many ways. Pride is the opportunity today for many allies to come out and show their support for us to make queer identities visible to youth. A big way that oppression works is to hide how people are marginalized. Growing up, I didnt really know many gay people. They were just seen as so outlandish in the eyes of the general population, unless it was something like arrests and protests and stuff like that.

A gay rights demonstration in Toronto, circa 1980s. (Courtesy Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives)

What are some of the unique challenges experienced by LGBTQ2SIA+ communities today and how does Pride bring recognition to those issues?

Pride is also a way for us to see issues that may not be immediately visible. So, youll often see different groups marching in the Pride parade. Today it has become very corporatized with the banks and other companies pay their employees to go march in the parade which, dont get me wrong, Im glad that we have corporate support, but thats not really what Pride is about. But you will see other community groups marching in the parade. They give rise and give light to issues that may not be visible in the Canadian context. Theres a queer Arabs group, Rainbow Refugees an organization that attempts to help people who have suffered because of their sexual orientation or gender identity to emigrate to Canada. Pride Health is a group through Nova Scotia Health Authority that looks at the disparities in health that emerge for people with queer identities.

Pride is also a time when you can typically get attention from government and media. For many organizations, its a time when they show that support. I know from my own advocacy work that when we can raise issues close to Pride they tend to get more attention than during the rest of the year. Governments are fairly dismissive until there is political expediency for them.What can governments, workplaces, community groups and the general public do to support LGBTQ2SIA+ communities and address these unique challenges?

Money speaks. When governments and organizations are investing in the health and well-being of queer people, then we may start to address some of the health disparities. I think that we still havent done a good job of that. On the surface, we think that because weve got gay marriage that everything has been solved in Canada, but actually we have greater issues related to mental health, suicide, substance use and things of that nature. That isnt a product of being gay or queer thats a product of a homophobic society. Those are more difficult issues to get at and what we need is a commitment from government to invest more substantively in things like Pride Health, the Youth Project, access to medications. My own advocacy work has a lot to do with HIV prevention and theres a drug out there that can prevent it almost 100 per cent, but many people dont have access to it because its expensive. The Government of Nova Scotia has refused to pay for it, while about half of Canadas other provinces have.

Read the rest here:

Ask an Expert: Health Promotion's Matt Numer on the evolution of Pride - Dal News

Los Angeles, United State: The report is a compilation of comprehensive research studies on various aspects of the global Blood Transfusion Devices Market. With accurate data and highly authentic information, it makes a brilliant attempt to provide a real, transparent picture of current and future situations of the global Blood Transfusion Devices market. Market participants can use this powerful tool when creating effective business plans or making important changes to their strategies. The Blood Transfusion Devices report discusses about the growth of the global as well as regional markets. It also brings to light high-growth segments of the global Blood Transfusion Devices market and how they will progress in the coming years.

Get Full PDF Sample Copy of Report: (Including Full TOC, List of Tables & Figures, Chart)https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/1776151/1991509/global-blood-transfusion-devices-market

In this section of the report, the global Blood Transfusion Devices Market focuses on the major players that are operating in the market and their competitive landscape present in the market. The Blood Transfusion Devices report includes a list of initiatives taken by the companies in the past years along with the ones, which are likely to happen in the coming years. Analysts have also made a note of their expansion plans for the near future, financial analysis of these companies, and their research and development activities. This research report includes a complete dashboard view of the global Blood Transfusion Devices market, which helps the readers to view an in-depth knowledge about the report.

Key Players Mentioned in the Global Blood Transfusion Devices Market Research Report: Macopharma, Becton Dickinson, B.Braun, Terumo, Abbott, Haemonetics, Fresenius Kabi, Immucor, Fenwal, Qmed, Cerus, Haemonetics, Chindex Medical Limited, Armstrong Medical

Global Blood Transfusion Devices Market by Type: Blood Collection, Blood Processing, Blood Safety, Other

Global Blood Transfusion Devices Market by Application: Blood Collection, Blood Processing, Blood Safety, Other

For a better understanding of the market, analysts have segmented the global Blood Transfusion Devices market based on application, type, and regions. Each segment provides a clear picture of the aspects that are likely to drive it and the ones expected to restrain it. The segment-wise explanation allows the reader to get access to particular updates about the global Blood Transfusion Devices market. Evolving environmental concerns, changing political scenarios, and differing approaches by the government towards regulatory reforms have also been mentioned in the Blood Transfusion Devices research report.

Questions Answered by the Report:

Which are the dominant players of the global Blood Transfusion Devices market?

What will be the size of the global Blood Transfusion Devices market in the coming years?

Which segment will lead the global Blood Transfusion Devices market?

How will the market development trends change in the next five years?

What is the nature of the competitive landscape of the global Blood Transfusion Devices market?

What are the go-to strategies adopted in the global Blood Transfusion Devices market?

Request for customization in Report:https://www.qyresearch.com/customize-request/form/1991509/global-blood-transfusion-devices-market

Table of Contents

About Us:

QY Research established in 2007, focus on custom research, management consulting, IPO consulting, industry chain research, data base and seminar services. The company owned a large basic data base (such as National Bureau of statistics database, Customs import and export database, Industry Association Database etc), experts resources (included energy automotive chemical medical ICT consumer goods etc.

See more here:

Blood Transfusion Devices Market Size, Segment, Evolution Rate by Type and Application And Forecast 2020-2026| Macopharma, Becton Dickinson, B.Braun,...

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company.

In 2017, Ta-Nehisi Coates released We Were Eight Years In Power: An American Tragedy, a collection of articles hed written for The Atlantic during the Obama Administration plus additional blog posts describing the point and process behind each piece. Its a hefty compilation, tackling weighty topics such as the Black family in an era of mass incarceration, why few Black people study the civil war, and the award-winning essay, The Case For Reparations.

The book opens with a quote from South Carolina Congressman Thomas Miller extolling Black achievements to the states constitutional convention in 1895. This was during the oppressive Redemption (Jim Crow) period that followed Reconstruction where, for the first time, the formerly enslaved were elected to government in the south.

We were eight years in power, Miller stated. We had built schoolhouses, established charitable institutions, built and maintained the penitentiary system, provided for the education of the deaf and dumb, rebuilt the ferries. In short, we had reconstructed the State and placed it upon the road to prosperity.

Miller hoped that by listing the success of Black lawmakers in South Carolina during Reconstruction, he would convince the legislature to decide against passing laws restricting the rights of Black citizens in the state. He was wrong. All achievements notched during Reconstruction were soon bastardized and remixed to fit the narrative of South Carolinas white dominant leadership. And the Jim Crow era took root.

Coates writes: Assessing Millers rebuttal and the 1895 convention, W.E.B. Du Bois made a sobering observation If there was one thing that South Carolina feared more than bad Negro government, it was good Negro government.

Its possible to draw parallels between Du Bois assessment of the South Carolina legislatures reaction to Millers speech and the way President Barack Obamas achievements continue to be attacked by his political adversaries. His signature bill, the Affordable Care Act, has been consistently dismantled in red states since its historic passing in 2010. In June 2020, while the country still struggles to wrangle control over COVID-19, President Trump once again asked the Supreme Court to invalidate the law, hoping to remove healthcare coverage from 20 million people during a pandemic and record-high unemployment. Trump also rolled back Dodd-Frank, another Obama era bill that added regulations designed to prevent Wall Street from causing another Great Recession, as it did while President George W. Bush was commander-in-chief. And despite assuming office in the wake of Dubyas catastrophe, despite adding 11.6 million jobs and returning the stock market to record highs, Obama still battles blame for causing the economic collapse that began two years before his inauguration. Toss in the racially motivated birther movement championed by President Trump and its not an intellectual leap to believe that in 2020, to paraphrase Du Bois, the only thing worse than a bad Black president is a good Black president.

HIP HOP RUNS FOR OFFICE

Kanye West recently announced that hes running for president, hoping to be the next Black man from Chicago to call the West Wing home. According to Forbes, Ye decided to run for office while reciting rhymes in the shower. He says hed run as a Republican if Trump decides to remove his name from the bill, and run as an Independent if he stays in the race. Kanye says he modeled his management approach off of Wakanda Black Panthers fictional homeland. He says hes cautious of vaccines because thats the mark of the beast. He says hes pro-life because hes following the word of the Bible, that he hasnt developed a foreign policy platform yet because he intends to focus on America first with our great military, that he was felt threatened as a Black man to join the Democratic party. Whether Kanyes aspirations are earnest remains to be seen. But, the prospect of a Black president followed by a reality show president followed by a billionaire Black president would be the oddest three chapters in White House history. Somewhere Jeezy is working on My President Is Black, Part 2.

Most political attention is laser focused on what happens in the Oval Office. But arguably, the power of government is harnessed most efficiently at local levels, and several from within Hip Hop have run for office hoping to represent their communities.

Wyclef Jean ran for president of Haiti in 2010, for example, but was removed from the ballot because of a provision that requires candidates for the presidency to have lived in the country for at least five years prior to their run was added to legislation. Clef was slaughtered in the press for attempting to challenge the decision.

In 2011, Uncle Luke ran for mayor of Miami with a focus on economic development, public safety, community revitalization and affordable housing. He came up short but still garnered 11% of the vote.

Former Bad Boy artist Shyne recently announced that hes running for the Belize House of Representatives under the United Democratic Party. Born Michael Levi Barrow, his father was the first Black prime minister of the country and his uncle, Honorable Michael Finnegan, currently serves in the governing body, but has decided against running for re-election. Shyne is hoping to assume his seat.

Former member of Lords Of The Underground, Dupre Doitall Kelly ran for Councilman-At-Large in Newark, NJ in 2018. He was inspired by a conversation he had with Tupac Shakur 20 years prior about correcting the negatives in their neighborhoods. His platform included a focus on improving education in his city. Unfortunately, he came up short, but he described the challenges running for office.

He previously told REVOLT, Man, this is not an easy task. It takes money, it takes people to contribute financially. But shout out to Redman, he supported, not just as my brother and someone whos been supportive of us. He supported financially. Naughty By Nature supported financially. Every member of the group. It was a couple of people who really did their thing and supported financially You cant jump into politics because you think youre popular. You have to do the groundwork, the footwork. You gotta put in the work with the residents.

THE ROAD AHEAD

Che Smith, also known as Rhymefest, ran for Chicago City Council in 2011 and came close to winning, falling short by 6 percentage points. When asked about his experiences campaigning, Smith tells REVOLT exclusively, When I ran for [Chicago] City Council, Lupe Fiasco came in and helped out. He did a fundraiser for me because Lupe comes from community organizing. A lot of hip hop comes from community organizing, but doesnt indulge in politics, which is more expansive than community organizing because its not just the community. If youre in city council, not only are you a part of a community, you are part of a vote for a city that has different interests.

Smith says part of the difficulty of running for office was that the lyrics to his songs were used against him on the campaign trail.

All my words that I ever wrote in rap came back to haunt me when I had to go speak to a 90-year-old lady that was like, So, what about your brand new b**ch? or Your brand new d**k, Fest says. He continues:

Running for office changed my perspective towards rap music because it made me realize a lot of things were saying just aint responsible. I realized things that we think are harmless in hip hop are really influencing people. And we try to use the word entertainment as a shield. We say, Well, what makes it different than what Arnold Schwarzenegger says? Well, we say were keeping it real. We affirm the realness of the entertainment, which reinforces structural racism. Rappers should be using the power of our voice to expand the electorate through how we talk about the platform. It should be a trend. It should be us saying thats what were on.

For much of hip hops history engaging in politics, the emphasis was on activism, grassroots community organizing, and donating to campaigns. Step. Repeat. Eazy-E, for example, found himself invited to a fundraiser for George H.W. Bushs campaign, creating one of the early 1990s biggest rap-related spectacles. KRS-One led the Stop The Violence Movement in the late 1980s in an attempt to quell violence in Black communities. He produced the song Self Destruction, which raised over $100,000 for the National Urban League. Diddy created the Citizen Change campaign in 2004, partnering with Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, and Mariah Carey to bring voter awareness to young people and minorities. Artists ranging from Melly Mel to Ice Cube to Tupac to Killer Mike have engaged communities and politicians in their music and off wax, and the culture has directly produced a number of political candidates, few victors, and even fewer political action committees. There remains a gap between a willingness to get involved in politics and an ability to raise the funds necessary to spawn consistently successful campaigns.

Organizations like JAY-Z and Meek Mills Reform Alliance, which hopes to help over 1 million people falsely incarcerated escape the correctional system, represent a promising for hip hops future in the political sphere. Its an example of the community harnessing its power to enact change away from the ballot box. The same can be said for the recently announced #BreatheAct, which includes wildly progressive measures like defunding the police. The Breathe Act was assembled by a number of entertainment industry mavens and fashions itself as a modern-day civil rights bill, something absolutely crucial to forward progress.

The lingering question is this: Should the culture capture sweeping political power and reconstruct the current landscape, will it inevitably run into an ethos similar to that described by W.E.B. Dubois in 1895; an ethos similar to one currently attacking Former President Barack Obamas legacy? Will it wither in the shadow of revisionist history and systemic forces feeding off a disenfranchised populace often pushed past apathy?

I think every rapper with influence should have a local candidate that they support hard and know their policies. Rhymefest concludes. Hip hop has the ability to be kingmakers. Why do I know everything about Brooklyn, Harlem, Bronx and the differences in it? Rappers. Rappers can take that skillset of claiming their hood and really do that for our upliftment. Not just to [brag about gang life]. If we did that with policy, we could change everything.

Go here to see the original:

Hip hops political evolution and the road ahead - REVOLT TV

My first car was a powder blue Volkswagen bug, made sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. I dont remember the exact year. At the time my dad brought it home, it was 1987 and I was 14 years old with a drivers learning permit I could hardly wait to start using.

Dad said he got a good deal on the VW because the woman he bought it from was eager to see the old car go. Apparently, shed been driving it one day when a wasp flew up her skirt and stung her in the nether regions. (I can see how that kind of incident could create some bad feelings.)

But I didnt mind at all. From what I could see, the car was wasp-free and still cute as a bug literally. It was the car I learned to drive in, so I thought it was thrilling and perfect.

Looking back on it now, I can also tell you it was not at all fancy. Youve heard of a car being stripped down, right? This car was so stripped that it was practically streaking across town buck naked. Crank windows. No floor mats. Not even a tiny mirror on the inside flap of the sun visors.

The only option the car had that was somewhat of an upgrade was a little-known feature called automatic stick shift. What that meant was that the car had to be shifted into different gears, but there was no clutch pedal. The clutch engaged by pressing down on the gear shifter when it was time to shift. To this day, I know how to shift but I have no idea how to use a standard clutch, which basically means Im useless in anything except an automatic transmission.

Nevertheless, I still have a soft spot for that powder blue Volkswagen, and I hope its still out there somewhere, automatically shifting as it cruises a wide-open highway.

Ive thought about that first car a lot lately because Tom and I recently bought a first car for our middle son, who turned 16 during this weird pandemic. He had already lined up a part-time summer job before the pandemic began, so he needed a car to get himself there once he was old enough. Tom loves all things car-related, so he was more than happy to scour the Internet and the local car lots to find the right one.

We set a budget for the car something less than $25,000 and my only prerequisite was that it had to have as many safety features as we could afford. I didnt care if it was cool or not, as long as it received high safety ratings by the experts.

Tom and I were shocked at how far cars have come during our lifetime. We didnt go over the budget but still found a car with a great safety rating, wasp-free seats that heat and cool your behind, sensors that tell you when someone is in your blind spot, backup cameras, automatic-everything, plus Apple CarPlay, which means our teenager can use his voice to send a text without ever touching his phone. Is there anything cars cant do these days? Our sons first car is a far cry from the pale blue Bug I first drove, or Toms rusted out GMC pickup, which had an 8-track player and busted speakers.

I hope these kids know how good theyve got it. The only blind spot sensor I had in my first car was my dad, whod yell and smack me on the arm if I forgot to look over my shoulder when changing lanes. If I wanted my seats cooled, I had to crank down the windows and hope for snow.

It makes me wonder what might change by the time our kids start buying first cars for their kids. Maybe one day 30-something years from now, our son will say, You know, back in my day, we had to drive cars with wheels. We didnt have solar-powered hover crafts with facial recognition. And hell look back on his little Mazda with fondness for how simple things used to be.

Just be safe out there, kid. And check your blind spots.

Gwen Rockwood is a syndicated freelance columnist. Email her at rockwoodfiles@cox.net. Her book is available on Amazon.

More:

The evolution of the first car: They've come a long way, baby - Bolivar Herald-Free Press

There has been talk about WWE booking Evolution 2 although theres no date in place for it yet.

As of late, the rumor of it taking place would be the week after SummerSlam on August 30th.

Alex McCarthy reported on SportsKeeda that the company is exploring the possibility of Evolution 2. Per the report, the belief is that it would be an easy show to hold as they could run at the Performance Center and do it with low costs.

McCarthy noted that WWE has still considered going back to Saudi Arabia in order to fulfill their agreement before the end of the year.

If they do, it makes it even more likely that they would run Evolution 2 right after it, McCarthy wrote. WWE knows the goodwill the event brings with the fans and many inside the company feel running a second show is a no brainer.

WWE has yet to confirm the event, but since the first event, various wrestlers have talked about the desire to do another show. Based on the feedback from fans at the time, the first Evolution event was a big hit.

The first event took place on October 28, 2018, at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, in Uniondale, New York. The show was headlined by Nikki Bella vs. Ronda Rousey.

Just earlier this month it was rumored that WWE may have a major surprise planned with the debut of a big name who is on the free-agent market right now if the event does take place.

Read this article:

REPORT: WWE more than likely to hold Evolution 2 this year - Wrestling News

Discoveries from the early stages of owl evolution are exceedingly rare. An approximately 60-million-year-old leg bone is the oldest fossil that can be assigned to an owl.

Other owls from this time period are also only known on the basis of individual bones and fragments. Therefore, I was especially pleased when I received a largely complete owl skeleton from the North American Willwood Formation for study, which my colleague and the studys co-author, Philip Gingerich, had discovered 30 years ago, explains Dr. Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany.

The newly described animal belongs to a previously unknown, very large species of fossil owl. Except for the skull, all major bones of the 55-million-year-old bird are preserved. The fossil owl was about the size of a modern Snowy Owl. However, it is clearly distinguished from all extant species by the different size of its talons. While in present-day owls the talons on all toes are approximately the same size, the newly described species Primoptynx poliotauros has noticeably enlarged talons on its hind toe and second toe, explains Mayr.

These toe proportions are known from modern diurnal raptors, e.g., eagles and goshawks. These birds, which are not closely related to owls, pierce their prey with their sharp talons. Mayr and his colleagues therefore assume that the extinct owl also used its feet to kill its prey. By contrast, present-day owls use their beak to kill prey items thus, it appears that the lifestyle of this extinct owl clearly differed from that of its modern relatives, adds the ornithologist from Frankfurt.

Moreover, the new discovery reveals a high level of diversity among the owls of the early Eocene in North America from the small species Eostrix gulottai, measuring a mere 12 centimeters, to the newly discovered, roughly 60-centimeter-tall bird.

It is not clear why owls changed their hunting technique in the course of their evolution. However, we assume that it may be related to the spread of diurnal birds of prey in the late Eocene and early Oligocene, approximately 34 million years ago. Competition for prey with diurnal birds of prey may have triggered feeding specializations in owls, possibly also leading to these charismatic birds nocturnal habits, adds Mayr in closing.

Subscribe to more articles like this by following our Google Discovery feed - Click the follow button on your desktop or the star button on mobile. Subscribe

Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum

Header Image Credit : Senckenberg/Trnkner

- Advertisement -

Read the original post:

A 55-Million-Year-Old Owl Skeleton Describes the Early Stages of Owl Evolution - HeritageDaily

FEATURES Following the Evolution of FROMTHEHEART, From Discord Server to AutoTuned Collective By Joshua Minsoo Kim July 27, 2020

Do you feel strength in me? Do you feel strengthin me? This repeated opening line from dust, the first track on FROMTHEHEARTs debut albumthings happen, its okay!, captures so much of the groups ethos and spirit. Its a simple phrase sung by FROMTHEHEARTs leader Valentine, but done with a vulnerability that pierces in its double meaning. It sounds as if shes speaking from a troubled place, asking for confirmation shes alive, but also as an offering of care to those she loves: Can you confide in her for your wellbeing?

Trust and compassion are crucial to FROMTHEHEARTs existence. The collectives members, of which there are more than 80, all converse and collaborate on a private Discord server and come from diverse backgrounds. When asked for essentials about the group, Moore Kismet half-jokingly comments that its mostly queer, an assessment that the others quickly chime in and confirm. Kismet sincerely follows up by saying, I feel so safe with all of my fellow gays. Throughout the album, lyrics touch on being content with ones identity and self, whether its Valentine singing You cant tell me who I am on dust, or Fraxiom reflecting on how they wasted years of [their] life overthinking bout how everybody gonna look at [them] on 5T4YTRU.

The group finds its roots in a 4th of July party that some members had in Los Angeles last year, deciding afterwards to make a Discord server to continue communication. Its there that they began work on MIDWESTEMO2, a track with blown-out trap percussion, AutoTuned rapping, and a half-time chopped and screwed-like outro. As with the rest of the album, its hodgepodged, genre-blending sensibilities resemble 100 gecs, albeit streamlined into more straightforward pop songs. And while 100 gecs culls musical ideas from the past two decades, FROMTHEHEARTs music seems decidedly 2010s: James Blakes introspective production and songwriting, emo revival but especially emo rap, various strains of pop and electronic music popular on SoundCloud.

By listening to their music or just looking at the track creditsthe album boasts 10 features across eight songsthe collaborative nature of FROMTHEHEART is immediately evident. Their community ethos was only made possible through the cultivation a safe space for their members, many of whom are teenagers and queer, on their private Discord server. In the discussion, many were quick to acknowledge and share stories about how IRL spaces felt unwelcoming due to members sexuality, gender, age, and race.

Despite the members coming from various backgroundsfrom DIY and chiptune to EDM and emothey largely felt unsupported in their creative endeavors. Robyn Kim, who works under the name HOLIDAYKISS, says that one of their main goals for being in FROMTHEHEART is to create the scene i want to see in my life and have it positively impact others [] to cultivate a fanbase and a music scene thatismore accepting. To ensure all this, though, theres the unavoidable reality that those damaging to the space are quickly kicked out. While the decision to do so may be uncomfortable and has happened multiple times already, Valentine says that making sure to take action when necessary just makes us stronger.

Naturally, with so many members, it can be hard to imagine the logistics of the entire enterprise: How exactly does the music end up the way it is? For Lunamatic, its ultimately Valentine who spearheads it all: She has a really specific vision in mind for the project and is really able to smoothly integrate all of our ideas. On BiG KIDS, which features credits from six different artists, theres a beautiful cohesion to the Taylor Swift interpolations, which transform a chipper rap song into something decidedly pop rock. Like the rest of the album, nothing feels out of place.

Despite Valentines role in leading the group, she says shes been creat[ing] more opportunities for other people to drive the bus, such as weekly meetings. A schedule has fallen into place, as well: on Tuesdays there are beat challenges; Thursdays are for working on FROMTHEHEART; and Saturdays are when members can share solo work and get detailed, constructive feedback from each other. On the day we caught up with the group, the beat challenge they had involved sampling sounds from themelodybot3456 Twitter accountyou can tell theyre a fun and motivated bunch. On the moody and plaintive stuck!, Valentine cries out, Think its bout damn time for me to shine. When she sings it, it sounds like shes singing both for herself and everyone else in FROMTHEHEART. Theyre more than just musicians working together: theyre a group of friends, a loving community, a much-needed support network.

See the article here:

Following the Evolution of FROMTHEHEART, From Discord Server to AutoTuned Collective - bandcamp.com

Plaza Midwoods post office isnt moving, like many old pieces of the neighborhood have in the past few years. But it will soon look much different. The two-story brick building across from Harris Teeter will become four stories, and it will have a sleek new facade and 19,000 square feet of space available for new office and retail tenants.

The building, at 1233 The Plaza, was constructed in 1957 and housed a furniture store in its early days. For years, the second level has sat empty, even as property values skyrocketed in the Plaza Midwood neighborhood.

Early last year, the property changed hands. Property records show that the longtime owner, Perry Brothers Investments, LLC, sold the sold the building in January 2019 for $3.4 million to a real estate investment company, Sors, LLC.

The adaptive reuse project will give the property a fresh look, says Sink Kimmel of the The Selwyn Property Group, the local firm handling the leasing. Steel framing will go up around the existing structure, and crews will add third and fourth floors, each roughly 6,500 square feet. The property will have 33 parking spaces. The post office will remain on the ground floor, and its open during construction.

Plaza Midwood doesnt have a huge number of office tenants like other booming neighborhoods such as South End do. Thats why this building could be a good fit for office users, but Kimmels group is looking for retailers, too.

The top floor could make for a very cool evening oriented restaurant/bar/entertainment venue, Kimmel says. It just all depends on demand.

The makeover of the old post office building comes amid a rapid evolution of Plaza Midwood, a neighborhood long known for its character and affection for small local businesses.

Down the street, developer Crosland Southeast plans to overhaul the 12-acre Central Square property to make way for apartments, green space, offices, and retail buildings. The Midwood Corners property, home to tenants like Ritas and a used book store, will eventually be redeveloped. Asana Partners is renovating an old antique store on Central to make way for new restaurant and retail tenants. The family-run development group that built the Franklin Hotel in Chapel Hill is planning an independent hotel on Central where Kickstand Burger Bar used to be.

Plaza Midwood is just going bonkers, Kimmel says.

Go here to see the original:

Plaza Midwood's evolution continues with the transformation of the old post office building - Charlotte Agenda

For years Apple's engineers have envisioned various concepts of dual iPad configurations that could mimic a book or create a dual iPad notebook-like product using a virtual keyboard or a MacBook with a display acting as a virtual Keyboard. Below is an Apple patent figure from a March 2020 granted patent illustrating the concept of two iPads held together with a series of magnets that could also form a note-book like device. Apple's work on this actually began way back to a 2013 patent report where patent FIG. 4 illustrated two iPads side-by-side.

Apple's patent FIG. 3 below, from our March report presents an illustration of a pair of adjacent electronic devices that could be folded; FIG. 4 is a side view of a pair of electronic devices supported by a bendable case with an internal hinge structure; FIG. 6 is a side view of a pair of electronic devices in a case that has been folded back on itself.

Today Apple was granted yet another patent that supports the evolution of the modular system concept supporting the use of multi-iPad-like devices together. Although iPads are the main focus, there is a hint that another kind of display could be added to this modular system to give user's an option depending on how they want to configure their multi-device.

Apple's patent FIG. 3 below illustrates a future iPad that could use a standard Magic Keyboard and trackpad that could use an Apple Pencil as we reported on back in May. FIGS. 4A and 4B illustrates two iPad connected via a desktop dock to use as a mini desktop; FIGS. 8 and 9 expands on the docking system.

Apple's patent FIGS. 12B, 16 and 17 below illustrates optional configurations for two iPads working together. One illustrates one iPad in a Portrait mode with another iPad as the keyboard; another illustrates being able to create a notebook-like device with the help of an accessory to hold the displays in place correctly and adds a kickstand; lastly, the idea of a book-like configuration supports multi-user FaceTime calls.

Apple's granted patent 10,725,722 was originally filed in Q3 2018 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

What's possibly even more interesting is what processor and OS will these configurations support. Apple's iPadOS would be the most logical to be sure. However, over time with Apple Silicon, that could change. Apple could technically create a new modular system using a hybrid processor that could run MacOS for enterprise or professional users. Of course, it's too early to dive into that pool, so we'll leave it for another day. For now, it's food for thought.

Read this article:

Apple wins a Patent that advances their Evolutionary Multi-iPad Concept that's been in the works since 2013 - Patently Apple

Premier League title trophy handed over on Wednesday evening, Sundays trip to St James Park, to take on Newcastle United, was one last chance to see these incredible champions strut their immortal 2019/20 stuff.

These lads, these utterly incredible lads in red. The champions by an 18-point chasm.

Sunday was all about thinking back over the course of the previous, incredulous, 37 Premier League games; Sunday was all about embracing the day and savouring the moment.

A job well done, it was also about casting an eye upon the horizon, potentially saying a few goodbyes along the way.

In a world of footballing evolution, Jurgen Klopp will not allow this Liverpool to stand still, in the same way it didnt stand still despite winning the 18/19 Champions League.

While we didnt go into the 19/20 season with an influx of new signings, we did go into it with a new tactical approach. A higher defensive line compressing the pitch further still and making Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson the most offensive full-backs football has ever seen, upping their attacking contribution beyond what were already startling numbers in 2018/19.

Adam Lallana has bid the club a fond and tearful farewell, Dejan Lovren has followed him out of the exit door, as is likely to Xherdan Shaqiri.

Divock Origi stands at a crossroads with the club, as much as the club does with him. Hes off on holiday now, to mull over whether he should stick or twist, come or go?

Origi can as easily reach out for a regular game elsewhere, as he can stay at Anfield as a useful but perplexing figure, that sits on the periphery of the action, interjecting here and there with the occasionally, stunningly, vital goal, while still being a player that elicits the suspicion that there are better options out there.

Other potential departures are mooted or feared. Many expect Leeds United to offer James Milner the opportunity to see his career go full circle, with a return to Elland Road that smacks of two and two being thrown together, in a mathematical conundrum that might just add up to four.

Beyond all this, a standoff over a new contract remains in situ between the club and Gini Wijnaldum and decisions on the futures of the likes of Harry Wilson, Rhian Brewster, Marko Grujic and Loris Karius will be arrived at.

Less than seven weeks until the start of the new season, Liverpools short summer of champions could be a busy one, considering no major arrivals are thought to be lined up.

Yet, I doubt that Klopp would want it any other way. Blessed with the best team in the world, it is the backing dancers that will require rearranging.

Neco Williams, Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott will likely figure in higher numbers of games if any or many of the above do depart Anfield.

Football has been a squad game for well over a generation now, but there is a balancing act to be settled upon and there will still be a core of players that are Klopps go-to eleven, in games where the stakes are high.

It is no coincidence that throughout this Premier League-winning campaign, only 12 Liverpool players started a total number of games that stretched to double figures.

Alisson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andy Robertson, Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Jordan Henderson, Georginio Wijnaldum, Fabinho, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah.

Of course, there were others that could or should have done likewise, but this where Klopps brand of collectivism is crucial in making his Liverpool tick. Making everybody feel important isnt an easy task.

Today, probably every day throughout lockdown even, while the 12 names above largely speak for themselves, Klopp will have been considering and reconsidering the composition of his shadow squad for next season.

Who to retain, who to cut loose?

In coming to these decisions, the paternal side of Klopp will have played its part too. It would have been the easy option to keep a player like Lallana for instance, yet at 32, with only 40 league appearances in the last three seasons, he is a player that deserves an Indian summer elsewhere, to join a club where he can play more games and spread the Liverpool feelgood factor.

In potentially choosing Brighton, he is also heading closer to home.

Seeing a player like Lallana depart, also means more elbow space in the Liverpool squad for Curtis Jones to find his natural place. It is the reassuring evidence of footballing evolution at play.

The easily derided Lovren is another. He leaves Anfield as an English, European and World champion, making way for somebody else who will be hungry to emulate those highs, be that a talented Netherlands under-19 international, or an experienced Senegalese international.

It will be the same, should Milner, Shaqiri or Origi find new challenges too. Fresh heroes will emerge, either from within or as new recruits.

You will likely fret throughout the transfer window, as other big six rivals strengthen their options, more so when those new signings are ones Liverpool have been linked to.

It was no different back in the 1980s. Big money would be splashed elsewhere, and a mild sense of panic would engender, as we occasionally missed out on transfer targets. It was all just shadow puppetry though, as when youre the team on top, it is up to everybody else to find the final piece of their respective jigsaws.

Liverpool are now the team to catch however, chased by a set of rivals that are led by an increasingly paranoid Pep Guardiola and a cluster of managers who are a clear class or two below the top two.

Enjoy the limited summer and put your trust in Klopp and his team to be ready for the challenges ahead.

The rest is here:

A summer of gentle evolution as Liverpool invite rivals to catch us if you can - This Is Anfield

E

volution Gaming has again been named Live Casino Supplier of the Year at the EGR B2B Awards 2020, in a remarkable unbroken run of 11 wins since the awards began in 2010.

Evolution beat 12 other shortlisted suppliers to win the Live Casino Supplier accolade on day one of the virtual ceremony held on 21 July.

Speaking after the ceremony, Martin Carlesund, Evolution Group CEO commented: The past 12 months have seen Evolution once again push the boundaries of what is possible in Live Casino. In terms of the way Evolution has continued to develop and introduce ground-breaking new products, it has been a most encouraging year and all despite a very challenging global situation brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Carlesund added: "We introduced a record number of 12 new games this year. Our exclusive and unique game show games portfolio continued to grow with new titles such as Mega Ball and Crazy Time becoming immediate player favorites. We also continued to reinvent classic casino games for the next generation of players, with Lightning Baccarat, Speed Blackjack, and Power Blackjack all joining an already varied and entertaining portfolio of both Live and First Person games."

He concluded: "I know I can speak for everyone at Evolution when I say we are extremely proud to have retained this award. Once again, our people have worked tirelessly to extend our position as the number one Live Casino supplier and to deliver an exceptional Live Casino experience for players. Our licensees, meanwhile, have been extremely loyal and always receptive to innovative new ideas that enrich our whole sector. My sincere thanks to everyone."

Read the original:

Evolution wins 'Live Casino Supplier of the Year' for 11 consecutive years - Yogonet International