Category Archives: Evolution

Some breeds of dogs are prized for their unique coat colors, such as the golden retriever's shimmery, amber coat or a blue merle Australian shepherd's speckled fur. Researchers previously thought that the variations in coat color occurred after humans began breeding and domesticating canines. However, in a new study published this month in Nature Ecology and Evolution, researchers found one gene that predates domestication actually produces five common coat color patterns that are still seen in hundreds of breeds today.

The mutations originated in a canid ancestor that diverged from grey wolves about two million years ago, reports Vishwam Sankaran for the Independent. The study may also reveal the origin and evolution of various dog lineages.

Dogs obtain their unique coat colors from a gene called Agouti-signaling protein (ASIP). The gene is responsible for controlling the amount and variation of yellow and black pigments seen in many mammals, reports Newsweek's Samantha Berlin. The yellow tint is called pheomelanin, and the black coloration is called eumelanin. Coat color patterns result from a regulated production of these two pigments, the Independent reports.

Geneticist Danika Bannasch of the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), and her team identified structural variants that control how the ASIP protein is expressed in two different locations on the gene. Mutations along the locations produce five different coat colors in dogs, according to a UC Davis press release.

The five coat color variations, or phenotypes, controlled by the ASIP gene are dominant yellow, shaded yellow, agouti, black saddle, and black back.

The dominant yellow coat pattern is shared with arctic white wolves and ended up in modern-day dogs when the lineage diverged two million years ago before modern wolves evolved, Gizmodo's Issac Schultz reports. The shaded yellow phenotype produced by mutations on the ASIP gene are seen in a collies coat color. Agouti occurs when more than one pigment is present on each hair; this pattern is seen on German sheperds, for example. A black saddle phenotype is characterized by a large black patch covering most of a dog's back, which is commonly seen in beagles. Black backs are characterized by a black coat covering most of their body. Sometimes a black-backed dog will have different colored belly or paws. This pattern is seen in breeds like Dachshunds or Bernese mountain dogs.

Lighter coat colors, like dominant yellow and shaded yellow, may have been favorable for the extinct canid ancestor while hunting in the snowy environments during glaciation periods between 1.5 and 2 million years agolong before canine domestication occurred 30,000 years ago, according to the press release.

"We were initially surprised to discover that white wolves and yellow dogs have an almost identical ASIP DNA configuration," says co-author Chris Kaelin of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in a statement. "But we were even more surprised when it turned out that a specific DNA configuration is more than 2 million years old, prior to the emergence of modern wolves as a species."

Per Newsweek, the lighter fur may have helped ancient wolves approach their prey without being seen. A golden coat color persisted in ancient canids, and the coloring is still observed in modern dogs and wolves. Examples of dominant yellow coat patterns are seen today in Shiba Inu, chow chows, bullmastiffs, and Irish terriers, Gizmodo reports.

Overall, the study gives scientists a better idea of what ancient canines may have looked like, per Gizmodo.

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Golden Fur in Dogs Evolved Two Million Years Ago, Long Before Domestication - Smithsonian Magazine

R

ush Street Interactive has partnered with Evolution to debut its Red Tiger online casino games at BetRivers.com, announced the company on August 19. The Chicago-based gaming company will be among the first online casino operators in Michigan to offer the companys game studio.

The newly launched games include fan favorites Bounty Raid, 777 Strike and Reel Keeper, which will be joined by Red Tigers Cash Vault, Piggy Riches Megaways and Gonzos Quest Megaways, already player favorites on BetRivers.com in Pennsylvania, describes the company in a press statement.

We are excited to partner with Evolution to bring these top quality and much-loved Red Tiger casino games to our players in Michigan, said Richard Schwartz, CEO of RSI, which operates BetRivers.

RSI was the first to debut the Red Tiger games in the U.S. where they are already some of the top performing games in Pennsylvania, further added Schwartz. The company expects the games to perform as successfully in Michigan.

On the importance of the deal, Jeff Millar, Commercial Director, North America for Evolution, said: Were very proud to be partnering with RSI. By having secured this collaboration, Evolution expects strengthen its position as a top provider in the online casino category.

Rush Street received authorization from the Michigan Gaming Control Board to launch online live dealer games back in July, including Blackjack, Roulette and Baccarat, available on its BetRivers.com website. A partnership with Little River Casino Resort in Manistee was announced back in June.

In a press release, Richard Schwartz said back in July: "A live dealer game is as close as you can get online to playing in a land-based casino and we're thrilled to be among the first to offer Michigan residents the opportunity to sit and play on Evolution's world-renowned virtual live dealer casino tables."

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Rush Street partners with Evolution to debut its Red Tiger games in Michigan - Yogonet International

George, you mentioned elsewhere that a big part of... I don't know if it was the genesis of the album, but there was sort of an extended bout of insomnia that went into this, right?

Clarke: Yeah. That was happening at the same time. It's funny looking back now because the pandemic is so much more understood at this point, but at the time, yeah, I was like wiping off grocery bags and not leaving my apartment at all. And I had so much wound up energy, not being able to go to the gym, not being able to go outside for a run, all of these things, at least in the first couple of months when the information was very thin.

Out of that developed a ton of insomnia. Just nowhere to place that energy, that anxiety, because we were working on the songs at the same time, I would just stay up and listen to demos and do writing and re-writing and try and write melodies and things like that. So a lot of my kind of homework happened between say two and six [AM]. And I think because of that, I was writing a lot in the blue hour, and I think that there's references to blue, and essentially every single song informed the artwork. The whole thing was kind of informed by this period of restlessness.

Yeah. You talked about just even breaking these songs down into syllables, because obviously the shift in your voice, the way that that's evolved quite quickly, and essentially having to find yourself a new voice on this record, or a different voice. What was that process like, of discovering that new voice and just breaking songs down into syllables that made more sense for that voice, as opposed to the howl of earlier records?

Clarke: It was a long process. When we were first talking with Justin, it was, of course, the kind of major thing, the major shift, that we were discussing. And he immediately made me feel very comfortable. He was like, "Look, we have a year, and we're going to do everything in that year to make this happen. You don't need to worry. Just do the steps. And we're going to work out a rough schedule and so on."

So as far as personal work goes, yeah, it was listening to a lot of different singers. I wanted to find a way to sing with some strength. A problem that I had with performing shoegaze live was I didn't want to be competing with roaring guitars and having this softer voice. And I found with a lot of bands that I love, the dynamic doesn't always work live. They can't always nail it. The mix is very difficult to balance those things out.

So initially my thought was, I need to have a voice that is strong enough to compete with the guitars. And so that was kind of going back to the classics and listening to Nina Simone and listening to Chet Baker, people that have a lot of character and strength in their voice. And the same thing with Tears For Fears or Depeche Mode or these stronger singers. Because I knew eventually if we were performing them live, I didn't want that to be a massive hurdle for us, where we were needing to really dial in this delicate vocal over all the loud live music. So that was a motivation.

And then from there, Justin has a studio at his house that we did the record. He has an isolation booth and while he was just working on other projects, he would let me come over and I would just stay in the iso booth just for hours. And I would yell and I could be loud in ways that I'm unable to in my apartment. I could test ideas out. Say like the end of "Great Mass of Color" or the end of "Villain," these things that have these more roaring kind of half yells, I was able to develop that in his studio, which was very helpful. And then working with Shiv and Chris and Kerry, I, at one point went up to the Bay Area. Shiv and Dan and I worked together. I remember for "In Blur," a ton of that was worked the three of us.

Kerry and I worked together a ton, especially on, like you were saying, like the syllable stuff. There's kind of an antidote that I keep using. In the chorus of "Other Language," there was a lyric that wasn't working and I was being very combative about it. And we all kind of worked together to make that more musical, make that make more sense. Or "Lament for Wasps," Kerry and I worked in Justin's iso booth on that course together. So there was a lot of communal group writing in a way that really wasn't available to us on the older records. Because frankly, it's more difficult for the guys to have input on a scream, and that kind of thing I can do alone.

That in itself made the experience a lot richer and helped me get across the finish line with what I was trying to accomplish, which was not only singing in this new voice, but owning it, and trying to create a record that sounded like a band that had always been doing this. I guess what I'm ultimately trying to say was that it was very thought out. It didn't feel haphazard at all. It was a lot of work. Yeah.

You said at one point that you couldn't be afraid. Was there a point where you were a little bit afraid of putting yourself out there with something that nobody had ever heard before?

Clarke: Absolutely. It's funny. You have these feelings in you for so long. You say you have this voice in you for so long. We'd been talking about expanding the vocal for a while and in certain ways I had kind of already done it on my own and we had done it together, like on "Near" from Ordinary Corrupt Human Love or "Night People" from Ordinary. It was like, it's always there, but when you start to really put it into practice, there is an imposter feeling for sure. And there is a out of body feeling where you're like this isn't my identity at all. Even though you've been harboring this internally for a while, once you start stepping into it. Yeah, for me anyway, if it felt at times a bit strange. It was like using totally new muscles and using a totally different part of my brain.

And the whole thing was so new that there were steps along the way where I just felt apprehension. Even less vocally, but more like on the musical side, there were times in the writing process I remember where we could have easily put in like a double kick or something and maybe did, and then we would stop and discuss. And it was always my opinion that we should stay the course and not falter into our old habits. And that went more for me than anything. Like don't scream here, do what it is that you want to do. And now that you're doing it, keep going. It was so important just to keep going and to exercise that honesty. I think that's the best way I could put it.

Kerry, did you feel the same during the writing process? Was there a sort of apprehension? I mean, it's fascinating to hear you talk about like reverting to a double kick and then being like, 'no, no, wait, this isn't what we're trying to do here.' I mean, are those moments scary for you as well?

McCoy: Well, every record that we put out is scary at some point. When we're working on music, we kind of have this rule where we don't allow ourselves or anyone to really ask the question like, 'geez, what are people going to think about this?' And we had it with New Bermuda when we started adding, like, kind of more heavier elements or we had it with Ordinary when we opened the record with a song that starts with piano. Like every record we have the same rule and then the same result ends where we write this thing and we're in our bubble, not even the manager hears it. No one hears it until it's done. And we're fully locked in.

What inevitably happens after that is that we turn the thing in, we show it to the label, we show it to our management, we show it to everybody, and they love it. Every time so far, at least people are like all excited about it. And then you've got six months for final turnaround. And so, you've got about four months until you can announce at some point. And so that's four months for your brain to start thinking, 'oh my God, what the hell have we done here?' And so this is just the same thing, but it's just the stakes went up a little bit higher. So it was a little bit more of that feeling of we were in the studio writing this stuff and then we're in the studio recording it. And the whole time we were just like, man, this fucking rules. I really like this. This is really what we want to be doing right now at this time in our existence of a band.

And then you hear the whole thing and then, like, we would all just listen to it and we showed Kathy and then we showed... We showed people and everyone was just like, 'oh my God, this is the best thing you guys have ever done, etc etc.' And then we turned it in and we're waiting since January up until like June 9th. And we're all just like, 'wait, is it good? It's good, right?' I listened to it again in the car this way. And I think it's good, but maybe I'm too old now. And I don't know, you have these kind of thoughts.

I think we can all deal with that in healthier ways these days. And so it's at the end of the day, we all just kind of sat there and be like, I mean, 'it is what it is.' Like we're locked in now. It's like being at the top of a rollercoaster and being like, 'oh, should I go in this?' The point is moot at this point. We're going on this ride whether you like it or not. So yeah, it was kind of that feeling, but there were moments of like, 'wow, this is kind of a crazy thing for us to write as a band,' but for better, for worse, this is the band we are now. So people are going to have to take it or leave it.

I was quite surprised going back and reading old interviews with you a while ago. You were talking about sort of being a little bit apprehensive about a new album coming out and trying to shy away from reading reviews, and it surprised me because I've always conceived of Deafheaven as a band who, whoever they're pissing off, they're pissing off somebody. And I sort of expected you to be just like inured to it, just like completely defiant and just like, yeah, well, you know what? Some people are going to hate it. Is there still this kind of thrill about upending expectations?

McCoy: Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. A couple things. One is I stopped reading reviews. Well, I'll read the reviews, I'll read the big reviews, the ones that whatever... I stopped reading comments, I stopped reading any of that kind of stuff, when Sunbather first happened, or even before Sunbather when we did Roads to Judah, and it was our first little glimpse into, like, the wider world as a whole as aware of our existence. It's an exciting thing, especially like we were 22, 23 and you just want to, 'oh, wow, cool. Like people like this stuff we make, that's cool. I'll read it, you know? Wow.' And you kind of get into it. And then around Sunbather, I kind of realized that it doesn't really matter either way, even with reviews because as much as I am grateful for the critical love we've been shown, it doesn't mean that it'll happen all the time or not. Or people are human beings, etc. And they have different opinions on things and that's their job or whatever.

But the one thing that I came across as, especially back in the day in the Sunbather days, there seemed to be two camps of people who thought that we were God's gift to music as a whole, and this is this brand new thing that's whatever. And then, there's these people that just think like the world would be a better place if everyone in the band was aborted or something. Just these despicable, evil things being said about us. I realized kind of that both of these camps are wrong. We're not the worst thing that ever happened to music. And we're not The Beatles or whatever. We're just guys who write music and people feel a way about it.

And if you connect with them, I'm grateful for that. And it's just the music we want to make. I guess what I'm getting to is that after that experience, and then going into New Bermuda and all these kinds of things, I kind of realized, like, that's none of my business anyway, in a weird way. We do have this kind of bravado of, like, when we were in the studio, I remember people being like, wow, like this is going to be crazy, that this is a Deafheaven record, you know? And I remember us kind of being around, "Yeah. It's a Deafheavan record, because we say it is, and we're Deafheaven and that's what we get to do. But at a certain time, you're also like you got to live in the world. And like I'm aware of our previous content and what it sounds like and I'm aware of what people expect when they hear it. And none of us are millionaires. We've got to go hit the road and play this thing and pay our bills and stuff. So you can have a little bit of that bravado but you also, you're lying to yourself if you don't at some level kind of be like, oh God, like I hope they like it. I don't know. I like it. What does it say about me if this is this thing that I've poured two years of my life about into. People can think what they want. I like this. We all are very happy with it. And if this is the last thing we ever make and we can never play another show again, then at least we were honest with ourselves.

Clarke: I will second all of that. And another misconception has kind of often been that there's an intention to make our audience, to kind of to trick them, or to lead them astray, or to kind of trick the metal audience at large, and that's never been the case. That we ended up kind of subverting expectation, I think is a exciting side effect of the music that we make. But it's always just been about making things that we are feeling passionate about in the moment, and music that is simply just kind of a reflection of who we are.

And yet, after Sunbather, and I remember this, especially around Ordinary, I remember saying it out loud that all we wanted to do was just put our head down and work. And I think that we've really, despite if some people might think that we're kind of these trolls or something, I think that the only thing that we've ever really wanted to do and have done is just put our head down and work and tour and try and make things that are interesting to us and thankful for the people that connect with it.

I was thinking about the sort of semantics of your roots in what would be called extreme music, extreme metal. And yeah, bringing in Justin to work on this record, some of the influences that you were talking about here, Justin produced the Paramore record, 2017, After Laughter, which is one of the more, even by Paramore standards that was sonically diverse for them. I sort of wonder if there's something about Deafheaven that is constantly working in extremes, that yes, there's extreme metal on the one side of it, but there's a maximalism to this record that there's absolutely no sense of, 'okay, well, we should pull it back here a little bit.' If you're going to do melodies, you're really going to do melodies.

Clarke: It feels so good to hear you say that because I completely agree, and that has been with us since bringing in the Justin question. Will this guy work with us, and do we want to work with him, and why do we want to work with him? And that maximalism was a huge factor. And I've said this a couple of times, but I'll say it again. For me anyway, there was a real intention to replace the speed and metallic heft of our older records with density and hooks and real interlocking melody for this record and because we didn't want anything to feel lacking. We wanted it to feel grandiose. We knew that he was capable of making that sound.

The record that I was listening to mostly from his catalog while we were working was M83's Junk. It has so much variety. There's so much on that record that's bombastic and unafraid, and I wanted to take that and apply it to our sound. And I think we definitely did that. Not only working with him, but Shiv and Kerry really stepped it up with creative guitar playing. I think that this is such a guitar-centric album. I think that there's so many great textures and elements that they bring to it. And yeah, it was definitely thought about. And I was hoping that that was something that we would achieve.

The way that it seems like this band has worked for the past decade has been that you've gained confidence with each album. With each album, you work a little bit more cohesively as a unit. You understand each other better as musicians, yeah, also as people. And therefore, you sort of feel free to channel every possible influence into your work that as a unit, you don't need to push anything away. Are there things that you listen to now that you still haven't quite managed to fold into the Deafheaven sound? Are there things that right now beyond even Deafheaven?

McCoy: Yeah. It's not on the record, but at one point we were tossing around the idea of throwing an early DJ Shadow or the first Unkle record, kind of Boards of Canada-y kind of vibe in it. It's something that I listened to kind of that kind of stuff a lot. I'm sure it's not hard to see maybe a little bit of a Portishead or Massive Attack influence in the band, but there's a lot of stuff that I'm interested in, and Shiv was interested, George is interested, etc, like the Mo' Wax label stuff. And yeah, kind of just like early Warp records where we were going to kind of try and kind of throw, again, sort of like "Airbag" from OK Computer kind of like a DJ Shadow kind of thing. And it didn't quite fit. It didn't quite get in there. And it kind of wound up being for the best.

There's a few lanes still left to explore I think for us, and I hope that we have that for the remainder of the band, that there's always something, another flavor we can try. I think that's what's best about being a creative person.

Clarke: Yeah, that was definitely that more like laidback, breakbeat kind of trip hop influence that we did toy with quite a bit, but didn't necessarily land on this album. I would say that and Mary Lattimore, something that's quite a bit orchestral and kind of bringing in more of those auxiliary instruments into the fold, that's something that we've yet to do. Even strings or what have you, we've we've never really gone that way for no particular reason. Like Kerry said, I think there's always something that is, that is really keeping us interested, and there's always something to bring into the fold, and there's always something to try out. And I think we have kind of positioned ourselves in a way that we're able to. Hopefully we'll just continue experimenting and continue growing and doing the thing.

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Deafheaven on evolution, reinvention, and Infinite Granite - The FADER

Significance

The Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota is a terrestrial lagersttte that produces exquisitely preserved fossils that have furnished enormous evidence on the origins and early evolution of diverse vertebrate groups. On the basis of the latest paleontological and geochronologic evidence, we discuss the three stages of the biota, and suggest that the spatiotemporal evolution of the Jehol Biota coincides with the initial and peak stages of the North China craton destruction in the Early Cretaceous. Such linkage presents an example of how regional tectonics influence the terrestrial biota that points to a new path for future studies involving multidisciplinary methods to explore the biosphere in deep time.

The Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota is a terrestrial lagersttte that contains exceptionally well-preserved fossils indicating the origin and early evolution of Mesozoic life, such as birds, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, mammals, insects, and flowering plants. New geochronologic studies have further constrained the ages of the fossil-bearing beds, and recent investigations on Early Cretaceous tectonic settings have provided much new information for understanding the spatiotemporal distribution of the biota and dispersal pattern of its members. Notably, the occurrence of the Jehol Biota coincides with the initial and peak stages of the North China craton destruction in the Early Cretaceous, and thus the biotic evolution is related to the North China craton destruction. However, it remains largely unknown how the tectonic activities impacted the development of the Jehol Biota in northeast China and other contemporaneous biotas in neighboring areas in East and Central Asia. It is proposed that the Early Cretaceous rift basins migrated eastward in the northern margin of the North China craton and the Great Xingan Range, and the migration is regarded to have resulted from eastward retreat of the subducting paleo-Pacific plate. The diachronous development of the rift basins led to the lateral variations of stratigraphic sequences and depositional environments, which in turn influenced the spatiotemporal evolution of the Jehol Biota. This study represents an effort to explore the linkage between terrestrial biota evolution and regional tectonics and how plate tectonics constrained the evolution of a terrestrial biota through various surface geological processes.

Author contributions: Z.Z. designed research; Z.Z., Q.M., R.Z., and M.W. performed research; Z.Z., Q.M., R.Z., and M.W. analyzed data; and Z.Z., Q.M., R.Z., and M.W. wrote the paper.

Reviewers: A.D.B., Universidad Autonoma de Madrid; E.M.F., University of Aarhus; J.M., American Museum of Natural History; and J.Z., Peking University.

The authors declare no competing interest.

All study data are included in the article.

Excerpt from:

Spatiotemporal evolution of the Jehol Biota: Responses to the North China craton destruction in the Early Cretaceous - pnas.org

You'd be hard pressed to name a fashion trend of the beloved early aughts era that hasn't yet bounced back in 2021. Colorful Y2K-inspired rings are the accessory of the summer, halters and tube tops are again the key to a proper going-out ensemble, and celebrities such as Emily Ratajkowski just may be able to make low-rise jeans stick. Now, the return of the butterfly print is the latest trend to hit the roster and lets just say, Mariah Carey would be proud.

As unpredictable as fashion trends may be in this digital age (no one saw the undoing of skinny jeans coming), the return of the poppy, fun-loving print actually makes total sense. From pastel checkered prints to the reign of the psychedelic motif, slowly coming out on the other side of lockdown means the fashion enthusiast is looking for outfits that feel anything opposite of last year's lineup. Easily translated, it's the attention-grabbing, unserious attributes of clothes hooking fashion girls right now, and is there anything more joy sparking and lighthearted in fashion than a garment colorfully plastered with one of nature's most delicate creatures? Likely sensing the current zeitgeist, recent collections from runway designers haven't failed to meet the moment, either: Blumarine's fall 2021 collection was a Y2K dream, chock-full of nostalgic references, including crystal-embellished butterfly details on belts, necklaces, and bodysuits, all the way through to a butterfly-shaped knit sweater. Meanwhile at Lanvin, the brand's resort 2022 collection merged a butterfly print with a lace-lined, cami-strapped slip dress another archetypal 2000s aesthetic.

The biggest trendsetters wasted no time hopping on board Olivia Rodrigo and Dua Lipa both wore butterfly-shaped bodices referential of Mariah Carey's iconic 2000s Divas Awards top, and Bella Hadid was recently spotted in Paris wearing *that* Blumarine collection, down to the butterfly-stamped belt. Now, if you've been wondering how you, too, can get in on the fun (let's be honest, we all have), consider starting with the 12 pieces ahead.

Follow this link:

Butterfly Prints Are the Latest Evolution of the Y2K Fashion Revival - Yahoo Lifestyle

Mike Szydlowski| Special to Columbia Daily Tribune

Nothing says summer like a juicy, red, sweet cold slice of watermelon. Mark Twain once wrote that tastinga watermelon is to know "what the angels eat.

However, Twain and his friends were certainly not the first to enjoy a watermelon on a hot summer day. Watermelon paintings and seeds have been found dating back at least 5,000 years. The difference is that 5,000-year-old watermelon paintings depict very different looking watermelons than we know today. And the watermelons in the paintings changed over time. To understand todays watermelon, you need quite a bit of history and biology.

If you dont like unnatural foods, you better stop eating watermelons. Our watermelons today barely resemble the original, natural watermelons. You would not have enjoyed them at all.

First, they were quite difficult to get into. You would have to smash them open with some pretty heavy rocks in order to enjoy an inside full of white/yellowish, bitter-tasting flesh. As unappetizing as that sounds, people did it and there was a reason for that.

Watermelons originated in places that experienced very long dry spells. Although bitter tasting, the watermelons were like miniature water storage tanks. Archeologists even found evidence that King Tuts tomb had watermelons placed in it, as he would need some water for his journey into the afterlife.

Therefore, watermelons were not harvested for their taste they were harvested for their water. An uncut watermelon can store for weeks or even months in a cool, dry location.

More: Our bodies need to experience pain here's why

At some point, somebody decided they could selectively breed the watermelon to change how it tastes. Some smart ancient scientists discovered that a single gene produced the bitter watermelon flavor. By purposefully breeding many generations of plants with certain characteristics, the gene for bitterness was eliminated.

Soon after, ancient people continued the selective breeding of watermelons to make them easier to get into no more pounding the hard shell with a rock.

Then came the taste. The bitter taste was gone, but it still was quite bland. Farmers selectively bred watermelons that had a little sweetness until they became sweeter and sweeter like today.

It turns out the color of watermelons was controlled by the same gene that controlled watermelon sweetness. Therefore, as the watermelon became sweeter it also changed color to the familiar deep red we now know and expect.

All of this was done in the very same way dogs were selectively bred (originally from wolves) to create the many different breeds we have now. Certainly, you didnt think the poodle was natural, did you?

More: Using natures air conditioning in the summer heat

If you have any scientific knowledge about plants, you know a seedless fruit or vegetable makes no sense at all. It breaks all rules of nature.

The only goal of every natural living species is to survive long enough to reproduce so the species continues. In plants, this is done by mixing male and female genes through the process of pollination and fertilization. Once a flower is fertilized, it produces a seed.

Some plants grow fruits and vegetables around their seed to either protect the seed or attract animals to the seeds in order for their seeds and genes to be spread around. A fruit or vegetable without seeds is a failure on the plants part. If a fruit or vegetable were to become seedless by some genetic mutation, that wouldbe the end of that plants genes as it wouldnot be able to reproduce.

A watermelon has 22 chromosomes. Reproductive cells contain half that amount, so when they join the other plants reproductive cells from the opposite sex, they form a new combination of 22 chromosomes for the new plant.

Scientists found that if they treata watermelon plant with a certain chemical, it will double the number of chromosomes. Then,they found if a 22-chromosome plant fertilizes a 44-chromosome plant, the resulting plant produces watermelons with seeds with 33 chromosomes. These seeds will grow but are sterile, which means they will not produce seeds of their own.

And there is your seedless watermelon and a fascinating history, artand science lesson. More than 5,000 years worth of human work went into your enjoyment of a sweet, seedless watermelon. Enjoy it.

Mike Szydlowski is science coordinator for Columbia Public Schools.

TIME FOR A POP QUIZ

1. What does the term selective breeding mean?

2. How is the evolution of watermelon similar to the evolution of the Golden Retriever (or any other dog breed)?

3. How is a natural watermelon different from the watermelons we enjoy today?

4. We were not there to see ancient watermelons, so how do you think scientists know how and when they changed over time?

5. Why do seedless watermelons cost more than watermelons with seeds?

LAST WEEKS POP QUIZ ANSWERS

1. How do we feel pain?

We feel pain when nerve endings detect that something bad is happening to our body. When this occurs, it sends a signal to our brain to produce the sensation of pain so that we stop doing whatever is harming our body.

2. What would happen if we didnt feel pain?

If pain were not a thing, most people would likely live shorter lives because we would not protect our bodies from harm as much as we do with pain.

3. What is the evolutionary purpose of pain?

Pain evolved as a warning system to keep your body safe from serious harm.

4. Give three examples of ways that pain helps keep you safe.

Answers will vary, but mightinclude: keeping you from seriously burning yourself, keep you from eating poisonous foods, alerting you to something wrong inside your body, and a warning to take care of your body in general.

5. In what example is it OKto work through a little bit of pain?

When exercising or working out, it is normal to feel some pain and it is OKto work through some of that pain.

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Understanding the evolution of today's watermelon - Columbia Daily Tribune

Date:Thursday, September 16, 2021Time:2:00 PM EDT / 1:00 PM CDT / 11:00 AM PDT / 6:00 PM GMTSponsor:Burns & McDonnellDuration: 60Minutes

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Description:The U.S. offshore wind industry's recent growth is generating a range of questions around market interests, location demand, financial incentives, and integration into existing infrastructure. As the U.S. industry continues to take shape, reflecting on the successes and lessons learned in European markets, which have set the precedent in offshore wind design, fabrication, and construction, can strategically inform domestic market growth. Federal and state coordination and policy development is changing the way utilities leverage offshore wind and pushing supply chains to new levels of coordination between multiple entities. To ensure the success of a domestic offshore wind industry the U.S. must prioritize strategic coordination and integration into existing supply chains, infrastructure, and the design of the electrical grid.

This panel will discuss the following:

Panelists:

Mark RogersEngineering ManagerBurns & McDonnellMr. Rogers is an Engineering Manager with over 30 years experience across various industries that include offshore & onshore electricity transmission, railway signaling and traction, and power generation. A Chartered Engineer with additional knowledge in project management that provides real results. For the last 8 years has assembled and lead a very successful offshore platform engineering team, developing a notable portfolio of offshore substation platforms (circa 3GW). Has created innovative market leading solutions that have shared todays offshore industry. Recently appointed to Burns & McDonnell to bring European offshore wind experience to the emerging USA offshore market

Ben SteinbergSr. Vice PresidentVenn StrategiesBen Steinberg is a senior vice president focused on supporting critical infrastructure and energy clients. Prior to joining Venn, he spent nearly a decade as a key official at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), most recently in the Office of Cyber Security, Energy Security and Emergency Response where he was Senior Advisor working with agency leaders and stakeholders on matters of cyber preparedness, security, and emergency response. He has held a number of other key roles at DOE, including as Chief of Staff for the Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis helping shepherd the Departments Quadrennial Energy Review and manage an office of over 80 analysts, and as liaison between DOE and the Department of Defense building energy technology development partnerships for grid security, alternative fuels, batteries and energy efficiency. Ben received his bachelors degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his masters degree in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University.

Jeff BuckleySenior Project ManagerBurns & McDonnellJeff Buckley is a senior project manager with Burns & McDonnell. He has over 20 years project management experience, with a focus on electric transmission project development, including offshore wind. His approach to project management is supported by engineering and construction experience on a variety of projects throughout the northeast region. His emphasis on project controls has resulted in a track record of successful project delivery with a focus on schedule and budget management. Mr. Buckley has consulted on electrical transmission projects with a focus on preliminary phase routing, planning, and development. This includes alternatives analysis, constructability, cost estimates, and risk assessments. He supports Burns & McDonnells entry into the US offshore wind market, providing management expertise on several projects, while also advancing business opportunities with a focus on expanded self-perform construction services and supply chain development.

Mr. Buckley has a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Northeastern University and a Masters of Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Connecticut.

Moderator:

Tony AppletonDirector of Off Shore WindBurns & McDonnellTony Appleton is director of offshore wind for Burns & McDonnell. He is a Chartered Engineer registered with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering (with honors) from Newcastle University upon Tyne, England. He specializes in the offshore renewables and interconnection global markets and has led organizations and teams with work ranging from front-end feasibility studies to commissioning and operation and maintenance.

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Growth and Evolution of the Offshore Wind Industry and Supply Chain under the Biden Administration - Transmission & Distribution World

RELEASED today, much of the appropriately titled Fever Dreams from Dublin's Villagers has a woozy, wide-eyed and defiantly optimistic feel that makes it an ideal soundtrack for fans now emerging from lockdown into yet another 'new normal'.

As signposted by dynamic and symphonic lead single The First Day, the soulful, sensitive and joyously psychedelic new album is laced with brass and string instrumentation. It follows the lead of 2018's acclaimed The Art of Pretending To Swim and 2019 standalone single Summer's Song by moving yet further away from Villagers' angsty indie-folk roots in favour of a more instantly welcoming, hazily atmospheric and production-steered sound that's closer to hip-hop in spirit than trad guitar fare.

Produced by bandleader/chief songwriter Conor O'Brien and mixed by David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, FKA Twigs), Fever Dreams was actually written and recorded prior to the onset of the pandemic last year: in fact, the band's last day in the studio actually coincided with the onset of Ireland's first national lockdown, as O'Brien explains.

"We were literally covering our mouths with our hands by the end," the Dubliner recalls of the fraught final full band sessions in February last year, which rounded off a writing and recording process which began in summer 2019.

"It feels like it's been a long time coming for me because it was quite an intense workload over the past two-and-a-half years," he says of the new album's gestation, Villagers' fifth.

However, in a way, Fever Dreams was also perfectly timed. With live music shut down and the record already 'in the can', being able to tinker with the new songs while stuck at home in his Dublin flat/studio provided the Villagers leader with a welcome distraction from the growing anxiety over Covid-19 throughout 2020.

"Obviously, it kept me company during these weird times that we're finding ourselves in and I think parts of those weird times kind of seeped into it," says O'Brien, who formed Villagers back in 2008 and first came to wider attention with Mercury and Choice Music Prize-nominated debut album Becoming a Jackal two years later.

"Hopefully, parts of it will now seep back into the weird times."

He adds: "I guess the 'deliriousness' of some of it was kind of there before [the pandemic], in a weird way. I was starting to write a little bit about information overload and also trying to process what was happening on a geopolitical level and figure out what the hell my little songs were going to do with that or in what way art should approach those kind of things.

"I think that's the way my own psychology was going. But I think that the album kind of shows that in the end I kind of retreated to just trying to make something maybe more sensory and soulful and trying to be a bit less cerebral and sometimes failing as well, which was OK too."

Indeed, the impressive centrepiece of Fever Dreams is a mesmerising, shape-shifting, six-minute-plus psychedelic jazz-folk pop epic called Circles In The Firing Line. It ebbs, flows and swells playfully, with O'Brien singing that "a united state of demagogic logic awaits" and how he has a "date with doom" before eventually resolving with some sweet soft rock guitar soloing that's suddenly mugged by a burst of climactic punk rock riffage.

"Looking back now I don't think I was thinking clearly, but I was almost not going to have that song on the record," reveals O'Brien.

"It felt like too much of a 'joke' in my head. For a long period of time, the only direction I had [for this record] was to 'make something uplifting and positive that's like a warm hug' and that song didn't really fit that mould.

"But my manager convinced me to put it on the record and, as soon as I started playing with the tracklisting, I realised that it was so much stronger with it. Not only was this track representing what I've been thinking about a lot in the last couple of years, it's also kind of the other side of the coin for a lot of those [other] songs.

"It's looking at the way perhaps our minds are being slightly moulded by algorithms and trying to be vigilant against that in this early internet age, using art and music as a way of pushing the nuanced and grey area complexities of all of us.

"That kind of stuff is definitely being lost in the tribalism of this new kind of 'screen psychology' were dealing with."

He adds: "It's also a really fun song because although those are very serious themes, the song kind of takes the p*** out of itself as well in a weird way, and I kind wanted to maintain a sense of humour.

"We played it at the Latitude Festival and we extended the ending quite a lot it was definitely the 'rock-out' that the album version kind of suggests just as it's fading out."

Conor O'Brien. Picture by Rich Gilligan

Going right back to the start of the album process in 2019, O'Brien explains how playing with a new brass-enhanced live band set-up through that summer influenced how he wanted Fever Dreams to sound, as well as pulling him towards a more collaborative approach to shaping the new songs themselves.

"The initial thrust of the album in terms of what direction it was going in was that I just wanted to make music that would rock the band in a room," he says.

"I was booking recording sessions much earlier in the process with this album, so I was bringing them very half-finished songs and I was changing the lyrics and the structures as we were returning to the next session and sort of being influenced by what felt good as a group of musicians in a room as allowing that to influence the music thematically as well.

"So the core of what you're hearing on the album is the sound of musicians pretty much playing live together in a room and reacting to each other. The lockdown section of the process was just adding to all this and working remotely with string players and brass players.

"I had a sort of a new thing where I really badly wanted the music to work on a superficial level like where, even if you didn't want to do a deep dive, it would still grab you. But then, if you also want to put headphones on, you'll discover much more going on underneath as well."

Now five albums into a musical career spanning over a decade, the Villagers man is all too aware of his ongoing evolution as a songwriter.

"I see music more as a place for warmth and connection now and not so much for trying to show the world my pain or whatever," O'Brien tells me of his musical 'journey' with Villagers.

"I've learned a lot about writing music which comes from a more viscerally indignant place. I think that's gone from me now. It definitely has its power, but I remember writing [emotive Becoming A Jackal track] Pieces way back when and, after about a year of having to do the howling at the end, I wanted to kill myself.

"You have to keep finding new ways to be inspired, otherwise you'll burn out."

:: Fever Dreams is released today. See wearevillagers.com for latest tour date info.

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Conor O'Brien on new Villagers album Fever Dreams and his evolution as a songwriter - The Irish News

Since the clouds rolled in and the pandemic impacts began to be felt globally last spring, there has been a lot of speculation as to how this event would shape the workplace going forward. We traded our neckties for masks and the handshake gave way to the fist bumpor the never graceful elbow tap. Five quarters ago, it appeared that life would be forever changed and some even speculated that office spaces best days were behind us.

Ran Holman, Newmark

Collectively, we got quite adept at using the cameras on our devices, and quite surprisingly, the last mile of bandwidth at our homes, for the most part, performed well. However, over time, the novelty of video conferences diminished, and you only had to log on to one video happy hour to realize it was not a replacement for the real thing. But, we soldiered on.

Albeit not known for his poetry, Quentin Tarantino once said, you cant write poetry on the computer. There are audiophiles that will take the pops and hisses of a vinyl record over digital recordings due to the warmth and depth of analog music. Our lives can be supported digitally; however, those mediums sometimes fall short of sating us, often in ways we cannot explain.

The insular aspects of working from home can often take more than they give. Perhaps the greatest revelation of remote working was the increased awareness of what we were missing. Technology allowed us to meet, but it wasnt the meetings, per se, that we missed, it was the connectivity within those meetings. It turns out that our workplaces are complex ecosystems of tangible and intangible aspects that need to be bound together, and technology could only take us so far. We also learned that while remote work lacked these connections, it was often more comfortablean important distinction.

So, where are we? Most of us have a deeper appreciation for our professional relationships and value the workplace morenot the bricks and sticks, but the interpersonal synapses that allow us to bring out the best in each other. In reality, the pandemic is serving as an affirmation of what was already afoot: the workplace needs to be an environment that feeds and supports connections and relationships.

Going forward, demand for office space isnt going anywhere. In fact, we will see a more rapid evolution of what was already startedexperiential real estate. Tenants will continue to flow into well-amenitized properties; and those amenities wont just be in the envelope, many users will be incorporating more comfort and livability within their workplaces.

This shared experience has underscored the importance of mentoring, collaboration, sharing, and simply enjoying the people with whom we work. Workplace designs will create and foster cultural development and adhesion.

The pandemic has given us a truly unique perspective. For the first time ever, we have spent extended periods of time working together, remotely. We have discovered quite clearly that the workplace and the workforce are two distinct things. This discovery has pushed us into a rapid evolution of workplace design and function, and for those who embrace it, that is our silver lining.

Ran Holman is the executive vice president and Texas market leader for Newmark.

The rest is here:

Ran Holman: How COVID Sparked a Rapid Evolution in the Way We Use Office Space - D Magazine

Photo credit: 13on via Unsplash

A new peer-reviewed paper in theJournal of Theoretical Biology, On the waiting time until coordinated mutations get fixed in regulatory sequences, is authored by three key scientists in the intelligent design (ID) research program: Ola Hssjer, Gnter Bechly, Ann Gauger. The paper is part of the Waiting Times project, spurred by Discovery Institute as part of its ID 3.0 initiative, and it investigates a question of vital interest to the theory of intelligent design:How long does it take for traits to evolve when multiple mutations are required to give an advantage?A previous peer-reviewed publication from this team appeared as achapterin the 2018 Springer volumeStochastic Processes and Applications. This latest paper is lengthy, technical, and math intensive. In other words, its not for the fainthearted, but its open access and free to readhere. If you feel up to the challenge download and read!

The basic mathematical principles behind the paper arent too hard to appreciate. The idea is that as more nucleotides need to be present (fixed) in order to generate some trait, the amount of time required for those mutations to appear goes up at an exponential rate. To see why, lets say that you have a huge bag of blue and red marbles, always distributed in equal numbers in the bag. You want to pick out varying numbers of consecutive blue marbles. If you want to pick just one blue marble, the likelihood of doing this by chance is 1/2. If you want to pick out two blue marbles in a row the likelihood is 1/4. The likelihood of obtaining 3 blue marbles in a row is 1/8.

Now lets convert these odds to waiting times. Lets say that you can pick 1 marble per second. On average it will take 2 seconds to obtain 1 blue marble. To obtain two consecutive blue marbles youd need 4 seconds. To pick 3 blue marbles in a row youd need 8 seconds, and so on. You can see that the waiting time (T) to pick N consecutive blue marbles is approximated as follows:

T = 2Nmarbles * 1 second / marble

The more consecutive blue marbles you have to pick, the longer the waiting time for the event to occur and the waiting time increases at an exponential rate with each additional marble thats required.

Now lets go back to the paper. It opens by observing that A classical problem of population genetics is to study the time until new genetic variants first appear through germline mutations and then get fixed, i.e. spread to all individuals of a species, as it adapts to a new environment and evolves over time. It notes that in previous studies analyzing evolution of whole DNA sequences of nucleotides of length L, written on the four letter alphabet A, C, G, T, the waiting time where each is neutral (i.e., gives no selective advantage) increases either polynomially or exponentially with L. (A polynomial increase refers to a value that depends on the sum of multiple terms, where at least one of the terms has an exponent.)

This paper develops a complex mathematical model for calculating the waiting time for the evolution of a trait that requires L nucleotides in order to function. Although this is strictly a methodological paper, one potential application could be the evolution of regulatory regions which control the expression of a gene. Changes to transcription are thought to be important to evolving new body plans or biological systems. Regulatory regions such as enhancers or promoters may have a length of 1000 nucleotides, and for expression to occur special proteins called transcription factors must bind to these regulatory regions at binding sites, which may be 6 to 10 nucleotides in length. They explain how this works:

The waiting time until the expression of the gene changes, is modeled as the time until the random walk hits the target, and it depends on the mutation rate, the selective advantage of the mutated regulatory sequence, the size of the population, the length of the regulatory sequence and the length of the binding site.

However, evolving new traits is often far more complex than simply changing the expression of a single gene. Many traits are controlled by multiple genes, and the traits wont arise until expression of those genes is modified in a coordinated manner. The paper explains how their model might be applied to such an evolutionary question:

For more complex adaptations of a species, it is necessary that several genes are modified in a coordinated manner, either through mutations in the coding sequence, or through changed expression of thesemgenes. In this paper we focus on the coordinated evolution of gene expression of existing genes, and ask the question how long time Tmit would take for a species to change the expression ofmdistinct genes. This corresponds to the time it would take for the required binding sites, in the regulatory sequences ofmdistinct genes, to evolve in a coordinated way. The microevolutionary process is then a random walk on a fitness landscape of regulatory arrays, that is, a random walk onmxLmatrices, whose rows are the regulatory sequences of allmgenes.

In other words, the paper calculates how long it would take formgenes to evolve new regulatory sequences by chance, assuming that such changes in the expression of all of these genes would be required for some new complex adaptation to arise.

Do we have evidence that traits appear abruptly in the fossil record, and that these sorts of calculations apply? The introduction to the paper provides a rich review of examples of this from biological history, showing that their model is highly applicable to biological reality:

For instance, the fossil record is often interpreted as having long periods of stasis, interrupted by more abrupt changes and explosive origins. These changes include, for instance, the evolution of life, photo-synthesis, multicellularity and the Avalon Explosion, animal body plans and the Cambrian Explosion, complex eyes, vertebrate jaws and teeth, terrestrialization (e.g., in vascular plants, arthropods, and tetrapods), insect metamorphosis, animal flight and feathers, reproductive systems, including angiosperm flowers, amniote eggs, and the mammalian placenta, echolocation in whales and bats, and even cognitive skills of modern man. Based on radiometric dating of the available windows of time in the fossil record, these genetic changes are believed to have happened very quickly on a macroevolutionary timescale. In order to evaluate the chances for a neo-Darwinian process to bring about such major phenotypic changes, it is important to give rough but reasonable estimates of the time it would take for a population to evolve so that the required multiple genetic changes occur. (internal citations omitted)

There is thus ample precedent for investigating such a question in biohistory. Many complex features of living organisms appear abruptly in the fossil record, where it seems that multiple coordinated changes were necessary before any advantageous functional trait arose. The mathematical model developed in this paper is aptly suited to understanding how long it would take for such a trait to arise.

As I noted, this paper is methodological, meaning its only developing a mathematical model and not yet applying it to real world biological systems. One hopes in the future the team will apply their model to real biological systems. We will then see what the implications are for the viability of standard evolutionary mechanisms to account for the origin of such traits.

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In Mainstream Journal, ID Theorists Explore Waiting Times for Coordinated Mutations - Discovery Institute