Evolution of Panthers won't be noticeable until ball is in the back of the end zone Charlotte Observer What they did in free agency and the draft, for the offense, could probably be qualified more as progressive tweaks than a complete offensive evolution. It's the same playbook, but based on personnel like rookie running back/receiver Christian ... |
Visit link:
August 1, 2017 by Jan Hoole Credit: Pixabay
Evolution doesn't have to take millions of years. New research shows that a type of lizard living on man-made islands in Brazil has developed a larger head than its mainland cousins in a period of only 15 years.
The group of insect-eating geckos from the species Gymnodactylus amarali was isolated from the rest of the population when areas of the countryside were flooded to provide hydro-electric power. This caused the extinction of some larger species of lizards on the new islands, leaving the geckos to eat insects that would normally have been mopped up by the bigger species. As a result, the geckos have evolved bigger mouths, and so bigger heads, that enable them to eat their larger prey more easily.
We've actually seen rapid evolution like this before, but usually in response to a natural disaster such as drought or climate change. What's different about the geckos is that they've evolved in direct response to an environmental change enacted by humans, demonstrating just how much impact we can have on the natural world.
The gecko study, published in PNAS, gives us an interesting demonstration of how evolution works, not just because the change has happened within our lifetimes. Those geckos among the original colony that had larger heads (and mouths) could eat a wider range of prey and so had more energy to put into survival and reproduction. As a result, they had more children and their genes for larger heads spread to a greater proportion of the next generation. This continued until larger heads had become a common feature of the group.
But why just those with bigger heads? Why didn't geckos whose whole bodies were bigger receive the same evolutionary advantage? Well larger bodies take more energy to maintain, so those individuals would lose the advantage that they gain by eating more food.
One of the most interesting things about this research is that the geckos on all five of the islands studied have evolved larger heads, even though they were isolated from each other. This suggests that increasing head size without increasing body size is the most efficient way to take advantage of the opportunity to eat a more varied diet than is normal for this species.
This kind of rapid evolution has been seen before, including among the finches of the Galapagos Islands that helped Charles Darwin formulate his theory of natural selection in the first place. One of these finches species reduced the average size of its bill in a period of just 22 years when a competitor with a larger bill colonised the island.
The larger species ate all the larger seeds with tough shells, a large bill that still couldn't compete became a disadvantage for the finches and so those birds with a smaller beak began to thrive. This is one of the fundamental principles of biology: if you don't need a particular structure you don't bother to grow it and save the energy instead.
A similar instance occurred in Florida when a lizard called the Cuban brown anole, which is much larger than the native green anole, colonised areas of Florida. The green anole promptly retreated up into the treetops and within 20 generations had evolved bigger, stickier foot pads, a helpful characteristic for the high life.
Human impact
Another example of rapid evolutionary change was found in Soay sheep on the island of Hirta in St Kilda off the coast of Scotland. After the residents of the island were evacuated in 1930, the sheep were allowed to run wild and, within 25 years, began to get smaller. The explanation put forward for this is that milder winters caused by climate change are allowing smaller lambs to survive, bringing down the average size of the whole population.
This suggests that we should expect to see many more examples of rapid evolution as the climate continues to change in response to greenhouse gas emissions. But the new study on geckos shows that localised human action can also interfere with the processes of evolution. Although the change in head and mouth size in the gecko seems benign, we should remember it came about because of the extinction of four other species of lizard in the area linked to the flooding. It's a timely reminder that climate change is not the only issue facing biodiversity and evolutionary processes.
Explore further: The world's largest canary
More information: Mariana Eloy de Amorim et al. Lizards on newly created islands independently and rapidly adapt in morphology and diet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1709080114
Biologists at Lund University, together with their colleagues from Portugal and the UK, have now proven that the endangered So Tom grosbeak is the world's largest canary 50 per cent larger than the runner-up.
Australian National University biologists have found the first evidence of mass extinction of Australian animals caused by a dramatic drop in global temperatures 35 million years ago.
Which came first, overall bigger brains or larger brain regions that control specialized behaviors? Neuroscientists have debated this question for decades, but a new Cornell University study settles the score.
Scientists working on islands in Florida have documented the rapid evolution of a native lizard speciesin as little as 15 yearsas a result of pressure from an invading lizard species, introduced from Cuba.
A team made up of several researchers from Australia and one from the U.S. has found that bent toed geckos living on the Australasia side of The Wallace Line are evolving to grow up to twice the size of those in Asia. In ...
The extremely complex geological history of New Guinea has allowed many of its animals and plants the chance to grow different enough to make a name for themselves. In the case of two newly described and unusually large gecko ...
Attaining independence from one's parents is an enduring theme in the lives of many organisms. Birds must fly the nest, just as mammals must wean off their mother's milk.
Evolution doesn't have to take millions of years. New research shows that a type of lizard living on man-made islands in Brazil has developed a larger head than its mainland cousins in a period of only 15 years.
Noise from motorboats changes the behaviour of cleaner fish and the species they help.
Honey bees that consistently fail to respond to obvious social cues share something fundamental with autistic humans, researchers report in a new study. Genes most closely associated with autism spectrum disorders in humans ...
The announcement by researchers in Portland, Oregon that they've successfully modified the genetic material of a human embryo took some people by surprise.
A new technique developed by scientists at the New York Genome Center (NYGC) represents an important step forward for single-cell RNA sequencing, an advancing field of genomics that provides detailed insights into individual ...
Adjust slider to filter visible comments by rank
Display comments: newest first
Since evolution is a reaction to changes in environment, man is no more "messing" with evolution than naturally-occuring weather changes or volcanic activity. Imbeciles and propagandists.
Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more
Read the original post:
Big-headed gecko shows human actions are messing with evolution - Phys.Org
It has been more than three years since The Fullbright Company's game Gone Home captivated audiences, swept game of the year awards and sparked a debate about what it means to be a video game.
This week the studio releases Tacoma, its second game, to an audience which, to some degree, still seems hung-up on that singular definition. Fortunately, Fullbright's Tacoma looks like it wont make that question any easier to answer.
As with Gone Home, the game is a narratively-driven experience powered by emotion, evolving relationships and a solid mystery.
Gone Home told the story of a daughter returning home to an empty family house and the threads of story she finds there as she explores its familiar rooms.Tacoma takes the audience to outer space.
The new game opens with technician Amy Ferrier docking at the lunar transfer station Tacoma. She's there to figure out what happened at the station to cause it to be evacuated. Her only company is a malfunctioning artificial intelligence named Odin and the augmented reality recordings of the six evacuated crew members time on the station.
Player's float through the station, untethered from gravity, searching for clues and signs of the AR recordings.
The recordings play back the audio of conversations, substituting the now absent crew members with ghostly, colorful apparitions going through the recorded motions of the crew. The playback can be paused, rewound, fast-forwarded and watched from any angle in the ship.
Detached from time or sequence, these snippets seem as adrift in time as you are adrift in space. It's up to the player to reassemble the pieces of time into something that makes sense and sort out what exactly happened.
As with Gone Home, dropping into a mysteriously emptied living space, Tacoma manages to deliver an ever so slight sense of creeping dread without ever having to scare the player or deliver anything overtly menacing. Instead, it creates a vacuum within which the players own doubts and fears can reside.
While the Fullbright team worked to expand upon the core conceits of the original game, co-founder Steve Gaynor explainsTacoma isn't really meant to be an evolution of Gone Home's style of play.
"If you think of Gone Home as a foundation, our direction isn't to make the foundation bigger, nor is it to have a foundation of a ranch house and then add a Victorian on top of it," he tells Rolling Stone. "We have a foundation and it has these constraints."
Nor is the game meant to really be an expansion of those original ideas, says Fullbright co-founder Karla Zimonja.
"We think of it as a layering," she says. "We made Gone Home as a foundational game for what we do. Then we thought, 'What can we add to this? What can we lay on top and what can we tweak?'"
Where Gone Home received some criticism for being so light on meaningful, direct interaction, Tacoma has moments that offer challenges more akin to traditional puzzles. It still, though, hinges entirely on unraveling a mystery.
Fans of Gone Home will likely find more to reflect on in the way Tacoma delivers its story than its gameplay.
Because the player is left to wander the space station and find snippets of interactions, it feels less like the sort of storytelling found in a novel and something closer to the sort of performance art found in immersive performances such asSleep No More. This unusual presentation pushes the use of narrative forward but doesn't really tinker too much with the non-storytelling elements of the game.
This way of presenting story seems a better fit with what mostly motivates Zimonja, Gaynor and team: examining relationships. That focus on relationships also lends itself to creations by Fullbright that tend to feature a more diverse cast of characters.
"We are interested in people and relationships with one another," Zimonja says, "and there are a lot of people out there to explore. So it's satisfying to us to try and branch out."
According to Gaynor, that diversity in cast also tends to make for better story.
"It is always the most interesting for us to explore a variety of perspective and character types, people of different sexual orientations, different class backgrounds," he says. "We want to look at how people from different perspectives all relate in the fictional world we are creating. I think that primarily comes from me and Karla, from a story team being interested in wanting to talk about more and different kinds of people."
The team doesn't start a game by casting it, despite the importance they place on that cast.
"It's, 'What is our universe? What is the story?' and then we populate that with characters that our interesting to us and relevant to the experience," Gaynor says.
The hope, he says, is that players will get to know these characters and care about them. "Our goal is to take someone who is not invested at all in the game and its story and by the time they have played for awhile they don't want to put it down," Gaynor says.
Perhaps the biggest difference between Gone Home and Tacoma is where the team was coming from during the development of the titles.
Gone Home was a small passion project created by a team of developers who wanted to make something more personal, more intimate than what makes up the bulk of video game sales. It came out of nowhere, winning over players and critics alike with its unusual approach to gameplay and storytelling. The same can't be said for Tacoma: All eyes are on this, Fullbright's second game, and the studio knows it.
"More people are paying attention before we launch, Gaynor explains. "There's more pressure. All of that pressure is there, for sure, but we feel good about the game."
That pressure hasn't changed the team's design philosophy, Gaynor adds, instead it has inspired the team to see how they can take the success of Gone Home and push that into new territory that they haven't explored before. "And then hopefully, execute the game in a way that players will be excited about."
Sign up for our newsletter to receive breaking news directly in your inbox.
See more here:
'Tacoma' Creators Talk Diversity, Evolution and 'Gone Home ... - RollingStone.com
PELLSTON Jordan Price, a University of Michigan Biological Station faculty member, will present a lecture about bird nest evolution at 7:30 p.m. today, Tuesday, Aug. 1, at the Gates Lecture Hall at the biological station near Pellston.
Perching birds of the order Passeriformes, such as warblers, sparrows, thrushes and finches, are considered by birders and ornithology enthusiasts as master nest-builders. Their abilities as nest architects are thought to have played an important role in how they evolved and diversified (through evolutionary radiation).
This group of birds originated in Australia, and they were so successful from an evolutionary standpoint that more than half of all bird species in the world are passerines. Their nests are likely an important factor in that success.
When analyzing nest evolution, biologists often assume that nest architecture became more complex over time, progressing from simple cup-shaped nests to more elaborate domed structures with roofs. But which came first? Thats the question Price will explore in his talk, The Surprising Evolution of Bird Nests.
Hell describe the evolutionary history of passerine nests, focusing on early Australian lineages and species found here in Michigan. In the process, hell explain what nest-building behavior can tell us about the evolution of bird behavior, in general.
Price is the Steven Muller Distinguished Professor of the Sciences at St. Marys College of Maryland and is the chair of the biology department. His research integrates techniques from behavioral ecology and molecular phylogenetics to investigate the evolutionary histories of animal traits, especially the behaviors, sounds, and color patterns of birds. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and bachelors degree from Queens University in Canada.
Price is the University of Michigan Biological Stations Hann Endowed lecturer for 2017.
The University of Michigan Biological Station entrance is located at the intersection of Riggsville Road and East Burt Lake Road. Follow the signs to parking near the Gates Lecture Hall. The event is free and open to the public. Staff ask that no pets be brought to the biological station, as they need to protect ongoing scientific research projects.
See more here:
Bio station lecture to focus on bird nest evolution - Petoskey News-Review
BMW has been selling the C Evolution electric moped in Europe since 2014 and its finally coming to the U.S., according to Motorcycle.com. Across the pond, you can get a short-range model that goes 62 miles on a charge or a long-range model that goes 99 miles. To suit American tastes and our sprawling landscape, only the long range C Evolution will be available in the States.
For starters, American availability of the BMW C Evolution will only be in California where its expected to be popular. Its a pilot program that will expand to the rest of the BMW Motorrad dealer network in the U.S. as interest in the electric scooter builds.
Pricing starts at $13,750 with options that include an anti-theft alarm for $395, a comfort seat for $145, and heated grips for $250. Its powered by the same battery modules as the BMW i3 subcompact EV. You can get a full charge from an 110-volt socket in 9.5 hours or use a fast charge 220-volt accessory cable to achieve a full charge in four hours.
The C Evolution in the U.S. will have a top speed of 80 miles per hour and will hustle from to 0-31 MPH in 2.8 seconds making it a great city conveyance. Standard features include ABS, reverse assist, torque control assist, and four ride modes: Road, Eco Pro, Dynamic, and Sail. The only color available for now is Ionic Silver Metallic / Electric Green. If youre worried about the battery, you get a five-year, 30,000-mile battery warranty.
There arent any specific dates in the press release saying when its coming but expect the C Evolution to start trickling into California dealers very soon. If youre in the golden state, keep an eye out for this nifty scooter.
Excerpt from:
BMW C Evolution Electric Scooter Is Coming to California - The Drive
Dr. Wayne Podrouzek works as an Instructor for the Psychology Department ofUniversity of the Fraser Valleyand instructor in thePsychology Department ofKwantlen Polytechnic University. Dr. Podrouzek earned his a Bachelor of Arts in Child Studies and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) fromMount Saint Vincent University, a Master of Arts fromSimon Fraser University, and Ph.D. fromSimon Fraser Universityunder Dr. Bruce Whittlesea. Here is part 1 of an interview from a few years ago.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your current position in the Psychology Faculty?
Dr. Wayne Podrouzek:Im currentlyfull timefaculty and chair of the department.
Jacobsen: Where did you acquire your education? What did you pursue in your studies?
Podrouzek:I did my undergrad work in Nova Scotia at Mount St. Vincent U, although there is (was) aninteruniversityagreement therewheremany courses can be taken at Dalhousie, Saint Marys, or the Mount and simply count at the other universities, so I took many courses at the other schools. At Dal and SMU I did quite a bit of philosophy and religious studies, some bio at Dal, somebehaviouralstuff at SMU, etc. Its actually quite a good system. All the universities are within about a hour drive of each other, offer diverse courses, and therearea minimum of administrative obstacles.
I gotedjamacatedcause I was working with children and teenagers with the equivalent of the Ministry of Children and Families and the Provincial Attorney General (with teens who had been incarcerated) in Alberta and realized that to have more influence I would need some university education (I had obtained a diploma). Mt. St. Vincent had one of Canadas only two programs for working with children (Bachelor of Child Studies BCS) and so I sent back there to pick up that credential.
Jacobsen: What originally interested you in Psychology? If your interest evolved, how did your interest change over time to the present?
Podrouzek:As part of the BCS, we were required to complete a substantial number of bio and psych courses, and I became interested in psychology,subtypedevelopmentalpsychology,specifically child language development. I completed my BCS, then did a BSc Honours in Psych (minors in Math/Stats and Biology), and started a Masters in Education (I picked this up in my last year of my Honours as extra courses) and completed all the coursework but not the project. I was subsequently awarded an NSERC, and some other money, and was accepted into the MA at Simon Fraser, so abandoned my MEd to come out here. I kind of wish I had finished the MEd now but I really just didnt see the necessity at the time. Because of its emphasis oncounsellingand testing I could have used it to become registered in BC it would have opened some doors. Cant yall just seem me as a therapist? Hmmm, thats scary.
At any rate, I originally went to SFU because it was supposed to get some equipment to do acoustical analyses of language (which at the time was about a $60K piece of equipment called aSonograph, and today you can do the same thing with an A-D board that costs less than $100), and I had done my Honours Project on An acoustical analysis of pre-lexical child utterances in pragmatically constrained contexts (or something like that and wanted to continue that work.) However, the equipment fell through, so I switch to perception. I did my MA thesis in perception on the question of the order of visual processing (what do you process first, the global scene and then analyze for the bits, or the bits first and then synthesize them into the whole scene: the Global-Local question).
I began myPhDin perception, but then met Dr. Bruce Whittlesea, and became interested in memory theory, so I switched to that area and completed myPhDin his lab. I did my dissertation on Repetition Blindness in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Lists (an examination of the phenomenon that you tend not to see repetitions of words in quickly presented word lists).
Since myPhDI have become interested in how the blind spot gets filled in, subjective contours, retrieval induced forgetting, and for a brief time, the science underlyingneuropsychtesting.
Jacobsen: Since your time as an undergraduate student, what are the major changes in the curriculum? What has changed regarding the conventional ideas?
Podrouzek:Wow, thats a hard one so much has happened in so many areas. When I started as an undergrad (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth with people), the areasthenare usually considered the core areas now. These included methods, stats, measurement theory, bio, social, developmental, cognitive, andbehaviouralin the experimental areas, and testing, abnormal, and therapy in the clinical areas. We had rat labs in intro every student got two rats and we ran experiments on the rats and wrote the experiments up in the lab books (something like doing chem labs. Then we got to kill them). Consciousness was not discussed that was akin to studying magic. Evolutionary Psych did not exist (although its precursor, sociobiology did). Although Kuhn had published his controversial book The structure of scientific revolutions, his ideas were discussed but, I think, not taken to heart by most scientists.
Later, with other philosophers of science (e.g., Feyerabend, Lakoff), publishing works that in some ways augmented his, our assumptions and views of even methodologies changed. Of course, change your assumptions, change your methods, and you change your field. Things loosened up considerably. Areas ofenquiryand the acceptable methods and what could count as reasonable data become much more encompassing, and thus new areas of psychology emerged. We certainly didnt have courses on sex, for example, or prejudice, cultural, gender (other than straight up sex differences, other aspects of that field would have been taught in Womens Studies), and the list goes ever on.
When I attended university there were upper level specialty courses in Psycholinguistics (Chomsky) a brilliant, complex theory of language (particularly, syntax and transformations, and semantics), Piaget and Vygotsky, behaviour, modification (applied behavior analysis), parallel and distributed processing, and other things that are now of historical interest, but at the time were all the rage.
Original publication in http://www.in-sightjournal.com.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Scott Douglas Jacobsen founded In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. He works as an Associate Editor and Contributor for Conatus News, Editor and Contributor to The Good Men Project, a Board Member, Executive International Committee (International Research and Project Management) Member, and as the Chair of Social Media for the Almas Jiwani Foundation, Executive Administrator and Writer for Trusted Clothes, and Councillor in the Athabasca University Students Union. He contributes to the Basic Income Earth Network, The Beam, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Check Your Head, Conatus News, Humanist Voices, The Voice Magazine, and Trusted Clothes. If you want to contact Scott: [emailprotected]; website: http://www.in-sightjournal.com; Twitter: https://twitter.com/InSight_Journal.
Visit link:
Food
Travel
Design
Culture
People
Health
Video
All
Both her hair color and her fashion choices have transformed. Jon Kopaloff and Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Jessica Biel has undergone a pretty dramatic style transformation.
The 35-year-old actress was just 14 when she was cast on "7th Heaven," which premiered back in 1996. Since then, she's been known for her roles in films like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The A-Team." Her most recent role is the lead character in the USA limited drama "The Sinner," which premieres August 2.
Here's a look through Biel's fashion choices through the years, from questionable crop tops to glamorous gowns.
She was cast when she was 14 years old. Brenda Chase/Getty Images
This was in 2002. David Klein/Getty Images
This was at the 2002 premiere of "The Rules Of Attraction." Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
This was at the 2004 MTV Movie Awards. Mark Mainz/Getty Images
It was an interesting outfit choice. Kevin Winter/Getty Images
This was at the MTV Movie Awards. Frank Micelotta/Getty Images
She carried a cute clutch at her side. Evan Agostini/Getty Image
She still had her lighter hair. Kevin Winter/Getty Images
She was in the Oscar-nominated film "The Illusionist." Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
She starred in the film "Easy Virtue," which was shown at the festival. Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
This was in 2008. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
This was in 2009. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
She paired it with a black clutch. Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
It looks more purple in other lighting. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
The theme was "The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion." Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images
She makes some weird outfit choices. Jason Merritt/Getty Images
Where does the dress end? Ian Gavan/Getty Images
Her hair was also darker. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
She also went with blunt bangs. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
Her hair was lighter again. Jason Merritt/Getty Images
The two became parents in 2015. Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
It was an off-the-shoulder dress. Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
She went with her husband. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
Husband Justin Timberlake matched in black. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Her clutch matched. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
She even switched out her clutch, too. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
We can't wait to see what she wears next.
Like what you see here? Subscribe to our daily newsletter to get more of it.
Sign-Up
Read the original here:
26 photos that show Jessica Biel's dramatic fashion evolution - INSIDER
Sporting rivalries are at their best when the protagonists offer a sharp contrast in their winning ways. The Jackie MacMullan-edited book When the Game Was Ours is an ode to the sharpest rivalry in professional basketball, between Larry Bird and Earvin Johnson, whose teams, the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers shared seven National Basketball Association championships between 1980 and 1987 (the Lakers won four).
Bird and Johnson are co-authors of the book; they recollect how each of them drove the other to competitive heights during their careers beginning from their college rivalry to their respective stints in the NBA. By the end of their competitive careers, they had become close friends, underlining how much respect they had for each other. The garrulous Johnson, known as Magic, was a speedy, effervescent and restless passing savant who was unusually effective as a point guard despite being 6-feet-and-9-inches tall. Bird offered a sharp contrast he was introverted, was somewhat slow in his lateral movements, but he was highly effective as a shooter and offered clutch scoring, rebounding and passing skills as a 6-feet-10-inches forward.
There was the other thing that differentiated them race. Magic was an African American born to an urban worker in the industrial State of Michigan. Bird was born in a poor rural family in French Lick, Indiana. Their rivalry excited a generation of Americans to take to basketball as a vocation and expanded its scope as a spectator sport. The NBA took off as a profitable venture in the 1980s during the Bird-Magic era.
Soon, basketball in the NBA became a globalised sport, with scores of foreign players plying their trade in the league and millions of viewers glued in to watch the best of the games on TV the world over. Much of it is due to the influence of one show-stopping athlete, Michael Jordan, whose spectacular brand of basketball as a shooting guard gave the NBA the fillip to garner worldwide viewership. The best analysis of his career was provided by David Halberstam in his book, Playing for Keeps .
Today, the NBA has reached its epitome of professionalism It is no longer just a spectator sport that thrives solely on athleticism and superstardom. It has undergone an analytics revolution with the influx of studious statistical-minded talent to aid teams to optimise hiring of talent and in strategising. Basketball on Paper , by Dean Oliver, one of the pioneers in basketball analytics, is a good place to begin to understand the moneyball-isation of basketball.
Read the original post:
Does anyone remember Mario Cantone? If you do then it might mean you watched Steampipe Alley back in the day. What is that you ask? Its a kids show that had a few questionable gimmicks now and again but was otherwise a show geared towards entertaining ages eight to fifteen. What was really questionable about the show was that it had a 52% adult audience that would write in or try to contact the host, Mark Cantone. He wasnt so foul-mouthed back then because quite honestly he couldnt afford to be.
Somehow this guy is still relevant. Any ideas to how or why? Heres a few ideas.
He stopped doing kid shows.
Cantone wasnt in his element doing kid shows. The campy, high-pitched voice and goofy antics might have entertained kids and adolescents back in the day but if you watch them now theyre just flat out disturbing. If he could have let his language barrier fall then the show would have likely been one successive series of bleeps all the way through from start to finish. The filler words would have amounted to about five to ten minutes of screen time at best. At the very least the kids seemed to enjoy it and the ridiculous games that were anything but PC provided a good laugh. Of course, most of what he talked about and did in those days would likely never get past censors today.
He started doing stand-up comedy.
Once Cantone got into the type of comedy where he didnt have to hold back he seemed to have found his niche. He could talk about most anything and nothing was strictly taboo. This mean that he could talk openly about being gay, let drop all the cuss words he could think of, and just in general go off about anything that came to mind. On stage hes actually a lot more controlled than he seemed in Steampipe Alley, but at times still looks like he can fly off the hook with the best of them. So maybe, just maybe hes still worth a look.
Now hes joined the comedy cabinet as Anthony Scaramucchi.
Just a couple of days ago the Comedy Central skit showcasing Cantone as Scaramucchi aired, and boy did he let it fly. I wish I could say that it wasnt funny but it was hilarious in fact. He definitely doesnt pander any more than he ever did and just lets it fly and land where it will. Cantone is definitely an aggressive comic and pulls no punches during his roles. In fact its almost surprising that we havent heard anything yet about Trump or Scaramucchi coming after the creators of this skit in some way. The POTUS has been notoriously thin-skinned during his run thus far and theres nothing to say that the rest of his chosen cabinet wont be. But then it might be that they will ignore this or simply pick their spot when the time is right. In any case I cant be the only one that thinks that Cantone might be playing a dangerous game at the moment.
If you remember right, the POTUS isnt shy about letting his opinion be known. But whats the worst thing that will happen, hell block Cantone on Twitter?
Save
Continued here:
The Evolution of Mario Cantone: Yup, He's Still Relevant - TVOvermind
Microsoft updated the Android version of its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Cortana with a redesigned Settings screen and a number of extra features earlier this week. The Redmond, Washington-based tech giant started rolling out the latest stable build of Cortana on Friday and the update should soon be available for download from the Google Play Store in all parts of the world, if it isnt already. Microsoft is referring to the version 2.9.0 as a major evolution of its digital assistant thats now meant to be more versatile and accessible than ever.
The new Settings section introduced by the update is a significantly streamlined variant of its predecessor and was apparently designed to facilitate navigation. Users are now also provided with what Microsoft calls hands-on controls for reminders, allowing you to quickly access your existing reminders to change their contents, time and date, or delete them entirely. Those who prefer to manage their reminders using voice controls are still able to do so, especially if they take the time to extensively speak to Cortana so that the AI assistant can learn to process their voices and speech patterns more efficiently. Microsoft has been putting a large focus on reminders with the latest update for its digital assistant; apart from all of the aforementioned additions, reminders can now also be pinned to the top-right corner of the user interface and serve as visual cues for users. Finally, the latest iteration of Cortana for Android ships with support for hands-free calling and texting, a feature that many of its competitors already had for a while.
In addition to being a major component of the Windows 10 operating system, Cortana was initially envisioned as one of the main selling points of the Windows Phone ecosystem, but as Microsofts mobile ambitions failed to amount to any significant success over the years, the tech giant ultimately refocused its AI efforts on desktop computers and Android. As of last month, owners of compatible Android devices are able to set Cortana as their default digital assistant, and Microsoft repeatedly promised that the mobile version of its AI companion will be updated with a broad range of new functionalities in the near future.
See the rest here:
Cortana Android Build 2.9.0 Introduces 'A Major Evolution' - Android Headlines
The Evolution of the Female Action Hero
From Ripley to Wonder Woman, these characters are fighting for the future
BY ELIANA DOCKTERMAN
The action genre has long been dominated by Bonds, Bournes and Batmen. This summer is different. Gal Gadots Wonder Woman and Charlize Therons Lorraine Broughton both broke through. Wonder Woman became the first female superhero to headline her own major motion picture in over a decade. (Not to mention make a boat-load of cash.)
And, building on her Mad Max: Fury Road credentials, Theron is poised to take the female-led action film places its never been before with the violent, stylish Atomic Blonde.
Both films are important in the evolution of the female hero on screen, which we look at here. Over the past fifty years, these kinds of rolesthe Ellen Ripleys, the Sarah Connors, the Black Widowshave grown, though slowly and without full representation of race, sexual orientation and class.
One thing is certain, after this summers successes, more films with strong female leads are on the way.
Jack Hills Foxy Brown (1974) cast Pam Grier as the revenge-seeking hero of an unapologetic black epic. The films portrayal of sex, drugs, crime and poverty also spoke to themes of the womens and black power movements. She becomes the model for women in blaxploitation movies to come.
Then came Leia. Technically, she was a princess. But when the boys of Star Wars showed up to save the supposed damsel in distress in A New Hope (1977), Carrie Fisher rolled her eyes, grabbed a blaster and took over the escape mission. Leia walked the line between sexy and powerful: The scene in which she strangles her captor Jabba while wearing a slinky gold bikini is an exercise in parsing. But she was the first truly empowered princess, serving as a precursor to future characters likes Elsa, Xena and Daenerys.
MORE: Carrie Fisher Played the First Truly Kickass Princess
As Ripley in Alien (1979), Sigourney Weaver arguably birthed the female action hero. Her characters ferocity rejected tired stereotypes. Perhaps thats because the role was originally written for a man, and director Scott Ridley has said little changed about the character after Weaver was cast.
The 1980s were bountiful with action moviesRambo (1982), Lethal Weapon (1987), Die Hard (1988)but bereft of female leads. In the Terminator franchise, Linda Hamilton began as love interest and sidekick, but evolved into a fighter when faced with a threat.The plot established what would become a well-worn path for female heroes: A defenseless woman forced to become strong in the face of danger, a lioness protecting her cub and a study in fragility when pushed to the limit. The Sarah Connor of Terminator 2 would let go of most of that, becoming a fervent, gun-touting, pull-up machine.
Directors like Luc Besson, Joss Whedon and Ridley Scott established themselves as boosters of strong female characters. Bessons La Femme Nikita (1990), The Professional (1994) and The Fifth Element (1997) kicked off his long history of featuring women as the ultimate weapon. Joss Whedon first brought vampire slayer Buffy to the big screen (1992), though she would make a more indelible mark in the later TV series. Scotts G.I. Jane (1992), played by Demi Moore, shared a shaved head and talent for wielding guns with Alien 3s Ripley.
While these men ushered in impressive heroes, female directors were largely denied the opportunity to helm big budget films. Thats just begun to change: This June, Wonder Woman became the first film directed by a woman (Patty Jenkins) to make $100 million opening weekend.
Movies like Charlies Angels (2000), Resident Evil (2002), Catwoman (2004), Aeon Flux (2005) and Elektra (2005) fused girl power with sex appeal to varying degrees of success.
Meanwhile Angelina Jolie leveraged her role as the impossibly proportioned tomb raider, Lara Croft (2001), into a new phase of her career. After starring in Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008) and Salt (2010), Jolie became perhaps the first woman to achieve a run of successful action films. She joined the pantheon of action stars that includes Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis.
Every superhero ensemble seems to have at least one woman: Black Widow in The Avengers (2012), Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman (2016), Letty in Fast & Furious (2001). Too often these characters are there to have chemistry with the leading man or to round out the crew rather than move the plot forward.
But women have also started to headline these movies, like in Divergent (2014) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016). Movies like The Hunger Games (2012), Lucy (2014), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) have proven that women-led action flicks are bankable too.
Seventy-six years after her comic book debut, the most famous female superhero in the world, Wonder Woman, finally got her own movie. And its a smash. Scarlett Johansson cements her current title as go-to action hero by adding Ghost in the Shell to her resume. And Charlize Theron sets out to create an action hero who isnt purely good in Atomic Blonde.
MORE: Why We Need Wonder Woman Now
All three heroes brawl for different reasons: One for a greater moral good, another because shes programmed to do so and a third because maybe she enjoys her license to kill a little too much. Finally, were getting different types of female heroes.
Getty Images (6); 20th Century Fox (4); Warner Bros. Pictures (4); Lionsgate (3); Paramount Pictures (3); Universal Pictures (3); Focus Features (2); Lucasfilm/Disney (2); Marvel/Disney (2); Screen Gems (2); Columbia Pictures (2); Gaumont; Orion Pictures; Sony Pictures Classics
Original post:
During his first practice at Penn State, tight end Mike Gesicki was told by his coach to get into a three-point stance. His reaction was one of confusion.
"I was kind of like, 'Uh, what?'" Gesicki recalled.
Twenty years ago, such an answer would have been absurd and likely met with a coach's profanity-filled order to run laps. But in the current era of college football, it's not unusual for an incoming tight end to be somewhat unfamiliar with the concept of blocking on the line of scrimmage. As offenses have evolved, so have tight ends.
It's an ever-changing position, which used to be largely considered an extension of the offensive line and now is among the most useful receiving threats in the game, even for spread offenses that once favored the four-wide-receiver formations.
Ask coaches what they recall from the tight ends of yesteryear and the answers are pretty common.
"It was a tackle, an extra tackle that you put in the game," SMU coach Chad Morris said.
Said Baylor co-offensive coordinator Jeff Nixon: "A typical tight end back then was a 6-5, 260-pound guy who was probably mainly a blocker."
That has changed. While their sizes are similar, perhaps slightly smaller, what today's tight ends are asked to do is dramatically different.
"Really, people are playing where their tight end is a big high school receiver," Penn State coach James Franklin said, referring to recruiting the position. "You're recruiting tight ends based on their size, their dimensions, their measurables and their skill set. You have to feel like you're going to be able to teach that aspect [blocking]."
The ideal size is still the same as it was a decade ago. The average tight end drafted into the NFL in 2007 was 6 feet 4, 256 pounds. In the 2017 draft, it was 6-4, 252 pounds, a sign that tight ends are still big but getting lighter.
James Casey, a former college and NFL tight end who is now coaching the position for the University of Houston, said it's difficult to find players who are big enough, fast enough and strong enough to do everything coaches ask of tight ends.
"You have to be able to block at the line of scrimmage," Casey said. "You have to know all the run game calls, some pass protection stuff, all the route concepts and have that mindset that's like an offensive lineman. You have to be that meathead, aggressive type guy, that kind of 'punk' almost, like a lot of really good offensive linemen are, but then you also have to be able to go out there and split out be in the slot and run all the routes."
The scarce nature of the perfect player for the position is why Washington State coach Mike Leach, one of the pioneers of the air raid offense that relies largely on four-wide-receiver sets, doesn't use tight ends. Over the past five years, no school in a Power 5 conference has used a tight end on fewer plays than the Cougars, who have employed one on only 2.5 percent of their offensive snaps since 2012.
"Tight ends are a blast if you have them," Leach said. "If you have a true tight end -- and I mean a true tight end -- then life is good. God didn't make very many true tight ends. Just go to the mall and the big long-armed guys you see at the mall -- you'll see a couple, but most of them can't run fast and those that can probably can't catch. So there's not very many of them."
Other coaches agree; bodies that make quality tight ends often make good defensive ends, too. Leach said he needs those defensive ends, thus, the players on his roster who fit the perfect tight end profile often end up on defense. The problem for others, Leach says, is some coaches want one so much that they're willing to compromise in order to work one into their offense.
"You desperately want that big-body guy that can block but also catch balls and is big enough that he's a mismatch on the strong safety but nifty enough that he's a better athlete than the linebacker," Leach said. "So you're constantly looking for those guys and the trouble is, as you're sitting there pushing it too far, pretty soon you end up playing the third-team guard that can sort of catch, but all he is the third-team guard. Well if he's the third-team guard, what business does he have playing tight end? In my opinion, none."
As Leach had success in his time at Texas Tech, it sprouted a generation of coaches who ran a similar offense and who eschew tight ends for the small, fast receiver. Now that trend seems to be changing.
Take Oklahoma State. According to ESPN Stats & Information, as the Cowboys developed what Mike Gundy calls their "Cowboy Backs" (a tight end/fullback hybrid), that use has increased dramatically. In 2015, they used a tight end on 43.2 percent of their offensive snaps. In 2016, they employed one 35.7 percent of the time.
"It's turned a full circle," Gundy said. "Years ago, you never saw an offense without one. Then, nobody was using one. You couldn't even find [high] schools in Texas [where you could] evaluate a tight end because they weren't even using them. And for us, now it's worked its way back in. We started using them in different ways."
The benefit, Gundy says, is "you have the ability to run a seven-man running play and a five-man passing play," with those players in the game. The Cowboys, like many others, use a tight end in the backfield where a fullback -- a position that has gone the way of the dodo bird -- used to be.
Texas A&M and West Virginia are also teams that, like Oklahoma State, rarely used tight ends five years ago but do so frequently now (the Aggies used one less than 10 percent of snaps in 2012 and 2013, but that rose to 32.8 percent of the time in 2016, while West Virginia has increased its rate tenfold in that span). The reason, West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said, is simply change.
"Because everybody was doing the same stuff religiously," he said. "I like the idea of having some of those guys to be able to scheme and change some things up a little bit."
It's a national trend, too. In 2012, Power 5 teams averaged 491 offensive snaps per season using at least one tight end. In 2016, that number was up to 500, per ESPN Stats & Information.
The result, in some offenses, is that the tight end has become basically a big receiver who plays in the slot and doesn't block as often as 20th century tight ends did. Speed is now more in demand at the position. In 2007, the average NFL scouting combine 40-yard dash times for drafted tight ends was 4.75 seconds. In 2017, that time was all the way down to 4.62 seconds.
Gesicki, who said he initially wanted to be recruited as a receiver out of high school, was advised by a recruiter to embrace tight end because "receivers come a dime a dozen, but if you can be a big, fast, athletic tight end, they don't come around as often so you can be extremely valuable." Last season, Gesicki led all Big Ten tight ends in receiving yards (679).
"It seems to me, in the last four or five years, that they're looking for that hybrid guy that they can flex out and get into different personnel looks," Texas defensive coordinator Todd Orlando said. If they're big and athletic, then the guys that they're running up the field on -- which are normally safeties -- they can get into them and create separation or they can just box them out and that becomes a pain in the butt."
If a coach finds the right guy -- basically someone like former Alabama tight end O.J. Howard or the New England Patriots' Rob Gronkowski, few of which exist -- it's a headache. But even lacking that kind of ability, players at the position can still create issues for defenses. A versatile tight end can allow an up-tempo offense to change formations without switching personnel, creating communication problems for defenses that aren't ready for it.
"There's different things we would call vs. four-receiver sets than we would three-receiver sets, Orlando said. "So when you make it either/or [with a tight end], it's kind of a crapshoot for us. That's why I think offenses do it all the time."
Nebraska coach Mike Riley noted that increased run-pass option plays have created another useful way to use tight ends.
"The old 'pop pass,' from years ago has become a new thing for the tight end because of the zone-read stuff that's going on," Riley said.
While the old-school blocking tight ends may seem like a relic of the past, they do exist. Take Kansas State's Dayton Valentine, who had the lowest reception-to-snap ratio of any tight end nationally (he started all 13 games but had only two receptions, catching the ball on 0.4 percent of his snaps).
Valentine joked that his friends ask why he doesn't request the ball more often, and he responds "because we're averaging 6 yards a carry." While receiving tight ends are en vogue, Valentine is happy to put get in a three-point stance and hit someone.
"It's an attitude," Valentine said. "I personally take a lot of pride in being one of those guys who as a tight end is willing to put my hand down and get in the trenches and block for my guys."
Read the rest here:
The evolution of the tight end in college football - ESPN.com - ESPN
The Mitsubishi Evolution is a rally champ. But when introduced to the automotive enthusiast world, it quickly became a street tuners best friend, able to put down extreme amounts of power thanks to its rally-bred all-wheel drive system. This Mitsubishi Evolution, however, takes the cake to the fifth power with a 91 mm turbo, slicks, and a redline of 13,000 rpm, or if youre using the stock tachometer, a redline of Snow.
Built by Extreme Tuners out of Athens, Greece, the shop specializes in high-tech high-performance parts for racing, marine, defense, and aviation industries with an in-house R&D group that is responsible for engineering, production and testing its products. The latest in a series of automobile applications is the Mitsubishi shown here and its spare-wheel-sized 91 mm turbocharger.
The original 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine has been destroked to just 1.8-liters, increasing its redline which now redlines at Snow in the Drive Mode selector housed in the cars tachometer a billet tungsten crankshaft, titanium valves, beryllium seats, and asymmetric billet cams. All of which is quite interesting, especially the tungsten crankshaft, but lets get back to the ludicrous 91 mm turbocharger sticking out the hood like an intake or human skull from Mad Max: Fury Road.
The turbocharger itself is an in-house creation and CNCd from aluminum and features a carbon-fiber turbine wheel. Extreme Tuners hasnt released how much boost the shop is running through the 1.8-liter engine, but based on the laundry list of heavy duty parts, were guessing quite a bit.
In short, it makes around 2,000 horsepower to the crank, or about 1,300-1,400 to the wheels. When the car launches, it darts from left to right then back to left a few times, the driver fighting the beast of a drag car all the way down the drag strip. It almost seems too powerful to control, but wed absolutely love a chance to get behind the wheel.
The part of the video we love the most is the camera trained on the speedometer and tachometer. It goes from zero to 185.34 mph in just 7.902 seconds, but the way the speedometer never lets up reminds us of a superbike.
See the article here:
Watch the World's Quickest Mitsubishi Evolution - Automobile
The decentralized currency Bitcoin has grown incredibly popular over of the past year. In parallel with this increased interest in cryptocurrency, the technology is also affecting pop culture and the art world. In 2017 there are a lot of artists incorporating the concept of bitcoin culture into their mediums.
Also read:The Curious Cases of the Alphabay Kingpin and Hansa Takedowns
Bitcoin is an incredible technology that has changed the way the world looks at money. The protocol has spawned lots of innovation and a revolutionary spirit among those who use the cryptocurrency. This spirit has invoked a lot of artists that are tethering the bitcoin concept into their creative activities. This week were going to look at a few designers bringing cryptocurrency to the visual arts.
Block Bills
The Los Angeles-based artist Matthias Drfelt has created a new type physical bitcoin that looks similar to the paper fiat notes people use every day. Drfelt uses the hashes from 64 random blocks and turns them into an eccentric design that was created by his own software. Further, Drfelt created his own symbols for the hexadecimal numbers that he uses along the bottom of every bill. There are numbers in a typeface that Drfelt generatedto represent the time the bitcoin was mined. The artist says every bill is created entirely with code except for the signature he signs that says Satoshi. In contrast to traditional fiat where theres a number that tells people how much the bill is worth, Drfelt uses the number of transfers stored in each block.
Each digital print is 5.9 X 3.3 inches, and Drfelt has created a series of 64 banknotes from the blockchain.
Satoshi Gallery
The artist Valentina Picozzi decided to bring cryptocurrency to the masses with Satoshi Gallery, a collection of crypto infused images and wearables. The Italian artist based out of London says that Bitcoin needed art and thats why Satoshi Gallery was created. Satoshi Gallerys work includes images of the most expensive slice of pizza, dollar bills saying oh no, and an iconographic landscape of other crypto-related subjects. We need to bridge the gap between technical developers, experts/insiders and everyday people Thats why we need art.
Art for Crypto
The well known visual artist, Vesa Kivinen, the founder of Artevo Contemporary has recently started a new cryptocurrency infused platform called ArtForCrypto.com. Vesas work uses various mediums such as digital photography mixed with oil and canvas paintings. The mixed media artists paintings consist of visual depictions of the bull and bear, Satoshi Nakamoto, and one called the Split among many others. Vesa also has a few altcoin paintings for tokens like ethereum, litecoin, and steemit. Additionally, the artist covers subjects like the Silk Road and the possible August 1 fork as well.
Phneep
Phneep is a popular crypto-artist that calls himself a pixel bender and is well-known among the bitcoin community for manipulating movie covers, logos, and other images from pop-culture with bitcoin-related imagery. The artist got into bitcoin in 2012,and in 2014 decided to focus on bitcoin satire because he wanted to contribute to the crypto-ecosystem but couldnt code. Phneep has worked with a lot of community members within the bitcoin economy including the host of the Youtube show Mad Bitcoins, Thomas Hunt.
As long as the core devs are kicking and making successful changes to the protocol itself, and as long as Hollywood keeps crapping out these blockbusters, then Im going to keep finding ways of mashing them together, explains Phneep.
Friends of Satoshi
Friends of Satoshi is a resource for bitcoin artists and creators that aimto empower a decentralized collective of individuals. The organization says that its focus is dedicated to promoting Bitcoin through media and art. Just recently on the 9th anniversary following Zimbabwes hyperinflation, five artists from five different countries collaborated on the Friends of Satoshi Zimnote. The crypto artists who helped with the project include Qrypto (India), Zoran Kutuzovi (Croatia), Satoshi Gallery (U.K), Crypto Imperator (Spain) and The Bitcoin Penny Co. (USA). The Zimnote series consists of ten notes hand painted or drawn, says Friends of Satoshi. Each note contains a fractional amount of Bitcoin, and only four notes will be publicly released, explains the artist collective.
The Rare Pepe Blockchain Community
The Rare Pepe blockchain trading card community is a very vibrant and energetic group of meme artists. Since last year the Rare Pepe community has created a large assortment of collectible cards that are tethered to the bitcoin blockchain. Only the dankest Pepes make the cut into the series, and the Rare Pepe Foundation votes on each entry. We were the first to link Pepes and cryptography to bring you the first truly Rare Pepes secured by the Bitcoin blockchain. The Rare Pepe community also has its own token called Pepe Cash which has a $9.9 million market cap.
Cryptograffiti
The artist Cryptograffiti is a well-known designer within the crypto-community that creates art through the lens of the blockchain challenging the status quo. Cryptograffiti is an early bitcoin adopter and was the first artist to utilize a public-facing cryptocurrency wallet to receive donations for street art. His work has been seen all over the crypto-circuit, shared by luminaries, and featured in online publications.
What do you think about the bitcoin artwork these crypto-artists create? Let us know in the comments below.
Images via Cryptograffiti, Art for Crypto, Block Bills, Phneep, the Rare Pepe blockchain, Satoshigallery, and Friends of Satoshi.
Show the world how cutting-edge you are with abitcoin T-shirt, hoodie, bag, key-ring, even a Trezor hardware wallet.Shipping all over the world, quality merchandise and, of course, a payment system that makes people say wow!
More:
Story and photo by Matt Wood
The study of human evolution here has very deep roots. Continuing that legacy and thinking into the future is exciting. Prof. Zeray Alemseged on UChicago's reputation in paleontology research
In 2000 Zeresenay (Zeray) Alemseged unearthed a 3.3 million-year-old, nearly complete skeleton of a 2 year-old girl in Dikika, Ethiopia. In the years that followed, the paleoanthropologist and fellow researchers slowly chipped away the sandstone surrounding the delicate fossil, using advanced imaging tools to analyze its structure.
Alemseged first revealed the Australopithecus afarensisfossil, known as Selam, to the world in a landmark publication in Nature in 2006. At the time, he was a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, before moving to the California Academy of Sciences two years later.
In the fall of 2016, Alemseged left the California coast to join the University of Chicago faculty, where he quickly made international news. This past May, Alemseged co-authored a landmark study about Selam, which showed portions of the human spine that enable efficient walking motions were established millions of years earlier than previously thought.
The study, which Alemseged said shed new light on one of the hallmarks of human evolution, is the kind of impactful research that adds to UChicagos storied reputation in paleontologyone that includes some of the most famous names in the field, both present and past.
The study of human evolution here has very deep roots, said Alemseged, the Donald N. Pritzker Professor in Organismal Biology and Anatomy. Continuing that legacy and thinking into the future is exciting, but when you leverage that with the ability to work with some of the brightest students in the world, the opportunity to collaborate with them is one of the great legacies a scientist could have.
Alemseged filled a niche in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy as its resident paleoanthropologist, studying human origins and the environmental context of human evolution. The other senior researchers on the faculty occupy key branches on the evolutionary tree of life. Prof. Michael Coates, studies the origins of early vertebrates and fish. Prof. Neil Shubin studies the first tetrapods and their transition to land. Prof. Paul Sereno covers dinosaurs and the emergence of flight, and Prof. Zhe-Xi Luo, studies the origins of mammals.
Alemseged extends this expertise to the species that dominates our planet today, with a new breed of research that combines high-tech imaging analysis of fossils with traditional geology and fieldwork. Using these tools, he explores the milestone events in human evolution since our split from the apes.
Hes a top-notch scientist who can use geology, biology and the latest technology in his work, and has a very good sense of public outreach, said Sereno. Im so happy he chose to come here, putting UChicago at the cutting edge of the newest research in human evolution.
Alemseged returns to his native Ethiopia every year for several months to continue work in the Afar, a paleoanthropological hotspot, collaborating with researchers from across the globe, including the National Museum of Ethiopia, where the fossils are prepared and curated.
You can say that one-half of my lab is back there, he said. What I enjoy the most is the quiet moments that I have in my lab in the process of making the little incremental discoveries that, when combined, will allow me to tackle questions pertaining to those milestone events.
Originally published on July 28, 2017.
Read the original:
Paleoanthropologist explores roots of evolution - UChicago News
Photo Courtesy: The South African Swim History Project
By Ailish Dougherty, Swimming World College Intern.
Lilly Kings world record-breaking performance in the womens 100-meter breaststroke this past week at the 2017 FINA World Championships in Budapest stunned many in the swimming world. Yet at the same time, it was so unsurprising it was only a matter of time beforeher confidence would drive her to the fastest swim in history.
Kinglowered Lithuanian Ruta Meilutytes previous world record of 1:04.35, set at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona, to a 1:04.13. Kingsfirst 50 alone was the fifth fastest 50 breaststroke in history, and the second fastest ever (tied with Jessica Hardy) done by an American.
Kinghad her sights set on a world record, and she delivered. Lets take a look at how her performance made history as the fastest 100-meter breaststroke ever swum. Going all the way back to 1921, the first recorded 100-meter breaststroke world record was set at 1:37.60 by E. Van Den Bogaert of Belgium. Thetimes then dropped sharply every one or two years for the next 30 years, getting as fast as a 1:16.90 by Eva Szkely of Hungary in 1951. The next recorded world record was set in 1958 by Karin Beyer of Germany, and it marks a shift in the way breaststroke was regulated.
In 1933, breaststrokers realized that an over-the-water arm recovery was faster and more efficient than an underwater recovery. During thisyear, American Henry Myers became the first swimmer to racewith a breaststroke frog kick paired with what we now call butterfly arms. As you can see at around the 1:40-mark in the video below from 1936, competitors began to use this technique more frequently. In 1952, however, butterfly was established as an individual stroke by FINA, and breaststrokers were forced to go back to an underwater recovery. The archive of world recordsrestarted.
Thus, a new world record was set at 1:20.31 by Germanys Beyer in 1958. However, it didnt take long for breaststrokers to evolve with the stroke, and in the next four years the worlds best timedropped by three full seconds. In the new era,Claudia Kolb became the first American to set the 100 breaststroke world record. In 1964 she set the record with her time of 1:17.90. Agnes Geraghty had been the only other American to hold the world record before 1964. Even at the 1964 Olympics, however, breaststroke looked very different than it does today. As you can see in the video below, from Tokyo in 1964, the widely-held belief at the time was that the closerone held their head to the water, the lower onekeptto the surface, the faster shewould slice through the water.
Since 1964, otherrule changesanddevelopments in techniquehave further affected the evolutionof the stroke. Breaststroke has evolved to be more undulatingand powerfulthan ever. Fourmore American women have held the coveted title since Kolb. Most recently, it wasHardyin 2009. Germany hasheld the world record in the event the most times in history, while Australia and South Africa are also top contenders. Penelope Heyns of South Africa has held the world record five times, as she brought her own record down from 1:07.46 in 1996 to a 1:06.52 in 1999, untilAustralias Leisel Jones took over with a 1:06.37.
In the past 15 years, the world record has dropped from Joness1:06.37 in 1999, to a 1:06.20 by Hardy in 2005, to 1:05.09 by Jones in 2006. In 2009, American Rebecca Soni was the first woman under 1:05.00, swimming to a WR of 1:04.84 in 2009.However, she did not hold the title for long, as Hardy lowered it to 1:04.45 just 11 days later. Finally, Meilutytes 1:04.35 has held strong since 2013. Until now.
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
King is the seventh American woman to ever hold the world record in this event. Why? As we all have seen, Kings stroke rate is incredibly fast, which has been a common theme inrecent history. However, what King does differently is that she retains her energy remarkably throughout her races, allowing her to keep up her stroke count and out-pace her competition. She also gets incredible height during her pull, so that on the recovery, she can drive her hands forward with power getting more distance perstroke than ever before. Kings breakout speed is also incredibly quick, just as Hardys was. Her closing speed, though, is unmatched by any breaststroker.
Elite womens breaststroke has quicklybeen improving over the past century and its only going to get faster. When asked about Kings world-record breaking swim, Meilutyte (the only Lithuanian world record-holder in the event in history) said that she had been expecting it.
Photo Courtesy: NY Times // Womens 100M Breaststroke World Record Progression
Meilutytewas also very hopeful about the future, and her place in it,
Its amazing to see how much womens breaststroke is improving. I think were going to see a 1:03 one day, so its just a matter of time, really. I think withthe progress that the distance is going, its definitely possible. I will certainly do my best to be in the mix.
As for King, she has said that she is never completely satisfied with a swim, so shewill surely be looking to be the first woman in history under 1:04 flat. And when she sets her mind to something, she does it.
All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.
See the original post:
The Evolution of the Women's 100-Meter Breaststroke World Record - Swimming World Magazine
An opinion piece was recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine with the provocative title: No wonder no one trusts us.The writer, a doctor, imagines a dialogue with a patient- Mr. Jones- based on the shifting recommendations of the US Preventive Services Task Force about prostate cancer screening.Mr. Jones, receiving updated advice from his doctor that differs from the updated advice he received last time, grows predictably exasperated.(In case you are wondering, the current Task Force position on prostate cancer screening is: Grade C.This means there is a close balance between potential benefits and harms, and clinicians should discuss prostate cancer screening with patients, and reach individualized decisions together.)
The writer is not so much complaining about the Task Force as about the challenges of turning the evolving state of medical evidence into guidance patients can both understand, and trust.The piece is tongue-in-cheek in any case.But still, there is a complaint being lodged, and fundamentally, its about the nature of science and the publics relationship with it.
Science evolves.And maybe thats a particular problem for Mr. Jones, and Mrs. Smith, and their countless counterparts in our culture- because we so blithely, selectively dismiss science and replace it with GOOP as the spirit moves us. Maybe we cant disparage, dismiss, and deny the science of climate change, immunization, nutrition, and evolution for that matter- and appreciate the evolution of science.
Science is something of an in for a penny, in for a pound proposition.What I mean is, you either accept the value of the scientific method, and the voluminous evidence that it works, and thus pay attention to it even when you dont like what it has to say- or you really should disavow the voluminous evidence that it works.Lets be clear about that choice: disavowal means no planes, or trains, or automobiles; products of science, all.It means no antibiotics or microwaves; it means no radio, television, or Internet.It means, quite simply, that it should not be possible for you to be reading this now.
Science works, and we all know it- because we are beneficiaries of its effectiveness every day.You really cant beam well-behaved electrons through cyberspace and throw shade at science while doing it.Pick one!How easy it is, though, to embrace the products of science we like, and renounce the conclusions we dont.
The result of that is calamitous.The same stance that allows for the denial of evolution despite incontrovertible evidence has forestalled our collective response to climate change for decades.I hate to say it, but perhaps it has forestalled our response for too long.As glaciers melt, species die, floods rage, aquifers desiccate, Antarctica falls apart, and ever more trees in these New England forests I love so much sicken and die- I shudder to think how inconvenient this truth may prove to be for us, and especially our children.We may have walked in a blinkered trance right past inconvenient, to devastating.
That same, convenient dismissal of facts we happen not to like perpetuates pseudo-debate about vaccines, when the reality of monumental net benefit is as clear as it is robustly evidence-based.
In a display of serendipity, a deadly serious opinion piece in the Annals of Internal Medicine followed the facetious one in JAMA Internal Medicine by a mere day.This one was entitled Statin Denial: An Internet-Driven Cult With Deadly Consequences, and was aboutthe deadly consequences of statin denial.Statins are the most popular drugs for lowering LDL cholesterol, are highly effective, and when used appropriately- decisively reduce mortality.In other words, they save lives.
As the commentary suggests, there are all sorts of alternative realities on-line, raising doubts about the benefits of statins, the value of lowering LDL, and the relevance of elevated LDL to heart disease risk.One readily finds debate about the cholesterol hypothesis on-line, but finds virtually no such debate among cardiologists.These alternative realities are alternatives to reality, and the commentator is right to point this out as an urgent matter of life and death.As a Lifestyle Medicine expert, I hasten to note that diet and lifestyle can do the job that statins do, and there are strong arguments for a lifestyle approach- but thats a topic for another day.The effectiveness of lifestyle in preventing and treating heart disease does not obviate the corresponding effectiveness of statins.
We mishandle science in several fundamental ways.For starters, science does evolve; it is incremental, listing toward truth in a series of small additions to, and frequent corrections of, what we thought we knew before.We treat every study as a replacement of all we knew until yesterday at the peril of our perennial ignorance.
For another, we treat science as a circus, hawking hyperbolic headlines as a matter of routine.In reality, the findings of science make for good sound bites only very rarely.Often, the findings of studies are nuanced, the conclusions qualified and provisional.
For yet another, there is almost never unanimity- if only because many people favor their own ideology over any other kind of ology, and because human beings are good enough at being wrong that you can invariably find someone who is prominently so, on any given topic.That some dissenting voice can be found- such as on the topic of climate change- does not a legitimate controversy make.I was recently invited to debate vaccines on a podcast, and I declined, not wanting to pretend that there was a legitimate controversy on that topic left to debate.
That more Americans believe in angels than evolution may seem a matter of inner philosophical convictions, disconnected from real world consequences.But that is not so.Selective disrespect for science poisons the well of it, and proves toxic in surprising and intimate ways; as intimate as ones prostate, or uterus.
Medicine is ineluctably a bit of art, but is- or should be- a whole lot of science.There is no way for patients to participate as they must- as key partners in the stewardship of their own health- if they dont understand the basis for important decisions.
Its bad, in other words, that people dont know, or respect the incontrovertible science of evolution.But that problem tends to be at least somewhat remote. Its arguably worse that people dont know, or respect the incontrovertible fact that science evolves- and that the evolution of science will cause medical practice and advice to drift and shift over time.Doubt and discomfort born of that is consequential up close, quite personally, and in our most intimate parts.
Senior Medical Advisor, Verywell.com
Original post:
Your email was sent successfully.
Close
It was pretty much a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Earlier in July, a 2006 Mitsubishi Evolution MR was put up for sale, and the car was brand-spanking-new. As in, it was never even driven off of the dealership lot. It wasnt even registered.
With only nine miles on the odometer, the 2006 Evolution MR was put up for sale by a California-based dealership on eBay Motors. The auction is now over and the winning bid came in at a staggering $137,954.
When it was new, the rally-inspired sport sedan arrived with a $37,000 MSRP, but the biddersof which there were 80inflated the auction price past six figures. Heck, the price paid is almost double what the very last Evo ever made sold for.
The Evolution MR arrived with a 6-speed manual transmission over previous Evo's 5-speeders. It also had Bilstein shocks, BBS wheels, and MR badging to signify its "Mitsubishi Racing" roots. It was the top-dog of Evos more than 10 years ago.
So, how did a California dealership end up with this car? A Reddit commenter stated the dealershipSouth Coast Mitsubishiwas notorious after it bought up a bushel of Evolution IXsat the time of the car's launch. The dealer let the cars sit and sold them years later, likely to the tune of fat profits. This Evo IX MR maybe the icing atop the dealer's collector car treasure chest.
What this means for used Evolution MR values is uncertain, but there is clearly a demand for low-mileage Japanese performance cars. But more than $100,000 for an 11-year-old car? Ring us if and when an Evolution wagon surfaces for sale. In the meantime, there are a handful ofEvolution X Final Editions looking for loving owners at much lower prices.
See more here:
Someone paid $138K for a brand-new 2006 Mitsubishi Evolution MR - Motor Authority
New York, NY:Marketing Evolution, a real-time omnichannel marketing optimization service provider, today announced PlaceIQ, the location data and insights company, as a new certified partner inside the Marketing Evolution attribution platform. With the addition of PlaceIQ dataset into the Marketing Evolution ROI Brain, brands can easily identify how all their online and offline marketing touchpoints such as TV, digital, direct mail, and social drive physical world visitation outcomes.
This partnership connects PlaceIQ data with hundreds of omnichannel campaign data points to facilitate simple applications for Marketing Evolution customers to measure and maximize marketing ROI, and optimize campaigns in-flight to drive visitation and bottom line revenue. This integration creates a closed loop solution for customers with brick and mortar locations, such as retailers, restaurants, and automotive dealerships, to help brands and advertisers understand marketings effect on real world visitation. With PlaceIQ data, brands can also use location data to understand visitation trends on a market-by-market basis, identify key customer audiences based on their propensity to visit certain locations, connect campaigns to out of home (OOH) advertising, and gather additional insights that can inform end-to-end media decisions.
Location data continues to act as a truth set for brands to accurately measure ROI, learn from customers and effectively engage with them in new ways, said Duncan McCall, CEO and co-founder, PlaceIQ. Partnering with Marketing Evolution extends these benefits, as well as the value of our advanced location dataset, to their impressive roster of Fortune 500 customer brands for the first time. By aligning with a leader like Marketing Evolution, we continue to make good on our promise to make our dataset ubiquitous, in a way that lets brands realize the value of visitation data quickly. Our data in their platform allows marketers to optimize campaigns in-flight, which provides immediacy for optimizing media budgets and driving ROI.
Marketing Evolutions ROI Brain integrates hundreds of different data sets across thousands of variables at the person-level to evaluate how each marketing message motivates different types of brand perceptions and behaviors. In the ROI Brain, Marketing Evolution connects both proprietary brand specific data feeds and publicly available data sets at the person-level to provide forecasting for forward-looking budget optimizations. Brands measure and optimize everything in one platform: direct mail, email, display and video impressions across devices, TV, OOH, radio. The ROI Brain applies artificial intelligence over this integrated data set seeking predictive and prescriptive optimizations in the coming days, weeks and months to maximize the ROI of your media.
We are thrilled to bring this game-changing feature to our current customers and the broader market, said Christine Grammier, Head of Partners & Alliances, Marketing Evolution. By adding the location-based data leader, PlaceIQ, to the Marketing Evolution partner ecosystem, brands, both large and small, are now finding media and message optimizations that drive 25-35% more visits per marketing dollar spent. We are reducing friction for brands large and small to reap the bottom line benefits of this data.
Marketing Evolutions current customers are already realizing the benefits of this integration now and if you are a brand searching for the best way to leverage geolocation data, please reach out to Marketing Evolution.
See the rest here:
Marketing Evolution and PlaceIQ Partner to Deliver Marketing Actionability - MarTech Advisor
A fresh-faced Diego Maradona during Argentinas 3-1 defeat against England at Wembley in 1980. Photograph: Allsport, UK/Allsport
1) This Saturday night is a busy one in the world of boxing. In Brooklyn, Adrian Broner faces Mikey Garcia; heres Steve Farhood analysing the former, and heres the latters final workout before the fight. Meanwhile, in Belfast, Carl Frampton returns from the first loss of his career against Andrs Gutirrez. Heres the Jackal opening up to Showtimes Mark Kriegel and heres an interview with babyfaced 24-1-0, 20 kayo Gutirrez.
2) If youre missing the Tour de France then why not re-live it with our World Cup-style montage. Oh, and heres a nun descending like a boss.
3) Competition time. Spot the odd one out: Messi, Ronaldinho, Maradona, Inamoto. Give up? Well, here they all are before they were stars along with various others, one of them a young Roberto Carlos with hair. And here are Buffon, Neymar, Xavi and more. A fresh-faced Maradona made a big impression on the 1979 World Youth Tournament, tormenting defences and scoring a tidy free-kick in the final to wrap up the Argentinas triumph.
4) Michael Phelps tested his speed in the water against a great white shark (sort of) last week, which got us thinking about ridiculous human versus beast match-ups, all of which are ethically contentious at best and none of which we condone. Heres South African rugby flyer Bryan Habana taking on a cheetah, gymnast Marshall Erwin attempting to out-hang an orangutan, legendary eater Takeru Kobayashi racing a massive bear through a plate of hot dogs, and who can forget the former Olympic 200m champion Shawn Crawford out-sprinting a giraffe (only to be put in his place moments later by a zebra).
5) The evolution of BMX racing, from way back when to now:
1) A message from Fred Trueman to congratulate Dennis Lillee at passing 300 wickets and breaking the world record. Recorded in a pub in Yorkshire. Fred manages to make his message to Dennis all about himself.
2) In the one-off Test match this week in Colombo between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, Zimbabwes Tarisai Musakanda combined with Malcolm Waller for a spectacular run out of Dilruwan Perera. One of the stars of Englands Cricket World Cup win was Sarah Taylor, on her return to the side following a year out of the game. Heres her world-class stumping to dismiss Trisha Chetty, and here she is at her best with a catch a few years ago against Australia.
3) Ultimate frisbee action: Michael Matthis from the Austin Sol putting on the afterburners for 70 odd metres to catch the disc in the end zone in the American Ultimate Disc League:
4) Helen Dornidens incredible 2008 600m race.
5) And finally, rugby leagues Rob Burrow announced his retirement this week. Heres a great Grand Final try and here he is in a catchweight contest.
Spotters badges: YorkerBouncer, TheCedarRoom, BlackCaeser, LeeWall.
Do subscribe, if you fancy
Do subscribe, if you fancy
Here is the original post:
A young Maradona, the evolution of BMX and human v beast match-ups - The Guardian