July 26, 2017 Powerful new phylogenetic comparative methods can be applied to D-Place, a massive open-access database of places, language, culture and environment, and other databases in order to reconstruct the history of cultures and test theories about major transitions in human history. The map here shows the global distribution of independent vs. extended family living. Credit: Map taken from d-place.org

Over the past 10,000 years human cultures have expanded from small groups of hunter-gatherers to colossal and complexly organized societies. The secrets to how and why this major cultural transition occurred have largely remained elusive. In an article published on July 24 by Russell Gray and Joseph Watts in PNAS they outline how advances in computational methods and large cross-cultural datasets are beginning to reveal the broad patterns and processes underlying our cultural histories.

Ten thousand years ago most humans lived in small, kin based, relatively egalitarian groups. Today we live in colossal nation states with distantly related members, complex hierarchical organization, and huge social inequality. This change in size and structure of human social organization over this time represents a major transition in human's evolutionary history, one that we still know remarkably little about.

To date, most research on cultural evolution focuses on microevolution; changes that occur within cultural groups over relatively short periods of time. However, as Russell Gray, Director of the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution at MPI-SHH points out "processes observed at the micro level do not necessarily explain the macroevolutionary patterns and major transitions we observed in deeper human history." In a new article by Russell Gray and Joseph Watts in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) present a "plea" for research on cultural macroevolution. The authors highlight the exciting potential to combined cutting edge statistical methods and comprehensive cross-cultural database to resolve longstanding debates about the major cultural transitions in human prehistory.

Recent years have seen the growth of large cross-cultural databases that document the features and diversity of human cultures. For example, the database called Lexibank contains data on 2,500 of languages, the Database of Religious History documents hundreds of different religious beliefs and practices, and D-Place documents our means of subsistence, kinship systems and a striking array of marital, sexual, and child-rearing norms. These databases are open access and allow anyone to visualize and download data on the diversity of human cultural systems.

Powerful new phylogenetic comparative methods can be applied to these databases in order to reconstruct the history of cultures and test theories about major transitions in human history. Gray, Watts and colleagues have begun to use these methods to reconstruct the ancestral history of Indo-European languages as well as test the role of Big Gods and human sacrifice in the evolution of large, complex societies. According to Watts "we're entering a new age of research in the humanities, one in which theories about the major transitions in human history are built and tested using powerful computational methods."

Explore further: Massive open-access database on human cultures created

More information: Russell D. Gray el al., "Cultural macroevolution matters," PNAS (2017). http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1620746114

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Identifying major transitions in human cultural evolution - Phys.Org

Image: Jack Wallen

For the longest time, the Evolution groupware suite was given a bad rap; being dismissed because of the inclusion of the mono software, bugs, or a lack of stability. However, that ire mellowed considerably over the years and Evolution continued to, well, evolve.

It had been a while since I gave Evolution a go. Since my migration to Elementary OS, I'd been toying with various and sundry clients (Elementary Mail, Geary, Nylas, and Thunderbird to be specific), never to be completely satisfied. In fact, over the last few years, I've felt the email client was one of the weakest links in Linux.

Until I came back to Evolution.

I'm going to be completely honest here. One of the reasons why I left Evolution behind (years ago) in the first place, was because it too closely resembled Outlook. For the longest time, Linux was the anti-hero in the operating system worldfundamentally it functioned, but did so with enough variance to make it different. So when Evolution came out, looking (for all intents and purposes) like MS Outlook, I had a hard time accepting the very idea of using software on my Linux desktop that could have been mistaken for something created by "the competition."

Time passed. What was once important didn't exactly hold nearly the weight it originally did. Out of nowhere, what took over was a need to get things done with a modicum of efficiency. Instead of concerning myself about similarity with a Microsoft product, I simply needed an email client that would function in such a way that would help me through a busy day.

And so, I revisited Evolution and found it had evolved into just that.

SEE: 20 quick tips to make Linux networking easier

Business. Period. That's why. I shouldn't have to explain further, but I will.

If there's one area where the Linux desktop needs to continue to focus, it is within the realm of business. LibreOffice does an outstanding job of filling the office suite void, but the business desktop is incomplete without a solid email/calendaring/contacts/todo solution. Thunderbird has tried to fill that slot, but having to add various and sundry plugins, so that it can serve as a somewhat passable solution isn't enough. KMail is okay, but really needs to serve its purpose on KDE. Beyond that, where do you turn? Geary is dead, Elementary Mail is email-only, Nylas' calendar plugin isn't enough, and Claws Mail is far too complicated for the average user.

That's where Evolution really shines. For any Linux user looking for a business-capable email client (one that can easily connect to both your Google Mail account and Office 365), you will not find a more apt client than Evolution. And that, my friends, is one of the main reasons why Evolution should be considered as the distribution-wide default. If you're looking for an all-in-one groupware tool, one that doesn't require you install various plugins to get the functionality you require, your best bet is Evolution. End of story.

One thing Linux users have been guilty of is holding tight to a particular mindset (such as my refusing to use Evolution because it was too much like Outlook, or that the inclusion of Mono made it enemy of the open source state). Truth is, Evolution no longer depends upon Mono and the Outlook-like layout isn't really all that bad. The mindset of the Linux user has been a tough nut to crack. For instance, the idea that one can go their entire Linux lifetime and never open a terminal window is a reality...but it's one many of the Linux faithful refuse to accept. However, in order to win over the average user, that particular mindset must be set aside.

The same thing holds true with the email client. Take a look across the vast distribution landscape and count the number of "default" clients. This could easily become a point of contention for new users. Certainly you can install just about any supporting email client on nearly any distributionbut new users shouldn't have to do that. And that many Linux distributions default to an email client that is not ready for business prime time, is an issue that should be addressed. Consider this, for the longest time a Windows desktop could be deployed in either a home or business environment and (with little modification) it would function just fine. The same thing holds true for MacOS. Linux, on the other hand, needs some additional pieces such that it can pull off that same functionality within that same environment.

The good news on this front is that with Ubuntu returning to the GNOME desktop, it could possibly circumvent this issue by including Evolution as its default email client. However, that is no guarantee. Recently Canonical released a survey to find out what default applications should be used for Ubuntu 18.04. Reading through various threads on this subject, I was surprised to see how few people mentioned Evolution. Thunderbird received most of the attention, followed by the likes of Claws Mail.

Claws Mail?

Seriously?

Okay, I get it, Claws Mail is a very, very powerful email client. Years ago, it was my go-to for a long time. However (and this is a huge however), it's complicated enough that the average user would be absolutely lost in its setup. On top of that, it would look completely out of place (theme-wise) on the modern GNOME desktop.

This is what I'm talking about. Embracing what is actually best for the whole of Linux, instead of what is best for the individual user. If you consider what would be the most logical email client for the masses, there really is no reason to go beyond Evolution. And that every hardcore user can easily install their email of choice (in their sleep, nonetheless), means whatever is used as the default should make little matter. To the average user, on the other hand, it does make for a considerable matter. No new user wants to have to take the time to configure the likes of Claws Mail. No new user wants to have to walk through the process of adding a number of plugins to gain the standard functionality they are used to having.

Users just want things to work. Evolution works and it works quite well now. It's stable, reliable, and familiar. It is that last bit which should weigh heavily on the decision to select Evolution as the default client. Add to that the fact that it plays well with business environments and the decision should be a no brainer.

What do you think? What should be the default email client for Linux, and why?

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Why Evolution should be the default Linux email client - TechRepublic

Are you a dog person, or a cat person? The question is often treated as dichotomous: if you appreciate the solidity of a steadfast pooch, you cant also relish the coquettish companionship of a kitty. Recent studies suggest humankind could have been divided by their pet-preferences since the stone age. In evolutionary terms, however, the question is far from black and white. Cats and dogs belong together, related to one another by a common ancestor. They share this ancestry with a whole suite of other animals, large and small. One may as well ask: are you a badger person, or a hyaena-person? Do you prefer meerkats, or weasels?

Our beloved pets belong to the order Carnivora. This group includes bears, hyaenas, mongooses, civets, skunks, badgers and more, as well as marine members, the seals, walruses, and sea-lions. The name of the group is a little misleading: not all meat-chomping mammals are part of Carnivora, and not all members of Carnivora feast on flesh.

Carnivorans (animals belonging to the order Carnivora) share various features, but the key one is in their teeth. They all have blade-like carnassial teeth their fourth upper premolar and first lower molar which bite together to shear through food. This design is especially good for snipping flesh, and many carnivorans live a predatory lifestyle. Others are more omnivorous, such as the bears, which tackle huge ranges of food, but also bintourongs and red pandas, which thrive on a mostly plant-based diet. The so-called giant panda* has pushed the boat right out: becoming a fully-fledged, bamboo-specialist vegetarian (although it has been known to nom the occasional fish, egg or insect).

So what ancestral family photograph do all of these seemingly disparate animals have mounted on the wall at home? The ancestors of Carnivora are from a group of animals called miacids, once found across Eurasia and North America. They were small, long-bodied creatures, a little like a pine marten, and at home in the trees. The exact relationships among these miacids remains unclear, but we know they appeared only a few million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs, and persisted for over 25 million years. From among their slinky ranks, the earliest identifiable carnivorans emerged.

Carnivora havent always been the top-dogs when it comes to killing. Back in those heady days of mammal divergence after the asteroid had wiped the largest reptiles from the face of the earth, two other dominant mammal groups emerged with specialised shearing teeth to prey on animals.

The creodontans included the largest land mammal predators of all time. Their carnassial teeth comprised only molars (not premolars and molars, like the carnivorans). This suggests that they converged on the specialisation to hunt and eat flesh separately from Carnivora, and they did it across Eurasia, Africa and North America. The last known creodontan, Dissopsalis, only died out 8 million years ago, by which point carnivorans had taken over the predatory world.

Creodontans were not the only ones prowling the Palaeogene. An even stranger group of meat-eaters, hailing from Asia, spread across the northern hemisphere: the mesonychids. They didnt have carnassial teeth at all, but had their own unique shearing and crushing molars to process meat. While the earliest species walked on flat feet, some of the later ones walked on their toes like cats and dogs - except that they had hooves on each toe. Sharing many tooth and skull characteristics with whales and dolphins, scientists thought mesonychids may be these marine-mammals ancestors. More recent analysis suggests they are sister groups, sharing a common ancestor along with hippos.

Mesonychids and creodontans were the top-predators in their time, but both were replaced by Carnivora, one of the most successful animal groups on earth. Its unclear exactly why the carnivorans did so well at their cousins expense, but it has been suggested that a suite of unique adaptations including larger brains, more efficient locomotion, and more versatile teeth - gave them the ecological advantage, allowing them to replace their competitors.

There is a grain of truth in the cat versus dog question. Although they share a common ancestor, the Carnivora are split into two quite well-defined groups that are broadly dog-like, the caniformia, and broadly cat-like, the feliformia. This division has deep roots, around 43 million years.

The feliforms tend to be more specialised meat-eaters, have shorter faces and retractable claws. Many of them are ambush, pounce-predators, rather than runners (the cheetah is a notable exception). They include the carnivorans of Madagascar - such as the fossa - meerkats, mongooses, civets and genets (although some research suggests these may have split off from other carnivorans before the main feliformia/caniformia break up), as well as the larger true cats, and the hyaenas. Even a non-specialist can identify most of these animals as sharing a kitty-like demeanour. Now you know, its more than skin deep.

As you would expect, the caniformia includes the dogs, wolves and jackals, all of which split from their dog-like relatives early on. The rest of caniformia have a strikingly diverse profile: the bears are in there, another early split from the rest of the group. The marine carnivorans have really gone to town when it comes to physical specialisation, with their short flippered-limbs and rolls of fat. But the old slang name for seals, sea-dogs, suggests that even before the science of anatomy confirmed it, humankind could see a family resemblance. Perhaps less obvious, the skunks, weasels, badgers, otters, racoons and coatis are also part of this pooch-tastic branch of Carnivora.

So what of the loyal hound and humble puss? Recent research has been exploring the origins of our domesticated friends from their wild forebears. Dogs have received a lot of attention, tracing their origins to an ancestor shared with modern grey wolves. The first domestication (or domestications, it may have happened twice) of wolves occurred somewhere in Eurasia possibly even Europe - although there is still some disagreement. It took place perhaps by human design, or maybe by accident. The timing has also proven controversial, with a recent study in Nature Communications suggesting it may have occurred as long as 41,000 years ago.

It has even been suggested in another paper out this month, that first domesticated wolves suffered from a canine version of the developmental disorder Williams syndrome. This is caused by variations in the chromosome which, in humans, results in extremely friendly, trusting characteristics (hypersociability) and what are described as pixie-like facial features. The theory is that wolves with such a disorder may have readily interacted with humans due to their natural inclination to be mans best friend. More research is needed to explore this possibility, but one this is certain: weve been breeding dogs for friendliness ever since.

Kitties havent been studied as extensively, but its long been obvious their domestication took place later, and was less intense. Recently, an international team led by researchers at KU-Leuven University in Belgium, carried out DNA analyses on cats from across Europe, Asia and Africa, including modern cat samples, and ancient DNA from archaeological specimens. Their evidence suggests there have been crazy cat ladies since the Neolithic, with waves of cat appreciation starting in the near East and spreading across the old world during the Egyptian dynasties, via trade routes. Only after the Middle Ages did we begin breeding for more frivolous traits like coat colours, but weve long appreciated the usefulness of a dedicated mouser.

So, shall we pit the whole of dog-like Carnivora against the cat-like ones? Perhaps your preference for pooches extends to their cousins, and you find yourself naturally drawn to skunks over mongooses? Ill leave it to you to ponder your loyalties and pose your own who-would-win-in-a fight-between questions. But if you are a pet fence-sitter like me, youll know that there is much to appreciate in both branches of Carnivora. The huge diversity of cat and dog relatives pay testament to the successful evolutionary design shared by these two most popular pets.

* So-called, because the giant panda and red panda are not directly related. They belong to different branches of Carnivora; the giant panda is actually a bear (Ursidae), whereas the red panda is the only member of its own special branch, called Ailuridae. The red panda was first revealed to the western world in the 1820s, and almost 50 years later the giant panda was given its western-name and mistakenly thought to be related to it. So I ask you: are you a red-panda-person, or a giant-panda-person?

References

Flynn JJ, Finarelli JA, Zehr S, Hsu J, Nedbal MA. 2005. Molecular Phylogeny of the Carnivora (Mammalia): Assessing the Impact of Increased Sampling on Resolving Enigmatic Relationships. Journal of Systematic Biology 54:317-337.

Ottoni C, Neer WV, De Cupere B, Daligault J, Guimaraes S, Peters J, Spassov N, Prendergast ME, Boivin N, Morales-Muiz A, Blescu A, Becker C, Benecke N, Boroneant A, Buitenhuis H, Chahoud J, Crowther A, Llorente L, Manaseryan N, Monchot H, Onar V, Osypiska M, Putelat O, Quintana Morales EM, Studer J, Wierer U, Decorte R, Grange T, Geigl E-M. 2017. The palaeogenetics of cat dispersal in the ancient world. Nature Ecology & Evolution 1:0139.

vonHoldt BM, Shuldiner E, Janowitz Koch I, Kartzinel RY, Hogan A, Brubaker L, Wanser S, Stahler D, Wynne CDL, Ostrander EA, Sinsheimer JS, Udell MAR. 2017. Structural variants in genes associated with human Williams-Beuren syndrome underlie stereotypical hypersociability in domestic dog. Science Advances 3:E1700398.

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Cats vs dogs: in terms of evolution, are we barking up the wrong tree? - The Guardian

Either side of the recent passing of the 20th anniversary of Mike Tyson chomping on Evander Holyfields ear, a couple of clips of the former world champion went viral.

In their own way, each captured how far he has travelled from the Lecteresque caricature of the mid-90s. In the first video, Tyson is asked about Floyd Mayweather Jnr claiming to be greater than Muhammad Ali.

Hes very delusional, he replies in a calm, measured tone. If he was anywhere near the realm of the great Ali, hed be able to take his kids to school by himself. He cant take his kids to school by himself and hes talking about being great? Greatness is not guarding yourself from the people. Greatness is being accepted by the people.

An eloquent answer, equal parts pithy put-down and the voice of a man speaking from bitter experience about the expensive folly of entourages.

The second quote is of a very different timbre. An outtake from a recent interview with ESPNs Jeremy Schaap, Tyson recounts how, as a young boy in Brownsville, Brooklyn, he was dragged into a building by a stranger and molested. When Schaap presses for more details on its impact on him, a solitary bead of sweat forms on Tysons furrowed brow, his eyes give off a vulnerable, vacant stare and he tries to downplay its significance.

I think I outgrew that during my fighting years, he says.

Both moments offer further evidence that the evolution of Tyson continues to be one of the most compelling stories in American sport. A quarter of a century has passed since he was sentenced to six years in jail for the rape of Desiree Washington, an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant.

The character who subsequently emerged from prison into the arms of Don King, a move with a definite frying pan to fire vibe, cut a tormented figure as he struggled to replicate the fistic achievements of the first half of his career and to cope with normal life.

Yet, somehow, Tyson turned 51 last month, an age many might have predicted back in his hedonistic pomp (his drugs of choice included a cocktail of pot, morphine, cocaine, and Viagra) that hed never see. Battling alcoholism and bipolar disorder, lately he appears to have done more than survive the hard living years though. He has actually thrived.

Having squandered a $300 million fortune through his own profligacy and the venality of greedy handlers, he has morphed from one more clich of the down at heel ex-boxer with a criminal record into a peculiarly 21st century brand. He has a podcast, a one-man Broadway show that travels the world, a new book about his mentor Cus DAmato, and a growing resume of acting turns.

On this journey from one-time baddest man on the planet to baddest dad on the planet (as Sports Illustrated dubbed him), he has cultivated a whole new public persona. On primetime television, hes a goofy judge on a talent show called Superhuman, hamming it up for the cameras at every opportunity.

Late at night, he plays an even more comical version of himself in the adult cartoon series Mike Tyson Mysteries. As part of a crime-solving team that includes a perverted pigeon, an adopted Korean daughter, and the ghost of the Marquess of Queensbury, he tries to catch crooks in a funny if rather surreal riff on Scooby Doo. Hardly the kind of milieu where anybody expects a convicted rapist with a history of violent outbursts to end up.

Then again, nobody could have imagined Tyson turning into a middle-aged tennis parent either. His eight-year-old daughter Milan is regarded as something of a prodigy and trains at Mike Agassis academy in Las Vegas.

During one interview last summer, Tyson confessed he hadnt seen any Olympic boxing because he was busy watching Monica Puig taking gold on the court. When the stadium cam flashed him and his family up on the big screen at the BNP Paribas Tournament in Indian Wells, California in 2016, he and Milan put on quite a show. The grin that once portended inevitable doom for opponents in a boxing ring now belongs to a middle-aged man giddily dad-dancing in the bleachers.

While these days he lives in a Vegas suburb with his third wife Kiki (mother to Milan and her brother Rocco), he has seven children from previous relationships who remain in New York, Washington DC and Phoenix. In 2009, another daughter, Exodus, then four, died following an accident with a treadmill in Arizona.

Im anticipating that Im going to go to the hospital and raise hell, said Tyson of that day. Once I got there and saw other people who had children who already died or were dying, they were handling it with dignity and I didnt want to be the psycho parent.

The redemption song isnt without other discordant notes. No matter how much he earns from his various multi-media enterprises (a chain of worldwide fitness centres is another venture), Tyson claims he will always be broke because he owes so much in back taxes to the IRS from the bad old good old days.

That time of legend when he could afford to spend $1,500 a day on food for his trio of Bengal tigers. That time when he didnt know the joy of bringing his kids to school by himself.

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Tyson's evolution one of American sport's most compelling tales - Irish Times

Collective Evolution

Trump Ends A Covert CIA Program Funding Rebels In Syria Collective Evolution The CIA has been creating, arming, and funding terrorists for a very long time. They were responsible for al Qaeda, and now they're in part responsible for ISIS. This isn't new information, though many people are completely unaware of these operations ... and more »

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Trump Ends A Covert CIA Program Funding Rebels In Syria - Collective Evolution

We tend to speak about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in terms of the pinnacle of its potential evolution, and thats a problem.

This article I found showcases one current debate about the potential for AI doing evil. Elon Musk fires back at Mark Zuckerberg in debate about the future: His understanding of the subject is limited.

On Sunday afternoon, while smoking some meats in his back garden, Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO, questioned why Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and OpenAI, was being so negative about AI.

What theyre debating is the future potential for AIs that can, for all practical purposes, duplicate and then go far beyond the capabilities of the human mind. And, in addition, possess the ability to interact with humans beings for good or evil.

Of course, AIs today are very limited. We discover those limitations when we realize that AI demos typically only address one or two specific tasks. Like playing chess. Or driving a car on the roadwaysin traffic.Our interactions with Siri provide confirmation every day of that AIs limits.

So whats the debate really about? I think those who worry, like Elon Mush, ponder two certain things.

Just as Apple has built a sophisticated web browser, called Safari, that serves us well and trued to protect us, theres no way to perfectly protect the user when dedicated minds, the hackers, try to subvert the good uses of Safari for financial gain or other purposes.

Moreover, even though Apple has, for example, joined the Partnership on AI consortium, theres no guarantee that the knowledge or ethics developed there will be constrained only for good purposes, all over the planet Earth.

So then the question boils down to the limits of human capabilities. I dont think anyone doubts that well get smart enough to build an entity like Star Treks Lt. Commander Data. See NASAs page on the science of Star Trek:

At a conference on cybernetics several years ago, the president of the association was asked what is the ultimate goal of his field of technology. He replied, Lieutenant Commander Data. Creating Star Treks Mr. Data would be a historic feat of cybernetics, and its very controversial in computer science whether it can be done.

So how long will this take? If it takes us another 100 years to build a Lt. Commander Data, unforeseen events, war, climate change, and cultural changes could prevent that kind of evolution from ever happening. On the other hand, if we develop AI technology too fast, without adequate controls, we could end up as we did with nuclear weapons. A lot of power that we struggle to keep under control.

In the end, I think both Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Musk have equally good points. In Mr. Zuckerbergs favor, AI technology will do a lot to help us out in the short term, limited in scope as it is. However, in the long run, Mr. Musk has a great point. Namely, our species hasnt been able to control its worst instincts on the current day internet.What will we have to do as a species to avoid the worst possible fate of massive AI evil inflicted on ourselves.

Thats what were in the process of finding out.

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Will the Evolution of Artificial Intelligence Harm Humans? Depends - The Mac Observer

Could clients soon receive financial advice in 30-second chunks via their wristwatch?

Not quite yet, but the potential to combine digital advice and big data is spawning an evolution in personal finance management apps that could soon upend how investment advice is delivered and consumed.

Wearable devices such as the Fitbit and Apple Watch have become increasingly seamless and nonintrusive in how they collect data, says Daniel Lattimore, senior vice president of Celent's banking practice and author of a new report on how personal finance management apps are evolving. Personal finance management apps, also known as PFM apps, will follow a similar development path.

"Consumers see that, and wonder, 'Why can't my finances be as easy as that? Why can I not in a seamless, non-active way get insights into my activity?"

Clients will be more deeply informed about their finances, he says, and with little effort on their part.

BITE-SIZED ADVICE Microadvice, he explains, will be delivered as "hints and nudges in the moment, the right context at the right time, on what you should be doing."

"It's a microburst of education, done in digestible chunks, so the consumer feels like they are learning," Lattimore adds. "As youre waiting for the bus, its 30 seconds of insight or education based on something you've just done, or expenditure that just came in."

Though the advice may come in small pieces, the stakes for monetizing that stream will be high. Banks and wealth managers will fight to control the flow of information, Lattimore says.

Plus, the advent of microadvice will impact advisers, as it will make any prospect that much more knowledgeable about their finances.

"You've got to evolve your offering to provide value to an educated consumer, and in a way thats a lot harder," Lattimore says.

Suleman Din is managing editor of SourceMedia's Investment Advisor Group. Follow him on Twitter at @sulemandn

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What's the next step in financial planning's evolution? Look to the Fitbit - Financial Planning

Durham Herald Sun

'Scopes monkey trial' town erects evolution defender Clarence Darrow statue Durham Herald Sun On July 14 at the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton the public beheld a 10-foot statue of the rumpled skeptic Clarence Darrow, who argued for evolution in the 1925 trial. It stands at a respectful distance on the opposite side of the courthouse from an ...

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'Scopes monkey trial' town erects evolution defender Clarence Darrow statue - Durham Herald Sun

Evolution of pregnancy may be key to better reproductive technologies today Yale News Yale scientists offer a new perspective on physiology of implantation, showing humans differ from their evolutionary ancestors by undergoing the pro-inflammatory process at the onset and conclusion of pregnancy, they report July 24 in the Proceedings ...

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Evolution of pregnancy may be key to better reproductive technologies today - Yale News

ByYin Wilczek, Bloomberg BNA

Hui Chen recently left the Justice Department after almost two years as the departments first-ever compliance counsel. While at the Criminal Divisions Fraud Section, she helped prosecutors evaluate corporate compliance programs in areas such as securities and financial fraud, health-care fraud, and foreign bribery. Her cases at the DOJ included BP PLCs Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Volkswagen AGs emissions scandal, and Odebrecht SAs Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations. Those prosecutions garnered some of the largest corporate fines ever levied by the DOJ. Chen, now a private compliance consultant, speaks to Bloomberg BNA about her former role, and what lies ahead for the Fraud Section.

Hui Chen.

Bloomberg BNA: When you left, what was the state of corporate compliance programs?

Hui Chen:For me to render an assessment on that, essentially youre asking a probation office who handles drunk driver cases how many people drive drunk. If youre not a company thats being investigated, I wont see you in that role. I saw presumably some of the worst, so thats not a representative view.

What I would say is that there is great variation in corporate compliance that goes from companies in large part doing a pretty good job but occasionally slipping, to companies that completely dont get it. There are companies that should be seeing the risk but arent doing anything about it, which I think would be a little bit surprising to some, and I think thats particularly true for companies that operate mainly outside the U.S.

I also think that many companies that are relatively small arent attuned to the risks they face when they expand. So lets say they found a niche market in the U.S. They then jump into opportunities for their niche business in other markets without giving enough thought to what that might mean in terms of business and people risks.

I also see companies that are obsessively focused on their particular regulated risks but are not attentive to fundamental risks.

BBNA: What sorts of fundamental risk?

Chen:Take financial services. There are companies that say, Were going to dot all the `is and cross all the ts, but they dont think that lying to customers is a problem. I think that problem is more widespread than Wells Fargo. So the fundamentals are lying, cheating and stealing, things your mother would have taught you when you were five.

BBNA: In a sense, your role at the DOJ was a sop to business because you once worked in-house and can represent the corporate view. Do you think you were effective in that role?

Chen:I dont see myself as representing the business view. I see myself as representing the business reality. So I think I was quite effective in working with the prosecutors to bring that reality to the discussion. Again, I cannot say better things about the prosecutorstheyre smart people with common sense. What most of them dont have is that experience of working in-house. And Im able to bring that reality to the table, and they very much get it and they appreciate it.

One of the results of that, for example, is that companies used to bring in binders full of their policies. Pretty early on at DOJ, I started asking the prosecutors to tell companies not to bring their policies to compliance presentations. I said to them, I really dont care what the policy says because I challenge them to show me a single employee who sat there and read them. I can tell you right now that nobody in the company reads the policies except for the people who drafted them. Im more interested in how the policies actually operate.

And the reaction from the prosecutors was, this was what we always thought but we just didnt feel like we had the credibility to say it because we havent been in the companies. Now, I think they routinely tell companies not to bring their policies in.

BBNA: So youve left a legacy?

Chen:I think so. TheEvaluation of Corporate Compliance Programsdocument I authored really reflected a lot of that view. The work that Ive been doing with monitors, and really, the most important thing is, the monitors got it, the prosecutors got it. We want to see evidence, we want to see data, of effectiveness.

BBNA: Under the new administration, how do you think the DOJ will operate? Were you already seeing changes when you were there?

Chen:Thats not an easy question to answer, only because I think people dont really appreciate how a large agency

works. Changes can come in very subtle ways; changes can happen very slowly. I know there are people out there who count the number of resolutions and say, oh my gosh, this is the first year under the Trump administration and the numbers either went up or went down, whatever it is.

White-collar cases take a long time. The cases that are being resolved now are cases that started years ago. You want to see the Trump administrations impact, you should look four years from now, not now. What I would watch is how theyre allocating resources. When Trump came in, he put a freeze on hiring but various agencies and their components got exemptions. I was a former Justice Department prosecutor when the administration transitioned from Bush I to Clinton. My impression is that the Criminal Division traditionally got an exemption, and its usually not impacted by political transitions.

Now, the Fraud Section, to my knowledge, hasnt got an exemption for hiring. And a number of people have departed. Ive been going to one departure party after another, including my own. So how are they replacing these people, and what happens when you go from, lets say, 40 prosecutors to 10?

BBNA: After your experience at the DOJ, what tips can you offer compliance officers who are interacting with the department?

Chen:Use common sense.

Make sure your program produces actual results that are measured thoughtfully.

Do assume the prosecutors are smart people with common sense who can see through charades. Prosecutors can detect the difference between a program thats designed to satisfy them versus a program thats designed to work.

BBNA: How do you think the Fraud Section will evaluate corporate compliance under the Trump administration?

Chen:I dont not see the Fraud Section changing one bit. All the current leadership are people who have been there for the past several years and so long as they stay in placeand as far as I know, none of them is planning to go anywherethe current acting chief and the acting deputy chief, and all the unit chiefs, theyre dedicated, committed, smart people, and I dont see their approach changing one bit.

Now, going forward, would they have to engage in more battles with their upper management? Thats to be seen. Again, once you get above the Fraud Section, youre dealing with political appointees, and who they are and what their priorities are will change things.

We all understand, anybodys whos worked in large organizations, if you have upper management that is generally supportive of what you do, then it makes your job so much easier. You know somebodys got your back and you go do what you believe is the right thing to do. If you have an upper management that is constantly challenging you, then youre going to have to pick your battles because you cant battle with them 100 percent of the time.

That does impact how effective you are and how far you can go. Right now, they still dont have a Criminal Division chief, and the acting chief is a career narcotics prosecutor, I believe. I do not know if hes ever handled a white-collar case. That will impact things; its a different set of assumptions that you have to carry into your meetings.

To contact the reporter on this story: Yin Wilczek in Washington atywilczek@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Seth Stern atsstern@bna.com

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Former DOJ Official on Evolution of Corporate Compliance - Bloomberg Big Law Business

After being closed to the public for the past six months, the Natural History Museums Hintze Hall reopened on the 13 July 2017, featuring a grandblue whale skeleton as its central display. This event carried particular importance for OUPs Gabriel Jackson, who was commissioned to write a piece for the Gala opening ceremony.

The piece, This Paradise I give thee,is a short composition for 13 instruments and baritone solo which draws inspiration from the diversity of the natural world alongside the words of Charles Darwin and John Milton. With this piece Gabriel maps processes and theories of evolution onto music. The idea that evolution can be expressed through music poses some interesting questions; what happens when you consider this relationship from an alternative angle? How has music evolved with humans over time? In his chapter Music and Biocultural EvolutionIan Cross, Professor of Music and Science at the University of Cambridge, provides some interesting ideas.

Although most modern scholarship on music only stretches back to the 1100s or so, music is truly ancient. The earliest example of sophisticated musical instruments (in the form of pipes made of bone and horns) date to around 40,000 years ago. Whilst this may not sound that far back, this predates all examples of visual art.

These early instruments were found in Germany; however, much like today, musical production was not only centred in this part of the world. In fact, there is evidence of music having existed globally at this time, with music production being found in places as far-flung as the pre-Hispanic Americas and the Aboriginal people of precolonial Australia.

It is generallyassumed that the creation of these very early physical instruments occurred significantly after the human capacity for musicality developed. As such, it is likely that other methods of music making that do not involve sound production from instruments, such as singing, date much, much further back than 40,000 years. According to Cross, this assertion provides good grounds for believing that music may have accompanied humans from the earliest signs of modern activity.

Of course, in order for these theories of music as a product of evolution to withstand scrutiny, Cross and other scientists have to rely upon a much more malleable notion of music than that which we often use today. According to the Oxford Dictionariesmusic is, Vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion. This definition is unlikely to fit with notions of pre-modern music, and, indeed, does not fit all music that is produced today. Some people, for example, may find it quite difficult to perceive a sense of form or harmony in a work such as this:

The notion that all music fits within the definition posed in the Oxford English Dictionarycould therefore be considered a little Western-classical centric; however, the fact that all music expresses emotion is an inescapable truth. Whilst the emotions felt are often specific to an individual, it is unlikely that one would listen to a piece and feel nothing at all.

In addition to expressing emotion, there are also a number of other persistent similarities to be found when establishing the traits of music across cultures. For example, music nearly always carries some form of complex sound event (such as structured rhythms, or pitch organisation) over an underlying regular pulse. This is true regardless of the genre of music that is being listened to. When considering the importance of time in a musical performance, and the transition of emotions, then, some suggestions begin to emerge regarding the reasons why music may have evolved with us.

Cross outlines that, through allowing people to create something together via a regular pulse or beat, musical sounds may have provided a means through which people could envisage that they were sharing each others experiences, thus fostering social bonds.

Similarly, musics capacity to transmit emotions that are felt by everyone, yet specific to an individual, may suggest that it was created as a way of understanding individual and group feelings, particularly in times of social uncertainty. Indeed, as Cross states, the ability to share emotions and intentionality is fundamental to our capacity for culture, the possession of which is assumed be a generic feature of modern humans.

Musics ability to create and maintain social relationships, alongside its direction and motivation of human attention, is likely to have been incredibly important to the survival of pre-modern humans. When taken outside of its more modern context of entertainment, it is indeed likely that music provided an imperative social tool throughout the history of human evolution, and represents just one of the many ways in which humans are different from other species.

Original chapter written by Ian Cross, Professor of Music and Science at Cambridge University. Chapter published in The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction, Routledge, 2003. Extracts used by kind permission of Ian Cross.

Featured image credit: Mosaic depicting street musicians, signed by Dioskourides of Samos, it was found in the so-called Villa of Cicero near the ancient city of Pompeii, Naples National Archaeological Museum byCarole Raddato,CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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Music and human evolution - OUPblog (blog)

The debate around the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continues, but regardless of the outcome, a shift is already underway the latest in a long history of shifts regarding who is responsible for healthcare.

Although government and employers have assumed more responsibility in recent years, the foundation for insurance has multiple lineages. We are now entering an era in which employers and government still provide the infrastructure, but employees must carry more of the decision-making and financial responsibility, setting into effect a bold new chapter of proliferating benefits, a cost-sharing model for healthcare and a new employer-employee contract. Both parties need to take a deeper look at their role as we enter into a period of turbulent change.

To understand how we got here, lets first look back at history. The earliest instance of insurance actually traces back to the Roman Empire when military leaders set aside money to pay for proper burial of warriors killed in battle key to attracting loyal fighters.

In the first example of insurance in the New World, neighbors set aside money to help insure their homes against fire in Charleston, South Carolina. While similar examples pop up throughout history, it wasnt until 1929 at the Baylor University Hospital in Dallas, Texas that the concept of employers providing for employees really caught hold. Baylors teachers could not afford to go to the hospital when they were sick, so the university came up with the Baylor Plan, which charged teachers 50 cents a month for up to 21 days of care, should they need it.

Then World War II began, and the government put price controls on everything, including labor. While factory owners couldnt pay workers more than the amount set by the War Labor Board, they still needed some way to attract employees, so they petitioned the board for permission to offer fringe benefits. Employers took on the cost of these benefits, and when the war ended, the idea remained and grew, inadvertently creating a social contract, which set the precedent for paternalistic employer-sponsored healthcare.

The government has since created various laws to strengthen employee protections, including ERISA (1974), which is considered the grandfather of modern welfare benefits, COBRA (1986) to protect those recently unemployed, health savings accounts (HSAs, 2003) to help individuals cover out-of-pocket healthcare costs and the ACA (2010), arguably the most controversial of all. These safeguards were not meant to turn healthcare responsibility over to the government. Instead, they were meant to put rules and requirements on employers to live up to what they were already providing, none more so than the ACA. So where does this leave us today?

Employer-sponsored healthcare isnt going away, but it is about to go through another cycle of perhaps violent change, and very few people understand how disruptive it may be. Were entering an era in which insurance has evolved from an employer benefit with virtually no decision-making or financial involvement from employees, to a cost-sharing model where employees have a real stake in the outcome. As the employer-provided health insurance model quickly evolves, it gives rise to a host of new benefits and programs designed to complement and supplement the primary health coverage.

This transition is not going to be easy, as employees have been sheltered from these costs and decisions for so long. As these expenses have become unsustainable for the employer alone, employees who now foot more of the bill are demanding control. Their mentality is, If Im going to pay for this, Im going to choose what meets my current needs.

In this new era, employees will consider their unique situation and look across the entire benefits package to choose what works best for them. Some may value paying down student loans more than health insurance, while others prioritize pet insurance.

One problem that will emerge is that healthcare is different than other consumer products, and applying our consumer-behavior to healthcare can create some problems. For example, when presented with a list of premiums, people tend to buy down, which is consistent with other forms of purchasing. This holds true until they need care, at which time they often buy the most expensive service because they associate the cost with quality. This counterintuitive way of thinking in which the cheapest doctor is seen as the worst doctor drives up healthcare costs and steers employees toward more expensive care.

Without a massive shift in the way we approach healthcare decisions and a true understanding of how these decisions impact our health and financial well-being, this situation will only get worse.

(I cant help but hear Uncle Bens warning to Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility.)

For the cost-sharing model to work, both parties need to understand their new roles, and they need to think about the long-term consequences of their decisions. Employers should provide the options their workers demand, but of equal importance are the tools and education to help them succeed with their newfound responsibilities. Using data to help make these increasingly complex decisions will be vital. Employees will expect more personalized benefit options, and they will only be loyal to employers who offer a broad and flexible package from which to choose. Regardless of how the ACA shakes out, the next chapter of the employee-employer contract is well underway, and its up to both employers and employees to make it work.

Shawn Jenkins is co-founder and CEO of Benefitfocus (NASDAQ: BNFT), a platform that supports benefits enrollment/management for more than 825 large enterprises, 55 insurance carriers and numerous consumers. The company enables employers and carriers with a powerful SaaS technology platform that empowers people to make better health, wealth and wellness decisions.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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What the evolution of employee benefits tells us about the future of healthcare - The Hill (blog)

Roughly 50 employees at Wisconsin-based Three Square Market (32M) will soon have microchips embedded between their thumb and forefinger.

Opening doors, logging in to computers, and paying for food in the 32M break room will now be handled by encrypted technology the size of a grain or rice. CEO Todd Westby says all of his River Falls staff will have the opportunity to have devices implanted under their skin starting Aug. 1.

Its the next thing thats inevitably going to happen, and we want to be a part of it, Mr. Westby told a local ABC affiliate on Monday.

The company claims that it is the first in the nation to offer its staff such a deal, which is valued at $300.

Eventually, this technology will become standardized allowing you to use this as your passport, public transit, all purchasing opportunities, etc., the company said in a press release, Fox News reported. We see chip technology as the next evolution in payment systems, much like micro markets have steadily replaced vending machines.

Mr. Westby ABC-5 Wisconsin that not GPS monitoring capability will be included in the chips, which use RFID technology (Radio-Frequency Identification).

Employees are not required to receive implants and may opt out at any time.

Originally posted here:

Wisconsin company to offer staff microchip implants: 'The next evolution in payment systems' - Washington Times

If opera is going to grow as an art form in the 21st century, its going to need more than directors imposing quirky concepts onto familiar repertoire or composers retracing well-worn tracks of post-Romanticism. Its going to need the kind of musical and dramatic persuasiveness that enthralled the Santa Fe Operas audience on Saturday night at the world premiere of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, a bracing opera by composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell.

This is an American tale told with American bravado. Steve Jobs was both adored and vilified as a person and as a corporate genius, but as the visionary behind the Apple computer empire he was ultimately responsible for the iGadgets (phone, pad, pod, ) that have become defining artifacts of modern life. The operas scenario extracts seminal chapters from his life story, casting him as both hero and villain, a man at war with himself. He develops his passion for engineering as a child, achieves technological breakthroughs in his familys garage and gleans ideas from his educational experiences. He has a relationship (and a daughter) with a woman he treats terribly, and he searches for inner peace through Zen Buddhism. He establishes and oversees his mega-successful corporation, he marries a supportive woman who helps tame some of his demons, he gets sick, he dies. Librettist Campbell shuffles these episodes and arrives at a nonlinear narrative that, on the face of it, seems somewhat random; and yet it unrolls with a strong sense of theatrical momentum and is not at all confusing.

Simple, clear-cut, uncluttered and clean sings Jobs at one point, clarifying his design goals to an engineer. Director Kevin Newbury seems to have taken that as his own watchword, masterminding a production in which one scene flows to the next seamlessly, each employing visual details that support the thrust of the action rather than distract from it. Sets, lighting and projections (devised respectively by Victoria Vita Tzykun, Japhy Weideman and 59 Productions) work as a piece. Horizontal bars of multicolored fluorescence contain the space from above, sometimes echoed by thin pillars of light ranged near the sides of the stage. Brightly lit wall-height blocks skim fluidly across the stage as if in balletic choreography. Furnishings are limited to what is essential to the story: workbenches, office desks and chairs, nothing extraneous. The production capitalizes on the projection capacities made available through the theaters recent overhaul. The imagery of Jobs life is projected, often in energetic juxtaposition (circuit boards, press clippings, Zen calligraphy), and a scene where he does LSD with his girlfriend in an apple (!) orchard gets woozy indeed. This is in no way a costume drama, although Paul Careys realistic wardrobe designs help clarify the intermixed chronology and they even make clothing styles of the 1970s and 80s seem relatively unobjectionable, which is quite an achievement. Groups of employees or board members are moved about as precisely as the elements of the set.

Just before an early expanse in which we first see Jobs with his Zen master, Campbells libretto proposes a stage direction: If the back wall of the Santa Fe Opera House can open up for the next scene, that would be lovely. It could and it was, with the last sliver of the sun gleaming on the horizon of the Jemez Mountains. Quite a sun, sings Jobs mentor. Always loveliest when its leaving. And yet, having tapped the houses ace in the hole, Newbury does not overplay the hand. The point is made, the audience inhales the exquisite moment, and the stage soon reconfigures so the plot can move on.

Bates music tends to be powerfully optimistic, trading to some degree in sustained transcendence. The scores vivaciousness comes more from high-energy rhythms, often repeated in a post-minimalist way (John Adams may come to mind), and from a vivid sonic palette. A good deal of advance chatter focused on Bates use of electronic sounds, which he presided over from his computer setup in the orchestra pit. But its not like olden days when superimposing electronic sounds over an orchestra had an oil-and-water quality. Bates has spoken of how he considers modern electronica to be a further family of symphonic music-making strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, electronica and this score exemplifies his contention, with the electronic sounds weaving in out of the integrated texture with a sense of inevitability. These are hardly unfamiliar sounds, to be sure. We hear them all the time in movie soundtracks, but Bates shows real expertise in using them to enlarge orchestral texture.

He had some challenges to meet. He has been almost exclusively an instrumental composer, building up a solid output of symphonic and chamber works but a vocal catalog that is limited to six choral pieces and two song cycles. An opera obviously requires skill in vocal writing, and Bates showed that he has the requisite chops to write effectively for lyric theatre. Indeed, this is not much of a stop-and-sing numbers opera. Although it includes some certifiable arias and ensembles, these seem crafted more to support the dramatic narrative than as opportunities for vocal display which is not meant as criticism. One also wondered how effectively Bates would navigate the sheer scale of operatic structure, since none of his concert pieces has extended beyond a half-hour and most run 15 minutes or less. But the question of whether he could maintain musical interest through a 95-minute operatic score (without intermission) seemed to some extent moot. The piece consists of a prologue and epilogue with 18 discrete episodes in between, so that averages out to four and three-quarter minutes per scene. Some are longer and some shorter, but with his succession of modestly scaled segments, Bates landed on an effective plan that was entirely achievable for a composer writing his first opera one that moreover helps define the works kinetic verve.

Michael Christie conducted with precision and pizzazz, and a couple of orchestral interludes truly got the adrenaline pumping. One of them, at about the operas one-hour mark, accompanies projected images charting the meteoric rise of the company and its growing complication as a corporate organism. I wouldnt be surprised if it were extracted to stand as a frenetic orchestral showpiece in its own right.

The cast was uniformly commendable for their acting as well as their singing. In the title role, baritone Edward Parks is on stage practically the whole time. He appears in roles like Figaro in The Barber of Seville and Valentin in Faust, so he is obviously able to sing in an expansive operatic baritone style. But he didnt really do that here. He presented the part more intimately, as a lieder-singer might, with naturalness of style and exemplary diction. Subtle amplification underscored his performance, and indeed those of all the singers a logical use of electronic technology in a score such as this.

Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke was a pleasure to hear as Jobs wife, Laurene. Her rich, warmly covered tone was put to finest use in her climactic aria Humans are messy, awkward and cluttered, an anthem to empathy, one that may become embraced as a standalone piece. A similarly touching performance came from Wei Wu, as Jobs Buddhist mentor Kbun Chino Otogawa. This beautifully written role encompasses both wisdom and wry humor, and Wei Wus bass not particularly large but of velvety texture infused it with a feeling of profound comfort, a welcome anchor in the emotional turbulence that sometimes surrounded it. Garrett Sorenson conveyed substantial character development as Jobs fellow inventor and business partner Steve Wozniak; he began as a comical dork and ended up as a serious corporate grown-up, his bright tenor letting loose fully in the tenseness, and then fury, of his aria Goliath, in which he resigns from the company he has built with Jobs. Smaller roles were admirably conveyed by baritone Kelly Markgraf (as Jobs father), mezzo-soprano Mariya Kaganskaya (as a calligraphy teacher), soprano Jessica E. Jones (as Chrisann Brennan, Jobs girlfriend), and Asher Corbin (a nonsinging part upheld admirably by a young actor portraying the 10-year-old Jobs).

Bates and Campbell are not the only people charting a path for operas future, but one is more likely to find seriously creative new work in warehouses and experimental theatres than on a major opera stage. Santa Fe Opera and its general director, Charles MacKay, deserve congratulations for making such a piece available at this level. The day of the premiere, the company added an additional performance (on Aug. 22) to the six it had originally scheduled. That should help accommodate audience demand as word circulates about this charismatic piece. It will surely appeal to millennials, thanks to its dynamism in harnessing the technology of today to tell the story of technologys yesterday. But more traditional opera-lovers are bound to embrace it, too. Like all the finest operas, it is animated by a stimulating plot, it is brimful with compelling music, and not less important it has an ample heart.

Read more here:

'The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs': Zen and the art of opera - Santa Fe New Mexican

The result is disappointing, although not surprising.

Turkey has recently announced a new school curriculum that would ban Darwins theory of evolution in primary and secondary education. The decision of the Turkish government has led to protests from proponents of secularism whose foundations have been undermined since 2002 when Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power, reports Jutarnji List on 23 July 2017.

The events in Turkey have brought the issue into focus in other countries as well. The Pew Research Centre has recently published a study Religious beliefs and national affiliation in Central and Eastern Europe in which it examined attitudes towards evolution in 18 European, mostly former communist, countries. The research in Croatia was conducted by the Ipsos agency from June 2015 to July 2016, on a sample of 1,616 respondents.

The survey showed that the theory of evolution is accepted by 57 percent of the population, which is four percent less than in Serbia, where a scandalous initiative to expel Darwin from the curriculum was launched two months ago.

I think that we in Croatia do not need to fear such efforts for now. Nevertheless, we need to actively promote the learning and teaching of evolution in schools, as it is one of the fundamental pillars of scientific thinking and the foundation of developed societies, based on numerous evidence, said Boris Joki from the Institute for Social Research and the former leader of the expert working group for the implementation of curricular reform.

I would find it extremely harmful and dangerous if the teaching of evolution in Croatian schools were to come into question. Although currently there is no organised and publicly articulated initiative to expel evolution from Croatian schools, during the work of curricular reform expert group there was pressure from certain circles to do precisely that. Some of those who have actively hampered the efforts of more than 500 teachers and university professors personally spoke to me about it. But, as in many other situations, they are not brave enough to say it in public, explained Joki.

A few years ago, he published the book Science and Religion in Croatian Elementary Education: Pupils' Attitudes and Perspectives, which is the first study of the positions of students towards natural sciences and religion. The survey included 500 students of elementary schools in Zagreb who attended Catholic catechism classes.

My scientific paper showed that most students at the end of their primary education belong to the so-called theistic-evolutionist position, in which evolutionist explanation is accepted. They just attribute the initiation of the process to the influence of the supernatural. A smaller number of students take up the entirely evolutionist position, while an even smaller percentage of them completely reject evolution and assume the creationist position, said Joki, whose team has prepared a curriculum of which the teaching of evolution was an essential element.

Working groups that have developed the curricula have devoted particular attention to issues of diversity of the living world. These topics should be taught from the first grade of elementary school, while a more specific discussion of the evolution would begin in the fifth grade of elementary school and should be elaborated through several grades of elementary and high school, as well as through different subjects. That was supposed to bring Croatia closer to developed Western societies, concluded Joki.

Translated from Jutarnji List.

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In Croatia, Just 57% of People Believe in Theory of Evolution - Total Croatia News

If you had to select one symbol of cybersecurity industry, youd be hard pressed to find a better choice than the pair of conferences, Black Hat Briefings (Black Hat) and DEF CON. The duo is known affectionately as Hacker Summer Camp by many conference goers. Much has changed since the first Black Hat in 1997 and DEF CON in 1993. Not only have the crowds swelled, but so has the very nature of digital technology.

Over the decades the conferences have expanded in both audience and content covered. Black Hat, for example, has shifted from its focus on enterprise security red teaming to include more defensive security work, security team management in addition to its staple of systems exploitation. The conference even added a CISO Summit to its schedule, which extended the length of the show by a day. With this years event starting today in Las Vegas, lets look at how the pair of conferences have changed over the years.

Chris Wysopal, the seventh member of the hacker collective L0pht and the current CTO of software security firm Veracode attended many the early DEF CON and Black Hat conferences. Over time, as the number of events during the week expanded and the week grew longer, something had to give, and he took a not-so brief hiatus from DEF CON. After Black Hat had added the CISO Summit, it became a four-day long event, and I decided to skip DEF CON, recalls Wysopal. It just grew to become too long of a grind.

[ Related: 4 places to find cybersecurity talent in your own organization ]

When DEF CON 20 rolled around, Wysopal grew curious about how the show changed. It was DEF CONs 20th anniversary, and I figured itd be worth it to stay and check out, he recalls. I was just blown away. It had tripled in size. It didn't feel like a conference anymore. It felt like a festival, he says. Not only were there more activities, such as the lock-picking village, but the existing activities grew. The Capture the Flag contest used to be five or six tables of people hacking, it grew to about 50 tables. Everything had just grown and grown, he says.

Things had certainly changed and grown since the first Black Hat, as well. Presentations at the inaugural Black Hat included talks on local network security assessments, firewall management and attack techniques over the Internet. Renowned security researcher Mudge keynoted on secure coding practices and source code analysis, while Adam Shostack spoke on code reviews and deriving value from the effort. Sluggo focused on defending against denial-of-service attacks.

Richard Thieme, an author and professional speaker who has spoken at all but two DEF CONs from DEF CON 4 though DEF CON 25 and numerous Black Hat conferences recalls the Thursday keynote he gave at the very first Black Hat. It was a bunch of guys and some gals who have been instrumental from the very beginning working to figure out how do we do this security thing, says Thieme.

[Related: 3 tips to get the most out of Black Hat/Defcon]

In a way, these conferences are a moving image showing the maturation of the security community, says Thieme. In the first days, they got to see for themselves, firsthand, as having something valuable to offer to important people: how to protect assets, he says. In the beginning, they were finding their way.

DEF CON certainly found its way. At the first DEF CON, held at the Sands Hotel & Casino, there were about 100 attendees. In 2016, about 22,000 attended DEF CON, and 15,000 attended Black Hat.

Black Hat certainly had its share of historical moments over those years. Most of those moments revolved around the release of high-impact security vulnerabilities released from edgy security research. Such incidents included David Litchfields making known a proof-of-concept attack against SQL Server that shortly after that resulted in the infamous 2003 SQL Slammer worm.

Security researcher Michael Lynn felt it necessary to quit his job at Internet Security Systems (the vendor was put under pressure from Cisco to squelch the talk) to release information regarding flaws he uncovered in the operating system that powers Cisco routers. Today, such research is likely to be released ahead of the actual conference rather than during the show, such as when researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek unveiled their remote Jeep hacks in 2015.

For most conference goers, big historic events aside, when you ask them about their early conference memories and the value they get from either show, theyll usually mention networking and the chance to meet security professionals that might be otherwise out of reach.

Stefano Zanero, information security consultant and researcher, and Black Hat review board member, recalls the impression from his first Black Hat (2004) where he also presented. I was a young Ph.D. student presenting for the first time to such a large international audience. Obviously, it made quite a big impression on me, says Zanero. Black Hat was extremely engaging. The conference was smaller then and being a speaker made sure that you had occasions to meet the whole "who's who" of security. That character probably gets lost somehow in its growth, Zanero says.

That growth hasnt stopped Zaneros ability to make valuable contacts over the years, he says. I think networking and in-person meetings are the actual value

of conferences in this growing but still very small world of cybersecurity. The network of professional contacts I made over the years at Black Hat is an invaluable asset in my work, he says.

When I first attended Black Hat, it seemed to be a unique amalgam of hacker culture and business focus, united around information security something that was both novel and necessary for security to garner the attention and budget it would need to become a priority for all but the tech elite, says Taylor Banks, long-time security researcher and principal Hacktologist at ACE Hackware.

Banks, says that some in the DEF CON and broad hacker community viewed the Black Hat conference as selling out. For me, I found it [Black Hat] to be a good mix, and was pleasantly surprised to find an information security conference that could justify a high price tag and simultaneously provide a good environment for networking and recruiting, while still proving to be a good value to attendees and their employers, he says.

Admittedly, I think to compare Black Hat to DEF CON was a bit unfair. I would argue that while much of the same information was often presented at both events (and often by the same people), it made DEF CON a significantly better value. But for many organizations, the stigma of sending employees to a hacker con made it much more difficult to justify even a small expense to less tech-savvy stakeholders and board members. I also think that, because of the environment, those new to the field found DEF CON quite intimidating, while Black Hat seemed a much easier event to break into, says Banks.

How has Black Hat changed over the years? The obvious answer is that it dramatically grew. The less obvious answer is that growth brought in a wider spectrum of people, so networking activities and occasions dramatically changed, says Zanero, who says he does miss the more tight-knit community of years ago. The current exhibit hall is overwhelming, Zanero says. What has not changed, in my opinion, is the quality and level of the talks, while they somehow [also] broadened to a wider range of topics, he adds.

[Related: The best of Black Hat: The consequential, the controversial, the canceled]

When speaking with many who have attended the conference over the years, the verdict on whether the quality of the talks has remained high is mixed. The past that disappeared was Black Hat as a cutting-edge hacking convention, says Thieme.

What it's become, especially since it was sold, is a mini RSA. It's vendor-driven, and the focus is determined somewhat by the technical expertise, but also clearly voiced needs of the marketplace, which are not necessarily always highly technical, says Thieme. In the old days, there were probably more hitters who swung for the fences. Today, there are more journeymen ball players who self-censor about things that are likely to get them or the enterprise into real hot water, Thieme says. It's become mainstream.

Another big change that paralleled the growth of the audience has been the growth of the expo floor. The expo floor was much smaller, and it was always companies that were focused almost exclusively on the things Black Hat was doing. The expo floor was full of companies who were pen testing or were hardcore security companies, and it wasn't just companies that happen also to have a security product or service that came to the show, says Wysopal.

That begs the question, considering all of the growth and broadening of focus: Is there still value to be found? The answer is near unanimously a yes. One just has to work harder for it and hunt down what they want from the show. If you're targeted and know how to hunt value, then the place is an absolute jungle teeming with animals, says Thieme.

Wysopal agrees. There are many different types of audiences going to these shows. There are people who want to attend the talks, and theyre learning something by doing that. There are others that are going to network. Maybe they are looking for a job, or theyre simply catching up with people they only see at the conference every year. Then you have those who are actually looking for products and solutions there. You have all of this going on at once, and not everyone is doing everything. You get a successful conference when you can satisfy a lot of different audiences, says Wysopal. And by that measure, both Black Hat and DEF CON certainly continue to succeed.

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Black Hat and DEF CON: The evolution of Hacker Summer Camp - CSO Online

TEMECULA Nearly two-thirds of students will reject their faith by the time theyve finished college, the result of a constant bombardment of secular lessons. A new nonprofit project, Debunking Evolution, aims to combat that influence by teaching students the scientific case against evolution.

The projects creatorssaidthey are committed to providing Christian families with Biblically and scientifically based answers to the evolutionary theory that many children are taught during sixth, seventh and 10th grades in public schools in California.

The program was designed by experienced professionals and reviewed by scientists at the three leading creation ministries in the United States: Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research and Creation Ministries International.

One of Debunking Evolutions co-creators, Pat Roy, is slated to share what tenets of evolution are taught in textbooks and the arguments against them as the keynote speaker at the Murrieta Temecula Republican AssemblysAug. 11meeting, which runs from6 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.at the Temecula City Hall Conference Room, 41000 Main Street.

Nearly a decade and a half ago, Roy and his wife, Sandy homeschool parents created the Jonathan Park Creation Adventure Series, an audio drama that has been heard on more than 700 radio stations worldwide and has reached millions with the message of the Creator.

Roy also worked at the Institute for Creation Research for over 12 years, as he and his team took some of the most complex scientific proofs for creation and translated them into everyday language and concepts.

The event is open to the public. The cost is $15 for members, $20 for non-members, $10 for students under 25 and Gold Eagle members and free for active duty military. To RSVP, leave a message at(951) 304-2757, email MurrietaOnlineNews@outlook.com or visitwww.MTRA.club.

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Murrieta Temecula Republican Assembly hosts Debunking Evolution lecture - Valley News

Edward Parks, who plays Steve Jobs, and the Santa Fe Opera Chorus in The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. Ken Howard/Courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera hide caption

Edward Parks, who plays Steve Jobs, and the Santa Fe Opera Chorus in The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs.

Mark Campbell is one of the most prolific and celebrated librettists in contemporary American opera. But, as he recently told an audience at the Guggenheim Museum, not everyone thought his latest project was a good idea.

"I've had a number of socialist friends of mine saying, 'Why would you write an opera about Steve Jobs? He was the worst capitalist!' " he said.

Campbell's response to those naysayers? " 'Reach in your pocket you probably have an iPhone there.' "

Jobs has been the subject of movies and books, and now the Apple co-founder's life has also become the stuff of opera. A decade after Apple released its first smartphone, The (R)evolution Of Steve Jobs premieres Saturday on the stage of the Santa Fe Opera.

Even Campbell was initially skeptical of the idea, which came from 40-year-old composer Mason Bates. Bates was convinced that in Jobs' "complicated and messy" life, he'd found the right subject for his very first opera.

"He had a daughter he didn't acknowledge for many years; he had cancer you can't control that," Bates says. "He was, while a very charismatic figure, quite a hard-driving boss. And his collisions with the fact that he wanted to make everything sleek and controllable yet life is not controllable is a fascinating topic for an opera."

The (R)evolution Of Steve Jobs shifts back and forth in time over the course of 18 scenes. Its fragmented, non-linear narrative was a deliberate choice by Campbell and Bates, who wanted to reflect Jobs' personality and psyche. "Steve Jobs did have a mind that just jumped from idea to idea to idea it was very quick," Campbell says.

Bates also created a different "sound world" to match each character. Jobs, for instance, played guitar and spent much of his life dealing with electronics, and so he "has this kind of busy, frenetic, quicksilver world of acoustic guitar and electronica," Bates explains. On the other hand, he says, Jobs' wife, Laurene Powell, inhabits a "completely different space, of these kind of oceanic, soulful strings."

Other characters include Steve Wozniak, Jobs' business partner, and the Japanese-born Zen priest Kobun Chino Otogawa, who led Jobs to convert to Buddhism and served as a mentor for much of his life. Otogawa's "almost purely electronic" sound world makes use of prayer bowls and processed Thai gongs.

As often happens when his compositions premiere, Bates will be seated among the orchestra musicians, triggering sounds and playing rhythms from two laptops. And before you ask: Yes, they are Mac computers. (Bates is quick to note he's not sponsored.)

Even the set echoes Jobs' creations. After a prologue in the iconic garage where Jobs' ideas first took shape, the garage walls explode into six moving cubes with screens that look a lot like iPhones. "We're doing something called projection mapping, where all of the scenic units have little sensors, so the video actually moves with them," opera director Kevin Newbury explains. "We wanted to integrate it seamlessly into the design because that's what Steve Jobs and Apple did with the products themselves."

Jobs's design sensibilities were enormously influenced by Japanese calligraphy including the ens, a circle that depicts the mind being free to let the body create. Bates says that also figures in the opera's title: The (R)evolution Of Steve Jobs, with the capital "R" in parentheses.

"Of course, there's the revolution of Steve Jobs in his creations and his devices. There's also the evolution from a countercultural hippie to a mogul of the world's most valuable company," Bates points out. "And there's the revolution in a circle of Steve Jobs as he looks at the ens, this piece of Japanese calligraphy, and finds that when he can kind of come full circle, he reaches the kind of completion that he sought so long in his life."

That's the side of Jobs this new opera explores: the way his life was marked by the struggle to find the balance between life's imperfections and his drive to create the perfect thing.

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Sing Different: Steve Jobs' Life Becomes An Opera - NPR

July 21, 2017 Eruption of Cleveland Volcano, Aleutian Islands, Alaska is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 13 crewmember on the International Space Station. Credit: Image courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center

Researchers have found that the formation and breakup of supercontinents over hundreds of millions of years controls volcanic carbon emissions. The results, reported in the journal Science, could lead to a reinterpretation of how the carbon cycle has evolved over Earth's history, and how this has impacted the evolution of Earth's habitability.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used existing measurements of carbon and helium from more than 80 volcanoes around the world in order to determine its origin. Carbon and helium coming out of volcanoes can either come from deep within the Earth or be recycled near the surface, and measuring the chemical fingerprint of these elements can pinpoint their source. When the team analysed the data, they found that most of the carbon coming out of volcanoes is recycled near the surface, in contrast with earlier assumptions that the carbon came from deep in the Earth's interior. "This is an essential piece of geological carbon cycle puzzle," said Dr Marie Edmonds, the senior author of the study.

Over millions of years, carbon cycles back and forth between Earth's deep interior and its surface. Carbon is removed from the surface from processes such as the formation of limestone and the burial and decay of plants and animals, which allows atmospheric oxygen to grow at the surface. Volcanoes are one way that carbon is returned to the surface, although the amount they produce is less than a hundredth of the amount of carbon emissions caused by human activity. Today, the majority of carbon from volcanoes is recycled near the surface, but it is unlikely that this was always the case.

Volcanoes form along large island or continental arcs where tectonic plates collide and one plate slides under the other, such as the Aleutian Islands between Alaska and Russia, the Andes of South America, the volcanoes throughout Italy, and the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific. These volcanoes have different chemical fingerprints: the 'island arc' volcanoes emit less carbon which comes from deep in the mantle, while the 'continental arc' volcanoes emit far more carbon which comes from closer to the surface.

Over hundreds of millions of years, the Earth has cycled between periods of continents coming together and breaking apart. During periods when continents come together, volcanic activity was dominated by island arc volcanoes; and when continents break apart, continental volcano arcs dominate. This back and forth changes the chemical fingerprint of carbon coming to Earth's surface systematically over geological time, and can be measured through the different isotopes of carbon and helium.

Variations in the isotope ratio, or chemical fingerprint, of carbon are commonly measured in limestone. Researchers had previously thought that the only thing that could change the carbon fingerprint in limestone was the production of atmospheric oxygen. As such, the carbon isotope fingerprint in limestone was used to interpret the evolution of habitability of Earth's surface. The results of the Cambridge team suggest that volcanoes played a larger role in the carbon cycle than had previously been understood, and that earlier assumptions need to be reconsidered.

"This makes us fundamentally re-evaluate the evolution of the carbon cycle," said Edmonds. "Our results suggest that the limestone record must be completely reinterpreted if the volcanic carbon coming to the surface can change its carbon isotope composition."

A great example of this is in the Cretaceous Period, 144 to 65 million years ago. During this time period there was a major increase in the carbon isotope ratio found in limestone, which has been interpreted as an increase in atmospheric oxygen concentration. This increase in atmospheric oxygen was causally linked to the proliferation of mammals in the late Cretaceous. However, the results of the Cambridge team suggest that the increase in the carbon isotope ratio in the limestones could be almost entirely due to changes in the types of volcanoes at the surface.

"The link between oxygen levels and the burial of organic material allowed life on Earth as we know it to evolve, but our geological record of this link needs to be re-evaluated," said co-author Dr Alexandra Turchyn, also from the Department of Earth Sciences.

Explore further: Limestone assimilation under volcanoes helps understand Earth's carbon cycle

More information: Emily Mason et al. Remobilization of crustal carbon may dominate volcanic arc emissions, Science (2017). DOI: 10.1126/science.aan5049

Journal reference: Science

Provided by: University of Cambridge

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The headline entirely misses the point ... or is that the point? Climate science is beginning to grow up.

The Moon broke Pangaea to pieces when it impacted 13kya at the YDB, a comet split Greenland off of north America 10.5kya, and a meteor, from C/1811F1, reshaped the Mississippi river valley on Dec.16, 1811... [can you verify these findings?]- https://www.linke...ony-hood

thanks guys ;-]

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Link identified between continental breakup, volcanic carbon ... - Phys.Org

July 21, 2017 by Pierre Quvreux, The Conversation Credit: Tom/Flickr

Since 2012, genetic engineering has been revolutionised by CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing. The technology is based on an enzyme from a bacterial cell, whose work is to cut the information storing system of living beings, DNA, at one predefined location. It generates a gap within the DNA. Then, a new sequence for example, a gene from another organism can be included.

Such a simple and inexpensive technology has made the creation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) much easier. More interesting, including the gene of the Cas9 enzyme to the genome made the cell able to do by itself this cut-and-insert process. The technique, called "gene drive", can propagate a new gene in the whole population of organisms in a few generations. Once the introduced gene is installed in the population, one may call them GMOs. One of the most promising application would be to eradicate mosquitoes by spreading mutations that cause infertisity, but as explained in a 2017 article in the journal Nature, can be thwarted by evolution itself.

Arms race with bacteria

This is not the first time that evolution itself makes life hard for genetic engineering and biotechnology. One of the most important revolutions in human health was the industrial production of antibiotics. After World War II, western countries used them to fight human diseases but also to promote industrial agriculture and breeding. A basic rule of living beings' development is that species can ingest only a limited quantity of food and must face trade-offs between three main biologic functions: growth, reproduction and survival. This is true for domestic species as well but the existing trade-offs might not be to the liking of industries. Allocating more resources to one function inevitably leads to reduced performances of the other two.

Farmers had long before noticed that castrating young bulls turned them into steer that grew and fattened up faster. In the same way, the use of antibiotics decreased the stimulation of the immune system and enabled breeders to select fast-growing but less-resistant animals. Combined with industrial breeding relying on high densities of genetically similar individuals, the massive use of antibiotics is required to protect them against disease. In France, 40% of produced antibiotics are consumed by animals. Combined with the human consumption, bacteria have been exposed to a huge selective pressure or ways to survive antibiotics. Thus, many strains developed antibiotic resistances. Now, the emergence of multi-resistant infectious bacteria strains is a signficant concern in public health policies.

The fragility of homogeneity

A similar situation is observed in in agriculture. Increasing mechanisation and specialisation turned the landscape of polyculture windbreaks into endless fields of monoculture. Such a biomass of a few poorly genetically divers plants cultivars is a bonanza for pathogens and insects: if one gets infected, the next one is likely to be feeble too. In addition, crops were selected to have the highest yield, supported by a massive use of fertiliser and pesticides. Thus, the new cultivars are sensitive plants and poor competitors compared to weeds. The industrial agriculture was championed by GMOs, especially in North and South America. Crops producing toxins that killed caterpillars or were resistant to herbicide such as glyphosate were only efficient for a few years. Like bacteria, targeted insects and weeds evolved resistances in one or two decades.

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And the resilience of nature

By the same way, using the new CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to modify or eliminate wild populations will not work forever and can also disturb the ecosystem. The large size of the targeted population, their short life cycle and the heavy selective pressure applied lead to huge adaptive advantages of resistant mutants that quickly spread in the population. Ecosystems are the outcome of billion years of evolution of complex networks of interacting species, thus building disease or pests managements technologies and policies without taking into account evolution must must fail in the long term.

Explore further: Gene drives likely to be foiled by rapid rise of resistance

Journal reference: Nature

Provided by: The Conversation

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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When evolution and biotechnologies collide - Phys.Org