This chapter explores investorstate dispute settlement (ISDS) to reveal the origins of that now ubiquitous feature of investment treaty arbitration the third-party funder. Where does it come from? How did it get here? And how did it spread so quickly? To some, a headache to others, a cure. In examining the past we may even get a glimpse of the future of this unusual and resilient facet of ISDS.

As with all good investigations that seek to identify what was to explain what has come to be, it is proposed that there are categories with specific characteristics of their age that reveal different stages of development. Each of these categories are designated ages specific to the evolution of the third-party funder, summarised in the following table:

I The Pre-Industry age

Third-party funding as a concept has existed for hundreds of years, and likely more. Despite what critics of third-party funding may say, it has its origins in access to justice. Jeremy Bentham wrote exhaustively on the topic of access to justice in the 1700s in the furtherance of ideas such as utilitarianism and distributive justice, and worked tirelessly for the repeal of champerty and maintenance laws in place since medieval times. The cost of access to justice has long been high in most legal jurisdictions, and without third-party funding good claims were often defeated by deep pockets. The fear that vulnerable people could be used as puppets in staged legal battles between wealthy land owners was not sufficient to deny access to justice for the majority of the population. It was inconsistent with what Bentham defined as the 'fundamental axiom' of his philosophy: the principle that 'it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong'.

Since then, very slowly, champerty and maintenance laws or their equivalents in most legal jurisdictions have been diluted or repealed in whole or in part. However, this is, in short, the philosophical origins of access to justice and third-party funding, not third-party funders. Third-party funders with a specific mandate to invest in disputes are a relatively recent phenomenon. Research suggests that prior to 2005, there were few types of third-party funders with the dedicated purpose of investing in claims, let alone a third-party funding industry.2 Although third-party funding as an investment opportunity existed, it was relatively low-profile and characterised by an infrequent ad hoc nature. There is debate as to whether it evolved in Australia (long considered the birth place of third-party funding in the common law world) or Germany as an offshoot from a highly developed form of legal insurance. There is little doubt that, during this pre-industry age, types of third-party funders existed in both these jurisdictions. However, the type of third-party funder unconnected with a claimant prior to the beginning of a dispute (i.e., not premium-based legal cost insurance) with the ability to allow for complete, or near complete, cost-risk transfer in exchange for sharing damages to advance a claim, the essence of the modern day third-party funder is likely to have arisen in common law jurisdictions. Why? Cost. The cost of third-party funding in most common law jurisdictions, owing to the nature of their litigation proceedings, is generally higher than civil law jurisdictions. In common law jurisdictions, it was and is for many as the former Irish Judge Sir James Mathew has said, that 'justice is open to all, like the Ritz Hotel.'3

A third-party funder during this pre-industry age, from the early 1990s to the early 2000s, was unlikely to have many disputes specialist lawyers working for it let alone ISDS specialists. They would have likely been characterised by insurance and investment experience; it would have undoubtedly required a high appetite for risk. Financial markets at this time were running hot and cold. Surplus funds designated for high-risk investment turned to third-party funding as an uncorrelated asset class.4 As a consequence, and from mostly anecdotal evidence, commercial terms ran high. Terms as high as 80 per cent of the damages have been seen and were likely common, embedded in questionably enforceable contracts.

In parallel to this development, the notion of beneficial ownership of proceeds and control was being revisited at the ISDS level as exemplified by CSOB Bank v. Slovak Republic, where the tribunal found that:

The issue at stake in this dispute was nationality and control from financing parties. Such cases involving beneficial ownership of the proceeds of a claim and control set the scene for revisiting this issue with third-party funders at a subsequent stage.

II The Industry Age

In this period, the viability of third-party funding as not just an ad hoc investment opportunity but as an industry started to take shape. The evolution was not, of course, uniform; some jurisdictions advanced faster than others. In Europe, the United Kingdom was where many third-party funders began to most resemble modern day third-party funders. Third-party funding contracts were mostly imported and worked on from non-recourse financing practices, and a small body of law began to develop. However, from the decision in Arkin v. Borchard Lines Ltd (2005), a shift occurred in the United Kingdom. It is a decision that gave rise to what has since been interpreted as the principle that a funder could be held liable in adverse costs for a failed claim up to the amount that it invested into that claim: the 'Arkin cap', which has more recently come under review from the 2017 decision in Bailey v. GlaxoSmithkline UK Ltd. For some, Arkin exposed a potential liability that would deter investors in third-party funding. For others, Arkin provided reassuring clarity. A known unknown became clearer, and from it contractual risk sharing mechanisms could be forged and business models engineered. Arkin provided the bedrock on which a new industry could be founded. It heralded the first paradigm shift of third-party funding from isolated investment opportunity to the creation of third-party funding as a viable business model that would give rise to the burgeoning industry that it is today.

During this time, third-party funding was still mostly concentrated on litigation but, as with all developing industries, satellite opportunities spiralled from it to create third-party funding brokers.6 A satellite industry was formed by those who had worked on raising financing on an ad hoc basis for claims during the pre-industry age those individuals with ability and foresight but who had neither the means nor arguably the appetite for third-party funding of disputes. Brokers accounted for the majority of third-party funding opportunities for the nascent third-party funder during the industry age. They paved the way through competition and legitimisation for not only a standardisation of terms but the expansion of third-party funding into commercial arbitration. As more funders came on to the market, the need for more investment opportunities expanded. In exchange for a tempering of industry terms to what is still often seen today the greater of three times the investment or 30 per cent of the damages brokers sought to increase the number of investment opportunities for these hungry third-party funders. International commercial arbitration was a natural choice. Rooted in practices not too dissimilar to what the third-party funding industry were used to, the leap was not one of faith but of logic.

The nature of international commercial arbitration is more private than either litigation or ISDS. The confidentiality of the proceedings and the privacy of the parties allowed third-party funders to revert to a more creative financial space. How a private party to private proceedings financed its dispute was not the purview of the tribunal in commercial arbitration. This allowed funders to focus more on creative financial solutions than legal issues in respect of access to justice and any form of associated liability for costs. As third-party funders were not considered party to the arbitration agreement, they were not exposed to the same liability as they might be during domestic litigation as with Arkin in the United Kingdom. Third-party funders during this time adopted vocabulary from the banking world and started to identify themselves more with providers of non-recourse financing and, accordingly, started adapting third-party funding models on that basis. This allowed them to focus on wealthier claimants rather than access to justice or impecunious claimants. They sought to infiltrate corporate culture by promoting the advantages of financial risk transfer to commercial entities that did not need investment but that may choose it if the advantages in doing so could be justified not in terms of access to justice but in terms of bottom-line profitability. This period gave rise to financing solutions such as portfolio financing: the notion that a financial facility can be put in place across a claimant's portfolio of disputes or indeed a facility for a law firm to be used across multiple disputes. Third-party funders explained the benefits of their financing to corporate clients as one in which a legal department could be converted from a cost centre into a profit centre, and notions of shifting the costs of a dispute off the balance sheet sought to win over chief financial officers. For many, this was a rebalancing of what third-party funders should be a financial device, not a legal one. Disputes for funders could be seen as purely about compensation of loss without having to concern themselves with issues such as the dispensation of justice and the role funders play in either supporting, or in some jurisdictions running, claims. It was, like the commercial arbitration agreement, a private matter between commercial entities only.

This view of third-party funding as one chiefly about finance was born in the industry age as it pertains to international commercial arbitration and remains so today. It is perhaps best exemplified in the Essar Oilfield Services limited v. Norscot Rig Management Pvt Limited case (Essar v. Norscot).7 This was an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitration seated in London where Sir Philip Otto, sitting as sole arbitrator, allowed the victorious party to claim its third-party funding costs (including the funders' uplift) from the losing party. The award was challenged on this basis but upheld by the High Court of Justice by J Waksman QC on the basis that recoverable costs were broadly enough defined under the ICC 2012 Rules and the 1996 Arbitration Act that the arbitrator was permitted to do so. There are multiple procedural issues that relate to Essar v. Norscot, but from the perspective of third-party funder responsibility, the case is significant for two main reasons: (1) it reinforces the view that third-party funding is purely a financial device and, under the right conditions, recoverable on success; and (2) it raises issues of transparency and the effect of the presence of a third-party funder on all the parties to a dispute. The latter is of particular importance as it pertains to the third-party funder of investment treaty disputes, which dramatically increased in the post-industry age.

III The Post-Industry Age

i Third-party funding and ISDS

The second paradigm shift in third-party funding occurred nearly 10 years after Arkin with the now infamous Excalibur Ventures LLC v. Texas Keystone Inc and Ors, which was revisited more recently by the court of appeal in 2016. In this seminal case, Lord Justice Clarke drew a clear line between professional and ad hoc third-party funders. Weighing the benefits of access to justice against the potential for profiteering, his judgment was reassuring to some and a stern warning to others. In addition to confirming the Arkin cap, Clarke LJ inferred that if a third-party funder undertook proper due diligence to meet the claimant and to undertake the requisite assessment of the merits of a claim, it may be treated differently to those third-party funders that had abdicated responsibility and sought to treat a claim purely as an investment opportunity. The latter could be subject to costs orders on an indemnity basis. It imparted a sense of responsibility on third-party funders to be accountable for their investments. For some, Excalibur would discourage further investment in third-party funding and for others, as with Arkin, it provided additional clarity.

As a result, third-party funders began to distinguish themselves by those that had invested in the requisite skills and abilities to assess the merits of a claim, and those that were derided as being akin to gamblers, or ad hocs in the parlance of the growing third-party funding industry. Excalibur was the catalyst for the second paradigm shift that gave rise to the self-proclaimed professional third-party funder. Distinguishing between ad hoc and professional third-party funders, however, was unclear. At best, it seemed to be a distinction based on how many lawyers the third-party funder recruited. But, the focus on bringing on more disputes lawyers and the professionalisation of the industry brought disputes lawyers with ISDS experience another disputes market for third-party funders to expand into. During this age, third-party funders began more aggressively focusing on ISDS disputes.

Third-party funding of disputes did not start with ISDS but it has become the fastest growing dispute forum for third-party funders. The reasons for this are both qualitative and quantitative: ISDS is expensive (US$6.1 million per side in claimants' costs)8 and long (an average of 3.86 years to obtain an award, and an additional one to two years for post-award processes and enforcement).9 The ability to transfer the cost risk to a third party by sharing the upside in a potential award is obviously very attractive, but it was not obvious what the commercial terms of the funding agreement should be. ISDS was relatively untested at early stages of this post-industry age. As a result, what was typically seen in the industry was a reversion to pre-industry pricing revamped and referred to as risk pricing: this was merely a means by which a third-party funder could account for uncertainty by increasing profitability.

But the nature of ISDS disputes are qualitatively different to commercial arbitration. Where investors seek recourse for either the partial or wholesale destruction or expropriation without fair, prompt or adequate compensation of their investment, the loss suffered is often near complete. Third-party funding has its origins in access to justice for the impecunious, as explained above. When the wealthy ruling classes had such disproportionate influence that by their dealings they could destroy not just the transaction but the livelihood, the wealthy were practically above the rule of law, not least of which because of the high cost of access to justice. Investors and states have a similar inequality of arms inherent in the system (notwithstanding certain wealthy multinational companies), and as third-party funding was originally sought to balance the playing field in domestic litigation, it has readily been taken up by investor claimants in ISDS for the same reason.

Suddenly, at the ISDS level during this time, there were a plethora of task forces,10 white papers,11 practice directions12 and salient cases13 about or concerning third-party funders. For some, the issues relevant to domestic litigation where the nation state was involved in administering disputes pertaining to transparency and accountability became even more relevant when dealing with the nation state as a party to the dispute. From cases and developments, the dominant issues were those of provisional measures such as security for costs and confidentiality and transparency of the agreement with the third-party funder, as summarised below.

ii Security for costs

The ICSID Convention does not contain an express provision on security for costs and tribunals have tended to be reluctant on granting such orders.14 This restrictive approach has been maintained in various ICSID proceedings where third-party funders were involved. For instance, the arbitral tribunal in Commerce Group Corp and San Sebastian Gold Mines, Inc v. El Salvador15 maintained a restrictive approach to security for costs even when the proceedings were stayed while the applicants sought third-party funding. In the Order of the Committee Discontinuing the Proceeding and Decision on Costs, dated 28 August 2013, the tribunal ordered the claimants to pay the full administrative costs of the proceedings, but maintained its denial of security for costs.

The first known instance where an ISDS tribunal ordered security for costs where third-party funding was involved was the RSM Production Corporation v. Saint Lucia case, 13 August 2014,16 in which the tribunal ordered the claimant to pay security for costs in the amount of US$750,000 in the form of an irrevocable bank guarantee. However, that the claimant had obtained third-party funding was only used as a supportive argument not withstanding the separate 'assent' by Gavin Griffith who saw the ruling as confirmation that there should be automatic or near automatic security for costs where third-party funders are involved in ISDS cases. In contrast, the tribunal's reasoning did not show any such contempt for third-party funders, as the main and decisive reason for ordering security for costs was the claimant's proven history of defaulting on costs orders.

There have been subsequent decisions since RSM that have retained the same position in terms of a third-party funder's involvement and an applicant's request for security for costs.17

These early cases in the post industry age at the ISDS level as they relate to third-party funders suggest that tribunals are thus far inclined to maintain the status quo and to treat the advent of third-party funders in ISDS as nothing that would give rise to deviating from the long held view that security for costs applications should be allowed only in exceptional circumstances. However, there is a growing number of cases that suggest that future tribunals are prepared to investigate third-party funding arrangements more closely.

iii Confidentiality

ICSID tribunals have held that the parties themselves are not under a general duty of confidentiality, absent agreement to the contrary.18 In contrast, certain tribunals have highlighted the importance of limiting public discussion of the case to not disturb the proceedings.19 However, as non-parties to the arbitration agreement, third-party funders are not bound by any confidentiality duties flowing from that agreement. This was notably the case during the EuroGas Inc and Belmont Resources Inc v. The Slovak Republic case in which the respondent's request for a confidentiality order against the claimants' funder was reportedly rejected by an ICSID tribunal.

iv Conflicts of interest

Arbitral tribunals tend to set aside requests for disclosure of third-party funding agreements raised by respondents at the ISDS level. In Guaracachi America, Inc and Rurelec PLC v. The Plurinational State of Bolivia (2013), the tribunal decided not to order the production of the agreement or 'further documentation' because 'the applicable provisions governing conflicts of interest in the present proceedings do not foresee the production of document by the Parties but rather disclosure by the arbitrators upon becoming aware of circumstances that could create a conflict of interest'.20

Concerns for conflicts of interest where third-party funding is involved are usually raised by the non-funded party and often relate to potential funderarbitrator relationships. This issue is closely related to confidentiality, disclosure and transparency. For instance, in South American Silver Ltd (Bermudas) v. Plurinational State of Bolivia21 with respect to Bolivia's request to order South American Silver to disclose the identity of its third-party funder and to disclose the terms of the funding agreement, the claimant readily conceded on the former and the tribunal rejected the latter.22

During the Muhammet ap and Sehil Inaat Endustri ve Ticaret Ltd Sti v. Turkmenistan case,23 on 23 June 2014, the tribunal issued its Procedural Order No. 2 recording its decision on the respondent's request of 11 April 2014 for disclosure of the third-party funding agreement. The tribunal ruled as follows:

It seems to the Tribunal that the following factors may be relevant to justify an order for disclosure, and also depending upon the circumstances of the case:

a To avoid a conflict of interest for the arbitrator as a result of the third-party funder;

b For transparency and to identify the true party to the case;

c For the Tribunal to fairly decide how costs should be allocated at the end of any arbitration;

d If there is an application for security for costs if requested; and

e To ensure that confidential information which may come out during the arbitral proceedings is not disclosed to parties with ulterior motives.

Applying these factors, the tribunal was not persuaded that there was any reason to make an order requiring the claimants to disclose how they were funding the arbitration, but the factors listed do open the door to future rulings where such a disclosure can be made, and specifically the tribunal held that 'this decision does not preclude the respondent from making a further request for disclosure at a later stage in this arbitration if it has additional information to justify the application.'

Taken as a whole, these cases and developments as they pertain to security for costs, confidentiality and conflicts of interest at the ISDS level are strong evidence that the role of third-party funders is unlikely to be relegated to that of mere financial services providers. Questions of transparency and legitimacy will continue to be probed, and, as a consequence, the type of third-party funder, how they conduct themselves, and from where and how they have raised their money are likely to be of greater relevance in the modern age.

IV The Modern Age

We are currently in what appears to be the third paradigm shift of third-party funding the modern age. There are today two prevailing and competing models of 'professional' third-party funders: risk pricing versus merits-based models. The former dictates that most claims can be funded if the terms are right and adheres to the view that third-party funders are mere providers of bespoke financial products. By this logic, even Excalibur could have been funded providing the commercial terms of the investment were sufficiently high to justify the risk. The reason for this is that the risk pricing model considers awards and judgments only in terms of compensation of loss and thus there is nothing wrong in funding an unmeritorious claim if the potential for a windfall is possible. This is the same mentality that characterises many financial markets where higher risks equate to higher rewards.

In contrast, the merits-based model requires the funder to treat a judgment or award as more than just an investment opportunity and a commodity to be invested in. It dictates that an award is first and foremost a judicial instrument for the dispensation of justice. The compensation of loss is as a result of the dispensation of justice, and thus knowingly funding an unmeritorious case or not accepting responsibility to assess the merits can and arguably should expose the funder to a costs liability.

If the battle between these two competing models continues unchecked, it is likely that the risk pricing model will prevail. The reasons for this are particular to our times as third-party funding presents, for many potential investors in third-party funding, an uncorrelated asset class and thereby an attractive investment during times of financial market instability. As a consequence, a new crop of would-be funders have come to the market having raised funds with promises of windfall returns to their investors. They were able to do so because despite the first two paradigm shifts, the third-party funding industry standard terms have barely changed in nearly 15 years. They continue to equate to three times or 30 per cent, whichever is the greater. This is surprising because the greater of three times or 30 per cent of the total value of the asset in private equity or asset management terms represents a windfall return unheard of in most markets, except in very high-risk categories. However, most self-proclaimed professional third-party funders report win rates that are between 80 and 90 per cent, or more. If terms such as three times the investment or 30 per cent of the value of the dispute have been historically justified to claimants and law firms on the basis that investment in disputes is high-risk, it is a statement at odds with the reported reality by mainstream third-party funders. Consequently, in the absence of defining cases for this third paradigm shift, the risk pricing model is likely to prevail because funders are readily able to raise new, albeit expensive, money on the basis of an industry standard of three times or 30 per cent return on investment, which could arguably allow funders to lose 7080 per cent of the claims they invest in and still generate profits for their investors.

However, this current paradigm shift, characterised by the battle between the risk pricing and merits-based models of third-party funding, is not devoid of indicators as to how it may develop. Consistent with the previous two paradigm shifts, in 2016 the UK Court of Appeal upheld Clarke LJ's judgment on Excalibur and, therefore, the merits-based model that encourages thorough due diligence prior to funding a claim, and ongoing and effective monitoring during the life of the dispute. Furthermore, in Bailey v. GlaxoSmithKline UK Ltd [2017] Justice Foskett effectively considered the nature of the funder involved and decided that the Arkin cap could be lifted if not doing so would lead to an injustice. These advancements in case law at the domestic litigation level in countries such as the United Kingdom are likely to help shape the development of the role of the third-party funder at the ISDS level because of the one common denominator the nation state. Where public money is involved, whether by administering a dispute or participating in it, questions will be asked about whether third-party funders are adopting a risk pricing model that may well give rise to more and greater disputes of questionable merit in search of windfall returns regardless of the cost to the public, or whether funders will be compelled to adopt a merits-based model where funders scrutinise more and temper returns on investment.

The differences between funders is greater today than their similarities. Some funders are publicly listed,24 some have front offices regulated by financial authorities25 and at least one has set up regulated asset management funding vehicles for the specific purpose of funding disputes.26 However, the vast majority and some well-known third-party funders appear to opt for a form of self-regulation with no oversight or transparency on conduct, how money is raised or from where.27 Tribunals in ISDS cases are likely to be put under more pressure to probe further not only into who the third-party funder to an ISDS dispute is, but also how much control it is exerting over the dispute. So far, tribunals have mostly been reluctant to inspect the workings of the funding agreement. Instead, they tend to prefer to focus on who the funder is for the purpose of conflicts of interests with the tribunal. However, it is not inconceivable that at some point during the modern age, if third-party funding remains an unregulated activity, tribunals will more frequently seek to inspect funding agreements to determine whether the funder has subrogated any of the rights typically reserved for the claimant. In the absence of an ability to develop an equivalent to the Arkin cap principle, ISDS tribunals may more frequently render orders for provisional measures such as security for costs.28 As a counterbalance, such a development may lend greater weight to arguments that the costs of such security should be recoverable from the respondent if the claim ultimately prevails.

Some jurisdictions have already taken the view that third-party funding needs greater oversight and control. In the United Arab Emirates, the Dubai International Financial Centre has created a practice direction specifically for third-party funding. Regulation is currently being considered in Abu Dhabi. In Singapore and Hong Kong, third-party funding regulations have now been enacted. In Australia, there has more recently been a call for the licensing of third-party funders. These steps all precede what is widely expected to be a change in the ICSID rules in respect of third-party funding. The evolution of the third-party funder from litigation through commercial arbitration to ISDS has brought with it a desire for greater oversight and control of third-party funding. The question is what type of regulation negative (responding to a problem) or positive (ensuring access to third-party funding) will prevail? It is submitted that the answer lies in the type of third-party funder and the third-party funding model that prevails between risk pricing or merits-driven models as it pertains to ISDS.

Footnotes

1 Iain C McKenny is a director at and co-founder of Profile Investment.

2 See first table footnote.

3 https://www.jstor.org/stable/25746092?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.

4 http://arbitrationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2017/02/02/third-party-funding-milan-event-offered-view-ahead.

5 Ceskoslovenska obchodni banka, a.s. (CSOB) v. Slovak Republic, ICSID Case No. ARB/97/4, Decision of the Tribunal on Objections to Jurisdiction (24 May 1999).

6 This is not to suggest that third-party funding brokers did not exist prior to this time but merely that by this time there were established third-party funders, and therefore brokers who catered for them.

7 http://arbitrationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2016/10/15/the-essar-v-norscot-case-a-final-argument-for-the-full-disclosure-wingers-of-tpf-in-international-arbitration/.

8 In 2012, the OECD concluded that legal and arbitration costs for claimants and respondents in recent ISDS cases averaged in excess of US$8 million, having surveyed 143 ISDS awards (available as of August 2011). In 2013, UNCTAD reported that legal fees and tribunal expenses, on average, 'exceeded $8 million per party per case'. In 2014, an Allen & Overy study concluded that average party costs were US$4,437,000 for claimants and US$4,559,000 for respondents based on a review of 176 ISDS awards (available as of December 2012). In 2015, the European Commission suggested in a paper entitled 'ISDS: some facts and figures' that 'the average legal and arbitration costs for a claimant are around $8 million'.

9 Procedural Issues in International Investment Arbitration, J Commission and R Moloo, March 2018, appendix 9.

10 The ICCA-Queen Mary Task Force on Third-Party Funding is a joint task force established by ICCA and Queen Mary, University of London in 2013. https://www.arbitration-icca.org/media/10/40280243154551/icca_reports_4_tpf_final_for_print_5_april.pdf.

11 In Hong Kong, the Commission issued two reports after consultations, in October 2015 and October 2016, which culminated in proposed legislative amendments to Hong Kong's Arbitration Ordinance, as well as proposed amendments to associated regulations. In Singapore, the consultations carried out by the Ministry culminated in two proposed draft instruments: the Civil Law (Amendment) Bill 2016 and the Civil Law (Third Party Funding) Regulations 2016.

12 The author assisted in the drafting of the first practice direction developed by the Dubai International Financial Centre on third-party funding. https://www.difccourts.ae/2017/03/14/practice-direction-no-2-2017-third-party-funding-difc-courts/.

13 There are several examples of investorstate arbitration cases where third-party funders have been involved. Among the more high-profile is the Canadian mining company, Crystallex, which was awarded over US$1.38 billion in a claim against Venezuela in which Crystallex was supported by third-party funders. More recently, Eco Oro, having filed an ICSID arbitration under the CanadaColombia Free Trade Agreement relating to the Angosutra gold and silver deposit in the country's Andean region, has the backing of third-party funders.

14 See Libananco Holdings Co. Limited v. The Republic of Turkey, Decision on Preliminary Issues, ICSID Case No. ARB-06-08, 23 June 2008.

15 Commerce Group Corp. and San Sebastian Gold Mines, Inc. v. The Republic of El Salvador, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/17 (Annulment Proceeding), Decision on El Salvador's Application for Security for Costs of 20 September 2012.

16 RSM Production Corporation v. Saint Lucia, ICSID Case No. ARB/12/10, Decision on Saint Lucia's Request for Security for Costs, 13 August 2013.

17 Other cases that have cited RSM in matters of security for costs and third-party funding: Sergei Viktorovich Pugachev v. Russian Federation, UNCITRAL, Interim Award, 17 July 2017; Eskosol S.p.A. in liquidazione v. Italian Republic, ICSID Case No. ARB/15/50, Procedural Order No. 3 (Decision on Respondent Request on Provisional Measures), 12 April 2017; Interocean Oil Development Company and Interocean Oil Exploration Company v. Federal Republic of Nigeria, ICSID Case No. ARB/13/20, Procedural Order No. 6 Decision on the Respondent Application for Provisional Measures, 1 February 2017; Dawood Rawat v. Republic of Mauritius, PCA Case No. 2016-20, Order Regarding Request for Interim Measures, 11 January 2017; Lighthouse Corporation Pty Ltd and Lighthouse Corporation Ltd, IBC v. Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, ICSID Case No. ARB/15/2, Procedural Order No. 2 for Provisional Measures, 13 February 2016; Lao Holdings N.V. v. Lao People's Democratic Republic II, ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/16/2, Procedural Order No. 6, 26 July 2018.

18 See, for instance, in Amco Asia Crop. & Others v. Republic of Indonesia, ICSID Case No. ARB/81/1, Decision on Request for Provisional Measures of 9 December 1983: 'as to the spirit of confidentiality of the arbitral procedure, it is right to say that the Convention and the Rules do not prevent the parties from revealing their case'; and Biwater Gauff (Tanzania) Ltd. v. United Republic of Tanzania, ICSID Case No. ARB/05/22, Procedural Order No. 3 of 29 September 2006 (paras. 114-121).

19 The Loewen Group Inc. and Raymond L. Loewen v. United States of America, ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/98/3, Decision on hearing of Respondent's objection to competence and jurisdiction of 5 January 2001.

20 Guaracachi America, Inc. and Rurelec PLC v. The Plurinational State of Bolivia, PCA Case No. 2011-17, Procedural Order No. 13 (21 February 2013).

21 South American Silver Ltd (Bermudas) v. Plurinational State of Bolivia, UNCITRAL, PCA Case No 2013-15, Procedural Order No. 10 (11 January 2016).

22 'The Tribunal considers that while the existence of a third-party funder may be an element to be taken into consideration in deciding on a measure as the one requested by Bolivia, this element alone may not lead to the adoption of the measure . . . the disclosure of the name of the funder, the Tribunal considers that, for purposes of transparency, and given the position of the Parties, it must accept Bolivia's request of disclosure of the name of SAS' funder. Finally, concerning the disclosure of the terms of the financing agreement entered into with the third-party funder, the Tribunal will reject such request. In the Tribunal's opinion, there is basis to order the disclosure of the name of the third-party funder, but not to order the disclosure of the agreement entered into with the third-party funder.' (Paras. 75-84).

23 Muhammet ap and Sehil Inaat Endustri ve Ticaret Ltd. Sti. v. Turkmenistan (Decision on Respondent's Objection to Jurisdiction under Article VII(2) of the Turkey-Turkmenistan BIT).

24 e.g., IMF Bentham, Burford Capital.

25 e.g., Augusta Ventures, Harbour Litigation Funding and, until the recent decision to cease trading, Calunius.

26 Profile Investment, https://globalarbitrationreview.com/article/1176253/a-new-fully-regulated-third-party-funder-opens-in-paris.

27 The Association of Litigaiton Funders is the most well-known example of a self-regulating body owned and controlled by the members it regulates.

28 In 2017, Burford Capital's role as funder of a pair of treaty claims against Pakistan worth US$640 million ended with the claimants being ordered to pay around 11 million in costs; Vannin Capital's role in financing a US$100 million DR-CAFTA claim against Costa Rica ended in a victory for the state and a US$1 million costs award against the claimant. At the time of writing, in Italba Corporation v Oriental Republic of Uruguay (ICSID Case No. ARB/16/9), the state prevailed leaving a cost awards against the claimant who was funded by IMF Bentham for US$5.9 million.

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Evolution of the Third-Party Funder - Lexology

The algorithm called minimum epistasis interpolation results in a visualization of how a protein could evolve to either become highly effective or not effective at all. They compared the functionality of thousands of versions of the protein, finding patterns in how mutations cause the protein to evolve from one functional form to another. Credit: McCandlish lab/CSHL, 2020

Quantitative biologists David McCandlish and Juannan Zhou at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have developed an algorithm with predictive power, giving scientists the ability to see how specific genetic mutations can combine to make critical proteins change over the course of a species evolution.

Described in Nature Communications, the algorithm called minimum epistasis interpolation results in a visualization of how a protein could evolve to either become highly effective or not effective at all. They compared the functionality of thousands of versions of the protein, finding patterns in how mutations cause the protein to evolve from one functional form to another.

Epistasis describes any interaction between genetic mutations in which the effect of one gene is dependent upon the presence of another. In many cases, scientists assume that when reality does not align with their predictive models, these interactions between genes are at play. With this in mind, McCandlish created this new algorithm with the assumption that every mutation matters. The term Interpolation describes the act of predicting the evolutionary path of mutations a species might undergo to achieve optimal protein function.

The researchers created the algorithm by testing the effects of specific mutations occurring in the genes that make streptococcal GB1 protein. They chose the GB1 protein because of its complex structure, which would generate enormous numbers of possible mutations that could be combined in an enormous number of possible ways.

Because of this complexity, visualization of this data set became so important, says McCandlish. We wanted to turn the numbers into a picture so that we can understand better what [the data] is telling us.

The visualization is like a topological map. Height and color correlate with the level of protein activity and distance between points on the map represents how long it takes for the mutations to evolve to that level of activity.

The GB1 protein begins in nature with a modest level of protein activity, but may evolve to a level of higher protein activity through a series of mutations that occur in several different places.

A photo of David McCandlish in his office. He is pointing to a visualization of what he calls the protein GB1s evolutionary space. Credit: CSHL, 2020

McCandlish likens the evolutionary path of the protein to hiking, where the protein is a hiker trying to get to the highest or best mountain peaks most efficiently. Genes evolve in the same manner: with a mutation seeking the path of least resistance and increased efficiency.

To get to the next best high peak in the mountain range, the hiker is more likely to travel along the ridgeline than hike all the way back down to the valley. Going along the ridgeline efficiently avoids another potentially tough ascent. In the visualization, the valley is the blue area, where combinations of mutations result in the lowest levels of protein activity.

The algorithm shows how optimal each possible mutant sequence is and how long it will take for one genetic sequence to mutate into any of many other possible sequences. The predictive power of the tool could prove particularly valuable in situations like the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers need to know how a virus is evolving in order to know where and when to intercept it before it reaches its most dangerous form.

McCandlish explains that the algorithm can also help understand the genetic routes that a virus might take as it evolves to evade the immune system or gain drug resistance. If we can understand the likely routes, then maybe we can design therapies that can prevent the evolution of resistance or immune evasion.

There are additional potential applications for such a predictive genetic algorithm, including drug development and agriculture.

You know, at the very beginning of genetics there was all this interesting speculation as to what these genetic spaces would look like if you could actually look at them, McCandlish added. Now were really doing it! Thats really cool.

Reference: Minimum epistasis interpolation for sequence-function relationships by Juannan Zhou and David M. McCandlish, 14 April 2020, Nature Communications.DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15512-5

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Algorithm Developed to Predict the Evolution of Genetic Mutations - SciTechDaily

The late 90s were a harrowing time. Fresh off the success of the PlayStation One, Sony were already making plans for the PlayStation 2 to also dominate the market. The Nintendo 64 was at the end of its life cycle with the company shifting away from cartridges for in the GameCube. Segas Dreamcast was still a thing but facing severe issues due to a lack of advertising and support, not to mention general disagreement among company executives. We all know what happened though Sega would discontinue the console and bow out of the hardware market entirely in March 2001.

However, slightly before that, an unlikely competitor appeared. After years of rumors, Microsoft finally announced its console gaming plans and revealed the Xbox prototype at GDC 2020. While theres a lot to say about the consoles development history, were going to focus on the controller which also debuted at GDC. Put simply, it was horrible.

Lets back up a bit though. The Xbox controller was designed by developer Seamus Blackley and given the nickname Duke by hardware project manager Brett Schnepf. However, it would be its other nickname, Fatty, which would stand out a lot more on release. Despite several similarities with the DualShock 2 (like rumble support), the Xbox controller had a number of unique features. Along with the standard four face buttons, fashioned after Nintendos X, Y, A and B button setup, the console had two more buttons sitting above them one black, the other white.

There were Start and Select buttons but these were placed near the bottom of the controller, right between the digital D-Pad and right analog stick. The left analog stick was instead positioned to the far left edge and in the middle was a massive emblem with the Xbox name and logo in black and green. Two triggers rested on the back with no shoulder bumpers. One neat feature was the controllers cable having dongles that could break away, mitigating any danger that tripping would have caused for the console.

Overall, the design of the Xbox controller was weird when compared directly to the DualShock 2 but not completely out of this world. The real problem was its size and build. It was massive, about three times that of Sonys controller, and seemed more suited to large hands (and even then, it was pushing its luck). According to Blackley, the disdain for the controller was such that he had things thrown at me on stage. The build quality wasnt much better, being viewed as cheap by different outlets.

A lot of the controllers footprint was due to the circuit board design though. At the time, Microsoft wanted a folded and stacked design akin to the DualShock 2. Unfortunately, its supplier, Mitsumi Electric, refused and thus went with the Duke design. There was some redemption on the horizon though. When the Xbox came to Japan in February 2002, it sported the smaller, more comfortable Xbox Controller S (audiences in that region were spared of the Dukes presence, for the better). Microsoft would eventually bring the Controller S to Western audiences, replacing the original Duke in standard packages by 2002 in the US and 2003 in Europe.

The Controller S had a much more positive response and its easy to see why. Besides the more compact design, the Xbox Controller S sports a much less obnoxious Xbox emblem on the front, smaller handles, re-positioned black and white buttons, and the lack of a big gulf between the D-pad and right analog stick. Though the placement of the Start and Select buttons was strange, situated to the bottom of the left analog stick, the Controller S felt better to hold and use. The Duke still remained an option for those who wanted it but the Controller S was the new standard.

Microsoft recognized this as it prepared for the next console generation. Thanks to the advantage of launching the Xbox 360 one year before the PlayStation 3 (which had other unfortunate consequences for the consoles quality), it didnt falter when it came to the controller. Taking many design notes from the Xbox Controller S, the Xbox 360 controller streamlines things further. The Xbox emblem on the front was gone, replaced with a smaller button with the Xbox Logo called the Guide button.

The black and white buttons were gone with the Select button being replaced by the Back button, which is now positioned next to the Guide button along with the Start button. Shoulder buttons were added though the layout in terms of face buttons, analog sticks, D-Pad and triggers was more or less the same as the Controller S. The Guide button was perhaps one of the better new additions. Besides opening up the new Guide menu which allowed for messaging, voice chat and other functions without leaving the game it would light up different sections of its ring when multiple controllers were connected. This helped denote player 1, player 2 and so on.

Microsoft also added a serial connector on the bottom on the controller, which could be used to attach a chat-pad, while the top sported a 2.5 mm TRS connector where headsets could be connected. The controller also had a wireless variant that worked with batteries or a rechargeable battery pack, but could still be connected to the console via USB cable.

All in all, the reception to the Xbox 360 controller especially following the dismal Duke was positive all-around. One nice added function of the controller was that it could be connected to ones PC, which used the Microsoft XInput interface library for playing different titles. Whether it was known or not, this would have a significant impact on controller usage with PC games for years to come, providing a great controller solution to PC players everywhere that balanced quality with price.

In 2010, the Xbox 360 wireless controller received a variant design with the Play and Charge Kit. This allowed for switching out the D-pad and going with either the traditional plus-shaped design or the more circular shape. Though it didnt seem like a big deal back in the day, this would be a precursor to the customization introduced in the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller. Other controllers with transforming D-pads would be released, usually as limited edition products for certain games like Gears of War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Halo 4. Why, especially when these games were more known for aiming with analog sticks? Well, why not?

So everything was going hunky dory for Microsoft, despite the Xbox 360 winding down in the number of high-profile exclusives and hardcore gaming titles at the end of its lifespan. Fortunately, the company was already prepping for the next generation of consoles.

Unfortunately, it would screw up the messaging for the Xbox One something fierce, outlining always-online functions, increased Kinect functionality and way too much emphasis on being an all-in-one media solution (before backtracking on almost everything just months before release). While the numerous problems with the console have been documented endlessly over the years, the Xbox One controller proved itself to be one of the most solid controllers till date.

The overall shape of the controller feels better thanks to changes in the grips, a more premium finish and curved bumpers and triggers. The button layout remained the same, right down to the D-pad which was changed to a more traditional design for better performance in fighting games and analog sticks.

Some notable differences include the Guide button being near the top of the controller and lacking the light-up quadrants that could distinguish other players; the removal of the Start and Select buttons in favor of the Menu and Guide buttons; and rumble motors within the triggers which could provide for specific feedback. One could essentially have a single trigger or both provide rumble feedback, allowing for some customization of the haptic feedback experience. Its crazy to think that Microsoft spent over $100 million developing the Xbox One controller but the effort clearly shows.

Though Microsoft would provide a slight revision in 2015, with a headphone jack at the bottom and enabling wireless firmware updates, a much bigger variant was announced with the Xbox One Elite Wireless controller. Marketed as a premium device for the elite gamer, it sported an insane amount of customization.

It was possible to swap out the analog sticks and D-pad, featured interchangeable paddles on the back that could be assigned different button functions and hair trigger locks that reduced the distance required for presses. And if you really wanted to go crazy with the setup, it was possible to fully customize all the buttons, trigger and analog stick sensitivity, the whole works. You could even save two different profiles for buttons and switch between them when required.

Despite its high cost ($150 at launch), the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller was a pretty strong success. Interestingly, it faced a number of different issues upon launch like the build quality not being up to par, the bumpers not working properly and so on. Microsoft seemingly fixed these issues or at least replaced the faulty controllers. This wouldnt be the last time that an Elite Wireless Controller would be subject to hardware issues.

Less elite gamers werent left out in the cold that year, thankfully. A slightly less crazy revision of the default controller came in 2016, coinciding with the launch of the Xbox One S. The Model 1708 supported Bluetooth and textured grips which was nothing too drastic but provided decent improvements over an already stellar controller.

By 2018, leaks suggested that an Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 was on the way. The controller would be officially revealed at E3 2019 with a cost of $179.99. In terms of features, it went even further beyond than its predecessor, sporting an internal rechargeable battery with up to 40 hours of life, a rubberized grip that wrapped around the controller, more variety in the interchangeable thumb-sticks and paddles, a tool for adjusting the thumb-sticks, Bluetooth support and a USB-C connector. Better trigger grips, revamped bumpers, up to three custom profiles and one default profile that could be switched at will Microsoft spared no expense to make the Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 stand out.

Which is a shame because after its launch in November 2019, some users began reporting a number of issues. Unresponsive face buttons, connectivity issues, drifting with the analog stick it felt like the original Elite Wireless Controller all over again, except with the caveat of having to pay more. Microsoft was noted to be actively investigating issues with its teams and encouraged consumers to contact Xbox support. For the time being, at least, these issues seem to have been resolved and the Elite Series 2 remains one of the more popular accessories in the US market.

With the Xbox Series X releasing in holiday 2020, Microsoft has taken to implementing a number of the Elite Wireless Controllers features into the base Xbox One controller. This includes the D-pad, which incorporates a deeper center for resting ones thumb, and a more premium feel overall. The standard face buttons return along with two triggers and bumpers, though the triggers are more rounded this time. The signature guide button is no longer in its own separate section at the top but melded into the rest of the controller.

In terms of ergonomics, the grips are more sculpted. The overall size was created with an eight-year olds hands in mind to allow for a wider selection of players to comfortably use it. Throw in support for Bluetooth Low Energy to pair with mobile devices and other hardware (while also remembering the different devices it pairs with) along with a USB-C port for charging. Finally, theres the Share button just beneath the View and Menu buttons for capturing and sharing screenshots and clips, much like on the DualShock 4. Microsoft has yet to reveal the quality of clips and screenshots that can be captured though. Sadly, theres no internal rechargeable battery like the Elite Series 2 but such battery packs will be available separately.

The Xbox franchise hasnt existed as long as other consoles but its still managed to hold its own through the various ups and downs. Despite an unequivocally terrible controller for the original Xbox and issues with the Elite Wireless Controller series, Microsoft has provided quality devices for each generation, catering to both the casual and premium ends of the market while offering a healthy amount of color customization.

Its kind of ironic that while Sony, known for sticking to a traditional design with its DualShock series, has diverged into something new altogether, Microsoft is being more conservative in its design philosophy. Whether it will lead to a better performing controller, especially given the lack of any major bells and whistles (at least at this stage), remains to be seen. Nevertheless, were looking forward to getting our hands on it and seeing how a potential Elite series could pan out in the long run. If nothing else, we can be assured of another top-performing controller for PC titles in the coming years.

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The Evolution of Xbox Controllers From The Original Xbox To Xbox Series X - GamingBolt

E

volution Gaming released Thursday its Interim Report for the first quarter of 2020. Operating revenues increased by 45% to EUR 115.1 million, and EBITDA was up by 79% to EUR 64.1 million, corresponding to a margin of 55.7%. Profit for the period saw a 90% increase amounting to EUR 54.2 million, and earnings per share before dilution were EUR 0.30.

Evolution Group CEO Martin Carlesund commented: The spread of COVID-19 has put the world in an exceptional and challenging situation which has also meant operational trials for Evolution. So far, we have handled the situation in a good way, and financially, Evolution has started 2020 very strongly in terms of both growth and profitability.

He said Evolutions main priorities in dealing with the COVID-19 situation are to minimize the risk of spreading the virusand to create a safe workplace for its employeesas well asto maintain the operation for its operators.

We continue to comply with all the requirements from the authorities in the countries we operate in, and in manycaseswe have taken more far-reachinginitiatives.Thanks to the extensive measures that have been implemented in terms of social distancing, changed working processes and routines for our employees, our operations have been able to continue without any large negative effects, he added.

However, the CEO said that in several of the studios, Evolution operates with fewer tables compared to normal, and its studios in Georgia and Spain have been temporarily closed during limited periods. During these periods, a large share of the traffic has been managed by the companys other studios. He noted that being a global company with sites across multiple territories has been an important factor during these times. Evolutions studios in Latvia and Malta are important hubs from which several of its most popular titles are broadcasted, he remarked.

We have seen an increased and strong demand for our products all through the first quarter. During the end of the quarter the absence of sporting betting games likely also favoured growth in our products. This circumstance effects also the start of the second quarter and we now see many new players being introduced to the Live segment, Carlesund said.

The company continuesongoing investments in both studios andnew games. During ICE London earlier this year, 12 new titles were announced, of which two went live during the firstquarter;Speed Blackjack and Lightning Baccarat.

On Thursday, 23 April, Evolution is launching Mega Ball including aFirst Personversion. Mega Ball is the companys first game in the lottery vertical, according to Carlesund. During its beta phase, the game has exhibited a high attraction andit will be interesting to follow the games development.In addition, we will extend ourFirst Personportfolio with three more launching in the second quarter. Another two table games will also be launched during the quarter, Power Blackjack and BaccaratMultiplay, he announced.

Furthermore, the construction of Evolutions new studio in Pennsylvaniacontinues, with a postponed timetable due to the COVID-19 situation, but the firm aims to launch it before year-end remains, the CEO said. Michigan has accelerated its casino regulation process and Evolution hopes that the state soon will be the third regulated market in the US.In South Africa, the company hasreceived a National Manufacturer license, which allows it tooffer its and the subsidiary Ezugisproducts to all licensed gaming operators in South Africa.

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Evolution revenues up 45% in Q1, with an increased demand for its products - Yogonet International

Ronaldos longevity and consistency over the past 17 seasons is staggering, with 725 goals in 1000 appearances for club and country.

To celebrate a remarkable career to date, beIN 1 will be dedicated to Cristiano tonight from 7pm (AEST), with his best goals and highlights, plus two match replays of the Portuguese star at his devastating best.

Like any opponent, Ronaldo has bamboozled father time, showing no signs of slowing down at 35 fuelling speculation that he could be more machine, than man.

Perhaps the secret to Ronaldos super-human longevity can be found in his evolution into four distinct forms throughout his career.

Wearing Manchester Uniteds iconic number seven jersey comes with a heavy weight of expectations, which a teenage Cristiano seemed to carry comfortably on his strapping young shoulders.

In the six seasons which followed, Ronaldo overwhelmed defences with blistering power and pace, plus a free-kick which defied physics take this sensational effort against Portsmouth in 2008.

Ronaldos flashy tricks caught the ire of Englands no-frills defenders, but theres no denying their effectiveness as Ronaldo helped United to three league titles and one UEFA Champions League triumph in his six seasons at Old Trafford.

Strengths: Pace, Power, Free-kicks, quick feet and tricks.

Weaknesses: Did not score as many goals as other stages of his career (noted he was playing on the wing)

Real Madrid made Cristiano Ronaldo the worlds most expensive footballer in 2009, which marked the second stage in his evolution.

Cristiano Ronaldo transformed from skilful trickster at Old Trafford, to ruthless goal machine at the Bernabeu, able to shrug some of his defensive responsibilities to focus solely on the attacking third.

Ronaldo added clinical finishing to his pace with devastating effect, scoring 201 goals in 199 appearances in his first four seasons, before entering the third stage of his evolution.

Strengths: Added more goals to his repertoire, significantly improved aerial ability.

Weaknesses: Lean spell of silverware two trophies from 2009-2013.

As youthful exuberance began to fade, Ronaldo fine-tuned his efficiency and focussed solely on scoring goals.

This narrowfocussed payed off as Ronaldo lead Los Blancos to 12 trophies in six seasons, including four UEFA Champions League triumphs.

On the international stage, CR7 helped guide Portugal to UEFA Euro glory in 2016, despite sitting out the final with an injury.

Strengths: Ronaldos peak output in goals and trophies.

Weaknesses: Lost a yard of pace, and his mojo with free-kicks.

While he hasnt replicated some of his stats at Real Madrid, Ronaldo

A slow debut season by Ronaldos lofty standards (which included 21 league goals) had his critics revelling, but they were silenced the following year.

The 35 year-old kicked off the 2019-2020 campaign with 21 goals in his first 22 league games, leaving Juventus at the top of the table before the spread of coronavirus brought the season to a halt.

Strengths: Able to change clubs and leagues and dominate at 35. Improved second season suggests he might have found a way to reverse ageing.

Weaknesses: Fewer goals and less productive than his time at Real Madrid.

With the league set to resume next month, we will see if Ronaldo has conjured up another evolution while stuck in isolation.

Link:

The evolution of Cristiano Ronaldo - beIN SPORTS New Zealand

From portraying a mob don and an AIDS-stricken attorney to a comic strip villain and a Nazi hunter, Al Pacino has done it all. In honor of his long and distinguished career (and his 80th birthday), we offer up this retrospect that showcases his expansive diversity.

N.Y.P.D (1968) A then 28-year-old Pacino made his TV debut on this ABC police procedural plan the victim of a shooting.

Me, Natalie (1971) Pacino had a small role in this film starring Patty Duke about a girl who struggles with her appearance.

The Panic in Needle Park (1971) Pacino played a small-town crook leading a woman down a path of heroin addiction. His work in this film caught the eye of director Francis Ford Coppola

The Godfather (1971) And then came The Godfather and his first Academy Award nomination. Need we say more?

Serpico (1973) Pacino earned his second Oscar nomination playing New York City policeman Frank Serpico, who goes undercover to expose corruption at the NYPD.

The Godfather: Part II (1974) Oscar nod number three came reprising his role as Michael Corleone and what Newsweek called arguably cinemas greatest portrayal of the hardening of a heart.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) And Oscar nomination number four, this time playing real-life bank robber John Wojtowicz.

And Justice for All (1979) Oscar nod number five came for his work in this courtroom drama.

Author! Author! (1982) This comedy-drama directed by Arthus Hiller about a Broadway playwright was panned by critics

Scarface (1983) So it was back to crime dramas, this one directed by Brian De Palma and what many consider a defining role in his career.

Revolution (1985) Playing a fur trapper pulled into the American Revolution didnt register with critics or Pacino fans.

Dick Tracy (1990) Critic Roger Ebert described Pacino as a scene-stealer playing Big Boy Caprice (pictured with Madonna) in this Warren Beatty-directed film, which earned him, yes, an Oscar nomination.

The Godfather: Part III (1990) The third time was not the charm in this franchise.

Frankie and Johnny (1991) Opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, who also appeared with him in Scarface, Pacino plays a recently paroled cook who begins a romance with a waitress.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) Pacino became the first actor two earn two Oscar nominations the same year, for different films, first for playing Richard Ricky Roma, the top salesman in a real estate office

Scent of a Woman (1992) and also for playing blind U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade (here with Gabrielle Anwar). He finally took home the Oscar, along with the catch phrase Hoo-wah!

Carlitos Way (1993) With the help of his attorney (Sean Penn), gangster Carlito Brigante is released from prison and vows to go straight.

Heat (1995) The first time Pacino and Robert De Niro appeared on screen together. If thats not a reason to watch this film, nothing is.

Donnie Brasco (1997) Pacino again took on a true story, playing real-life gangster Lefty to Johnny Depps undercover FBI agent.

The Devils Advocate (1997) Pacino played Satan himself in this supernatural thriller with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron.

The Insider (1999) Pacino plays 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman opposite Russell Crowes chemist who comes under attack for exposing the tobacco industry.

Any Given Sunday (1999) Oliver Stone directed Pacino in this sports drama about a fictional professional football team and its veteran coach.

Insomnia (2002) Pacino plays a Los Angeles homicide detective sent to investigate a murder in Alaska, where the sun never sets. Robin Williams and Hilary Swank co-star.

Gigli (2003) I bet you did remember that Pacino was in this Jennifer Lopez-Ben Affleck production that many consider one of the worst films in history. Well, he was. He played a New York-based mob boss.

Angels in America (2003) Pacino won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of lawyer Roy Cohn about a gay man living with AIDS who is visited by an angel.

Oceans Thirteen (2007) Once again, Pacino took on the role of a films antagonist, this time as a casino tycoon in the third and final film in the Oceans trilogy.

You Dont Know Jack (2010) Pacino earned an Emmy Award and another Golden Globe for his portrayal of Jack Kevorkian, the physician-assisted suicide advocate, in this HBO Films biopic.

Phil Spector (2013) Three years later, Pacino was back at HBO in another biopic, this time playing record producer Phil Spector during his 2009 murder trial.

Paterno (2018) And again five years later, Pacino appeared in another HBO film playing the Penn State football coach in the midst of a child sex abuse scandal.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) Pacino plays casting agent Marvin Schwarz in this Quentin Tarantino film that also stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.

The Irishman (2019) As Teamsters chief Jimmy Hoffa, Pacino appeared alongside DeNiro and Joe Pesci in this 209-minute crime epic directed by Martin Scorsese about a truck driver who becomes a hitman.

Hunters (2020) In the Amazon Prime series, Pacino plays fictional Nazi-hunter Meyer Offerman.

Read original story The Evolution of Al Pacino: From The Godfather to Glengarry Glen Ross and Hunters (Photos) At TheWrap

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The Evolution of Al Pacino: From The Godfather to Glengarry Glen Ross and Hunters (Photos) - Yahoo Entertainment

A leaked presentation has given us an insight into several design features in the Surface line of laptops and PCs.

Uncovered by WalkingCat, we earlier heard how the Surface Neo was designed to activate more of your brain, and why no Surface device has Thunderbolt 3 ports or socketed RAM.

Now WalkingCat has posted another video talking about the evolution of thermal design in the Surface line.

The presented, who appears to be an engineer on the Surface team, explained that despite the fan on the Surface Pro 3, the device became so hot over the processor that it could be uncomfortable to hold.

The Surface Pro 4 however moved on to a combination fan and heat pipe design, which improved the thermals significantly, and in the Surface Pro 5,6, and 7, for the Core i5 model and below, Microsoft was able to go completely fanless.

This is significant because it reduces the noise emissions from a PC, which can interfere with voice conference calls for example and can be distracting, and it also allows the fanless devices to be used in cleanrooms.

This dedication to low noise even extended to the Surface Hub, which uses an advanced cooling design which makes it unnoticeable even in a quiet library.

Given that my Lenovo is currently burning my legs, it seems to me that Microsoft has not made enough noise about their thermal design efforts. Do our readers agree? Let us know in the comments below.

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Microsoft engineer talks about the evolution of thermal design in the Surface line - MSPoweruser - MSPoweruser

RESEARCHERS at a Scottish university will look into the way bats communicate in an attempt to shed light on the evolution of the human language in a 1.5m study.

Dr Sonja Vernes received the funding from the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship Scheme to look into the animals over seven years but will only cover the first four years and further funding will follow.

It will look into the vocalisations of bats, and by comparing them with other mammals, to understand more clearly the mechanisms by which human language has evolved

Dr Vernes, currently of the Max Plank Institute and the Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour in the Netherlands, will begin the project at the University of St Andrews in November.

The project will specifically explore the behavioural abilities bats have to learn new vocalisations in a social context and compare these with other vocal-learning mammals such as seals and dolphins.

The research team, led by Dr Vernes, will investigate the neurobiological, molecular and genomic factors contributing to these abilities.

They will then integrate the findings from human language disorder studies to identify parallels between the mechanisms that allow these social-vocal communicative behaviours in bats and other mammals to those that underscore human language abilities and evolution.

Dr Vernes said: Our ability to communicate via spoken language requires a complex skill set built upon cognitive and physiological processes.

Bats present a unique opportunity to shed light on these issues because they are an extraordinary group of animals with intricate social structures and communication abilities.

They feature speech and language relevant traits such as vocal learning the ability to learn new vocalisations, a crucial component of how we learn to speak.

However, this potential has rarely been exploited. My goal is to use bat models to understand the biological encoding of social-vocal communication abilities.

By comparing these findings with other mammals and with humans, it will be possible to shed light on mechanisms by which human language evolved.

Future Leaders Fellowshipsis a 900 million fund that is helping to establish the careers of world-class research and innovation leaders across UK business and academia.

Professor Frank Gunn-Moore, Head of the School of Biology at the University of St Andrews, welcomed the announcement.

He said: We are delighted to welcome Dr Vernes and this very exciting project to St Andrews in November.

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Researchers to study the communication of bats in a bid to shed light on the evolution of the human language - Deadline News

Now that one of the most love sitcoms of the 90s Saved By The Bell has aired its first teaser trailer, we cant help but notice one cast member has not aged much since the show aired 30 years ago. The cast is set to reunite for a reboot. Actor Mario Lopez Jr. was first introduced to us as A.C Slater on Saved by The Bellwhen he was just 16. Before then, Lopez was doing local ads and commercials.

Since the show, he has appeared in numerous shows like Pacific Blue and The Bold and The Beautiful. He has also hosted shows like Americas Best Dance Crew and X-Factor. He even got his own reality show Mario Lopez: Saved By The Baby, starring together with his wife Courtney Mazza. Mario is now a father of three and does not seem to have aged like the rest of us. He is still very youthful thanks to his fitness lifestyle. Let us take a look at 15 photos of him since the show aired.

Lopez rocked this hair for the four-year duration he starred on Saved By The Bell and even maintained it for a while thereafter. Even though he physically looked good, this hair was atrocious and needed to go. By the time he was preparing for his next role on Pacific Blue, he had cleaned up so well.

In the early 2000s, Lopez won the heart of many young girls and many wished they could just date him. One lucky girl by the name Ali Landry got the chance. They dated for six years before tying the knot in 2004. Unfortunately, their marriage was annulled two weeks later when Landry found out Lopez was unfaithful at his bachelor party.

Many people did not know Lopez could dance until the fall of 2006 when he signed up as a contestant on Dancing With The Stars season three. The show usually pairs a professional dancer with a celebrity and each couple competes against the others. He was paired with dancer Karina Smirnoff who was his girlfriend at that time and they finished second place.

Other than acting, Lopez is also a writer. One of his most famous books is, Mario Lopez Knockout Fitness which he wrote together with Jeff OConnell. He then wrote two more books Extra Lean and Extra Lean Family before shifting his focus from health and fitness to children's books. In this pic, Lopez is reading his first Childrens book Mario and Baby Gia to her daughter.

Hosting is something Lopez wanted to do from the get-go since he started hosting kids' shows when he was 19. He then moved on to hosting reality shows like Americans Best Dance Crew and Top Pop Group before becoming a co-executive producer of the show Dating Factory. Here he was preparing to host one of his shows.

One of the highlights of Marios career as a TV host was when he got picked to co-host the Fox singing competition The X- Factor alongside TV personality Khloe Kardashian. The two seemed like a match made in hosting heaven but only Lopez was called back to host the seasons that followed.

RELATED:X-Factor: 20 Strict Rules The Judges Have To Follow

When Mario was doing Broadway, he had his eye on Broadway dancer Courtney Mazza. They started dating in the fall of 2008. Mazza admitted that Lopez was not her type and kept telling him off. This made Mario even more attracted to her. He was very persistent, after a month of Nos, he finally got a Yes, and the rest was history.

After two years together, the couple announced they were expecting their first child together. They welcomed their daughter Gia Francesca Lopez into the world on September 11, 2010. Here Mario was just showing off his little princess who was just a few months old. He seemed proud of his new title, daddy.

In 2012, Mario decided to tie the knot again, but this time with Courtney, in a catholic ceremony in Mexico. Their daughter Gia who was then 2 years old made a beautiful flower girl. In these photos, the two lovebirds paused for their first pic as husband and wife, and in the other; they were seen cutting their beach-themed wedding cake.

RELATED:Dancing With The Stars: 15 BTS Facts We Probably Shouldn't Know

Mario seemed happy to be a second-time father. Here he is with his wife, his two kids, and their dog. They clearly look so happy as a family posing for this photo while sitting on a garden wall. Their son Dominic Lopez was born on September 9, 2013, at the time this picture was taken he was the youngest in the family.

Mario made his Broadway debut in 2008 where he played the role of Zach in A Chorus Line. This was a legendary musical and Lopez did not disappoint with his over the top dancing skills. At that time, many actors wanted to appear on a Broadway stage despite being successful already.

In this pic, Mario showed off his ripped body as he spent time with his family on a beach in Miami. It might look like the couple was on vacation but that was not the case. Mario was actually in Miami to serve as a grand marshal at the 2015 Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade.

RELATED:20 Things Fans Chose To Ignore About Saved By The Bell

Lopez has always been a fitness enthusiast. He has maintained a ripped body since his young adult days thanks to working out and eating right. To him staying in shape has always been a priority. After months of taking his son for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, he decided to enroll for a class as well. He got his blue belt a year later. Here, he paused for a pic after one of his training sessions.

Back in January 2019, Lopez announced on social media that he and his wife were expecting their third bundle of joy. Courtney also shared a pic of the two kids wearing big sister and big brother tees. Here they pause for one of their last pics as a family of four. The couple welcomed their third child, Santino Rafael Lopez in July 2019. Their kids are just next level adorable.

This is Mario today and his face has hardly changed much since the many years back when he was starring inSaved By The Bell Days. He still looks like A.C Slayer, only with a bigger body. Mario is set to reprise his role in the sitcoms reboot. He has maintained his youthfulness by boxing, doing loads of outdoor activities, and using good skincare products.

Sources: people.com, cinemablend.com, eonline.com.

NEXT:'Saved By The Bell' News... Mark-Paul Gosselaar Gives Us The Inside Scoop

NextThese Pics Show How Much Kylie Jenner's Changed Since Season 1 Of KUWTK

The rest is here:

Mario Lopez's Evolution Since Saved By The Bell, In Photos - TheThings

Hammerstone talks about wrestling's evolution.

In the eyes of many, Alex Hammerstone is a throwback to an older era of wrestling when men of a great and imposing stature ruled the squared circle. However, over time, wrestling has evolved and is now a hybrid of fast-paced competitors as well as large statured storytellers.

Speaking with Spencer Love, Hammerstone opens up about how wrestling has evolved over the years and how his moves have evolved with it.

Thanks to Spencer for passing along the following quotes.

How he feels pro wrestling has changed:

Its hard to pin down. Theres definitely a sense of the young kids - not even the young kids, just wrestlers have this okay, boomer (mentality), where they would get anyone old and say oh, youre just saying this because of this, or that, but its like, no. There are a lot of things in wrestling that it really is, like, I could tell you the stoves hot, but you still have to touch yourself and burn your hand. Those old vets, yeah, some of them didnt move on to WWE and some of them didnt do all of this and that, and some of them are bitter and mean, but with all that time comes wisdom and knowledge. A lot of people dont listen to any of it, but Ive been lucky enough to have some really good mentors to help me.

Im not going to say things are changing for the worse, its just changing. You cant argue it. A lot of people like to act like pro wrestling is changing, but its not pro wrestling, its the world. Its music. Is current music worse than the Beatles? Its very easy to say of course its worse, but its all subjective. Its all down to taste. Theres a business for it. Theres money in it. Theres fans in it. Its just a constant changing thing, and for you to try to fight the change is a battle youre going to lose.

If he prefers working opponents of a particular size:

Im definitely an anybody. I like all shapes and sizes, all styles. I think early in my career, I had a specific type of match I liked to do, but as you carry on, not only do you get bored and you want new challenges, but as you get more demand people want you for different things. So, I think the best approach is to be flexible. Whether its wrestling heavyweights that are my size or even bigger, wrestling little guys, luchadors, high-flyers, or even - one of my favourite matches this year was with Nick Gage. Youd see that matchup and youd go thats not Hammerstones style, but I like doing a little bit of everything. I like testing myself. But, Ill always have a soft spot for breaking luchadors in half.

His recent Iron Man challenge:

It was one of those things where we didnt know how long this lockdown was going to last. When it first happened, I thought it was only going to be a week or two. Then, I hear okay, end of April, and then I thought we were going to wrestle again. But now, its looking like even longer, so when I first put it out I didnt even think MLW was going to run out of pre-taped shows, but now its looking like a possibility.

I kind of put it out half-knowing that the company wasnt going to want to go through that. Just knowing Court, hed rather compromise and play some reruns or repackage a highlight show rather than put any of his staff at risk. But, at the same time, Ive always wanted to do an Iron Man match just to test myself. Like you alluded to, (its) just a new thing, a new hey, lets try this out. If it ever did go through, I think what better way to keep as safe as possible but still do something interesting for the fans.

How he came up with the Nightmare Pendulum:

There was a move called the Shouten from Japan, and its very similar. He ends up going down to his knees rather than sitting out with it, but I just remember seeing it and thinking thats the most impactful thing I ever could see. The thing about me is my knees are pretty banged-up, so coming down and doing a knee bump hurts. So, I ended up trying sitting out with it, and I thought it looked a lot more vicious that way. First of all, it looks a lot more impactful. Second of all, theres no confusion of whether or not he countered it into a DDT. Ive seen people do a similar move where they come out and kind of Rock Bottom the guy, and it almost looks like the guy countered your vertical suplex and DDTd you. So, I think the sit-out was the right way to go. For some reason I just love sit-out moves. I think they look very impactful (and) very cool. If you watch what I do, a lot of my high-impact moves, I actually sit out with them. Its very comfortable, it saves my knees, so thats the story there.

Funny enough, when I first started using that move, I wasnt even using it as a finish. I was using something else. One match I did it, I think maybe we double-downed off it, and I got through the curtain and the promoter goes dude. That move you hit in the middle of the match was the coolest thing anyone did all night, and you didnt even pin the guy!

You can view the full interview at this link.

More:

Alex Hammerstone On The Evolution Of Wrestling As Well As His Move-Set - Fightful

A team of researchers from India, upon discovering a new species of green pit vipers, have decided to name the snake after the one, the only Salazar Slytherin. Their findings were published this month in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.For those not familiar with Harry Potter, a quick history lesson. In a nutshell, Salazar Slytherin was one of the founders of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, along with his pals Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff.

Along with being some of the most powerful witches and wizards of their time in the Harry Potter world, they're also the namesakes of the four Hogwarts houses.

Slytherin, partly known for his ability to talk to snakes, is linked to the animals -- the snake is, after all, the symbol of the Slytherin Hogwarts house. That's why the researchers chose the name Trimeresurus salazar.

In the research, the team suggests the snake commonly be known as Salazar's pit viper.

The pit vipers in the genus Trimeresurus are venomous, and found throughout East and Southeast Asia. This species was found in India, but there are at least 48 total species of this genus found in the region.

One of the things that makes this particular pit viper stand out, though, is the orange-reddish stripe found on the side of the head in males.

Unfortunately, a spokesperson for Slytherin was not available for comment.

Here is the original post:

Scientists discover a new snake and name it after Salazar Slytherin - CNN

NASHVILLE, Tenn., April 25, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ --Pearl Jam and Apple TV have announced the Gigaton Global Listening Experience a special audio-visual event available free to all Apple TV users for 7 days, before it moves to iTunes. This immersive visual album experience pairs the band's inspired visuals, produced by the award-winning Evolve Studios, to create an unparalleled 360-experience that enhances Gigaton's massive scope. The Gigaton Visual Experience premieres Friday, April 24.

Mixed in the revolutionary Dolby Atmos immersive audio format and provided together with Dolby Vision high dynamic range video, this visual album experience is only available as a limited time event on Apple TV. Their 11th album and first in nearly 7 years, Gigaton has received acclaim as their greatest and most adventurous work to date.

Evolve Studios, an independent, award-winning content studio, known for its conceptual & compelling original and branded content, is the creative engine behind the visual experience of Gigaton.

Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder said of the collaboration with Evolve: "You guys inspired me. I'm looking at my lyrics in a new way. You interpreted this in a way that we would never be able to pre-visualize or prescribe. But the feeling we wanted to invoke, Evolve found a way to visualize that."

In addition to creating three new music videos for Dance of the Clairvoyants, the first single off the record, Evolve also produced the entire Gigaton visual experience. Between the music videos and the entire visual album, there was more than an hour of original visual content that brought immersive motion pictures to the band's latest album.

Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard called the visual experience 'extraordinary.'

"The visual musicality is very evident," Gossard said. "The build of the edits, the symbolism, the syncopations. It really is a mystical experience. The whole thing. It's extraordinary and we are a lucky band to have Evolve collaborating with us."

The full Gigaton visual album was an organic evolution of Evolve's prior work together with the band on Dance of The Clairvoyants.

Evolve Studios' Joel Edwards, executive produced & co-directed the project. "We created the visual album with more of the band's inspired visuals and our footage archives to craft a feature-length, visual experience. It's really an incredibly unique and beautiful event for fans," he said. "We used hundreds of live-action film clips that spanned the globe, micro table-top and macro lens elements, deep space and organic textures."

The trio of music videos for Dance of the Clairvoyants were released in February and hailed as "very National Geographic-meets-rock" by Billboard Magazine. Evolve and partners Filmsupply (http://www.filmsupply.com), the world's leading premium film footage licensing agency, were specially positioned with a massive library of insane landscape and abstract footage that was used to illustrate the story of Dance of the Clairvoyants.

All three versions of the music video (Mach I, Mach II and Mach III) were released to much critical acclaim. Click HERE (https://evolve.studio/portfolio/pearl-jam-clairvoyants/) to watch the compilation of music videos.

"We knew this new song and album are very globally and environmentally charged," said Edwards. "We wanted the videos to illustrate our world and all the beautiful intricacies of it. The band wanted a big, National Geographic-type feel and since we have been filming that kind of footage for years, we were armed to visually tell this story."

The Evolve team had multiple creative sessions with various members of the band, who Edwards said were very hands-on throughout the creative process for the music videos and the theater experience.

"It was an incredible, artistic and creative process," Edwards added. "Certainly one of our most favorite projects to date. The band was full of big ideas and inspirations, that we would then interpret and pull footage from our vast library to create the visual sequences and abstract story arc."

For additional details about the Apple TV debut, visit http://www.pearljam.com/news

For media assets: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qrhf9l1svel9266/AAB8Akh5kA51cag8-3W-xYgta/02_Media%20Assets%20%26%20Artwork?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1

ABOUT EVOLVE STUDIOS

Nashville, TN-based independent, award-winning studio, Evolve produces premium content for a wide array of partners including Disney, National Geographic, ESPN, Netflix, NBC Universal, HBO, Discovery and many others. Evolve was founded in 2010 by brothers, Joel & Jesse Edwards. What started out as an entrepreneurial dream for the two "Vimeo Kids" fueled by an iMac, DSLRs & ramen noodles, Evolve Studios is now becoming one of the most discreetly influential original & branded content studios. As a full-service production company, Evolve produces a diverse range of premium content from original episodic series, branded & commercial content, films, documentaries, promos, music videos, digital films and immersive VR content.

Evolve's work has been recognized with numerous awards including 5 National Television Emmys, 40 Emmy nominations & many other top industry accolades. Empowered by incredible young talent, team culture and blue-collar creative work effort, Evolve has built a multifaceted studio that produces in three industry verticals all from the new content frontier in Nashville, Tennessee. To learn more, visit http://www.evolve.studio

ABOUT FILMSUPPLY

The exclusive footage licensing platform of Evolve Studios, Filmsupply, is a full-service licensing agency that has partnered with leading filmmakers across the world to bring footage from their passion projects directly to agencies, production companies, studios, and other creatives through a highly curated catalog. Learn more about their intuitive platform and free footage research at Filmsupply.com. To learn more, visit http://www.filmsupply.com

SOURCE Evolve Studios

Original post:

Pearl Jam partners with Evolve Studios to produce music videos for Dance of the Clairvoyants and Gigaton global listening experience - Benzinga

Forget the simple out-of-Africa idea of how humans evolved. A huge array of fossils and genome studies has completely rewritten the story of how we came into being.

By Graham Lawton

The Natural History Museum/Alamy

JEBEL IRHOUD, Morocco, 1961. In a barium mine in the foothills of the Atlas mountains, a miner makes a ghoulish discovery: a near-complete human skull embedded in the sediment. Archaeologists called in to investigate find that the skull is old, but not that old. It is filed away and largely forgotten.

Hinxton, UK, 2019. Robert Foley, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Cambridge, is giving the opening address at a three-day conference on human evolution. What Im pretty sure of is that, by the end of the first day, something like 20 per cent of what I say will be wrong, he says to the hall. By the end of the second day, something like 50 per cent will be wrong, and at the end of the conference, Im hoping that something I said at the beginning still holds true.

Until recently, the story of our origins was thought to be settled: Homo sapiens evolved in eastern Africa about 150,000 years ago, became capable of modern behaviour some 60,000 years ago and then swept out of Africa to colonise the world, completely replacing any archaic humans they encountered. But new fossils, tools and analyses of ancient and modern genomes are tearing apart that neat tale. The Jebel Irhoud skull has turned out to be a key to a new, slowly emerging paradigm. With the dust yet fully to settle, the question now is how many, if any, of our old assumptions still hold. Should we be thinking of a completely

See the article here:

Human evolution: The astounding new story of the origin of our species - New Scientist

There are endless viruses in our midst, made either of RNA or DNA. DNA viruses, which exist in much greater abundance around the planet, are capable of causing systemic diseases that are endemic, latent, and persistentlike the herpes viruses (which includes chicken pox), hepatitis B, and the papilloma viruses that cause cancer. DNA viruses are the ones that live with us and stay with us, Denison said. Theyre lifelong. Retroviruses, like H.I.V., have RNA in their genomes but behave like DNA viruses in the host. RNA viruses, on the other hand, have simpler structures and mutate rapidly. Viruses mutate quickly, and they can retain advantageous traits, Epstein told me. A virus thats more promiscuous, more generalist, that can inhabit and propagate in lots of other hosts ultimately has a better chance of surviving. They also tend to cause epidemicssuch as measles, Ebola, Zika, and a raft of respiratory infections, including influenza and coronaviruses. Paul Turner, a Rachel Carson professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University, told me, Theyre the ones that surprise us the most and do the most damage.

Scientists discovered the coronavirus family in the nineteen-fifties, while peering through early electron microscopes at samples taken from chickens suffering from infectious bronchitis. The coronaviruss RNA, its genetic code, is swathed in three different kinds of proteins, one of which decorates the viruss surface with mushroom-like spikes, giving the virus the eponymous appearance of a crown. Scientists found other coronaviruses that caused disease in pigs and cows, and then, in the mid-nineteen-sixties, two more that caused a common cold in people. (Later, widespread screening identified two more human coronaviruses, responsible for colds.) These four common-cold viruses might have come, long ago, from animals, but they are now entirely human viruses, responsible for fifteen to thirty per cent of the seasonal colds in a given year. We are their natural reservoir, just as bats are the natural reservoir for hundreds of other coronaviruses. But, since they did not seem to cause severe disease, they were mostly ignored. In 2003, a conference for nidovirales (the taxonomic order under which coronaviruses fall) was nearly cancelled, due to lack of interest. Then SARS emerged, leaping from bats to civets to people.The conference sold out.

SARS is closely related to the new virus we currently face. Whereas common-cold coronaviruses tend to infect only the upper respiratory tract (mainly the nose and throat), making them highly contagious, SARS primarily infects the lower respiratory system (the lungs), and therefore causes a much more lethal disease, with a fatality rate of approximately ten per cent. (MERS, which emerged in Saudi Arabia, in 2012, and was transmitted from bats to camels to people, also caused severe disease in the lower respiratory system, with a thirty-seven per cent fatality rate.) SARS-CoV-2 behaves like a monstrous mutant hybrid of all the human coronaviruses that came before it. It can infect and replicate throughout our airways. Thats why it is so bad, Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology who has been studying coronaviruses for more than three decades, told me. It has the lower-respiratory severity of SARS and MERS coronaviruses, and the transmissibility of cold coronaviruses.

One reason that SARS-CoV-2 may be so versatile, and therefore so successful, has to do with its particular talent for binding and fusing with lung cells. All coronaviruses use their spike proteins to gain entry to human cells, through a complex, multistep process. First, if one imagines the spikes mushroom shape, the cap acts like a molecular key, fitting into our cells locks. Scientists call these locks receptors. In SARS-CoV-2, the cap binds perfectly to a receptor called the ACE-2, which can be found in various parts of the human body, including the lungs and kidney cells. Coronaviruses attack the respiratory system because their ACE-2 receptors are so accessible to the outside world. The virus just hops in, Perlman told me, whereas its not easy to get to the kidney.

While the first SARS virus attached to the ACE-2 receptor, as well, SARS-CoV-2 binds to it ten times more efficiently, Kizzmekia Corbett, the scientific lead of the coronavirus program at the National Institutes of Health Vaccine Research Center, told me. The binding is tighter, which could potentially mean that the beginning of the infection process is just more efficient. SARS-CoV-2 also seems to have a unique ability, which SARS and MERS did not have, to use enzymes from our human tissueincluding one, widely available in our bodies, named furinto sever the spike proteins cap from its stem. Only then can the stem fuse the virus membrane and the human-cell membrane together, allowing the virus to spit its RNA into the cell. According to Lisa Gralinski, an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this supercharged ability to bind to the ACE-2 receptor, and to use human enzymes to activate fusion, could aid a lot in the transmissibility of this new virus and in seeding infections at a higher level.

Once a coronavirus enters a personlodging itself in the upper respiratory system and hijacking the cells hardwareit rapidly replicates. When most RNA viruses replicate themselves in a host, the process is quick and dirty, as they have no proofreading mechanism. This can lead to frequent and random mutations. But the vast majority of those mutations just kill the virus immediately, Andersen told me. Unlike other RNA viruses, however, coronaviruses do have some capacity to check for errors when they replicate. They have an enzyme that actually corrects mistakes, Denison told me.

It was Denisons lab at Vanderbilt that first confirmed, in experiments on live viruses, the existence of this enzyme, which makes coronaviruses, in a sense, cunning mutators. The viruses can remain stable in a host when there is no selective pressure to change, but rapidly evolve when necessary. Each time they leap into a new species, for example, they are able to hastily transform in order to survive in the new environment, with its new physiology and a new immune system to battle. Once the virus is spreading easily within a species, though, its attitude is, Im happy, Im good, no need to change, Denison said. That seems to be playing out now in humans; as SARS-CoV-2 circles the globe, there are slight variations among its strains, but none of them seem to affect the viruss behavior. This is not a virus that is rapidly adapting. Its like the best car in the Indy 500. Its out in front and there is no obstacle in its path. So there is no benefit to changing that car.

Read this article:

From Bats to Human Lungs, the Evolution of a Coronavirus - The New Yorker

Merion West is an online news source that dubs itself a journal where all perspectives are welcome. They tout the fact that they have been rated by Media Bias/Fact Check as a Least Biased source.

Generally, their articles seem to have deeper analysis than you will find in much of the mainstream media. For example, recent headlines include, The Fraught Relationship Between Religion and Epidemiology, The Critics of Social Justice, from Jonah Goldberg to Jordan Peterson, and Hannah Arendts Concept of Impotent Bigness. They regularly interview newsmakers, and authors often include professors in relevant fields and others well qualified to comment.

Articles are explicitly labeled by viewpoint: left, center, or right. This makes for interesting reading. To date, I havent seen much about evolution and intelligent design on the site, but there is a recent article entitled When We Oversimplify Darwin. I was curious to see what Merion West would say. The article is labeled as representing a View from the Center.

It is too concerned with trying to make peace between all sides. Interestingly, the author, artist Chris Augusta, acknowledges that there is scientific debate over evolutionary theory. Thats a plus. The article links to last years Hoover Institution-sponsored discussion Mathematical Challenges to Darwins Theory of Evolution among Stephen Meyer, David Gelernter, and David Berlinski, led by Peter Robinson, and to a Socrates in the City conversation between Dr. Meyer and Eric Metaxas.

Augusta argues that Darwin was confused about the nature of reality and didnt come to firm conclusions regarding the existence of a designer or a central role for chance. Augusta, whose website includes some weird and spooky Art of Evolution, advocates for paradoxical reality:

Charles Darwin, that greatest of empiricists, bears witness to the raw spectacle of paradoxical nature. He sees clearly manifestations ofdesign,and he sees clearly manifestations ofchance. Reading Darwins letters to Asa Gray reveals a man transfixed by the blinding spectacle of contrary forces. Darwin is a deer in the headlights: He cant move forward; he cant move backward.

I find this conclusion absurd. Darwin clearly derived from his theory a materialistic view of the world. He wrote in his Autobiography, There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws. For Darwin, this had sinister implications. In a poignant Evolution News article, science historian Michael Flannery noted, Writing to William Graham (1839-1911) on July 3, 1881, Darwin saw the march of human progress in blatantly racist terms. Civilization would advance even at the cost of inevitable racial extermination. Darwin wrote:

Lastly I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilisation than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risks the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is. The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world.

We may dispute what Darwin felt or thought in the privacy of his study but the bulk of his writings fall clearly into advocating for one perspective: naturalism. Why else would atheist Daniel Dennett have written that Darwinism was a universal acid that eats through just about every traditional concept? Dennett was not wrong. That does not sound too paradoxical to me.

Augusta says poets too grapple with this paradoxical reality and then goes on to liken science to poetry. He offers comfort to those who, unlike Darwin and poets, are intimidated by paradox but gently points out that our insistence on resolving these paradoxes through Christianity or militant atheism la Percy Shelley is childlike. Pardon me, Augusta, I think I might vomit.

Needless to say, poetry is very different from science. It operates by entirely different rules. We dont let poets (or artists) make rules for us; I dont think they were consulted about how to respond to the coronavirus. Poets and artists dont have that kind of power, and its probably a good thing.

As part of his closing, Augusta notes that the universe is better described as creative than created. Really? Actually, lets take a look at that whole paragraph:

This materialistic Darwinism has dominated for more than a century-and-a-half, but its own explanatory power may be waning. Proponents of Intelligent Design insist that the very complexity of life cannot be explained by essentially random mechanistic processes. But Intelligent Design is perhaps a poor choice of words that tends to shift attention away from the thing (or event) observed to some pre-existing designer. You do not have to introduce the notion of an Intelligent Designer to acknowledge the existence of order and pattern in nature. The universe may be apprehended, as it was by Albert Einstein among many others, as embodyingintelligenceinsofar as the human mind can apprehend order and harmony. For Einstein, doing science was nothing less than an attempt to understand this intelligence. Sticking to what we actually experience, the universe is better described ascreativerather thancreated.

I am at a loss. In what way is the universe creative? To be sure, materialists have mounted strained defenses against the evidence of cosmic design. But the multiverse hypothesis is bankrupt truly a fantasy. String theory is a delusional apparition. Stephen Meyers forthcoming The Return of the God Hypothesis makes these things clear.

Augusta seeks to encourage tolerance and agreement. What he has written, though, is a mess. Im baffled to see that Merion West thinks this is centrist.

Photo credit: JJ YingviaUnsplash.

Read more:

An Artist Examines Evolution - Discovery Institute

As molecular biologist Douglas Axe recalls, the Greek philosopher Gorgias (born about 483 BC) spent a lifetime pondering the nature of existence. At last he arrived at a firm conclusion: Nothing exists. In a presentation at the 2020 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, Dr. Axe used Gorgias to illustrate his point that expertise does not necessarily drive you in the right direction. Sometimes it does the exact opposite. How could that be? Watch now and find out:

The controversy about Darwinian evolution is often framed as a matter of credentials. We must listen to the experts! Please precious experts, tell us what to think!

When Dr. Axe was planning his book, Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed, he considered doing as other scientists have done: distill a lot of technical literature down for a lay audience. But he ultimately decided that that was to play into the hands of those atheists and materialists he was arguing against. They would simply tell his lay readers that the readers were in no position to judge even an ultimate question like this the origins of life and must instead docilely confirm the majority or consensus view of people holding PhDs in the correct fields. As Axe says here, I firmly believe you dont need a PhD to decide whether we are cosmic accidents or not.

Axe tells some of his own personal story, which I did not know. As a high school student he dissected frogs in biology class and found that uninspiring. It wasnt until college at U.C. Berkley and grad school at Caltech that he came to appreciate the wonders of life at the molecular level. He realized, This is engineering, remarkable engineering, far beyond anything humans can do.

But he explains why, even without his background as a professional scientist, we all already know what we need to know to decide whether life reflects intelligent purpose. This is an affirming and liberating message.

Looking for more great content in contrast to all the negativity everywhere else in the media and online? We have been releasing videos from Discovery Institutes January event in Dallas. Come back next Wednesday for Stephen Meyer on The Return of the God Hypothesis.

Read the original:

Evolution and the Experts A Liberating Message from Molecular Biologist Doug Axe - Discovery Institute

Personal and social hygiene awareness has increased exponentially, with a growing scepticism of what and what is not clean.

Whether we are at our workplace, attending leisure facilities or travelling for business or pleasure, we all now have a heightened awareness of how we interact and will now expect and demand a higher level of service from providers that takes cognisance of the perceived risks as a result of this. Put simply, COVID19 will change the way we work, how we live and how and where we travel.

Image credit: Room to Breathe

Few markets have felt the full force of this pandemic more than the hospitality sector. It has decimated trade, scattered the labour force and threatened the very existence of the supply chain. Travellers, holiday makers and businesspeople alike will now become even more difficult to satisfy and will seek to be given as much reassurance as possible.

A single night stay becomes your biggest issue as each and every night your new customer requires that peace of mind that your room is as safe as possible for them to stay in. Failure to address these new concerns could result in the long-term repeat visitor more likely to go somewhere else next time.

By taking steps to show your commitment to your customers health and wellbeing is now, more than ever, of paramount importance.

Image credit: Room to Breathe

Capturing this feeling of assured safety every time must be seen as the focal point for Customer Satisfaction.

What can be done?

So what can the hospitality sector do to insulate itself from the aftershock of COVID19 and prepare for the inevitable increase in customer demands? What can be done to provide that peace of mind that is desired?

Is carrying out the same cleaning protocols more frequently by an already stretched housekeeping department going to provide the reassurance required? In a word, no.

By taking steps to show your commitment to your customers health and wellbeing is now, more than ever, of paramount importance.

Image credit: Room to Breathe

A cleaner solution

A new approach to a new problem must be the way forward. It needs to address the worries and concerns of your customers but must, just as importantly, be cost effective. Imagine the cost of a deep clean between every guest. This is neither practical nor affordable.

This is where Room to Breathe comes into its own. By providing a room that can demonstrate continuous and permanent self-cleaning provision, you can provide customers with an unrivalled level of service and commitment to their needs and concerns.

Room to Breathe also kills 99.99 per cent of viruses and bacteria, including coronaviruses.

Originally developed to provide safe, clean accommodation for the millions of travellers who have a hypersensitivity to various toxins, pathogens and allergens, Room to Breathe also kills 99.99 per cent of viruses and bacteria, including coronaviruses (incl. influenza, SARS, MERS).

Step One deep clean

An initial industrial air purge followed by a combination of steam cleaning above 40, ultra-low-penetration air (UPLA) vacuuming and the application of our unique decontamination fluid which is deadly to pathogens (but is safe to all higher living organisms) is fogged into the area ensuring every surface coated.

Additionally, by using innovative UV technology we can rid mattresses, pillows and soft furnishings of undesirable micro-organisms within seconds.

Image credit: Room to Breathe

Step Two Anti-microbial coating

Once the area has been decontaminated, our antimicrobial coating BioTouch, will be is applied. The BioTouch formula bonds to a clean surface and when viruses and bacteria land on the protected surface, the cellular structure is ruptured (not poisoned) and becomes defunct.

The only way BioTouch can be removed is by it being chipped off. Where there is a risk of this, on door handles, light switches for example, we can easily reapply to maintain the coatings efficiency.

Step three Bedding and soft furnishings

Using our own unique formula, Protextsolution provides a layer of invisible protection which permanently interrupts the life cycle of dust mites and bed bugs.

Our method avoids the use of toxins so whilst lethal to bugs and mites does not pose a risk to the client.This is also applied to all fabrics and soft furnishings.

Step Four continuous air sanification.

Installing filterless air sanifiers provides the final level of protection. Using technology originally developed by NASA, our sanifiers seek out contaminants and pathogens within the air and on surfaces and neutralise them.

By applying this four step process, we not only eradicate 99.99 per cent of viruses and bacteria, we also provide a continuous level of protection in between our Deep Clean processes.

Certification

On completion certification is provided and displayed either outside or within the room to provide that peace of mind to Customers and employees alike.

A Room Information Pack is provided for guests to simply explain the RTB system, providing that peace of mind. In order to maintain the certification, Steps One and Two are carried out every four months in accordance with our terms and conditions.

On-site training is also provided to Housekeeping staff in order to ensure the efficacy of the RTB system is maintained. This is no more onerous to staff and in fact will simplify their cleaning protocols.

Cost

Based on an occupancy of 72 per cent, our cost model demonstrates that a ROI of 100 per centcan be achieved in the first year with a surcharge of just 15 per night per room.

We truly believe Room to Breathe is the next step in the evolution of the hospitality market. Our processes not only provide protection from unseen pathogens but are also proven to improve cognitive function, enable better quality of sleep and promote overall wellbeing.

So whether you are wanting ensure the highest level of protection for your customers or are looking to capture the untapped market for those travellers with intolerances or allergies then Room to Breathe could well be the answer.

Room to Breathe is one of our recommended suppliers. To keep up to date with their news, click here. And, if you are interested in becoming one of our recommended suppliers, please email Katy Phillips byclicking here.

Main image credit: Room to Breathe

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FEATURE: COVID19 pandemic is forcing an evolution in wellness Hotel Designs - Hotel Designs

On average, women live six to eight years longer than men. At least if they are treated well. But we have known that for quite some time.

What we didn't know until now is that the same is true for many wild animals. This is the conclusion reached by an international team of researchers, including Biologists from the University of Bath, who investigated the lifespans of 101 different animal species. The studywas published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In the animal kingdom, the difference in life expectancy among males and females is even greater than in humans. For 60% of the animal species studied, females live on average 18% longer than their male conspecifics. The difference between men and women is nearly 8%.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO),this is because women have a biological advantage over men when it comes to health and thus life expectancy.

X-chromosome, estrogen and premature death

Women have two X chromosomes, while men have only one (they have a Y chromosome instead).

On the X chromosomes some immune-relevant genes are encoded. Among them are genes that recognise certain pathogens and can thus set the corresponding immune response in motion. The hormone estrogen, which women naturally have more of than men, also has a protective function.

Scientists suspect that biology holds its protective hand in a very similar way over the female animal world.

No risk, no fun, he said

These biological advantages might seem like blatant injustice, but they are not the only reason why women live longer. According to the WHO, this is also due to the fact that women tend to be less willing to take risks.

In other words, women generally smoke and drink less and come up with stupid ideas less often. As I said less often.

Read more:Psychology: A happy partner is the elixir of longer life

Although the shorter lifespan of male animals cannot be explained by excessive tobacco and alcohol consumption, scientists suspect sex-specific behavior as one of the reasons.

The researchers found that female lions live at least twice as long as males. "Female lions live together in a pack in which sisters, mothers and daughters hunt together and care for each other. Adult male lions, on the other hand, often live alone or with their brothers and therefore do not have the same support network," says one of the study's authors, Tams Szkely from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath.

Longer life behind bars?

The researchers also suspect that it is beneficial to female longevity if the male shows himself to be the most committed father possible. This could make up for the health costs associated with birth and raising the offspring.

Since much is still speculation, more data is needed to establish the real reasons for the difference in life expectancy.

The next step will be to examine the lifespans of animals living in captivity in order to compare it with that of their wild counterparts.

It remains to be seen whether all-inclusive care means that zoo animals live longer or whether the boredom of captivity is more likely to make them depressed and kill them prematurely.

Read more:Insects are dying and nobody knows how fast

The sword-billed hummingbirds beak is longer than its body. It has the longest beak of all known hummingbird species. And it needs it! One of the bird's main sources of food is nectar, which it drinks from very long, slender hanging flower crowns. With its beak wide open, it can also catch insects.

Two star-like shapes on its snout make the star-nosed mole a very well-equipped hunter. The appendages around its nostrils a total of 22 fleshy tentacles are sensory organs. With these it can examine 13 potential prey animals per second. We can't even look that fast!

An egg-laying mammal with a beavers tail and a ducks beak. What sounds like a fantasy creature actually exists in Australia. The platypus boasts a large, flexible beak with a leather-like surface. A built-in snorkel is also included: its nostrils are on top. This allows the animal to dive underwater and breathe at the same time.

Don't worry, as scary as it may appear, this vampire is vegetarian. The tufted deer prefers to graze at dusk. If it senses danger, it does something unusual: it barks. Deer do this to warn each other. While fleeing, they erect their white tail an escape-signal among tufted deer.

This bird may look like a character from a comic, but the shoebill actually walks among us in the swamps of central tropical Africa. It often stands motionless in the water and looks downward. When it detects prey, it strikes at lightning speed. With the hook at the top of its beak, it grabs its prey. Even large lungfishes are swallowed up whole.

With a body length of up to 10 meters, the basking shark is the second-largest fish in the world, after the whale shark. Despite its monstrous size, it's anything but bloodthirsty; basking sharks eat just one thing: plankton. They swim with their mouths wide open to catch and filter food. Water that enters its mouth with the plankton is filtered out through its gills 1800 tons of water per hour.

Gavials live in Southeast Asia. In contrast to the crocodile, gavials don't eat zebras or deer, but fish. Its snout is therefore long, narrow and home to very many teeth. Perfect for catching fish!

The sucking trunk of the hummingbird hawk-moth is not only very long, it's also extremely precise. The butterfly can suck nectar from up to 100 flowers per minute. While doing so, the moth hovers in front of the flower. With its long trunk, the hummingbird hawk-moth can also reach the nectar of flowers with particularly long calyxes out of reach for others.

The spoonbill is equipped with the perfect tool. No matter fish, frog or other water-dweller, nothing escapes this beak. In searching for food. the spoonbill usually goes into shallow water. However, sometimes it also wanders the coast. In the mud flats, it swings its head back and forth, filtering food from the shallow water.

Dugongs feed on seaweed. They prefer the part of the plants that lay underground. And they have developed a special technique for this: this manatee can dig. It digs out the plant with its upper lip, then the roots are pulled out of the ground. It shakes off the dirt and then sucks the plant into its mouth.

Author: Liyang Zhao

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Evolution: Why females live longer | Science| In-depth reporting on science and technology - DW (English)

Janet BurnsMarch 30, 2020

Cannabis and humans co-evolved over thousands of years, each helping the other thrive and expand across the planet. (Jesse Milns/Leafly)

For humans,like most species, surviving life on Earth isnt exactly easy. But thankfully were not in it alone.

For tens of thousands of years, Homo sapiens has been developing mutually beneficial relationships with other species, from dogs and cats to bacteria and breadfruit. These interactions have allowed our different life forms to evolve and flourish together. These relationships are examples ofmutualistic coevolution, which happens when multiple species beneficially affect each others progress over time.

Theyre also a key part of what Dr. Sunil K. Aggarwal calls humankinds evolutionary garden. Aggarwal is a physician, medical geographer, and co-founder of the Advanced Integrative Medical Science (AIMS) Institute in Seattle. In 2013, he published one of the foundational articles on the subject, Tis in our nature: taking the human-cannabis relationship seriously in health science and public policy, in the medical journalFrontiers in Psychiatry.

The garden he describes is acollection of plants, fungi, and animal secretions that people have cultivated since prehistory, and carried around the world, because of their usefulness for human health and survival, whether as food, medicine, clothing, or other vital supplies.

Most are still embraced today, from honey and grains to caffeine and aspirin. In the past century, however, some cultures have decided its a good idea to cordon off certain areas of that garden, despite a long evolutionary historyand current scientific datasuggesting otherwise.

These blacklisted species include plants and fungi that humans have carefully administered for millennia to treat some of our worst sicknesses and pain, of both body and mind: distilled opium plants for physical agony, for example, or psilocybin tea for processing some of lifes most difficult moments.

Many are powerful, and can even be dangerous (in classic or modern forms) without supervision and guidance. Some have multiple uses, but never caught on in certain cultures.

According to Aggarwal, however, and to a growing number of experts on history and biology, one forbidden species stands out as our biggest loss, and for likely being the single most useful plant that humans have ever gotten to knowand which may even have helped us become more human.

That plant, of course, is cannabis.

Current research indicates that humans have been cultivating cannabis for tens of thousands of years, but aspects of our biology suggest that the relationship reaches back much further.

As a medical geographer, Aggarwal has studied the path of numerous natural medicines in different cultures and around the globe, based on anthropological and archaeological evidence.

Cannabis is one of the oldest medicines on record, he says. Its been evolving across the planet for tens of millions of years, stemming from its sturdy ancestors in Central Asia. In fact, early cannabis seems to trace back to when the worlds tallest mountain range, the Himalayas, were forming.

Sixty million years ago, those mountains were formed by the Indian subcontinent hitting the Asian plate, Aggarwal explained in a phone interview. All life there had to adapt or die.

It created a unique opportunity for this ancestral plant, which appeared 40 to 50 million years ago, to become very active in production, he said. There was less oxygen, and increased UV radiation, so the plant had to develop quite a bit of hardiness.

In the millions of years since, cannabis has shown a remarkable ability to survive in a wide variety of climates, from scrub-like Cannabis ruderalis to bush-like Cannabis indica and tall-growing Cannabis sativa and their hybrids, which produce most of our cannabis flower and low-THC hemp today.

Cannabis also appears to have been chemically compatible with the brains of animals, including humans, for much of that time.

In response to its new, harsher environs near the Himalayas, Aggarwal said, the plant seemingly began to produce a wide range of terpenes and cannabinoid chemicals, which the human bodywith its balance-keeping endocannabinoid system, which relies on cannabinoid neuroreceptors throughout the body, and can be found in all vertebrate speciesis especially suited to process.

The endocannabinoid system is key to our overall health and wellness because it has a crucial role in homeostasis, the regulation of our major biological functions. Our bodies are constantly working to maintain a narrow operative balance, and cannabinoid compounds can trigger the endocannabinoid system to regain this important equilibrium throughout the body as needed.

Despite their name, cannabinoid chemicals arent unique to cannabis. The compound type CBG, from which all phytocannabinoid compounds are derived, is found in many other plants, like echinacea, turmeric, and kava, to name a few.

But cannabis robustly produces tons of them, Aggarwal said. As a result, people living near the Tibetan Plateau domesticated the plant early on and found a great number of uses. That includes the neurological side, which is very interesting, as well as good old nutrition, and fibers for cordage.

It affects our neurological circuits and has a very important role in protecting the brain from injury, and promoting feelings of relaxation, Aggarwal added. Physical and psychological trauma can disturb the brain, and sub-optimize it. The endocannabinoid system, and phytocannabinoids if need be, can set the brain on the path toward regeneration.

In short, Aggarwal said, this cannabis ancestor happened to make these compounds that bind to receptors in the human system which tap into an even older evolutionarily evolved biological system, which goes back 600 million years: a magnitude older in terms of stages of the formation of life.

Specifically, those receptor typesknown as CB1 and CB2 todaytrace back to when multicellular organisms were becoming multicellular and were trying to figure out how to send communication and modulate action.

In biogenetic mapping, when you look at different species and map how old they are, you find cannabinoid receptors going back, and through today. In Homo sapiens, its a really integrated system for cell communication.

On the cellular level, cannabinoids are also particularly useful for their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, throughout the body as well as the brain. These aspects help the body to maintain optimal performance across its systems from the intercellular level on up, like other natural supplements that ease the way for the body to do its job.

In terms of their antioxidant properties and neuroprotective properties, cannabinoids are certainly not the only game in town, Aggarwal said. But theyre pretty high up there.

Aside from archaeological and biological evidence, humankinds relationship with cannabis has been documented for thousands of years in printed language, and in oral histories that reach back even further.

As Aggarwal wrote in 2013, Cannabiss very name belies its longstanding relationship with humanity, as it was pragmatically given the species name Sativa in 1542 by German physician-botanist Leonhart Fuchs, meaning cultivated or useful in Latin.

Researcher Rob Clarke, whos written or co-authored numerous texts on cannabis history and biology, told Leafly that, simply put, cannabis seems to be one of the most useful plant that humans have ever come across. Plenty of plants are used for one purpose, and I can name a number of plants that are used for two purposes, he said. But I cant think of another one thats used for three.

For example, Palms provide us with food, and with fibers for clothing or shelter; bamboo is the same, he said. Other members of the garden provide us with both food and drugs, such as numerous fruits, roots, and grains that people have long eaten but also fermented into alcohol,like cannabis evolutionary cousin hops.

But cannabis has all three, Clarke said: Food, fiber, and drugs. Meaning that, from just one kind of crop, humans can get an important source of protein, fiber for building and crafting, and medical or cultural tools for our minds and bodies.

On a biological level, stimulating our endocannabinoid system is one part of the bodys toolkit for social navigation and balance. Psychological research has shown, in fact, that when you boost the bodys endocannabinoid system, people feel the emotional impacts of rejection less, Aggarwal said. Acetaminophen can do that, too. Its like a pinball game.

Martin Lee, co-founder and director of Project CBD and the author of several books on cannabis, explained in an interview with Leafly that plants, like humans, have ways of dealing with stressors, and expressing that stress physically. Cannabis plants do it through chemical signals, odors, things like that, said Lee. Plants under stressif theyre being eaten by insects or whateverhave evolved to communicate with their environment to deal with those stressors.

They might have a smell that attracts a predator of the thing attacking the plant, or that will keep potential predators away. And it so happens that these same smells, the same molecules that [cannabis] uses to deal with stress, are very helpful to the human brain in dealing with stress.

In fact, this part of the human-cannabis relationship may explain a lot about the plants history and status in the US, and in other Euro-colonized zones around the world, according to Aggarwal and his peers.

By the early 1600s, the British empire and others in Europe were all on board for hemp as a valuable industrial commodity. In the ensuing centuries, they and their colonies would increasingly embrace cannabis medicine, too (leading to Eli Lillys early 20th-century cannabis tonics, for example, and the U.S. governments late 20th-century patents on cannabis as an anti-oxidant and neuroprotectantbut hang onto that thought for now).

During the same timeframe, the European slave trade was booming, with hemp among the top crops that millions of trafficked and enslaved people of African, Central and South American, and North American Indigenous origin were being forced to grow. In the 1600s, Aggarwal said, cannabis as a cultural and spiritual drug probably first appeared in what is now the US among these enslaved populations.

By the 1920s, the socially and emotionally helpful plant had been included in any number of reputable Western pharmacopeia, and was arriving state-side in refrigerated bargeshence the name reefer, Aggarwal said, becoming an integral part of the fabric of the US jazz scene.By that time, however, most US states and municipalities had also chosen to outlaw the plant despite its medical history here. In 1930, the US deemed the plant federally illegal.

In decades since, however, its continued to offer social relief to many of our countrys most oppressed and weighed-upon populations, Aggarwal said. Other researchers have said it also provided some of our most exploited groups with a budding source of financial independence, which may tie directly to todays underground market.

It even seems possible that cannabis particularly helped kickstart our evolution toward being the big-brained, culture-prone critical thinkers we are today. This could have occurred for practical, nutritional, or psychoactive reasons, or (like the plant itself) as a mixture.

In terms of humans neurological development and nutrition, Lee explained, Agriculture is really a turning point as the beginning of hoarding and carbohydrate farming, which was different from earlier diets. He continued, Its possible that cannabis is the first agricultural plant, and its certainly one of the very, very early ones. And cannabis is unique because its so versatile.

Today, Lee noted, humans are finding all kinds of new ways to use it (whether in food, medicine, industrial or artisanal fabrics, hempcrete, fuel, or many other forms), as well as better ways to appreciate its psychoactive effects. But as obvious as its usefulness in human lives and history may be, theres one thing we may never know about cannabis: how the first humans got high.

We can only speculate how people first discovered cannabis psychoactive aspects, Lee reflected. Its hard to imagine it would have come through eating it but, for various reasons, you can imagine they inhaled smoke accidentally.

Janet Burns is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn who finds drugs, tech, labor, and culture extremely interesting, among other things. She also hosts the cannabis news and conversation podcast The Toke.

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How cannabis and humans evolved together - Leafly

BUFFALO, N. Y. A study published in Science Advances on April 1 reveals a new hypothesis that may explain why European cave bears went extinct during past climate change periods. The research was motivated by controversy in the scientific literature as to what the animal (Ursus spelaeus) ate and how that affected their demise.

The new hypothesis emerged, in part, from computational analysis and computer biting simulations conducted in the laboratory of Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo.

Tseng is a co-author on the paper with corresponding authors Borja Figueirido, PhD, and Alejandro Prez-Ramos, PhD, first author, both of the Departamento de Ecologia y Geologia of the Universidad de Malaga, Spain.

Dietary dilemma

Cave bears were a species of bear (Ursus spelaeus) that lived in Europe and Asia that went extinct about 24,000 years ago. According to Figueirido, researchers have proposed different diets for cave bears, ranging from pure herbivory to carnivory or even scavenging.

Knowing the feeding behaviour of the cave bear is not a trivial aspect, he said. Feeding behaviour is intimately related to its decline and extinction.

He noted that two main hypotheses, not necessarily exclusive, have been proposed to explain cave bear extinction: a human-driven decline, either by competition for resources or by direct hunting; or a substantial demise in population sizes as a result of the climatic cooling that occurred during the late Pleistocene which caused vegetation to wane.

Previous research shows that cave bears were primarily herbivorous at least from 100,000 to 20,000 years ago. But even during the cooling periods, when vegetation productivity waned, these bears didnt change their diets. The researchers propose that this dietary inflexibility, combined with competition for cave shelters by humans, is what led to their extinction.

To find out if there were biomechanical explanations behind their inflexible diets, meaning that the bears werent physically capable of adjusting their diets effectively during times of limited vegetation resources, the researchers analyzed three-dimensional computer simulations of different feeding scenarios.

Critical sinuses

They were especially interested in the sinuses of the bears because large paranasal sinuses allow for greater metabolic control, critical to survival during hibernation.

Our study proposes that climate cooling probably forced the selection of highly developed sinuses, which in turn led to the appearance of the characteristic domed skull of the cave bear lineage, said Alejandro Prez-Ramos.

Tseng explained that when the sinus system expands, the act of chewing may cause more or less strain on the skull. In both humans and bears, the sinus system lightens the weight of the face, reducing the amount of bone tissue needed to grow the skull.

Mechanically speaking, being thickheaded may not be a bad thing because more bone means more structural strength, he said. However, our findings support the interpretation that requirements for sinus system function in cave bears necessitated a trade-off between sinus development and skull strength.

Tseng and Prez-Ramos, who spent three months at UB to learn the procedure, used a biomechanical simulation methodology to estimate the biting stresses and strains in different bear species and different models of them. The bear skull specimens used were from several European institutions, where CT scans had been done on them, as well as the scientific CT repository, also known as the digital morphology library, at the University of Texas at Austin.

They found that the development of paranasal sinuses in cave bears caused the cranial dome to expand upward and backward from the forehead, changing the geometry of the bears skull.

This geometrical change generated a mechanically suboptimal cranial shape, with a very low efficiency to dissipate the stress along the skull, particularly when biting with the canines or carnassials, the teeth most often used by predatory mammals, saidPrez-Ramos.

When the sinus system expands, Tseng explained, it results in bone reduction relative to the size of the skulland therefore less structural support to resist the physical forces that chewing generates. Although other mammals with expanded sinuses, such as hyenas, appear to have evolutionarily modified their skull shape to effectively deal with decreased structural support, cave bear skulls showed compromised biomechanical capability compared to living bear species.

Through the use of new techniques and virtual methods, such as biomechanical simulations across each tooth and the comparative internal anatomical study of the paranasal sinuses, we propose that large sinuses were probably selected in cave bears in order to be able to hibernate for longer periods with very low metabolic costs, said Prez-Ramos.

Ultimately, though, that trade-off may have resulted in the extinction of the species, a finding that also has relevance to humans, Tseng said.

Being able to stay alive during the coldest periods would have been equally important to human and bear alike, he said. The success or demise of prehistoric megafauna, such as cave bears, provide crucial clues as to how humans may have out-competed and out-survived other large mammals during a critical time for the evolution of our own species.

Funding for this project was provided by theSpanish Ministryof Economy and Competitivenessgrants CGL2012-37866,CGL2015-68300P, andBES-2013-065469. The Computational Cell Biology, Anatomy, and Pathology GraduateProgram in the Jacobs School provided logistical support for Alejandro Prez-Ramos residence in Tsengs laboratory.

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Evolutionary adaptation helped cave bears hibernate, but also may have caused their extinction - UB News Center