Category Archives: Evolution

A multi-generational family saga about the lingering psychic wounds of the Holocaust in contemporary Europe, Evolution is another personal passion project for director Kornel Mundruczo and screenwriter Kata Weber, the married team behind last years Oscar-nominated Netflix drama Pieces of a Woman. After previous visits to Cannes with White God (2014) and Jupiters Moon (2017), the duo are unveiling their latest collaboration in the glitzy French festivals newly inaugurated Cannes Premieres strand.

With its disjointed three-act structure and subtitled dialogue in multiple languages, Evolution is a more experimental, less commercial prospect than Pieces of a Woman. But it is stylishly shot and emotionally engaging, full of daring camerawork and strong performances. Considering its potentially dark subject matter, it is also surprisingly warm and funny in places. Festival programmers and arthouse connoisseurs will find much to savor here, while adventurous distributors and streaming platforms could leverage interest based on the writer-director duos prize-winning track record. Co-producers The Match Factory are also handling sales in Cannes.

The Bottom LineDisjointed but dazzling.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Cannes Premires)Cast: Lili Monori, Annamaria Lang, Goya Rego, Padme Hamdemir, Jule BoweDirector: Kornel MundruczoScreenwriter: Kata Weber

As with Pieces of a Woman, Webers screenplay for Evolution is rooted in her own personal history. Both films began as theater productions, although the 2018 stage blueprint for this time-jumping triptych was a more unorthodox hybrid of stylized chamber drama, musical performance and art installation. Shot between COVID-19 lockdowns over just 13 days back in April and May, the expanded screen version of Evolution retains this lightly experimental feel, but adds more conventional filmic elements, blurring the line between magical realism and narrative naturalism.

A largely wordless opening chapter plunges viewers into a dank, hellish subterranean bunker. A team of grim-faced workers enter and begin fiercely scrubbing the walls, as if desperately trying to erase evidence of some terrible crime. Their task becomes increasingly ominous as they discover huge deposits of human hair embedded in the crumbling walls, some woven into long knotted ropes. Heightening the nightmarish horror-movie mood, a crying child can be heard somewhere in the darkness.

This turns out to be a baby girl, Eva (Roza Kertesz), who is plucked from the buildings collapsing drains and carried aloft into the snowy daylight. Thus far, the setting of Evolution has had a purposely vague, surreal, allegorical feel. Above ground, the context becomes clear. We are in the Nazi extermination camps of Auschwitz, newly liberated by Red Army troops in January 1945, and one little Jewish girl has miraculously survived. This scenario may feel like a fanciful fairy tale but, amazingly, a small handful of children born in the death camps did survive.

Jumping forward to present-day Budapest, the films mid-section catches up with that little girl in the twilight of her life. Eva (veteran Hungarian screen icon Lili Monori) is now a mentally fragile grandmother living in a malfunctioning apartment, her memory clouded by dementia. A visit from her middle-aged daughter Lena (Annamaria Lang) becomes a fractious argument about the familys complex Jewish heritage and the semi-dormant antisemitism that still haunts much of Central and Eastern Europe. I dont want to be a survivor, I just want to be alive, Lena complains bitterly.

Drawing on her own Hungarian-Jewish mothers experiences, Webers screenplay alludes here to Hungarys controversial recent history of blocking compensation and restitution payments to Holocaust survivors for petty technical reasons. But she and Mundruczo also layer this specific trauma with a more universal set of tensions, including Evas worsening dementia and Lenas recent acrimonious divorce. This feverish two-hander achieves a kind of emotional crescendo with a bravely graphic depiction of Evas bodily decline and a superbly staged domestic disaster that works both literally and metaphorically. Parallels with Anthony Hopkins in The Father are hard to avoid here, not just in Monoris powerful performance but also in the hallucinatory visual effects.

Berlin is the location for the films concluding chapter, which revolves around Lenas zombie-loving, piano-playing teenage son Jonas (Goya Rego). An outsider at school, he is targeted by bullies and distrusted by teachers, who blame his classroom troubles on imported Mideast conflicts and other casually antisemitic tropes. Not surprisingly, Jonas has come to view his Hungarian-Jewish ancestry as more burden than blessing, playing down his heritage as he develops a tender crush on a fellow misfit student, punky Turkish tomboy rebel Yasmine (Padme Hamdemir).

Once again drawing on Weber and Mundruczos own family history, this closing section is the most formally conventional of the three, and also the most dramatically weak, with its rambling tempo and trite love-defeats-hate conclusion. The apparent take-home message, that multicultural teenage romance can erase centuries of murderous ethnic conflict, is appealing but unconvincing. Even so, this third chapter still features sharp dialogue, dynamic visuals and engagingly sweet performances by its youthful leads.

Whatever its dramatic blind spots, Evolution is a mostly fruitful collaboration between high-caliber talents both on-screen and off. It is also a consistently compelling visual spectacle, largely thanks to hotshot French DP Yorick Le Saux, whose other credits include Jim Jarmuschs Only Lovers Left Alive and Greta Gerwigs Little Women. Le Sauxs restlessly kinetic camera captures the action in intimate close-up and bravura long shots, including a seamless 36-minute dance around Evas apartment that incorporates a gravity-defying detour into thin air high above the streets of Budapest. On many levels, Evolution is a dazzling high-wire act.

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Evolution: Film Review | Cannes 2021 - Hollywood Reporter

Recently, I took part in Hearst Media's anti-harassment and bias training, which is required for all of its employees. The experience pleasantly surprised me in its in-depth nature, as it covered a large amount of material and topics in a very thorough manner.

While going through the training, I was reminded of how important anti-harassment training is for employers and companies to educate their employees, as harassment in its forms has evolved through technological and social changes.

In such a divisive, frustrating, and confusing time in our world, I'm frankly not surprised that everyone is a bit on edge and reluctant to get back to work. The workplace can be a supportive and beneficial space, but for some, it can be a place where they face the worst of human behavior.

This entire year, many workplaces transitioned into an online or work from home setup for their employees, and it was a major adjustment for most. Harassment instances didn't go away during this time in the workplace, they just went online. While some forms of harassment may have been lessened physically, they most assuredly continued occurring virtually.

According to the Pew Research Center, a 2021 survey of U.S. adults found that 41% of U.S. adults have personally experienced online harassment, and 25% have experienced more severe harassment. The same survey found that men are somewhat more likely than women to say they have experienced any form of harassment online (43% vs. 38%).

Online harassment is something that persists in workplaces and adversely affects different groups. It also allows for more covert harassment and new avenues for perpetrators. Educating employees on how to identify harassment forms is an important part of maintaining workplace safety, as well as making sure employees know how to report harassment.

In a diversifying and fast-progressing society, educating on respect for gender preference and preventing and addressing any discrimination helps create a more inclusive workplace environment. I was impressed with Hearst's training that provided example scenarios for each section and addressed race, gender, and sexuality.

As an openly gay woman, I felt comforted knowing my employer takes such steps to address and educate on topics like harassment and address the intersectionality of the issue. Being a part of a 20,000-employee company like Hearst, it helps to know I'll be seen and heard.

Creating an equitable, open, and inclusive workplace is more important than ever during a time when many will be adjusting back to in-person daily work. One of the best things we can be right now is patient with each other, this won't be an easy transition and patience can go a long way in preventing hostility. This kind of hostility can lend itself to online and in-person harassment, which no workplace needs.

Being someone who just joined a workplace in their first post-graduate job, I can say my transition has been helped by communication, education, and patience from my peers and co-workers. I hope more companies will integrate harassment and inclusivity educational training in their policies because employees need to know that the place they work sees them and expresses concern for their safety and comfort.

Being understanding of people's issues and concerns, especially when it comes to harassment, is important in helping solve and address adverse situations. Communication and the ability to listen to an employee's needs during such a tumultuous time will be key in ensuring the in-person work transition can happen efficiently and with the people in mind.

I encourage every employer to highlight these issues and how they are addressed within the company or business and ensure that employees know who they can go to with concerns. Creating trust in any workplace can be done easily through open discussion and routes to problem-solving and addressing misconduct. Inclusivity improves every single workplace, and in my experience, improves work ethic.

I love knowing my employer will have my back, and I hope that every person can feel the same about where they work. Helping to find where passions can be best used, and where people can be respected and heard no matter who they are both online and off, is a great gift an employer can give their workers. Every person deserves a voice where they choose to work, now more than ever.

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FELLOWS: Addressing the evolution of harassment education - The Pioneer

Hypori is already the leading secure virtual mobility provider for zero-footprint data on Bring Your Own Devices being used within the Department of Defense. With backing from GreatPoint Ventures to the tune of $20 million in Series A financing, the company is now poised to expand both within DOD and into new industries, including healthcare and finance, leaders said.

But Hyporis story is about more than expansion, said CEO Jared Shepard, who recently spun off Hypori Inc. into an independent startup from Intelligent Waves LLC, a defense and intelligence contractor, which he founded. Instead, its a way of thinking about mobility and cybersecurity that drastically reduces the risk of large-scale threats and allows data access anywhere from any device operating on any platform.

We believe the next evolution in mobility is breaking ties to the device, said Shepard. What if you could have all of that access to information, all of that capability from the device anywhere, and in a secure fashion that you dont ever have to worry about replacing it or losing it?

Want to upgrade your device? No problem. Is the battery dead? Access all your data securely on someone elses phone, log into Hypori, and youre back on your phone once more.

In the U.S., an estimated 60% of homes have at least one PC, Shepard estimates, but many operate with much less power than they could. Hypori, he said, allows users to access secure data center speeds, bandwidth, computing power, memory and more regardless of how up to date their device is.

If you used the Hypori device, you could launch it for television with a keyboard and mouse and have a more powerful PC than most people have at home, Shepard said. And now you have a 72-inch monitor.

If the arrival of laptop computers and cellular phones marked turning points in the world of mobility, breaking ties to the device is the next major step, Shepard said.

A Different Approach to Edge Security

As more government and non-government organizations adopt Bring Your Own Device or Bring Your Own Approved Device to work policies, the time is ripe for next-level security solutions, Shepard said. In addition, securing the edge network-connected computing that takes place outside a cloud environment has long been cited as a concern among cybersecurity specialists.

For years, IT providers have focused on extending data from a secure data center to the edge and then protecting data while it resides there. As the edge expands to include exponentially smarter mobile devices, the attack surface that needs protection has also expanded, and specialists have scrambled to figure out how to secure it. Hypori takes a whole new approach.

This drops the need to protect the edge because we take the edge out of the equation, Shepard said. The data never leaves the data center. We only empower the edge to interact with the data inside the data center. There is no actual data in transit or at rest, other than simply pixels and telemetry.

Changing where the data resides removes several security concerns. Since the data cant be downloaded, it cant reside on the device and therefore cant be accessed, even if the device itself is compromised, Shepard said. In addition, bad actors cant ransom the data because they arent in possession of the data.

It is a virtual access solution thats more dynamic and more diverse and more secure than anything else thats offered today, he said.

For years, tech giants worked to move the desktop environment to mobile devices. Hyporis approach is to get the mobile environment to work anywhere.

On a desktop, on a mobile phone, on a laptop, on a tablet, on a PC, or a television, on a kiosk it doesnt matter, right? Shepard said. If you can enable one common operating system for anybody to access from anywhere and do so in a secure fashion that doesnt depend upon the security of the edge device? Thats transformational.

Expanding Within and Beyond DOD

A military veteran, Shepard spent 40 months deployed into combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan where he said he gained a deep understanding of the need for user-friendly systems that can be accessed even under challenging situations. For Hypori, that means planning for users to be able to access data even when the device is out of date or compromised in some way.

That way, you can get the same cloud-powered user experience from even that edge device thats already been compromised or is operating poorly, or maybe its three or four years old, you get the same level of interaction and capability through Hypori that you would get on a brand-new device inside of the secure environment, he said.

When Shepards services company, Intelligent Waves, acquired the assets of Hypori earlier this spring, he knew the use cases he saw inside DOD could have broader applications.

Hypori is the largest secure mobility solution inside the DOD under the National Security Administrations Commercial Solutions for Classified Program. But company leaders see growth within the defense and intelligence community as only the beginning. So, Hyporis next focus will be on expanding to industries with a strong need to protect their IP, communications and the user or patient information.

Were growing out our sales team, were growing out our leadership team, were growing out our development team because were going to be able to do the same thing that were doing for the Department of Defense for multiple other healthcare, finance, business industry verticals across the world, Shepard said.

Looking Ahead

Shepard is excited for the possibilities ahead, which include transforming the security of point-of-sale transactions. It would have the potential to eliminate, for example, threats in which bad actors hack into credit card machines or attach data lifters to ATMs.

You could actually make a point-of-sale interaction so secure that when you swipe the credit card, the actual credit card number never resided on the edge device and only resides inside the secure environment, Shepard said. With us, we take the edge out, which means were dramatically reducing the size of the footprint that you have to defend actively.

The partnership with GreatPoint Ventures adds a level of experience, knowledge and access to strategic partners that will strengthen Hyporis posture as it works to expand, Shepard said.

Founded in 2015, GreatPoint has been involved in the success of several leading companies, including Beyond Meat, Sidecar Health, Skyhawk Therapeutics, Extend, Vim Business, Kinetica and Excision.

They have that kind of expertise, and theyre going to help us understand, scale and plan effectively to be able to enter those new markets and grow, Shepard said.

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Hypori CEO Jared Shepard on Looks to the 'Next Evolution in Mobility' - WashingtonExec

On Oct. 1, 1959 the 6594th Instrumentation Squadron was activated at Grenier Air Force Base in Manchester for the purpose of transforming the New Boston Bombing Range into the New Boston Satellite Tracking Station.

The 6594th was originally part of the Air Force Ballistic Missiles Division of the Air Research and Development Command. It was headquartered at Grenier until moving its support operations to New Boston in 1974.

In October 1979 the squadron was redesignated as Detachment 2, Air Force Satellite Control Facility, Air Force Systems Command. The unit became Detachment 2, 2nd Satellite Tracking Group in October 1987, and was transferred to the Air Force Space Command. In November 1991 it became the 23rd Space Operations Squadron (SOS).

In 2009 the New Boston Satellite Tracking Station became the New Boston Air Force Station. the 23rd SOS was designated as part of the new U.S. Space Force in December 2019. Today, the unit is a component of U.S. Space Force Delta 6 Space Access & Cyberspace Operations, headquartered at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado.

The New Boston facility operates under the command of the Peterson-Schriever Garrison, also in Colorado, which supports six installations, over 18,000 military and civilian personnel, and numerous U.S. Space Force missions around the globe. Along with other sites in the network, the New Boston Air Force Station provides satellite command and control capability to Department of Defense, national, and civilian satellites.

The New Boston station consists of around 2,864 acres within the towns of New Boston, Amherst, and Mont Vernon. Most of this is undeveloped forest land, including four ponds (the largest being Joe English Pond), and Joe English Hill (elevation 1,245 feet).

According to a spokesperson for the Peterson-Schriever Garrison, Due to the sensitive nature of the mission, there is no public access to its property. Only authorized DoD [Department of Defense] ID card holders may access the installation. While only a portion of the installation is used for satellite mission operations, we also have partnerships with other federal agencies that use part of our installation for their mission sets, such as land navigation and other communication systems.

Station command is responsible for the stewardship of the propertys natural resources, including the maintenance of habitats and ecosystems. The quiet landscape outside of the active military area is available for recreational purposes to DoD ID card holders (including military personnel). There are two air-conditioned cabins for rent on Joe English Pond and campsites on this and another pond.

Visitors can rent kayaks, canoes, mountain bikes, and miscellaneous camping equipment. Everyone is warned that the station was once an air to ground bombing range, so unexploded ordnance may be present.

In 2010 Joe English Pond was drained and hazardous artifacts from the sites bombing range era were removed. The biggest of these, however, was left it place. It was a 2,000-pound bomb buried under a foot of clay and silt on the ponds bottom. With the oversight of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the bomb was detonated, but was found to have contained no high explosives.

The 23rd SOS also works to protect the stations cultural resources, including more than 30 historical and archaeological features. The station shares these resources with the public when possible.

For example, on February 20, 2021 staff from the 23rd SOS accompanied local citizens on a hike to the location of the Melendy farmstead. Luther and Lucinda Melendy were staunch abolitionists whose home was a stop on the Underground Railroad before the Civil War. The group viewed the granite rocks that had once formed the houses cellar hole and the barns foundation.

A member of 23rd SOS provided an overview of the anti-slavery movement and the Melendy familys role in helping escaped slaves find freedom.

The New Boston Air Force Station will soon be renamed the New Boston Space Force Station.

This will mark an important milestone in a history that began in 1942 when the bombing range was created as an adjunct to Grenier Field, the U.S. Army Air Forces Base in Manchester. The site where bomber and fighter pilots and crews once trained for combat now serves, through advanced communications technologies, to protect U.S. and allied interests in space.

Next time: Looking Back returns in two weeks to tell the story of a womans mysterious death on the New Boston Bombing Range in 1951.

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Looking Back: The Evolution of the New Boston Satellite Tracking Station - The Union Leader

Life reconstruction of Heterodontosaurus vocalizing on a cool Jurassic morning. Credit: Viktor Radermacher

An international team of scientists has used high-powered X-rays at the European Synchrotron, the ESRF, to show how an extinct South African 200-million-year-old dinosaur, Heterodontosaurus tucki, breathed. The study was published in eLife on July 6, 2021.

In 2016, scientists from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, came to the ESRF, the European Synchrotron in Grenoble, France, the brightest synchrotron light source, for an exceptional study: to scan the complete skeleton of a small, 200-million-year-old plant-eating dinosaur. The dinosaur specimen is the most complete fossil ever discovered of a species known as Heterodontosaurus tucki. The fossil was found in 2009 in the Eastern Cape of South Africa by study co-author, Billy de Klerk of the Albany Museum, Makhanda, South Africa. A farmer friend of mine called my attention to the specimen, says de Klerk, and when I saw it I immediately knew we had something special on our hands.

Fast forward some years: the team of scientists, using scans and new algorithm developed by ESRF scientists to virtually reconstruct the skeleton of Heterodontosaurus in unprecedented detail, and thus show how this extinct dinosaur breathed. This specimen represents a turning point in understanding how dinosaurs evolved explains Viktor Radermacher, corresponding author, South African PhD now at the University of Minnesota, US.

Digital Heterodontosaurus South African dinosaur skeleton produced by the scanning at the ESRFn the European Synchrotron, France, that shows complete specimen and new anatomy. Credit: Vincent Fernandez, ESRF, NMHN

Not all animals use the same techniques and organs to breathe. Humans expand and contract their lungs. Birds have air sacs outside their lungs that pump oxygen in, and their lungs dont actually move. For a long time, paleontologists assumed that all dinosaurs breathed like birds, since they had similar breathing anatomy. This study, however, found that Heterodontosaurus did notit instead had paddle-shaped ribs and small, toothpick-like bones, and expanded both its chest and belly in order to breathe.

Heterodontosaurus is one of the oldest and first-evolving Ornithischians, the group that includes favorites like Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and duckbilled dinosaurs. Heterodontosaurus lived in the early Jurassic period, about 200 million years ago, surviving an extinction at the end of the prior Triassic period. Understanding how this dinosaur breathed could also help paleontologists figure out what biological features allowed certain dinosaurs to survive or caused them to go extinct.

Weve long known that the skeletons of ornithischian dinosaurs were radically different from those of other dinosaurs, explains Richard Butler, from the School of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK. This amazing new fossil helps us understand why ornithischians were so distinctive and successful, he adds.

The new Heterodontosaurus tucki specimen AM 4766 affectionately called Tucky. Digitally reconstructed anatomy on the right, thanks to ESRF scans. Credit: Viktor Radermacher

This study is the result of a long-standing collaboration between paleontologists based in South Africa and at the ESRF, where non-invasive techniques have been developed specifically for palaeontological studies. You could only do this study with a synchrotron, says Vincent Fernandez, scientist at the Natural History Museum in London, UK, co-author of the study and former ESRF scientist. The characteristics of the ESRFs X-rays, combined with its high energy beamline configuration, made scanning this complete turkey-sized dinosaur possible.

This is a perfect example of the diversity of life on Earth. The takeaway message is that there are many ways to breathe, Radermacher said. And the really interesting thing about life on earth is that we all have different strategies to do the same thing, and weve just identified a new strategy of breathing.

Studies like this highlight how South Africas fossil record once again helps us understand evolutionary origins, said senior author Jonah Choiniere, Professor at the Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Reference: A new Heterodontosaurus specimen elucidates the unique ventilatory macroevolution of ornithischian dinosaurs by Viktor J Radermacher, Vincent Fernandez, Emma R Schachner, Richard J Butler, Emese M Bordy, Michael Naylor Hudgins, William J de Klerk, Kimberley EJ Chapelle and Jonah N Choiniere, 6 July 2021, eLife.DOI: 10.7554/eLife.66036

Authors Viktor Radermacher, Kimberley Chapelle, and Jonah Choiniere were supported by grants from the NRF-African Origins Platform, Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences, and the Palaeontological Scientific Trust. South African participation in the ESRF, the European synchrotron, is supported by the NRF and DSI.

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200-Million-Year-Old Fossil Sheds Light on the Evolution of How Dinosaurs Breathed - SciTechDaily

Chris Lusk/Supplied

These plants are closely related. On the right, a divaricate called Coprosma propinqua, or mingimingi. On the left, a broadleaved relative called coprosma robusta, or karamu. How did these evolve so differently?

Perhaps the longest-running debate about the evolution of New Zealand plants may have been resolved thanks to new research among their genes.

Divaricates are mostly shrubs or low trees, with small or tiny leaves, and densely interlaced and wiry stems. They are immensely twiggy and overseas the habit is called cage architecture. They are popular in many New Zealand gardens for their distinctive shapes and colours, and for attracting native insects, lizards and birds.

About 13 per cent of New Zealand woody plant species are divaricates, a much higher percentage than anywhere else.

The distinctive nature and prevalence of these NZ plants was noted in the late 1800s by European scientists and two competing theories arose.

READ MORE:* 23-million-year-old leaves hint trees might 'breathe' easier in high-carbon air* Ancient Northland kauri tree reveals secrets of Earth's polar reversal* Save these natives - plant them in your garden* Pitpat trees do it tough thanks to being high on the menu

The first held that divaricating was an evolutionary response to browsing by moa birds. In short, the modest amount of nutritious leaf material combined with the low nutrition twigs meant moa were better off eating other plants. That encouraged these plants to keep evolving as divaricates.

The second theory held that as divaricates most often occur in frosty and droughty regions, such as the east coast of the South Island, the habit is probably an adaptation to climate. Its thought that small leaves survive cold and dry conditions better than big, fleshy leaves.

In recent times, a synthesis theory has emerged that asked, Why not both?.

Enter the genetics research done by Kevin Maurin in his PhD thesis in biological sciences at the University of Waikato. He showed that divaricating started to emerge in New Zealand about 5 million years before present. In evolutionary terms, thats not very long.

But it probably matches up with a time when the continent Zealandia was undergoing a colder and drier period, suggesting climate played a strong role.

And it has a flip side as well. Moa ancestors were browsing Zealandias shrubs and small trees long before 5m years ago, and if moa had an evolutionary impact on a habit this widespread, then science would expect much older evidence of divaricates.

It is therefore now very difficult to argue that avian browsing alone was responsible for its over-representation in the New Zealand flora, concluded Maurin. Instead, this age is consistent with a strong influence of Pliocene-Pleistocene climates, although it does not exclude a role of avian browsing.

Indeed, the effect of browsing by moa was also probably involved, Maurin wrote.

Other insights arose out of the research by Maurin and his thesis supervisor, associate professor Chris Lusk, including that most divaricates probably werent of Gondwana origin a reference to the ancient super continent from which Zealandia eventually split.

Rather their ancestors probably arose in Australia and dispersed eastwards to these islands before encountering a cold, dry climate and moa.

They also noted that divaricates are browsed these days by wild deer, but that pressure probably wont lead to widespread loss because deer, like moa, get better nutrition from other plants.

But they were less certain about the impact of climate change. Thats expected to lead to drier zones, such as on the east side of the South Island, and its not clear how the divaricates will adapt to even drier conditions.

Meanwhile, having adapted to cold conditions, they face an increase in temperatures that may threaten their survival unless their caged architecture can somehow help them adapt further.

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Moa had minor role in evolution of twiggy native shrubs - Stuff.co.nz

Photo: Visitors admire the iconic Darwin statue at London's Natural History Museum, by Thomas Fabian, via Flickr.

Editors note: Last week, Scientific American viciously smeared all critics of Darwinian theory with an article titled, Denial ofEvolution Is a Form of White Supremacy, by Allison Hopper. As promised, we are presenting some of our extensive past coverage of the tight links between racism and evolution. This article was originally published on November 23, 2020.

A recent article by Livia Gershon examines so-called Bizarre Theories of the American School of Evolution. She tries to implicitly distance Darwin from racism by suggesting that his outspoken critic, famed paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897), opposed womens suffrage and equality for African Americans as two perils of the Indo-European. These racist and misogynistic views, insists Gershon, were shared by the American School of evolutionary anthropology, a group that had morphed from the polygenism of a previous generation led by men like Samuel George Morton (1799-1851), Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), and Josiah Clark Nott (1804-1873) into a new brand of neo-Lamarckian theory. According to the article, They [Cope and his colleagues] rejected Charles Darwins theory of evolution. Instead, they built on the work of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829). Unlike Darwin, Lamarck believed that acquired characteristics like strong muscles could be passed on to descendants. Gershon continues, In humans, Lamarck argued, sentiment emotional responses to physical sensations gradually made physical changes in the body.

It is this sentimental view that allegedly permitted the kind of racial and gender-biased calculus to permeate the thinking of the American School in contrast supposedly to Darwin, whose random, amoral process of blind evolution simply allowed the chips to fall where they might without such judgmental prejudices. Actually, Gershon is merely highlighting an article by Rutgers University Womens and Gender Studies professor Kyla Schuller, Taxonomies of Feeling: The Epistemology of Sentimentalism in Late-Nineteenth-Century Racial and Sexual Science, written in a dense, anfractuous academese. It is best not to wander too deeply into Schullers intellectual weeds except to say that it only adds tortuous detail to the summary errors of Gershons briefer piece. So in the interest of keeping this simple, lets just say that the most bizarre aspect of this is not neo-Lamarckism, but rather the strange bifurcated equation that neo-Lamarckism = racial and gender bias while Darwinism = objective science shorn of all prejudicial baggage. This is demonstrably wrong historically and scientifically.

Historically, Darwin and his cohorts were just as racist and gender biased as Cope or anyone else of their era. As I have pointed out, Darwin was certainly as racist as the notorious species fixistLouis Agassiz. And Darwins Bulldog, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), was no better, arguing shortly after the American Civil War that blacks were doomed now that they were cut free from the purported protective influences of their owners. Huxley stated boldly that no rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. In fact, one man did, the Darwinists arch enemy Richard Owen (1804-1892). A fascinating examination of this important point is presented in Christopher E. CosansOwens Ape & Darwins Bulldog.

As for women, Darwin was no champion of gender equality. As he stated in theDescent of Man, Man is more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius. With their male counterparts having a brain that is absolutely larger, Darwin doubted that women could possibly surmount their biological limitations. Nevertheless, social class could create, for Darwin, a state of general improvement for women. But according to Darwin it wasmale selectionmediated by social class that made the difference. Again in theDescenthe writes,

It appears to me with justice, that the members of our aristocracy, including under this term all wealthy families in which primogeniture has long prevailed, from having chosen during many generations from all classes the more beautiful women as their wives, have become handsomer, according to the European standard of beauty, than the middle classes; yet the middle classes are placed under equally favourable conditions of life for the perfect development of the body.

There is, of course, no mention of this by the gender studies expert Schuller.

Gershon and Schuller seem to imply that part of Copes problem was that Many Anglo-Saxons looked forward not just to ongoing biosocial evolution but also to a millennial ascent into perfection. Perhaps, but so did Darwin! Writing to the Rev. Charles Kingsley (1819-1879) on February 6, 1862, he stated, It is very true what you say about the higher races of men, when high enough, replacing & clearing off the lower races. In 500 years how the Anglo-Saxon race will have spread & exterminated whole nations; & in consequence how much the human race, viewed as a unit, will have risen in rank. He voiced the same sentiment years later in a letter to Irish philosopher and political economist William Graham (1839-1911) on July 3, 1881, Remember what risks the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is. The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world.

For Darwin, racial superiority was survival of the fittest put into terms of national expansion and even of human progress. Moreover, that progress was defined in explicitly racial terms. Darwin believed this was confirmed in the science of craniotomy, the idea that races could be ranked by measuring the cranial capacities of their respective skulls. If Cope could be a racist by sentiment, Darwin could confirm his racism in the cold, hard facts of his racialized science.

It is inaccurate to divide 19th-century evolutionary racial theory on the basis of a Lamarckian litmus test in any case. The reason is that although Cope was a neo-Lamarckian, so was Darwin. Neither Gershon nor Schuller mentions Darwins pangenesis theory of inheritance, which was Lamarckian. As evolutionary historian Peter Bowler has point out inEvolution: The History of an Idea, Darwins lifelong commitment to a limited amount of Lamarckism and to what was later called blending inheritance (the mixture of parental characters) were integral parts of his worldview. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake inScience Set Freeagrees:

In Darwins day, most people assumed that acquired characteristics could indeed be inherited. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had taken this for granted in his theory of evolution published more than fifty years before Darwins, and the inheritance of acquired characteristics was often referred to as Lamarckian inheritance. Darwin shared this belief and cited many examples to support it. In this respect Darwin was a Lamarckian, not so much because of Lamarcks influence but because he and Lamarck both accepted the inheritance of acquired characteristics as a matter of common sense.

Such a historical context makes Lamarckian distinctions racial or otherwise meaningless.

Of course Lamarckism need not be expressed as benighted racial and gender prejudice. Gershons characterization of Lamarckian evolution as bizarre is simply scientifically wrong. For example, geneticistEva Jablonkais presently arguing for a more Lamarckian approach, as is bioengineerRaju Pookottil, cell biologistMariusz Nowacki, and biophysicistYoav Soen. Again, Rupert Sheldrake sheds some light:

The taboo against the inheritance of acquired characteristics began to dissolve around the turn of the millennium. There is a growing recognition that some acquired characteristics can indeed be inherited. This kind of inheritance is now called epigenetic inheritance. In this context, the word epigenetic signifies over and above genetics. Some kinds of epigenetic inheritance depend on chemical attachments to genes, particularly of methyl groups. Genes can be switched off by the methylation of the DNA itself or of the proteins that bind to it.

Schullers blinkered views are only magnified by Gershons repeating them. It is astonishing that such stunning ignorance of history and science can be displayed in an academic publication, only to be repeated by way of summation. But this is what happens when an article peer-reviewed or not says the right things. Clearly, historical and scientific accuracy takes a back seat to providing cover for Darwins own views on race and gender. Details and facts are easily swept under the rug when sanitizing Darwin. But finger-pointing at bizarre theories and one-sided race-baiting are thin disguises for a worldview that lives in a glass house.

What Schuller and Gershon are trying to protect Darwinism from are the social applications to which it has been so prone. Indeed, Darwin was as much committed to a racialized and misogynistic ethos as any of his generation. What Adrian Desmond and James Moore wrote nearly thirty years ago inDarwinremains as true as ever:

Did he [Darwin] see society, like nature, progress by culling its unfit members? Social Darwinism is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event, tarnishing Darwins image. But his notebooks make plain that competition, free trade, imperialism, racial extermination, and sexual inequality were written into the equation from the start Darwinism was always intended to explain human society.

Historian of science and social anthropologist Henrika Kuklik (1942-2013) was even more emphatic, stating that scholars have wasted their time trying to exonerate Darwin of responsibility for Social Darwinism, for he was a Social Darwinist.

What a shame that Schuller sent Gershon on such a fools errand. Both returned empty-handed and ended up looking either deceitful or ignorant. Ill assume the latter; it seems the more charitable conclusion.

Editors note: For more on Darwinisms enduring legacy of racism, watch the award-winning documentaryHuman Zoos:

Read the rest here:

Distancing Darwin from Racism Is a Fool's Errand - Discovery Institute

Character evolution has become one of the things fans of The Walking Dead love seeing most. Supporting your favorites can be rewarding and painful at times, depending on where their story goes. But at the end of the day the twists, turns and developments keep the show fresh!

The show really puts everyone living in the undead world through their paces. We see this take a toll on their physical appearance to reflect where they are; personally, they all have become their own hairdressers, too, along with everything else they have learned. First impressions really matter in the destruction they are surrounded with, so keeping yourself as regulated and organized as possible is a helpful bonus to other potential new allies.

There are many presentable characters with well-kept hair in the show, considering they are living through an apocalypse. However, one man that stood out from the crowd with his super slick Kentucky Waterfall was Dr. Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt). What a hairstyle!

Josh McDermitt as Dr. Eugene Porter The Walking Dead _ Season 5, Episode 5 Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

Eugenes arc has to be one of the biggest growths in the entire TWDU, along with his hair. Eugene first appeared in 410 Inmates, very quiet and afraid as he emerged from a military vehicle alongside his traveling companions Sgt. Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz) and Rosita Espinosa (Christian Serratos). From the off, we saw Eugene wasnt great at using weapons to kill walkers but oh, how times change, and he became a fighter.

If we look at Eugenes physical appearance, this too has changed alongside his weaponry and communication skills. From his first appearance on screen until 816, Wrath Eugene kept his Tennessee top hat well-groomed along with being a part of who he was, and it definitely drew attention from people. I think the only time Eugenes mullet looked slightly untidy was in 815 Worth when he hid under ashes and returned to the Sanctuary entirely covered in soot, but he still looked great and fashioned it out.

During this entire period, Eugene had his times of really trying to fight even though he really didnt want to because he was scared. Rosita knows this all too well as he didnt participate in her weapons class, but hey, come on, he was protecting the people there in open-toed shoes! I am not saying the entire time Eugene had his mullet, he was scared to fight, but he did have many times in tears because of his fears that restricted him.

Josh McDermitt as Dr. Eugene Porter, Elyse Dufour as Frankie The Walking Dead _ Season 8, Episode 11 Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

Eugene and the mullet of life had brave moments. In 510 Them, he helped the group hold the barn doors shut during the raging storm, he saved Tara and stood up to Nicholas in 514 Spend, faced his fears in 609 No Way Out as he joined the fight to help save Alexandria. Hedrove the RV away to save Maggie and his group in 616 Last Day on Earth after handing Rick a bullet-making recipe (wouldnt that become important for Eugene later on). He rigged the bullets to massively contribute to helping win and end the All Out War against Negan and the Saviors in 816 Wrath.

However, the biggest change we have seen in Eugene began in 901, A New Beginning, and he came not only with an amazing ponytail but also his new cowboy hat. This change allowed us to see he began engineering again and even got another Rick Grimes thank you Go Eugene!

Josh McDermitt as Eugene Porter- The Walking Dead _ Season 10, Episode 20 Photo Credit: Josh Stringer/AMC

Coming into later episodes of Season 9 and Season 10, fans have been blessed to see Dr. Porter evolve once more and style a braid. Even a denim jacket and a bolo tie in 1016 A Certain Doom, along with new fighting skills, facing villains along with running into fires to save much-loved communities and civilians. He really has begun to run with newfound confidence, and I could not be prouder of the character!

Whether you love him or hate him, his importance cant be denied. He has seen and been through a lot during the apocalypse in a time that hasnt been easy for anyone. Eugene, you really are a survivor and a brilliant one at that, and I cant wait to see where he goes next lets hope its him finding his happiness!

The Walking Dead returns for Season 11 on AMC August 22, Star on Disney Plus August 23 for UK viewers.

View post:

TWD: The evolution of Eugene and his hair - Undead Walking

Photo credit: Charles Daghlian, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

On a new episode ofID the Future, author and biologist Michael Behe talks with host Andrew McDiarmid about how the once seemingly humble cilium is actually even more irreducibly complex than Behe suggested in his first book,Darwins Black Box. Indeed, its even more complex than his review of cilia in his update in 2007, The Edge of Evolution. At the time Behe described cilia as irreducible complexity squared. But as noted in arecent article here at Evolution News, even more layers of sophistication in cilia and their Intraflagellar Transport (IFT) system have now been discovered.

So, does that mean we are now looking at irreducible complexity cubed? Listen in as Behe and McDiarmid revel in the engineering sophistication of this fascinating molecular machine. They discuss why, more than ever, it appears to point away from any form of mindless evolution for its cause. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

Read more:

Michael Behe and Cilia 3.0 or, Irreducible Complexity Cubed - Discovery Institute

Photographer Jeremy Cowart has created what he calls a Lightograph, a patent-pending evolution of both the cinemagraph and standard photography that moves light through a still photo without adding any motion or shift in perspective.

Cowart touts the Lightograph as a wholly new form of art because it is not a motion picture because there is no motion, and its not a standard photograph because the light can change and evolve. For him, the Lightograph is a breakthrough method for visual art that allows light to tell more than one story in a still image and can forever change what is possible in portraiture.

The finished photos are at first blush akin to what has been done in the past especially with cinemagraphs but after closer inspection, the differences are stark. Cowart says that he has been using this method for years, but it wasnt until recently that he realized how unusual it is.

I actually did the entire process in 2014 but didnt realize what I had on my hands until now, he tells PetaPixel. It wasnt until the NFT boom over the last couple of months that made me start digging harder, wondering how I could bring motion to photographs and portraits. It was then that I realized Oh, Ive been doing this for years and didnt even how special this process is. It just needed a couple of tiny tweaks to flesh out the process and make it what it is today.

Cowart says that as amazing as photography, cameras, and light are, he found that constantly shooting the same way would lead to boredom.

There are only so many places you can place a light, right? I cant shoot the same lighting on a white seamless all day. A lot of photographers love those shoots. I cant stand it. I think my natural A.D.D. is always driving me to be curious and figure out whats next. How can I keep evolving and mix things up to make digital photography evolve?

To his knowledge, this process has never been done before, at least not with portraiture. He also says that no computer graphics or 3D software is used to make these photos.

This is truly a new method of art-making and analog photography, he says. Light can now tell multiple stories in a single image. It can show the hero and villain side of a person in the same portrait with a simple shift of light. Humans are multi-faceted. Were constantly changing and evolving.

A Lightograph represents our evolving dynamic as humans. It can show all our emotions at once. One Lightograph can go from super flattering to scary to dramatic to warm to cool back to flattering. And so much more. The possibilities are endless. Lightography can also be applied to almost every genre of photography. So it can work for commercial, lifestyle, fine art, fashion, beauty, editorial, studio, music, entertainment, families, travel, business, headshots, automotive, stock, products, architecture, even babies and pets if they can stay still or are sleeping, he adds with a laugh.

Cowart believes that there are huge implications for this method in advertising photography because it adds so much more depth and interest to a still image in a way that people simply arent used to seeing.

I keep hearing people say, I cant stop looking at this,' Cowart says.

One challenge with moving images is how they are shared since Lightographs are more than a standard photograph. Additionally, the finished result isnt quite a movie, either. Cowart says he believes these could find a home in digital media.

I see it as the future of digital media. So, magazine covers for example. Future issues of any magazine could have Lightographs as their covers. Imagine scrolling on your iPad, reading an article and as you scroll, the lighting is evolving as the story evolves, he says. This is just one example of thousands that could be applied. Imagine driving past a digital billboard and the light changes completely in those three seconds that you drive past it. Its incredibly interesting and exciting. Netflix movie posters could be Lightographs that evolve as you sit on your couch and scroll through movie titles.

Its a significant development in the history of photography, Cowart says. I remember when the cinemagraph was introduced in 2011. I was so fascinated by it and amazed that a new form of art could be introduced when it seems like everything has been done before. I never thought I would have my own important discovery. But I always say, the more you learn technically, the more you can achieve creatively. That thought has been true for me. Ive spent thousands of hours in my studio over the last decade playing with my Profoto strobes and Canon DSLRs. Its so cool that all that play-time has translated to an innovation like this.

While the specifics of how he creates Lightographs is only revealed in his tutorial, Cowart does say that its a detailed and technical process, though and says that multiple factors play a part in how long it takes to make one of these images.

Its quite a technical process. Seasoned, experienced photographers who understand lighting will catch on quickly. he says. But there are so many subtle nuances and tricks that go into it that are not so easy to figure out. Im amazed it hasnt been done before and Im so honored I get to introduce it to the industry. Its truly a new, unique form of art-making.

Cowart has launched a tutorial on how to create Lightographs for those who want to make their own, and to see more examples on the Lightograph website.

Additionally, Cowart will release several NFTs on Foundation that use this method starting on July 15.

Continued here:

Lightograph Unveiled: The 'Next Evolution of the Photograph' - PetaPixel