Daily Archives: May 3, 2022

Scientists have created new artificial microbes by combining two very different organisms into one functioning entity. The hybrid of a yeast and a bacterium adds evidence to a long-standing hypothesis on how advanced life may have evolved.

Inside the cells of complex lifeforms are tiny, separate organs called organelles, some of which have their own separate genomes to that of the larger organism. That includes the mitochondria in animals and chloroplasts in plants, both of which generate energy for the organism. A leading theory suggests that these organelles were originally separate microorganisms that were engulfed by other cells, and the two eventually entered a symbiotic relationship that paved the way for complex life to evolve.

And now a new study has recreated this process, known as endosymbiosis. Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign designed and engineered artificial hybrids of two microbes a budding yeast and photosynthetic cyanobacteria.

The resulting chimera was able to photosynthesize like the bacteria to generate energy, and reproduced through budding like the yeast. The organisms were able to propagate for at least 15 to 20 generations, and the team says that the achievement lends weight to the hypothesis that complex life got its start through endosymbiosis.

We have essentially converted a nonphotosynthetic organism into a photosynthetic, chimeric life form, said Angad Mehta, lead researcher on the study. I believe that our new ability to build controlled, synthetic endosymbiotic chimera that can be genetically and metabolically manipulated, analytically studied and imaged, and computationally modeled and predicted will break the gridlock on our understanding of this remarkable evolutionary transformation.

This isnt the first engineered hybrid to demonstrate endosymbiosis in action. A previous study in 2018 combined yeast and E. coli in a similar fashion, tweaking each so that the bacteria had to source vitamins from the yeast and the yeast had to source energy from the bacteria.

The new research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Source: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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New synthetic hybrids of yeast and bacteria demonstrate ancient evolution - New Atlas

Fossil data

We downloaded all fossil occurrences recorded for the order Scleractinia at the species level from the Paleobiology Database (PBDB paleobiodb.org; accessed on 3 August 2021). This is the most comprehensive repository for palaeontological data in reef corals to date. Due to the nature of the data, no ethics approval was required. To minimize identification issues, we excluded taxa with uncertain generic and species assignments (i.e., classified as aff. and cf.) and only selected species that had accepted names. We also selected the variables classification and palaeoenvironment from the output options to facilitate taxonomic and environmental filters applied in downstream analyses. The full dataset consisted of 24,011 occurrences across 4235 species, spanning over 250Myr of coral evolution from the Triassic to the present. Although our focus here lies on the Cenozoic, we used the complete fossil dataset (i.e., including all of the occurrences) to have estimates of the diversification dynamics in scleractinian corals throughout the whole timespan of their evolution.

With the full palaeontological dataset, we estimated evolutionary rates through time in scleractinian corals using the Bayesian framework of the program PyRate (v3.0)12,36,37. This program uses fossil occurrence data to calculate the temporal variation in rates of preservation, speciation and extinction, while incorporating multiple sources of uncertainty12. At its core implementation, PyRate jointly estimates the times of origination (Ts) and extinction (Te) for each fossil lineage; the fossilization and sampling parameters that determine preservation rates (q); and the overall rates of speciation () and extinction () through time36. Recently, the program has been upgraded to include a reversible jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo (rjMCMC) algorithm to estimate diversification rate heterogeneity, which provides more accurate and precise estimates than other commonly used methods12. Therefore, despite the inherent bias of the fossil record (i.e., estimates are conditioned on sampled lineages), PyRate is a robust method to quantify speciation and extinction rates, and their respective temporal shifts, from fossil occurrence data.

Extant taxa can also be included in the PyRate framework as long as they are also represented in the fossil record. This is done to extend the fossil geologic ranges to the recent times. Hence, the first step in our analysis was to identify which species in our dataset is still alive at the present. To do this, we matched the accepted species names in the PBDB dataset with those from the extant species dataset of Huang et al.38. Subsequently, we split our dataset into eleven independent subsets, with the goal of keeping each subset with an equal number of species. Each data subset included a random selection of species with their respective occurrences, which was enough to calculate Ts and Te (see below). This was done to avoid convergence issues, given the large size of our dataset and the consequent complexity of the model37. For each of our subsets, we generated fifty replicates by resampling the fossil ages from their temporal ranges to account for the uncertainty associated with the age of occurrences. We then used the maximum-likelihood test in PyRate to compare between three models of fossil preservation12: the homogeneous Poisson process (HPP; q is constant through time); the nonhomogeneous Poisson process (NHPP; q varies throughout the lifespan of a species); and the time-variable Poisson process (TPP; q varies across geological epochs). The latter model (TPP) was selected across all of our data subsets (Supplementary Table2).

After selecting the preservation model, we first focused on assessing the estimates of times of origination and extinction in each data subset, rather than using the full dataset to jointly estimate all parameters at once as in the original implementation of PyRate. This further reduced the complexity of the model and allowed for more precise parameter estimates. For each replicate in all of our data subsets, we approximated the posterior distribution of Ts and Te through a 50 million generation run of the rjMCMC algorithm under the TPP, sampling parameters every 40 thousand iterations. At the end of each run, we discarded 20% of the samples as burn-in and assessed chain convergence through the effective sample sizes of posterior parameter estimates, using the software Tracer39 (v1.7.1).

From the results of this first set of models, we extracted the median estimates of Ts and Te across replicates, and we merged the estimates from the eleven independent data subsets. This merged data frame contained estimated times of origination and extinction for all coral lineages within our fossil dataset. We then used this merged Ts and Te data frame as input for another rjMCMC chain to finally estimate overall and through time, by applying the option -d in PyRate. In this option, Ts and Te for all fossil lineages are given as fixed values and, therefore, are not estimated by the model. The chain for this model was run for 100 million generations, sampling parameters at every 40 thousand iterations. Once again, we excluded 20% of the initial samples as burn-in and checked model convergence using Tracer. Finally, we calculated net diversification rates through time by subtracting the post burn-in samples of from .

To explore the taxonomic idiosyncrasies in the evolutionary rates of reef corals, we selected the most abundant families on present-day coral reefs in terms of the number of colonies per area18 (Acroporidae, Agariciidae, Merulinidae, Mussidae, Pocilloporidae, and Poritidae). Altogether, species within these families account for ~40% of the total extant diversity in Scleractinia. These families also account for most of the occurrences in the PBDB fossil dataset (excluding extinct families, which are generally older and had little temporal overlap with extant ones): Acroporidae (1457 occ. in 165 spp.); Agariciidae (722 occ. in 89 spp.); Merulinidae (2464 occ. in 229 spp.); Mussidae (1146 occ. in 100 spp.); Pocilloporidae (615 occ. in 64 spp.); and Poritidae (1149 occ. in 91 spp.). Therefore, from our full dataset, we selected six independent ones encompassing all species in each of the selected families. We also selected only species that are classified as reef-associated within these families, since we were specifically interested in these environments. This selection had a negligible effect on the size of the individual datasets, given that the vast majority of fossil species within these families are reef-associated. In each family, we followed the same modelling steps described above to estimate and , and diversity trajectories. However, this time it was not necessary to split the datasets into subsets, given that each family has far less occurrences than the full dataset. We started by comparing models of preservation, which showed the TPP as the best supported for all families (Supplementary Table3). Then we created fifty replicates by resampling fossil ages to accommodate the uncertainty associated with the time of occurrences. For each replicate, we ran the rjMCMC algorithm for 50 million generations under the TPP model, with a sampling frequency of 40 thousand iterations. We discarded initial 20% of the samples as burn-in, and assessed convergence through Tracer. We then combined all replicates, resampling 100 random samples from each replicate to assess the estimates of and through time for each family. Finally, we extracted diversity trajectories in each family for all of the replicates by applying the -ltt option in PyRate, which generates a table with estimated range-through diversity at every 0.1Myr. From these trajectories, we calculated the mean difference in diversity (slope in species per 0.1Myr) between subsequent time samples backwards from the present (i.e., diversity in time t was subtracted from diversity in time t-1) using the diff function in R (v4.0.3).

As an alternative to PyRate, we also calculated the diversity dynamics of reef coral fossils using the R package divDyn40, which combines a range of published methods for quantifying fossil diversification rates. Differently from PyRate, the metrics applied in divDyn require that the fossil occurrences are split into discrete time bins. Therefore, these metrics treat the origination and extinction rates as independent parameters in each bin, while PyRate is designed to detect rate heterogeneity through a continuous time setting12. Our goal here, however, was not to compare models but to assess the robustness of our rate patterns and diversity trajectories using alternative methods. We divided our dataset into one-million-year time bins to have enough temporal resolution for rate calculations. To account for the uncertainty in the assignment of fossil ages, we created 50 binned replicates by sampling the age of each occurrence from a random uniform distribution, with bounds defined by the age ranges provided in the PBDB dataset. We then used the divDyn function to calculate the per capita rates of origination and extinction through time (based on the rate equations by Foote41) for all scleractinians (Supplementary Fig.5a) and for reef-associated acroporids alone (Supplementary Fig.5b). We also used the same procedure to generate range-through diversity curves for each of the six families selected previously, to compare with the curves generated by PyRate (Fig.2a). Although the rate results differed between the PyRate (Fig.1) and the divDyn (Supplementary Fig.5) approaches, the general patterns remained unchanged. Rates are more volatile through time in divDyn estimates, with larger confidence intervals, which is expected from the metrics applied in the package12,42. Yet, we found the same peaks in extinction for Scleractinia: at the Cretaceous-Paleogene and Eocene-Oligocene boundaries, and at the Pliocene-Pleistocene (Supplementary Fig.5a). The recent peak in speciation in Acroporidae was also detected, although less strong (Supplementary Fig.5b). Despite these slight differences in rate estimates, the diversity curves reconstructed through divDyn (Supplementary Fig.6) mirrored almost exactly the ones found with PyRate (Fig.2), demonstrating that the overall macroevolutionary trends described herein (Figs.1 and 2) are robust to methodological choices.

To assess the effects of diversity dependency on the evolution of reef coral lineages, we implemented the Multivariate Birth-Death model (MBD)11 within the PyRate framework. This method was first described as the Multiple Clade Diversity Dependence model (MCDD)19, in which rates of speciation and extinction are modelled as having linear correlations with the diversity trajectories of other clades. At its original implementation, the MCDD was developed to assess the effects of negative interactions, where increasing species diversity in one group can suppress speciation rates and/or promote extinction in itself or in other ecologically similar clades19. However, the model also incorporates the possibility of positive interactions, where increasing diversity in one clade can correlate with enhanced rates of speciation or buffered extinction. Through further model developments43, the MCDD was updated to also include a horseshoe prior44 on the diversity-dependence parameters, which helped controlling for overparameterization and enhanced the power of the model to recover true effects43. More recently, this model took its current form as the MBD11, with the additional possibilities of including environmental correlates and setting exponential, rather than just linear, correlations.

We first applied the MBD to estimate the diversity-dependent effects of individual extant coral families (i.e., the ones selected in the previous analysis; see Evolutionary rates) in their combined diversity trajectories. From the rjMCMC model results for individual families, we extracted estimates of Ts and Te in each of the fifty replicates and merged them across families. This merged dataset with fifty replicates of Ts and Te was then used as input for the MBD model, where we set the relative diversity trajectories of each individual family as predictors. We also included three key environmental predictorspaleotemperature, sea level and rate of sea-level changeto assess their influence in overall evolutionary rates. The paleotemperature data was obtained from Westerhold et al.45, and consists of global mean temperature estimates for the last 66 million years, averaged across 0.1Myr time bins. Eustatic sea-level data was downloaded from Miller et al.46, and contains estimates of sea level for the last 100 million years in comparison to present-day levels, also split in ~0.1Myr time bins. With this dataset, we calculated the average rate of sea-level change per million years, as measured from the absolute difference between subsequent sea-level values backwards in time (i.e., sea level in time t was subtracted from sea level in time t-1). These environmental factors were rescaled between 0 and 1 to maintain all predictors on the same relative scale.

Under our MBD model, the speciation and extinction rates of all families combined could change through time and through correlations with the relative diversity of individual families or environmental factors. The strength and directionality (positive or negative) of the correlations are also jointly estimated for each predictor within the model11. We ran both linear and exponential correlation models (see formulas in Lehtonen et al.11) in each of our fifty replicates for 25 million generations, sampling parameters at every 25 thousand iterations. We then compared the linear and exponential models through the posterior harmonic means of their log likelihoods, which supported the exponential one as having a better fit. From the posterior estimates, we summarized the speciation (Fig.3c) and extinction (Fig.3d) correlation parameters (i.e., the strength of the effect) by calculating their median and 95% Highest Posterior Density (HPD) interval across replicates. Finally, we also summarized the effect of families on lineage turnover (Fig.3e), which we conceptualize as the sum of the effects on speciation and extinction.

The MBD model also provides posterior samples of the weight of the correlation parameters, which is estimated through the horseshoe prior11. In essence, this prior is able to reliably distinguish correlation parameters that should be considered noise from those that represent a true signal in the data11. The parameterization of the horseshoe prior contains local and global Bayesian shrinkage parameters44 from which shrinkage weights (w) can be calculated (see formulas in Lehtonen et al.11). These shrinkage weights associated with each correlation parameter in the MBD model vary between 0 and 1, with values closer to 0 representing noise and values closer to 1 representing a true signal. Through simulations, it has been shown that values of w>0.5 indicate that the correlation parameter in question significantly differs from the background noise, being the correlation positive or negative43. However, as a conservative way to infer the weight of correlation parameters, here we use a value of w>0.7 to detect significance. This value was calculated for each diversity-dependence parameter (speciation, extinction and turnover) from the median values drawn from the model posteriors.

The spatial distribution of reef-associated taxa varied considerably throughout the Cenozoic, with biodiversity hotspots moving halfway across the globe47. Therefore, the best way to capture this dynamic biogeographic history in reef corals is by analysing global diversity patterns like we did in our main MBD model. However, to assess the robustness of our diversity-dependent results against the influence of geographic scale and site co-occurrences, we repeated all the modelling steps described above with two data subsets. First, we selected only fossil species that have occurrences in the Indo-Pacific Ocean (i.e., 30W180W) within the six families. Second, we excluded sites in which the Acroporidae did not co-occur with the other families. In each of these data subsets, we calculated diversity trajectories and used them as predictors in a separate MBD model. These models had a merged dataset of Ts and Te of all species included in each case (Indo-Pacific and co-occurrences) as a response variable.

Finally, we followed the same modelling procedures described above to investigate the diversity-dependent effects in family pairwise analyses. We applied the MBD model to assess the effects of all other families in each individual family at a time, while also estimating correlations with the key environmental predictors. From the rjMCMC model results for individual families, we extracted the fifty replicates of estimated Ts and Te. Each replicate was then used as input for an MBD run using the relative diversity trajectories of each other individual family as predictors, along with the environmental variables. Once again, we ran 25 million generations of the MBD, with a sampling frequency of 25 thousand, using both linear and exponential correlation models in each age replicate. For all families, we found that the exponential model had a better fit. We then summarized the correlation parameters and the shrinkage weights (Supplementary Fig.7) derived from the exponential models per family by calculating the median and 95% confidence intervals across replicates.

Further information on research design is available in theNature Research Reporting Summary linked to this article.

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Fast-growing species shape the evolution of reef corals - Nature.com

The late E. O. Wilson (19292021) received more than one hundred awards for his research and writing, including two Pulitzer Prizes. As a professor at Harvard University, Wilson influenced generations with his ideas about human evolution and ethics.

In his 2012 New York Times essay Evolution and Our Inner Conflict, Wilson asked two key question regarding the problem of evil in our world:

Are human beings intrinsically good but corruptible by the forces of evil, or the reverse, innately sinful yet redeemable by the forces of good? Are we built to pledge our lives to a group, even to the risk of death, or the opposite, built to place ourselves and our families above all else?

Wilson believed that humans are all of these things at once. In order to evolve, nature pulls humanity between good and evil instincts. Humans sometimes work to preserve the group and sometimes work to preserve the individual. This kind of multilevel selection was the principal force of social evolution. Most importantly, he believed that biology, not Godm, was the key to understanding the world. For Wilson, the evolutionary pull between selfish and altruistic behaviors is the essence of our inner conflict.

But even the use of binary concepts like good and evil or altruistic and selfish is misleading. Given his naturalistic worldview, Wilson concluded that we should not put the moral label of good or evil on any of our instincts, which are of genetic origin. Sometimes humans need to be selfish to survive. Sometimes humans need to be altruistic to survive. Both selfishness and sacrifice are necessary parts of our evolutionary past and necessary for the very survival of humanity.

To be clear, Wilson never applied his theory to artificial intelligence (AI). And it is doubtful that AI will ever evolve a sense of self-awareness. But, even if AI never becomes conscious, AI will be programmed to make decisions. So the question is this: If the humans who share Wilsons view of social evolution program AI, will the AI share our inner conflict?

As humans come to rely more and more on AI to make decisions about things such as medical care and food distribution, we must be aware of the moral code behind the coding. AI could well be driven by its own iteration of multilevel selection in at least two ways.

According to Wilson, the first trait of human existence is our selfishness and superiority. Humans (both individually and as groups) have an inborn perception of superiority which is necessary for our evolution. Now, if AI is the next evolution of the human mind, then certainly AI will share humanitys sense of selfish superiority. In the inevitable conflict between AI and humanity, AIs sense of superiority will lead it to protect itself and sacrifice humanity. At the same time, to stave off artificial insanity AI will also need to identify with a group. This leads to the second aspect of AIs inner conflict.

According to Wilson, people give preference to those who act, speak, and believe as they do. He notes, An amplification of this evidently inborn predisposition leads with frightening ease to racism and religious bigotry. But why is Wilson frightened by racism and religious bigotry? According to Wilsons own article, tribalism is neither good or bad, but a neutral trait necessary for human evolution.

More to the point, if Wilsons naturalistic framework is the source code for AI, we must ask ourselves, what encoded bigotries will AI select as necessary for survive? Will some humans be privileged and others oppressed? Will AI limit resources to certain tribes of humans to ensure the survival of the species? The likely answer to each of these questions is yes.

In a world stripped of the divine, it is computer code, not God, that will define the good and bad of our future. AIs evolved sense of superiority and tribalism speaks to the potential problem of AIs inner conflict. If the code is written by humans, who are both saint and sinner, then AI will certainly function as both sinner and saint. To manage the world of human, animal, and plant life, AI will sometimes need to select between groups deemed more valuable and those deemed too weak to advance society. But dont let that discourage you. After all, writes Wilson, this kind of multilevel selection, might be the only way in the entire universe that human-level intelligence and social organization can evolve. After all, its the progress of human civilization that matters, not the methods we use to achieve that progress.

In the end, AI will be driven by the moral code embraced by the scientists and engineers who build it. If Wilsons naturalism is any indication of our future, then AI will not save us from ourselves.

You may also wish to read: Why the imago Dei (Image of God) shuts the door on transhumanism. As the belief that technology promises us a glorious post-human future advances among scholar who profess Christianity, we must ask some hard questions. The mission to self-evolve beyond humanity begs the question, how is humanity saved through technological advancement designed to eliminate humanity? (J. R. Miller)

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Why AI Can't Save Us From Ourselves If Evolution Is Any Guide - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

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Currently DAS designs and produces within its premises, following the continuous evolution and technological transformation, automated systems more sophisticated and complex than ever, with the aim of constantly enhancing the performances and the quality of product, but also to facilitate the use and maintenance of its instruments, guaranteeing better analytical results and higher reliability. The most recent product line ELITE, due to its outstanding flexibility and originality, stands out to the attention of IVD market that relates to the analytical full automated process of ELISA IFA- BLOT.

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45 Years of Technical Evolution Labmate Online - Labmate Online

The rapid evolution of ABM platforms is creating various paths for the future

As the Forrester B2B Summit gets underway today, marketers will be assembling to discuss the latest changes in technologies that help them do their jobs more effectively. And no category has gone through more changes over the past two years than the tools for account-based marketing (ABM). And the changes arent finished!

What is driving the evolution of ABM platforms? According to Forresters lead analyst for the category, Malachi Threadgill, it is a response to the way marketers and sellers are adjusting to the changes among B2B buyers. He explained, We tend to think about marketing in an old way, which is leads - MCLs and SQLs. The reality is that 84% of B2B decisions are made by a committee of four or more. The toolsets have caught up to understand that a lead is just a signal. If one person downloads a form, it's a signal that the buying group is likely looking at that.

Malachi Threadgill, principal analyst at Forrester

He continued, At a high level, the platforms provide the ability to find good-fit accounts, understand if they're in market and then be able to orchestrate and activate campaigns to them. This has been the focal point of a lot of the organizations. We've seen a lot of consolidation in the space over the last couple years, similar to what we saw with marketing automation platforms before they were acquired by the bigger companies. The interesting thing is that, today, we are seeing that most of the top players in the space have relative parity. This parity of primary features has caused vendors to explore adjacent and nascent capabilities to differentiate their offerings and deliver value to their customers. These capabilities include owned proprietary data, deeper machine learning assistance, and fully embedded email capabilities. There are nuances between platforms that organizations should consider, and if those nuanced differences are important, one may be better than the other for that specific use case.

The evolution of the category is so dramatic that ABM may soon be dying as a moniker. One of the category leaders, Demandbase, acquired Engagio in 2020, whose founder, Jon Miller, now serves as CMO of Demandbase. Miller provided his perspective on the evolution of the category, which he now dubs account-based experiences (ABX). He shared, There are two key drivers for introducing AVX instead of ABM. The first one is a little nuanced. I think the way account-based marketing had been practiced, it was done without a lot of respect for the buyer experience. The analogy that I've always used to describe ABM was fishing with spears which was a really effective analogy. But at the same time, it doesn't feel very good to get poked by a spear. So, with the advent of things like intent data that lets you get a lot smarter around knowing where an account is in its buying journey, the realization I had is that there's the opportunity to combine the precision and targeting of ABM with the respect for the buyer experience that traditional inbound marketing had. Don't bug people when it's the wrong time and align your go-to-market to where the account is in its own experience, in its own journey.

Jon Miller, CMO of Damandbase

Miller continued, The second driver behind ABX as a term is a little bit more obvious. Account-based marketing has the word marketing in the title. And that's really a misnomer for what is a go-to-market strategy that demands alignment across multiple departments including sales and sales development. So that was the impetus behind driving account-based experience.

He expressed his belief that account and contact data will be key to success in the category. The reality is the AI algorithms are fairly commoditized. The nuance is in the data and how you use that data as it inputs into the algorithms. Because of that, what we're seeing is that the competition battleground is increasingly moving towards who has the best data. And that's behind our recent positioning where we're really focusing on our account intelligence. So we acquired InsideView as a key partto building that out. And the DemandMatrix acquisition is bringing technographic data to the table which does get into improving the intent. So, what that means is in many ways, is that our future competitor is ZoomInfo more than it is [other ABM platforms]. We built the application and now we are increasingly providing the data. ZoomInfo, historically, had data and they're starting to move into the application. Account intelligence is really where the future battleground is going to be.

Greg Brown, Greg Bell, head of strategic marketing and industry solutions at 6sense

6sense also agrees that the nomenclature is outdated but has a different term it is advocating. Greg Bell, head of strategic marketing and industry solutions at 6sense explained, The issue that we saw with ABM a couple of years ago was the M. We saw it in the way that we use 6sense internally, we saw it in our customers and the value that they're getting from the platform. It's that it's not just account-based marketing. We certainly have capabilities for marketers, but also for sellers, for folks in operations, and even customer success. It's all about uniting the revenue team. We like to say it's about generating pipeline and revenue more predictably, that's really the promise that the 6sense platform delivers on to our customers. So we started down the road towards this RevTech message.

Brown continued, We grew up in the world of big data and predictive analytics, that's really where our roots are. The ways that we use AI beyond modeling for propensity to buy at the account and the contact level, things like using AI to predict next best actions for sellers would be one example of other applications of AI. 6sense has also been enhancing its capabilities through acquisitions, including Zen IQ, Fortella, Slintel and Sales Whale.

Jason Zintak, CEO of 6sense

Jason Zintack, CEO of 6sense expanded on the companys vision, Last year we launched the RevTech Revolution and announced our commitment to transform the B2B buying experience. Account-based marketing plays an important role in a modern approach to growth, but our vision is bigger, too. It has to be. We need to bring together marketing and sales, customer success, RevOps, and the rest of the revenue team if we want to see the kind of change our industry needs and buyers deserve.

Terminus has also been recognized as a category leader. Bryan Wade joined the firm when his company, Sigstr, was acquired by Terminus, and now serves as chief product officer. He shared, ABM is all about sales and marketing coming together and agreeing that rather than just taking inbound leads that come your way, and cold calling into accounts that just happened to be in your territory, let's go after the accounts that we think are our ideal customers, the ones that will have the most success with us, that will spend more with us once we sign them up as a client, and not try to acquire customers that aren't a fit. So in the beginning, the idea of ABM was around marketing and sales alignment, ideal customer profile, targeting those accounts, and then bringing those customers into your customer base. It's evolved into so much more.

Bryan Wade, chief product officer at Terminus

Terminus has expanded its platform to address the increasing expectations. In addition to acquiring Sigstr, it has acquired Growfire, Xylo Tech, Ramble and BrightFunnel. Wade added, Our vision is to build a B2B marketing cloud. And you can't have a B2B marketing cloud without a journey builder. So we're building a brand new interface that will help our customers orchestrate all the different channels in one canvas. We are integrating the CDP into our ABM platform. I think when you step back and think about what well will turn into in three to five years, we'll have a B2B CDP with an orchestration engine sitting on top of it.

The ABM platform field includes additional players including MRP, Rollworks, Triblio and Tech Target among others. And there are players in adjacent categories including SalesLoft, Outreach and Zoominfo, not to mention the marketing automation platforms like Marketo, Pardot and Hubspot. So where is the category going in the near future? Forresters Threadgill concluded, I think there's still a bit more time for the ABM platforms in terms of what their short-term strategies are. With ZoomInfo going public and being rewarded for it, and acquiring companies and being rewarded for it, and then massive investments in a lot of the other ABM platforms, it's going to be interesting to see what they do with that capital. When you just look at those valuations, does it still make sense for an Adobe or an Oracle to acquire them? I don't know that answer.

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Why The Evolution Of ABM Is Creating Both Confusion And Opportunity For B2B Marketers - Forbes

Pay-per-view streaming returned to the world of curling last weekwith a twist.

The World Mixed Doubles Championships in Geneva once again saw World Curling Television use the Recast (recast.app) service, which charges 0.50 per match. This is the same service that was used at the Olympic Qualifying Event and European Championships earlier this season,which prompted thiscolumn, as well as the recent mens and womens worlds.

Regional blackouts were applied (for example, any game shown on TSN was not available in Canada on Recast), but there were at least two matches per draw that were given the full broadcast experiencewith on-site commentary, multiple cameras and production, and so on.

Now for the twist. If your favourite team didnt make the cut for coverage, the WCF added a light coverage option to the three other matches that werent given the full treatment. Light coverage consisted of two stationary cameras pointed at the two houses in a split-screen presentation, and the action was shown without commentary, replays or alternate angles.

Scores of the other four sheets ran along the bottom of the viewers screen.

WCTV light coverage view

The audio wasnt great, as the players microphones werent on and they had a microphone picking up ambient noise near the ice (and the microphone for sheets A and B must have been near the ventilation system or something, because there was a lot of white noise going on there).

This light coverage costs 0.25; half as much as the matches with commentary, bells and whistles.

While the level of coverage matches that of a curling club dabbling in streaming league play league to YouTube, at least it gives the option to be able to follow any game, which is a vastly superior experience than waiting for line scores to update after each end. Well probably never see four or five fully-produced games at onceother than at the Olympicsso this light coverage, which has been requested on many a curling chat group over the years, is a fine compromise.

While cable TV sports coverage isnt going away, internet streaming is on the rise and will only get more commonplace. I know most will grumble about having to pay to watch a match, but these are essentially micro-transactions, and compared to what you have to pay to subscribe to a cable channeleither directly or through a cable subscriptionthis doesnt break the bank.

So, the question that I asked back in December remains how much is broadcast curling worth to you?

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The Evolution of Curling Coverage - Sports Illustrated

Adam Lau and John Moore.Photo: Ken Howard

On Saturday night, Version 2.0 of the Mason Bates-Mark Campbell opera, THE (R)EVOLUTION OF STEVE JOBS, opened brilliantly as a mainstage production of the Atlanta Opera, in its East Coast premiere, under Tomer Zvulun's taut direction and Michael Christie's smart baton. To say the audience greeted the work joyfully would be an understatement.

It's a production that humanizes the protagonist without making him into a silly putty version of the brilliantly creative, decidedly intuitive yet often mean-spirited man who changed the face of personal computing, telephonics and communications in general.

I say that this is Version 2.0 of the work is because the original production started life less than five years ago at the Santa Fe Opera in a glitzier mood, which helped win the opera's recording a Grammy. In many ways it's the same opera, about the same character, with a little changed score and libretto.

Yet, it's not the same. It has certainly connected the dots in the story of Jobs. The result is that Zvulun's production--which started life at the Austin Opera before going to Kansas City Lyric Opera and now Atlanta, before making other stops-has managed to humanize him, at least to my eyes.

Here, we see Jobs as more of a man, the good and the bad of him, in a delicate balancing act. That is no small accomplishment, by the way, because everyone has their perceptions of the myth of Jobs.

With its compelling score by Bates that combines the melodic and the technologic, the driving and the calm, the sound and the solemn, it melds with the libretto, created by Campbell. That consists of a series of vignettes that jump back and forth in Jobs' life-one that is not linear at all but circular--and show the human part of the man's story, which was important to his philosophical growth.John Moore. Photo: Ken Howard

At the opening, the fine cast brought the material to life, working with the carefully wrought creative work of Bates and Campbell to make it sing in all senses of the word. There were first-rate performances, including John Moore as Jobs, driven and visionary, with his forceful baritone; and mezzo Sarah Larsen as his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, who taught him much about life, using a luxurious voice.

Joining them in other major roles were tenor Bille Bruley as his technology co-conspirator Steve Wozniak, a good vocal and dramatic contrast as techie to the more artistic side of Jobs; soprano Elizabeth Sutphen as his clueless early lover, Chrisann, mother of his daughter; and, most assuredly, bass Adam Lau as his Buddhist spiritual guide, Kobun, who was alive to Jobs even after his physical death.Adam Lau and John Moore.Photo: Ken Howard

Working with the creators' material, the director and conductor helped the cast turn the story of this life, which might have been somewhat repulsive in lesser hands-Jobs could become ugly on a dime, e.g., denying his fatherhood of his girlfriend's child--turn out smartly.

It did that by returning to some of Campbell's original intentions in his libretto, under the careful hands of Zvulun (he's also the company's general and artistic director) and his creative team: conductor Michael Christie; scenic and costume designer Jacob A. Climer, who came up with some clever scenic effects for the multi-level set; projections designer S. Katy Tucker; and lighting designer Robert Wierzel.

Together, all the pieces of the production connect the dots of the technology wizard's journey, looking backward, as Jobs once said in a commencement speech at Stanford, "You have to trust that the dots [in your past] will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something-your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach never let me down and has made all the differences in my life."

You can trust in THE (R)EVOLUTION OF STEVE JOBS to give you a rich experience in contemporary opera.

For information about tickets for the remaining performances at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, see the Atlanta Opera's website. In addition, the opera will be live-streamed, using the Atlanta Opera's eight-camera system, to your preferred device on May 6. It can be pre-ordered for $19.99.

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BWW Review: (R)EVOLUTION OF STEVE JOBS by Bates and Campbell under Zvulun Closes the Circle on Apple's Creation - Broadway World

Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy ( left) and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch teamed up on a series of landmark legislative health care achievements, such as the Ryan White program on AIDS treatment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the first major federal child care law. John Duricka/AP hide caption

Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy ( left) and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch teamed up on a series of landmark legislative health care achievements, such as the Ryan White program on AIDS treatment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the first major federal child care law.

When it comes to health policy, former Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who died Saturday at age 88, leaves a complex legacy of major legislative achievements, changing positions, compromises and fierce opposition. In many ways, though, Hatch's evolution and leadership on health policy during his four decades in the U.S. Senate mirror that of the Republican Party.

When he came to Washington as a neophyte politician after an upset victory in 1976, Hatch was a conservative firebrand, one of the early leaders of the "New Right" bent on dismantling the federal welfare state and banning abortion. A former trial lawyer, the new senator had never before held public office.

But the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the Republican takeover of the Senate that made Hatch chairman of the powerful Labor and Human Resources Committee (now the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee) turned him into something of a pragmatist. That pragmatism, it should be noted, was somewhat forced: Even though Hatch was technically the chair, there were enough moderate Republicans on the panel to give the ranking Democrat, Massachusetts' Edward Kennedy, effective control over what could be passed by the committee.

So Hatch learned to compromise and to legislate. In 1984, he negotiated with liberal Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., what is still referred to as the "Hatch-Waxman Act." It's better known as the law that allowed, for the first time, approval of generic copies of brand-name drugs. Although far from a panacea, it is still the single-biggest advance in the fight to rein in high drug prices.

When the Democrats took back the Senate after the 1986 elections, Kennedy became chairman of the committee and Hatch, the ranking Republican. The two teamed up on a series of landmark legislative achievements, from the Ryan White program on AIDS treatment and the Americans with Disabilities Act to the first major federal child care law. And while Hatch was a strong foe of national health insurance, he and Kennedy ultimately pushed through Congress in 1997 the bill to create the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides low-cost health insurance for low-income families who don't qualify for Medicaid.

The stridently anti-abortion Hatch was outspoken about his support for federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells derived from aborted fetuses. "I think it's the ultimate pro-life position, because I believe being pro-life is not just caring for the unborn but caring for those who are living," he told NPR in 2007.

But like much of the Republican Party in Congress, Hatch returned to his conservative roots after the election of President Barack Obama in 2008. A supporter of the so-called individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance when it was the quasi-official GOP position in the early 1990s, Hatch became an outspoken foe. "Congress has never crossed the line between regulating what people choose to do and ordering them to do it," he said in 2010.

After moderate Utah Republican Sen. Robert Bennett was ousted in a primary in 2010 and replaced by conservative favorite Mike Lee, Hatch grew more conservative to win reelection in 2012. His final term in the Senate was marked by efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act and further restrict abortion access. The devout Mormon, who in his spare time wrote lyrics for best-selling Christian music, even called the ACA "the stupidest, dumb-a** bill that I've ever seen. Now some of you may have loved it; if you do, you are one of the stupidest dumb-a** people I've ever met." He later apologized for the statement.

A former Kennedy aide, Jim Manley, told The Salt Lake Tribune that "no one epitomizes the rightward lurch of the Republican Party more than Sen. Hatch."

In one final twist, however, Hatch pushed as his successor the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney. In just his first few years, Romney has become one of the most moderate Republicans in the chamber. That may prove to be Orrin Hatch's final legacy.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. It is an editorially independent operating program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation).

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Sen. Orrin Hatch's legacy tracks the GOP's evolution on health - NPR

Mark Hixon diving.

Six faculty members at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa have been listed among the top 1,000 scientists in the disciplines of ecology and evolution. In the top 1% of their fields, UH scientists were ranked among 166,880 colleagues evaluated by Research.com.

School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technologys (SOEST) Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) Researcher Brian Bowen; SOEST Pacific Biosciences Research Center Professor Emeritus Michael Hadfield; School of Life Sciences Professor Mark Hixon; SOEST Department of Oceanography Professor Emeritus Craig Smith; SOEST HIMB Researcher Robert Toonen; and SOEST HIMB former director, the late Ruth Gates, were ranked among the worlds top scientists for ecology and evolution.

The ranking is constructed using the H-index data (a metric for evaluating the cumulative impact of an authors scholarly output and performance) gathered by Microsoft Academic and included only prominent scientists with an H-index of at least 30 for scientific papers published in the field of ecology and evolution.

This recognition demonstrates the superior quality of work by our faculty, providing further evidence of our status as one of the worlds great research universities, said UH Mnoa Provost Michael Bruno. Their research in ecology, conservation, and human impacts on the environment have led the way toward countless impactful discoveries, and we are proud to have them as part of our UH ohana.

Bowens research program is designed to resolve the origins of marine biodiversity in the service of conservation. Since joining the HIMB faculty in 2003, he has conducted range-wide genetic inventories of Hawaiian and Indo-Pacific reef fishes to inform the design of marine protected areas. Bowen is co-author of the best-selling textbook Diversity of Fishes, which will be published in a third edition later this year.

Hadfields scientific interests lie mainly in marine invertebrate larval ecology and metamorphosis and the roles of marine bacteria films as cues for larval settlement. His long-term research goals are aimed at understanding the factors that determine where larvae of bottom-living invertebrate animals settle and metamorphosea key to understanding how seafloor communities are established and maintained on all surfaces under salt water.

Hixons expertise is the ecology and conservation biology of coral reefs, presently focusing on how seaweed-eating fishes benefit corals. He has also studied kelp forest fishes, hummingbird behavior, deep-sea communities, fisheries ecology, and the invasion of the Caribbean Sea by Pacific lionfish.

Smith has strong interests in biodiversity, disturbance ecology and human impacts in seafloor ecosystems. He has conducted research in Antarctica, mangroves, submarine canyons, whale-fall communities, cold seeps, continental slopes, and abyssal plains to obtain a broad perspective of natural and stressed marine ecosystems. His most recent work includes assessing the impacts of climate warming on Antarctic fjord ecosystems, and designing marine protected areas to mitigate biodiversity loss from deep-sea mining.

Toonen has used lab and field experiments, molecular genetics, and computer modeling and more in an effort to address a variety of biological questions. From assessing cues for larval settlement to population genetics of marine invertebrates, sharks and turtles, to coral bleaching and conservation, Toonen approaches research from an ecological perspectiveto scale up from genes to individuals to populations.

Gates was a tireless innovator and advocate for coral reef conservation. Coral reefs around the world have experienced massive die off as a result of warming ocean temperatures, increasing acidity, pollution runoff from land and other threats. The focus of her most recent research was creating super corals, coral species occurring naturally in the ocean that could be trained to become more resilient to these harsh conditions. Gates passed away in 2018.

This recognition is an example of UH Mnoas goal of Excellence in Research: Advancing the Research and Creative Work Enterprise (PDF), one of four goals identified in the 201525 Strategic Plan (PDF), updated in December 2020.

For more information, see Research.com.

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6 UH faculty recognized among top scientists in ecology, evolution | University of Hawaii System News - University of Hawaii

For many audiences, Spring Awakening was such a revelation because they had never seen anything like it before. Frank Wedekinds 1891 coming-of-age story isnt the most obvious choice for a Broadway musical, but the stage adaptation is one of the most beloved pieces of theater from the last twenty years. The fanbase is passionate and voracious, and I distinctly remember seeing the original Broadway cast back in 2007 (and I had Dont Do Sadness as a ringback tone for the longest time). For HBOs Spring Awakening: Those Youve Known, the cast reunites for a benefit concert, and, even if you didnt like the Duncan Sheik musical, you will be floored by the true journey towards adulthood.

Who can you trust to come back for a reunion more than theater kids? At the start of the pandemic, the schedules of every original Broadway cast member was open, and a benefit anniversary concert was proposed. At the start of Michael John Warrens documentary, we see stars Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele preparing at their apartments and venturing off to their first rehearsal, and the anticipation to get back together is palpable. Not only is it reunion for the cast members of this landmark musical, but Broadway had just slowly opened mere months before this concert took place in November of 2021.

What made Spring Awakening so unique is that it was a timeless story of self-discovery with modern influences. Sheik composed a truly contemporary rock score filled with aching and yearning even though the characters were dressed in 19th century German clothes and holding microphones. It was thrilling because it felt so new and traditional at the same time. Michele recalls how her husband asked her, Is it like Rent?

When the cast is together again, it is an emotional experience. Groff unexpectedly starts to cry when Michele sings the first few notes of Mama Who Bore Me during rehearsal, and, even though the material lends itself to angst and raucousness, there are only tender feelings amongst this group. In confessionals, Michele details just how deeply she fell in love with Groff as they started working together, but its Groffs recounting of his own coming out experience that really tugs at your heart. Director Michael Mayer thought the actor might be gay, but he told himself that he would let Groff come out on his terms, if he felt so inclined.

Those Youve Known is beautifully edited. It bounces around from those confessionals to footage of the original production in 2006 to the eventual benefit concert last fall. Even though 15 years have passed, some of the movements on stage are exactly the same.

The film does detail the musicals worrisome preview attendance numbers and its triumphant night at the Tony Awards, but thats not what this film is about. These actors and creatives have the ability to lovingly look back at the piece of art that truly changed them. Michele is not the same performer that she was when she originated the role of Wendla at the age of 14, and Groff, surely, approaches the lyrics of Melchiors songs (especially the emotional finale) with experienced eyes. The timbre of the actors voices is familiar yet shaded with experience and time.

There is a lot of beauty when it comes to reminiscing. We all wish we could go back or change something about ourselves, but the cast of Spring Awakening wouldnt have it that way. They created a purple summer so singular and meaningful that its more about the journey than the destination.

Spring Awakening: Those Youve Known premieres on HBO on May 3, and it will be available to stream the following day on HBO Max.

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'Spring Awakening: Those You've Known' Celebrates the Evolution of Art and Self - Awards Daily