Category Archives: Evolution

Nikki Walton

Nikki Walton is a best-selling and NAACP Image Award-nominated author, TV personality and licensed psychotherapist. Her unique sensibility of inner and outer beauty is the force behind her industry-disrupting blog, curlynikki.com, and the reason why over 118,000 loyal fans flock to her Instagram page for a daily dose of inspiring words and wellness wisdom. Here, the mother of two talks to PEOPLE about the evolution of the natural hair movement and self-love.

Growing up, I'd see brown women who looked like me on TV sitcoms, on the red carpet and in magazines, but their hair was always straight. I started having my hair pressed when I was 7 years old to look like them.

At the beauty salon, I wouldn't even look in the mirror before my hair was finished because I felt ugly. I couldn't make eye contact with my own reflection. I didn't feel beautiful. I didn't want other people in the salon to see me we were all getting our hair straightened in some form, whether it was with heat or chemicals, to look more appropriate, to look more professional, to look more desirable to society. That had a huge impact on my life and the way I perceived myself.

In 2004, I was attending college three hours away from St. Louis, Missouri, where I grew up, and where my hair stylist was, so I could only get my hair styled once every couple of months. But as soon as it got wet from the shower, humidity or rain, it would revert back to its natural texture. Soon, I realized that this was not sustainable. My self-esteem would fluctuate based on how my hair looked. I decided to learn how to straighten my hair, how to beat it into submission myself. Then it started burning and breaking off, so I thought, "This also is not the answer." I needed to do the real work, and ask myself the hard questions: "What is your hair? Why do you not like it? What can it do if you work with it?"

I started wearing Afro puffs in college, and I did not get a good reception. Women who looked like me would say, "Ew, what is this?" But I kept going, because I knew I would have a better quality of life by wearing my hair the way it naturally grows, instead of needing it to look like something it's not.

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When I first came home from college rocking my natural hair, my family was not for it either. They were like, "When you interview for your graduate school program, they're not going to let you in with that hair. You're throwing everything away." It stung, but they wanted to protect me. That policing comes from a place of love, like, "let me keep you from missing out on opportunities that you would get if you looked more 'the part'" which means straight hair.

While I was at the University of North Carolina for graduate school, I began to research the science of Black hair: "What is the moisture barrier? What does healthy, textured hair look like?" In 2008, I started sharing what I learned on my website, Curly Nikki. Once I stayed up for almost 48 hours straight writing 30 articles. People loved it.

Nikki Walton

I did not feel comfortable in my own skin and hair, but I found self-love and freedom through learning to love my natural hair. My story is common, and a lot of folks were eager to share their experiences on Curly Nikki. Curly Nikki may have started with my story, but it's a community of people where we help each other regain our quality of life and learn to love ourselves.

The accessibility and acceptance of natural hair is like night and day now, compared to 10 years ago. If I need a curl cream, I can order it online for same-day delivery, versus driving an hour to a boutique hair care store. Commercials now say curly hair is beautiful not just silky, shiny hair.

RELATED: Read More of PEOPLE's Voices from the Fight Against Racism

My daughter Gia Nicole is 10, and she doesn't even know what a relaxer is. She loves her hair the bigger, the better. She wears it in natural curls, and straight sometimes. My goal is for women to feel just as beautiful with their hair in its natural state as they do when it's straight. You should feel just as confident walking out of your house, walking onto that red carpet, going to that audition, going to that interview, or going on vacation with your hair in its natural state, as you do with it under a wig or straightened.

Now, I can't get through an entire movie or TV show without seeing natural hair. It's portrayed on the lead, on the sexy character. However, that character is often light-skinned or has looser curls. We need to shift to a more equal playing field, where all shades are considered beautiful. My mother has very dark skin and she was shamed by her classmates, teachers and her family. She's well into her natural hair journey, and to see her love her skin and hair has been beautiful to watch. To see her watch women who have her skin color on TV or in magazines being celebrated, she tells me, "I never thought I'd see the day."

Since the natural hair movement is more mainstream, it gives us the bandwidth to focus on issues that matter, like equality. We can immediately focus on healing our society because we're not worried about how we look.

We don't need to inspire people to wear their natural hair anymore, but there's still room for education. I want to see a world where it's not just certain hair textures or certain skin tones that are considered acceptable. Let's shift our society so everyone can see beauty in the mirror first, because that's what's important. When most people look in the mirror, they don't see beauty there. But when you can see and feel it in yourself, no matter who you are or what you look like, it's easy to see it elsewhere. When we can all do that, I've achieved my goal.

As told to Morgan Smith

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Blogger Curly Nikki on the Evolution of the Natural Hair Movement: 'It's Like Night and Day' - Yahoo Entertainment

At its conception in the 1930s, TV was considered a novelty with much technical advancement needed to take analog viewing mainstream. Adoption was slow to start with, radio being where consumers favorite shows were aired. It wasnt until the 1950s when many radio programs transitioned into television shows that this format really took off. Major brands were shifting their advertising spend away from audio and into TV to reach the consumer masses with a specific message or promotion of a single product. Consumers were soon glued to their screens, the TV set becoming a way-of-life and a dominant form of entertainment.

TV broadcasters saw competition for consumer attention from new cable, premium, independent and public channels. Fast forward to the rapid adoption of the internet, which saw even more change and disruption. As more consumers moved to internet-based content, advancements in technology meant that consumers could bring their favorite shows with them while on the move. Analog TVs deprecation has been in progress since the early 2000s and in the last 10 years digital transmission was suddenly in everyones hands. Across Europe today, there is an estimated 8.9 connected devices[1] per capita, resulting in more data than ever and more individual touch points. With content now so easily accessible, consumers demand a more relevant online advertising experience in return for their attention. The value exchange must improve consumer experiences so how can advertisers achieve this?

With the emergence of new content channels, viewers suddenly had an entire universe of programming choices, catering to various interests, cultures and desires. Consumer access points expanded, consumption preferences changed, and viewers wanted more control over what they watched and when they watched it. Video cassette recorders (VCRs) were the first devices to allow consumers flexibility to watch a diverse library of content on their TVs at a time that suited them or even record shows before the days of DVR. This paved the way for other devices, more recently the video on demand (VOD) and subscription video on demand (SVOD) channels we enjoy today. The modern-day digital video consumer is now more in control of their viewing experience than ever before.

Once two separate worlds, traditional TV and digital have now collided, transforming the future of TV for viewers, media owners, advertisers and their buying agencies. Traditional linear viewing, while still relevant, is declining, heavily influenced by the popularity of VOD, SVOD and the various internet-connected viewing devices (connected TV, other OTT devices and social platforms). The opportunities for advertisers operating in the new digital video landscape are vast, once they have understood the components of this new world on a local level. The current EMEA digital video landscape is a familiar case study of fragmentation, made up of a diverse patchwork of distinct national media ecosystems and users with multiple device options.

In France, the CTV opportunity has a slower adoption than in other markets given the preference here for IPTV (internet protocol television) among local broadcasters. Germany is a similar evolving market with a strong viewer privacy sentiment and a landscape in which publishers are particularly powerful, while the UK is an accelerated on-demand market where national broadcast networks are striving to create new platforms (BVOD) to attract and retain viewers and advertisers among heavy competition. As this new era progresses, it will be interesting to see what role the options of global OTT services such as apps or buttons on remotes take when it comes to how audiences can access content moving forward in local markets.

With brands eager to reach the right audience, they are beginning to turn their TV strategies towards programmatic a move accelerated through the eyes and preferences of the consumer. With consumers willing to accept advertisement in traditional TV, CTV brings the best of both worlds for marketers, combining the scale of attention that we see in traditional TV with the precision and flexibility of digital. Across Europes biggest markets, approximately 40% of all internet-enabled and TV households own a smart TV, increasing to reach 50% CTV viewership when you add streaming devices and gaming consoles[2].

CTV also offers a variety of free-to-view content. With subscription fatigue a real threat to ad-free channels, more and more CTV viewers say they are happy to watch ad-supported content versus increasing their subscriptions. This makes it a natural home for advertising and when combined with the effective targeting methods of programmatic, consumer attention is given by default. On-demand viewers in particular who are actively choosing what to watch leads to a higher dwell time for advertising. Driven by real-time data, marketers are able to achieve precision targeting at local, household or even device-level. There are changes coming as we move away from third-party cookies and towards consented data. Marketers can make use of their first-party data from their own customer relationship management (CRM) tools, transaction records and online data, such as website visits, to identify when and where to meet their desired audience in better partnership with publishers and data owners.

The digitization of the TV-buying workflow in time will ease trading and improve ad experience. As we know from the early days of programmatic, overuse of retargeting can be a brand-killer and a waste of valuable advertising budgets. Fortunately, typical video consumption isnt at the same volume as page view and there are controls available within the CTV landscape that allow ad buyers to cap a specified maximum number of times ads are played to a viewer, maximizing campaign efficiency. With the ability to activate, optimize, report and adjust campaigns in real-time, ad buyers can change their creative messaging or spending commitments far quicker than through traditional TV mechanisms, making it opportunistic on performing media. In light of the recent need to adapt quickly to change due to a global pandemic, this flexibility proves invaluable to marketers being quick to react to public sentiment.

According to Xandrs 2020 Global Relevance Report, at least half of the advertisers around the world are using precise targeting to deliver better video ads. The new TV horizon has a programmatic philosophy of sustainable, optimized marketplaces for TV commercials, transaction models, ad delivery methods and units of measurement, no matter the device, to power an ecosystem built on relevance. To capitalize on growth, marketers must continue to educate themselves not only on the CTV ecosystem but also the value of audience-based buying and the ways in which their technology partners can help them to navigate industry challenges and unlock the full CTV opportunity as their local consumer viewing habits evolve.

While TVs biggest changes and regulations have all taken years to come about, and the programmatic evolution will be no different, for the first time the people working in the digital advertising industry have a personal interest in improving advertising experiences with technology, looking for a suitable value exchange that brings reward for both sides. Leveraging site, sound and motions ability to inform, entertain and build trust between brands and audiences is something we can all relate to.

[1] Ciscos Western Europe 2021 Forecast

[2] SpotX; CTV is for everyone

Continued here:

The evolution of the TV customer - The Drum

By Prudence Wade

The humble suit is one of the hardest working outfits in fashion, and has seen countless reincarnations over the years.

The invention of the modern suit is often credited to Beau Brummell, a trendsetting dandy from the early 1800s. He encouraged high society to do away with the flouncy frock coats and powdered wigs of the 18th century, in favour of more streamlined, simple tailoring similar to the style we know today, albeit with tails, riding boots and a cravat.

Since then, the suit has taken a life of its own. Wearing a fully tailored look might not be an everyday occurrence for lots of us, but its still experiencing new and different trends.

Most men ditched long jackets by the early 1900s, and this is how the suit progressed from there

Peaky Blinders

You might recognise the heavy suits of the early 1900s from popular TV show Peaky Blinders. Tommy Shelby and his brothers wear styles typical of the time: three-piece suits in heavy, workmanlike materials.

These were fairly utilitarian outfits, with slim-fitting jackets in muted tones, like black, navy or dark brown.

The Roaring Twenties

While the working classes stuck to Peaky Blinders-style suits throughout the 1920s, it was a different story for those with money.

This was a time of excess think of The Great Gatsby so drab suits just wouldnt do. Men increasingly wore tuxedos with white waistcoats for parties, or sharply-tailored suits in softer, more expensive materials during the day. In this interwar period, fashion was a way of showing off how much money you had.

1940s minimalism

Inevitably, this shifted when WWII hit. Wool was in short supply, so suit manufacturers started experimenting with synthetic blends. Styles became more pared back; colours were dark, and patterns were subtle herringbones or pinstripes.

Even though suits were tailored, trousers were nothing like the slim fits were used to today. Instead, pants were relatively loose, with a sharply ironed crease down the front.

Zoot suits

Fashion trends are rarely neatly chronological. While the 1940s saw a more minimalist take on tailoring, it also saw the continued rise of zoot suits. Everything about this style was exaggerated: trouser legs ballooned out and were pegged at the bottom, lapels were wide and shoulders were padded up high. The look was often topped off with a large pork pie hat and shiny dress shoes.

Starting in Harlem in the 1930s, the trend was popular among the African American and Latinx communities, and became a hot button issue in the 1940s. As zoot suits required a lot of material to make, they were condemned by the mainstream as unpatriotic during wartime shortages.

The style became illegal in some areas of the US, and riots took place in 1943, where soldiers and sailors targeted Mexican-Americans in LA wearing zoot suits. They became a symbol of protest or rebellion, with historian Kathy Peiss saying: For those without other forms of cultural capital, fashion can be a way of claiming space for yourself.

Mad Men

After the mainstream minimalism of the 1940s, the Fifties and Sixties saw suits gain a bit more style. This was the era of Don Draper and Mad Men, where many men had to wear a suit to work every day.

Styles were clean-cut and well-tailored, paired with slim ties and the occasional waistcoat. There were more opportunities to play around with patterns and colours, from pastels to a bright houndstooth.

Seventies disco

Things changed once again in the Seventies, where vibrancy was the name of the game. Colours were bright and wild, lapels were huge, waists were high, legs were flared think of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

Suits saw experimentation like never before, with patterns, colours and ruffles taking over.

Oversized styles

After the excess of the Seventies, suiting saw a bit of a downturn. Other than the occasional pastel suit with rolled up sleeves in the Eighties, the 1980s and 1990s saw much more low-key styles: colours became muted and muddy, and tailoring went out the window.

During this time, suits were often oversized and looked almost misshapen. This wasnt exactly the coolest time for mens fashion, particularly as looks were paired with wide, funkily patterned ties.

The suit today

Luckily, men have become reacquainted with their tailor and youre unlikely to see a baggy, ill-fitting suit on the red carpet. By the Noughties, suits became simpler, chicer and more streamlined.

In recent years, men have started injecting their own personality into tailoring. Think of Michael B Jordan wearing a Louis Vuitton harness on the red carpet, Timothee Chalamet in a statement patterned blazer and matching shirt, Chadwick Boseman in a pale pink suit or Andrew Scott wearing red velvet. Particularly as fashion becomes more gender fluid, the options for new suit styles seem vaster than ever.

Tailoring might feel worlds away from the relaxed pandemic fashion many of us have become used to, but who knows? Maybe the pendulum will swing the other way as we return back to normal, and suits will be back with a vengeance.

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The evolution of the men's suit - Cyprus Mail

Researchers in the UK, the US, and Belgium have found that while the SARS-CoV-2 virus has undergone significant changes in its evolutionary history, those changes likely occurred while the virus was still found mainly in bats, resulting in a "relatively generalist" virus that was capable of infecting humans without the need for an intermediary species.

Ina study published Friday inPLOS Biology, the researchers noted that shifts in virus hosts are usually associated with novel adaptations in the viruses themselves that allow the microbes to better exploit the cells of the new host species. However, SARS-CoV-2 apparently required little to no significant adaptation to humans from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic until October 2020.

The researchers assessed the types of natural selection taking place inSarbecovirusesin horseshoe bats and compared them to early SARS-CoV-2 evolution in humans. While they did find some evidence of diversifying positive selection in SARS-CoV-2 in humans, it was moderate, limited to the early phase of the pandemic, and the purifying selection was much weaker in SARS-CoV-2 than in related batSarbecoviruses. In contrast, they found significant positive episodic diversifying selection acting at the base of the bat virus lineage that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from, accompanied by an adaptive depletion in CpG composition presumed to be linked to the action of antiviral mechanisms in these ancestral bat hosts.

Therefore, the researchers said, while it's still possible that an intermediary species facilitated the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from bats to humans, their data suggested that the progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 was capable of efficient human-to-human transmission as a consequence of its adaptive evolutionary history in bats.

The researchers first analyzed selection acting on the encoded amino acids of SARS-CoV-2 using 133,741 genome sequences from the GISAID database as of Oct. 12, 2020, representing a sample of the variants circulating in humans during the first 11 months of the pandemic. The vast majority of the mutations they observed in these samples occurred at very low frequencies, with 79 percent of mutations observed in 10 or fewer of the 133,741 SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences.

"Our study results show changes have occurred with SARS-CoV-2, but that most of these mutations are of no evolutionary significance and accumulate by 'surfing' along the millions of transmission events, like they do in all viruses," first author and University of Glasgow researcher Oscar MacLean said in a statement. "The slow rate of evolution can be attributed to the highly susceptible nature of the human population to this new pathogen, with limited pressure from population immunity, and lack of containment, leading to exponential growth."

In contrast, however, the researchers' analysis of theSarbecovirusclade from which SARS-CoV-2 emerged showed evidence of positive selection on the clade's deeper branches, coupled with an adaptive shift in CpG composition in this lineage. The shift in CpG suppression at the base of the novel coronavirus clade could be indicative of an immune evasion adaptation by evading known CpG-targeting mammalian immune mechanisms such as ZAP, they said.

Importantly, the researchers noted that since the end of 2020, there are indications of increased selective pressure in some recent lineages of the virus that are associated with faster spread and a higher-than-usual number of nonsynonymous substitutions the UK (B.1.1.7) and South Africa (B.1.351) variants, for example. These lineages appear to have evolved in humans in association with human immunity, due to previous exposure and/or chronic infections of probably immunocompromised individuals, and not because of the slow rate of evolution associated with acute SARS-CoV-2 infections and transmission that had predominated in the pandemic until October 2020, they said.

More urgently, senior author and Glasgow bioinformatics researcher David Robertson noted in the statement, the virus is now making evolutionary moves away from the January 2020 variant that was used in all of the current vaccines.

"The current vaccines will continue to work against the circulating variants but the more time that passes, and the bigger the differential between vaccinated and not-vaccinated numbers of people, the more opportunity there will be for vaccine escape," he said. "The reason for the shifting of gears of SARS-CoV-2 in terms of its increased rate of evolution at the end of 2020, associated with more heavily mutated lineages, is because the immunological profile of the human population has changed. The first race was to develop a vaccine. The race now is to get the global population vaccinated as quickly as possible."

In their study, the authors also sounded a note of caution that because of the high diversity and generalist nature ofSarbecoviruses,a future spillover from bats, potentially coupled with a recombination event with SARS-CoV-2, is possible. Such an event could lead to the emergence of a SARS-CoV-3 virus, which could itself be sufficiently divergent to evade either natural or vaccine-acquired immunity.

"We must therefore dramatically ramp up surveillance forSarbecovirusesat the human-animal interface and monitor carefully for future SARS-CoV emergence in the human population," they concluded.

This story was first published in our sister publication, Genomeweb.

Originally posted here:

Coronavirus evolution in bats may have resulted in highly efficient human pathogen - Modern Healthcare

Evolution adapts and optimizes organisms to their ecological niche. This could be used to predict how an organism evolves, but how can such predictions be rigorously tested? The Biophysics and Computational Neuroscience group led by professor Gaper Tkaik at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria has now created a mathematical framework to do exactly that.

Evolutionary adaptation often finds clever solutions to challenges posed by different environments, from how to survive in the dark depths of the oceans to creating intricate organs such as an eye or an ear. But can we mathematically predict these outcomes?

Postdoctoral fellow Wiktor Mynarski. Credit: Kris Brewer

This is the key question that motivates the Tkaik research group. Working at the intersection of biology, physics, and mathematics, they apply theoretical concepts to complex biological systems, or as Tkaik puts it: We simply want to show that it is sometimes possible to predict change in biological systems, even when dealing with such a complex beast as evolution.

In a joint work by the postdoctoral fellow Wiktor Mynarski and PhD student Michal Hledk, assisted by group alumnus Thomas Sokolowski, who is now working at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, the scientists spearheaded an essential advance towards their goal. They developed a statistical framework that uses experimental data from complex biological systems to rigorously test and quantify how well such a system is adapted to its environment. An example of such an adaptation is the design of the eyes retina that optimally collects light to form a sharp image, or the wiring diagram of a worms nervous system that ensures all the muscles and sensors are connected efficiently, using the least amount of neural wiring.

PhD student Michal Hledk. Credit: Martin veda

The established model the scientists base their results on represents adaptation as movement on a landscape with mountains and valleys. The features of an organism determine where it is located on this landscape. As evolution progresses and the organism adapts to its ecological niche, it climbs towards the peak of one of the mountains. Better adaptation results in a better performance in the environment for example producing more offspring which in turn is reflected in a higher elevation on this landscape. Therefore, a falcon with its sharp eyesight is located at a higher point than the birds ancestor whose vision was worse in the same environment.

The new framework by Mynarski, Hledk, and colleagues allows them to quantify how well the organisms are adapted to their niche. On a two-dimensional landscape with mountains and valleys, calculating the elevation appears trivial, but real biological systems are much more complex. There are many more factors influencing it, which results in landscapes with many more dimensions. Here, intuition breaks down and the researchers need rigorous statistical tools to quantify adaptation and test its predictions against experimental data. This is what the new framework delivers.

IST Austria provides a fertile ground for interdisciplinary collaborations. Wiktor Mynarski, originally coming from computer science, is interested in applying mathematical concepts to biological systems.

Professor Gaper Tkaik. Credit: Nadine Poncioni/IST Austria

This paper is a synthesis of many of my scientific interests, bringing together different biological systems and conceptual approaches, he describes this most recent study. In his interdisciplinary research, Michal Hledk works with both the Tkaik group and the research group led by Nicholas Barton in the field of evolutionary genetics at IST Austria. Gaper Tkaik himself was inspired to study complex biological systems through the lens of physics by his PhD advisor William Bialek at Princeton University.

There, I learned that the living world is not always messy, complex, and unapproachable by physical theories. In contrast, it can drive completely new developments in applied and fundamental physics, he explains.

Our legacy should be the ability to point a finger at selected biological systems and predict, from first principles, why these systems are as they are, rather than being limited to describing how they work, Tkaik describes his motivation. Prediction should be possible in a controlled environment, such as with the relatively simple E. coli bacteria growing under optimal conditions. Another avenue for prediction are systems that operate under hard physical limits, which strongly constrain evolution. One example are our eyes that need to convey high-resolution images to the brain while using the minimal amount of energy.

Tkaik summarizes, Theoretically deriving even a bit of an organisms complexity would be the ultimate answer to the Why? question that humans have grappled with throughout the ages. Our recent work creates a tool to approach this question, by building a bridge between mathematics and biology.

Reference: Statistical analysis and optimality of neural systems by Wiktor Mynarski, Michal Hledk, Thomas R. Sokolowski and Gaper Tkaik, 15 February 2021, Neuron.DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2021.01.020

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Can Evolution Be Predicted? Building a Bridge Between Mathematics and Biology - SciTechDaily

The evolution of the corporate VPN: How COVID-19 has redefined VPN security | 2021-03-16 | Security Magazine This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more. This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

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The evolution of the corporate VPN: How COVID-19 has redefined VPN security - Security Magazine

Mar 15, 2021

PVH Corp., the parent of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, is more highly prioritizing real-time inventory visibility to better adjust to potential disruptions coming out of the pandemic.

Eileen Mahoney, PVHs CIO, told The Wall Street Journal, Its allowed the business to get a better handle on where demand is, where the consumer is shopping, and were now going to be nimble about where inventory is.

A new report from the Capgemini Research Institute finds 66 percent of consumer products and retail (CP&R) organizations saying their supply chain strategies will change significantly in the next three years, with much of the attention on heightened visibility.

The supply chain realignment is expected to focus around three areas.

Demand sensing

Sixty-eight percent of CP&R organizations surveyed faced difficulties in demand planning due to a lack of accurate and up-to-date information on fluctuating customer demand during the pandemic. Two-thirds plan to segment supply chains according to demand patterns, product value and regional dimensions post pandemic, while 54 percent will use analytics/AI-machine learning for demand forecasting.

Visibility becomes critical

Facing difficulties quickly increasing or decreasing production capacity, 58 percent of retailers and 61 percent of consumer product organizations are planning to increase investments in digitization of supply chains to improve visibility. Forty-seven percent are planning to invest in automation, 42 percent in robotics and 42 percent in artificial intelligence. Sixty-four percent and 63 percent of organizations are also planning to make extensive use of artificial intelligence and machine learning across transportation and pricing optimization respectively.

From globalization to localization

Seventy-two percent of consumer product organizations and 58 percent of retailers are actively investing in regionalizing or localizing their manufacturing base or nearshoring production to prevent future disruption.

The study found respondents faced significant challenges across the supply chain in the wake of the crisis, including difficulties in end-to-end monitoring of the supply chain, cited by 72 percent; delayed shipments/longer lead times, 74 percent; and bottlenecks at ports or at borders, 68 percent.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: How important will visibility be in helping reduce supply chain disruptions in the future? Which of the three themes for improving supply chain agility cited in the article is most important?

"Real-time inventory visibility is critical to address and react to supply chain disruptions and also to improve customer engagement. "

"To design and predict individual product demand in real-time resulting in getting the right product, to the right place, at the right time requires new thinking on both sides "

"Visibility has been a key to the supply chain for years now, but the focus on real-time, omnichannel inventory and agility has become paramount in the last 24 months, no doubt"

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The next evolution of the supply chain will be all about visibility RetailWire - RetailWire

Its Womens History Month and what better way to celebrate than to spotlightWhite House Correspondent April D. Ryan. Ryan is a veteran journalist who has workedat the White House for 24 years, while also serving as a major voice for the Black community.

ESSENCE spoke with Ryan about her early days in the news industry, how she overcame working in the White House under a racist, sexist president, and her new role withtheGrio.

When did you realize you wanted to be a journalist?

RYAN: I realized when I was at Morgan [State University]. I started out doing radio, being a DJ between classes on Friday and overnights on Sunday. I was a DJ at WEAA FM and WEBB AM [previously owned by singer James Brown]. I always had a passion for knowing what was going on, and that stemmed from my home in Baltimore from my late parents. They always had the radio on first thing in the morning. You get up youhear the sounds of the news, traffic and temperature. In the evenings we would sit and watch Walter Cronkite. Thats the way it was. News was always in me, but I didnt realize how much it was until I got tired of spinning the records and I wanted to do more. I was always the one who wanted to get the people talking, to have it on the record, to make it credible, so that you could believe this is something you need for your daily life.I think being a DJ is the best thing in the world. I couldnt do it, but news, give me a pen, a pad, a microphone or a camera and Im there. I can work it out in a minute.

As someone who attended Morgan State University, how do you respond to people who argue HBCUs are archaic and need to be eliminated?

RYAN:I would not be April Ryan if it werent for an HBCU. I attended predominately white catholic schools forthe vast majority ofmy education and then I attended Morgan. This is my quote: HBCUs love you to success. Its like a family. Theres an intimacy there and we understand, we want you to survive and thrive. We are building you up because weve been down for so long. HBCUs are not archaic. When some institutions wont accept us now, family accepts us. There is still a non-even playing field for admissions for us. The same reasons we needed them [HBCUs] now are the same reasons we needed them yesterday. A lot of these schools would not take us in.

The nation watched the fiery exchanges that took place between you and Trump during his presidency. Youre the epitome of a strong Black woman, but how did it feel to be challenged by a racist, sexist president who was never fit to lead this country?

RYAN: It wasnt necessarily about me. When youre a mother, you dont necessarily think about yourself, you think about your children. I wanted to make sure my children were okay. My children know Im a fighter and they know I stand up when something issaidor something is wrong. But my concern was for them most of all. One, that they were safe. Two, that it didnt hurt their mother as much as other people felt hurt for me. When many of those fiery exchanges were happening, my oldest daughter was in class in Baltimore in currentnews watching the ticker go by, Donald Trump says this to April Ryan. She would text me, momareyou okay? I said, Im great. And thats the hurtful piece, when youre doing your job and your family and friends get it before you can say what happened.

Lets discuss your new role with theGrio. What are you doing and why theGrio?

RYAN: I am a White House correspondent Washington bureau chief with theGrio. Im learning things, like the Tik Toking and all that stuff. I said I need to go digital, but I wanted to stay at the White House and build something great for Black America. TheGriois offering me the opportunity to help lead that side of it. Its amazing what the team has. I love the energy there, young people who arent new to this, but true to this. They believe in giving information to Black America.

What advice would you give to Black women and girls who are looking to enter the media industry, but may feel discouraged?

RYAN: Believe in yourself. Theres something called a dream deferred. It could be a dream thatsdeferredor you can believe in yourself and still work towards your dream. Never walk away from your dream, even if it is part time or a hobby. Ive been in this business since1985. For me to still be here in 2021, you dont see a lot of that. Ive been at the White House for 24years. You dont see that. Im saying all that to say, this business has changed so much. Be open. You need to be able to get on Zoom calls and hold conversations that bring people in. You need to be able to writeyoura** off. You need to be able to speak the queens English. You need to be able to handle the camera at a moments notice. Practice your craft.

Link:

April D. Ryan Reflects on Her Evolution as a Journalist - Essence

Lampreys are boneless, blood-sucking snake-like fish considered to be "living fossils" that have barely changed since they first arose during the Paleozoic era, more than 100 million years before the first dinosaurs.

Interestingly, since the 1800s, scientists have thought that the earliest ancestors of all vertebrates, including ourselves, resembled lampreys' worm-like babies.

Now, recently discovered baby lamprey fossils have overturned that popularevolutionary theory, which some scientists were already starting to question, reports a Canadian-led study published in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

It turns out that baby lampreys from the Paleozoicera, which had been "missing" from the fossil record until now, don't look the way scientists had previously hypothesized raising new questions about what our ancestors were really like.

To be sure, adult lampreys seem like an unlikely candidate for what the progenitor of vertebrates might have looked like.

They'realien-looking predators with a sucker-like mouth ringed with multiple rows of sharp teeth that they use to pierce the skin of their prey usually other fish and suck out their blood. One species, the sea lamprey, has devastated fisheries in the Great Lakes since invading them in the early 1900s via shipping canals.

But lampreys aren't born monsters. Their babies or larvaeare tiny, blind, worm-like creatures called ammocoetes that burrow in the mud and slurp algae and rotting organic matter floating by.

They also have an uncanny resemblance to worm-like animals called lancelets that don't have a backbone, but do have many other characteristics of vertebrates, the group that includes fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. That puts lanceletsjust on the other side of the border between vertebrates and invertebrateslike worms, snails and insects.

Biologists also believed that the larval or embryonic development of some animals was, in some ways, a look back through time at their evolution. For example, human embryos have a tail and gill-like structures around their necks.

All that led scientists to theorize about what the ancestor of all vertebrates from fish to fowl to humans might have looked like.

Tetsuto Miyashita, a research scientist at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa who led the new study, says that since the 19th century, when people looked at ammocoetes, "the common wisdom was that we were looking at... our distant ancestors in the face."

It's not a flattering thought, but it was a popular one up until several years ago..

That's when researchers such as Margaret Docker, a professor in the department of biological sciences at the University of Manitoba, began to question the evidence.

For one thing, scientists hadn't found ammocoete fossils dating back earlier than 125 million years ago, even though the earliest lamprey fossils known are 360 million years old.

So, did early lampreys even have an ammocoete stage?

"There were just none of the earlier stages apparent," said Docker, who wasn't involved in the new study. She published a paper with two other scientists in 2018 suggesting that early lampreys either didn't have a larval stage or only had a very short one, but noted they weren't the first to be thinking of that.

"For the longest time, I sort of just came to the conclusion that we would never really know for sure."

That'sbecause lampreys don't fossilize well, as they have no bones, only cartilage. They only form compressed fossils under very specific conditions, similar to those that preserved soft-bodied ancient creatures in Canada's Burgess Shale, said Philippe Janvier, emeritus director of research at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientific (CNRS) in an email.

"Such fossils have long been regarded as barely more informative than a squashed slug on a highway," said Janvier, who co-authored the 2018 paper with Docker. It was hard to tell whether any of them were ammocoetes or juveniles in the middle of metamorphosing into adults.

Still, Miyashita was determined to have a closer look at that fossil evidence to see if the theory about ancient ammocoetes was true, so he went looking where the oldest known lamprey fossil had been found: a site in South Africa called Waterloo Farm.

Back in the Paleozoic, South Africa was located at the South Pole, but it was much warmer and wasn't always iced over. At that time, Waterloo Farm was a coastal lagoon teeming withfish and invertebrates, which made up most of the animals on Earth at that time, when the ancestors of modern amphibians were just starting to take their first steps out of the water and onto land.

Miyashitagot in touch with the local expert there, Robert Gess, a paleontologist and research associate at the Albany Museum and Rhodes University in Makhanda, South Africa. Gess had rescued 100 tonnes of shalethat contained thousands of fossil specimens atWaterloo Farm before the construction of a local road.

Miyashita wanted to see if there were very small lampreys or ammocoetes in the rocks.

Gess managed to spotseven, all smaller than the smallest ones he had previously found, Miyashita recalled the tiniestof them "the size of your little fingernail."

Despite that, the researchers could see that it was clearly a lamprey, with huge eyes for spotting prey and a sucker mouth with sharp teeth like adult lampreys today.

But it wasn't an adult. Upon closer inspection, that fossil had a little bulge on its belly.

With excitement, the researchers realized that it was ayolk, which many fish carry with them to feed them when they first hatch, Miyashita said: "This baby fossil lamprey just hatched out of the egg."

Janvier, who wasn't involved in the study, agreed that the bulge was clearly a yolk sac, similar to those found in many fossil hatchlings of other fish.

When Miyashita went through museum collections of other ancient lamprey fossils, he foundhatchlingsof other species that also looked like mini-adults.

It was clear evidence that ancient lampreys didn't have a worm-like larval stage. While the adults might be "living fossils," the ammocoetes evolved later.

Docker estimates it happened around 300 million years ago, since modern lamprey species all have an ammocoete stage, suggesting their common ancestor from that time already had the trait. That period was when many insects and amphibians also developed very different juvenile and adult stages in different environments, such as water and land, with a metamorphosis in between.

At that time, plants had colonized the land, creating and stabilizing soils with their roots, making freshwater environments less prone to wild fluctuations and raging floods, and therefore more habitable.

But it was still an environment with few predators one where tiny baby animals could safely grow.

Miyashita said developing a larval stage capable of colonizing those safe freshwater environments probably "was the key for the survival of modern lamprey lineages."

Miyashita said the fossil discovery has big implications for theories about the evolution of vertebrates. Clearly, ammocoetes don't look the way they do because of a resemblance to the ancestor of all vertebrates, as previously thought.

"It's not exactly often that just a single set of tiny fossils can just completely overturn that accepted scenario of vertebrate evolution," he said. "I think this is one important step toward figuring out what our distant ancestors actually looked like 500 million years ago."

Both Janvier and Docker agree that the discovery is important, even if some scientists had already suspected it before. Docker called it "quite exciting."

"There's a big difference between thinking it and having the clear evidence," she said. "So it's certainly a big deal."

Go here to read the rest:

Bloodsucking-fish fossils overturn once-popular theory about our evolution - CBC.ca

Ideas are like seeds. Some of them sprout, some grow to a level and some become giant trees. This is true for digital platforms as well. The giant trees of our era are WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, with crores of users interacting using them. As organisations and by corollary, platforms grow, they need rules to organise and govern themselves. When they grow too much, they invite new regulations. Our social media platforms are also navigating this cycle. Couple it with the fact that criminals are some of the initial as well as advanced users of most new technologies.

The Government of India has announced new Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code to manage the possible misuse of platforms that make it easy for anyone to communicate with anyone publicly. The guidelines focus on ensuring security of users, redressal of their grievances, ensuring traceability of messages, restricting the flow of illegal information and right classification of digital content. Regulations will evolve as the social media ecosystem evolves and impacts the way we communicate.

As a business, social media platforms invest a lot in building, sustaining and constantly improving their technology platforms. It is not easy to run billions of live conversations without glitches and definitely not without substantial costs. Revenue comes primarily from advertisements or promoted content. Users get to use the platform for free but then the collective number of users is the strength of a network. More the users, more its net worth and more the revenue it can earn.

Social media platforms have opened up a digital industry of sorts giving livelihoods to many pro-users and intermediaries. This includes the digital marketing economy, social media outsourcing agencies and influencers, apart from being a key vertical in any marketing plan today. Platforms enable an economy where they really do not gain directly.

Social media platforms are in perpetual beta mode like most software products. They are evolving as the ecosystem grows as the users ask for, discover or create new uses of the platform. At any point in time, there are problems that need equal attention. Let me share some of the issues that I see as a regular user that need redressal.

Anonymous handles and accounts are a big source of nuisance. No one knows who they are, if it is an individual or a group of people, if they are naive users or fully funded activist groups. It is not easy to identify them. They usually have a huge following owing to sharing a lot of content in their niche. Anonymity gives them a shield to be nasty or abusive. This needs to be addressed. I am aware that a mobile number is now mandatory with most platforms, which in turn is linked to verifiable identity. However, this information is accessible only in case of a serious breach.

Anonymous handles are rarely averse to piracy. I have seen big respectable names also engaging in piracy actively but with anonymous handles, it is rampant, almost a norm, an easy way to build a large following. No one owns the responsibility and the IP owner does not even know whom to report. Instagram is a great example of pirates earning at the cost of original content creators and the platform does not seem inclined to correct it. Going forward, platforms need to come out with mechanisms to identify and honour original content creators. YouTube, though not yet perfect, still manages to identify and penalise piracy to a large extent.

Posting of paid or sponsored content must be declared by the influencers, even when they share personal stories, if they have been shared in lieu of benefits. At one end, social media brings transparency and at the other, these veiled messages blur the same.

When it comes to data privacy, users should have an option to opt out. It would probably mean that I pay for the use of a social media network. So the social media company gets compensated for my use of its platform and in turn it has to keep my data aside and not use it for anything without my explicit permission. It may be something like a YouTube premium subscription that allows you to enjoy the platform without any advertisements. In fact, sometimes I wonder if a social media that is subscription-based would be the future, where everyone would be a verified user. Today probably LinkedIn is closest to this vision with its freemium model, but then it is just a professional network where people put their best foot forward to ensure their career growth.

Finally, there needs to be a consensus and clarity on revenue generated seamlessly across borders through advertisements or affiliate marketing. Google just announced a tax deduction on income generated anywhere in the world through users in the US. We can assume other countries would follow soon with taxation laws of their own. It may be the case of the internet connecting us and tax authorities keeping us disconnected.

Social media platforms are ever-evolving tools, and they would always have some unresolved issues. Their judicious use is in our hands.

AnuradhaGoyal

Author and founderof IndiTales

(Tweets @anuradhagoyal)

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Riding the evolution curve of social media - The New Indian Express