Category Archives: Evolution

In early March 2011, after popular uprisings swept Tunisia and Egypt, a group of young schoolboys in the small Syrian farming town of Deraa, 60 miles south of Damascus, painted messages opposing President Bashar al-Assad on a local wall.

Shortly thereafter, they were rounded up by the governments secret police and reportedly beaten and tortured sparking outrage that would help protests against the Assad regime in Deraa and beyond gather momentum by March 15, the date widely considered to be the start of the Syrian uprising.

As Syrians took to the streets to protest and to call for more freedoms, the response by Assad and his security forces was swift and brutal following a playbook for crushing dissent that his ruling family had honed over 40 years.

But the killings sparked further anti-Assad anger instead of suppressing it, and what began as peaceful protests evolved into an armed opposition movement as the governments tactics escalated. In the coming years, Assad and his allies would attempt to put down the revolution through a variety of means, including airstrikes that killed civilians, the use of chemical weapons and the Russian-aided bombing of hospitals.As foreign actors poured fuel on the fire, the tactics of some opposition groups also grew more brutal. Extremists, including the leader of ISIS, stepped in and exploited the chaos, with ordinary people caught in the middle.

Ten years in, weve collected a number of FRONTLINE documentaries on the origins and evolution of the Syrian conflict and its staggering human toll. Although precise counts are difficult to come by, the United Nations estimated in 2016 that deaths due to the conflict had reached 400,000. The UN Refugee Agency reported in February that more than 6.6 million Syrians have been forced to flee their country since 2011 and another 6 million people have been uprooted from their homes but remain displaced inside the country.

A recent report published under the umbrella of the UN Human Rights Council said that over the course of the conflict, pro-government forces, but also other warring parties, resorted to methods of waging war and used weaponry that minimized risks to their fighters, rather than those minimizing harm to civilians.

The horrors of the conflict, the report said, have left no Syrian family untouched.

Stream the documentaries below, grouped loosely by theme, for a better understanding of the past decade in Syria andjoin FRONTLINE March 26for a virtual event discussing the10th anniversary of the Syrian uprising.

This Oscar-nominated film documented the harrowing realities of the Syrian conflict hospitals bombed, children killed, Aleppo turned to rubble from a rare perspective: that of a mom married to one of the last doctors in the city, trying to raise her baby daughter, Sama, in the middle of the devastation.

Also an Oscar nominee, this documentary followed four children surviving in war-torn Aleppo, their escape to safety in Germany and their adjustment to life as refugees.

This panoramic film told the first-person stories of refugees and migrants fleeing persecution and war worldwide, including in Syria. It incorporated footage filmed by the refugees themselves as they left their homes on dangerous journeys in search of safety, including a harrowing sequence filmed by a Syrian refugee on a sinking dinghy crossing the Mediterranean a journey on which thousands have died.

A sequel to the 2016 film, this documentary followed more migrants and refugees displaced by conflict and expanded on the story of a Syrian family that was initially featured.

Filmed in Syrias rural Orontes River valley, this documentary looked at how the conflict pitted neighbor against neighbor: on one side, a young rebel soldier fighting to the death to bring down Assad, and facing him, a career soldier determined to preserve the regimes hold on power.

From the first year of the conflict, this film looks at how the Syrian rebellion began, how Assad moved to crush it and how his regime originally came to power.

Eighteen months into the rebellion, this documentary examined how Assad held on to power via increasingly brutal means, including attacking civilian neighborhoods, as opposition tactics also escalated.

Filmed inside government-controlled areas of Syria, this documentary examined the contrast between the Assad regimes PR campaign and the reality of life on the ground, as well as why many regime loyalists equated all opponents of Assad with ISIS and the perspectives of some Syrians pushing for a political solution.

With undercover reporting, this film followed members of the Syrian opposition movement who were forced into hiding, revealing accounts of torture by government security forces.

This documentary followed Syrias rebel leaders and warring factions within the opposition movement, finding that some had turned to brutal means.

Believed to be the first in-depth U.S. TV report on the emergence of ISIS, this film showed how, three years into Syrias war, rebel forces were no longer fighting only the Assad regime but were also vying for control against a ruthless group calling itself the Islamic State.

This documentary followed Syrian rebel fighters who said they were being secretly armed and trained by the United States, part of a covert U.S. intelligence program.

This documentary chronicled how President Barack Obama responded to the Syrian uprising, the regimes crackdown and the chaos that followed. The film paid particular attention to deep divisions within the administration about what the U.S.s role should be, including what happened when the White House assessed that the Assad regime had crossed what Obama once called a red line: the use of chemical weapons on civilians.

This documentary traced how the extremist group that would become known as ISIS rose to power, including by taking advantage of the conflict in Syria, and examined the stakes of disagreements inside the Obama administration over whether to provide arms for moderate rebels.

As part of its examination of how ISIS came to be, this documentary recounted how Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi exploited the Syrian uprising and sent agents into Syria to commit bloody attacks and fuel the war, ultimately seizing large swaths of territory and declaring a capital in Raqqa.

This film examined the successes and failures of the U.S.-led effort to degrade and destroy ISIS, including the Obama administrations struggle to deal effectively with the crisis in Syria.

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10 Years In, Explore the Syrian Conflict in These FRONTLINE Docs - FRONTLINE

Two-time All-Star Roy Hibbert talks about how the traditional NBA big-man, around whom he modelled his game, has become extinct while centres have evolved to counter the three-point wave.

File image of Roy Hibbert (right) playing for the Indiana Pacers against the Milwaukee Bucks at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in 2014. Image courtesy: NBAE via Getty Images

Sometime in the 2014-15 season, one of the coaches at Indiana Pacers pulled Roy Hibbert aside for a chat. He wanted to talk analytics with Hibbert, who, by then, had been with the Pacers since 2008 as a traditional centre, a position also referred to as the five-man (the traditional jersey number for centres) or a big-man. The NBA, at the time, was in the early throes of its data analytics revolution, which was nudging the leagues big man into extinction.

That was the time when Golden State Warriors were really popping (shots from outside the arc). Things were changing in the league. The analytics said that the one-on-one post-up shots and the (consequent) one-on-one block is one of the worst shots in basketball. So my post touches started going down as the analytics were saying that shooting more and more threes were the way to win games. It was winning championships for certain teams, recollected Hibbert during a media interaction with Indian journalists on Saturday. I wish I could shoot like Kristaps Porzingis or was as athletic as him. Its a different breed (of big men).

The wave of three-pointers unleashed by the Golden State Warriors took them to the league title in 2015, and then again in 2017 and 2018, with players like Steph Curry and Klay Thompson at the heart of the shooting juggernaut, spearheaded by coach Steve Kerr.

But, more importantly, what it did was stretch the floor, which in turn, made it necessary for the power forwards and centrespositions on the basketball court which required the tallest playersto venture out from under the post to guard these smaller, swifter, and niftier shooters.

The traditional centre that I modelled my game around is going that way (at the risk of getting extinct). Centres that stand in the paint are going extinct. I saw that coming, said Hibbert, who is a two-time All-Star. But thats not a bad thing. Those back-to-the-basket centres are not as seeked after (by teams) as opposed to a floor-spacing five-man or a number five like Joker (Nikola Jokic), who can stretch the floor by playing away from the basket for the Denver Nuggets. The big-mans role is evolving. At the same time, I like seeing how the new guys like Joel Embiid can score from inside and out and also facilitate.

I was just put under the basket and told to shoot jump hooks if needed, while everybody else in team would do the shooting (from mid- or long-range), said Hibbert remembering his own youth basketball days, where he played for Georgetown. On Saturday, he hosted alive clinic for youngsters in India via Zoom. I have a son, who is three years old. But hes as tall as a five-year-old. If he chooses to play basketball, I would tell the teams coach that just because hes the tallest dont make him stay underneath the basket and just shoot jump hooks. He needs to be dribbling, shooting... he cant just be a five-man!

How the NBAs evolution hurt Indian big-men

The evolution of the big mans role on the court has also coincided with Indian players who have come within touching distance of playing in the NBA. At 72, Satnam Singh was drafted by the Dallas Mavericks and assigned to their D League (as the G League was previously known) affiliate, the Texas Legends. Amjyot Singh, who is 68, has had stints with two NBA G-League teams: first, he was drafted by OKC Blue in 2017 where he spent a season and a half and he was later picked by Wisconsin Herd. Palpreet Singh (69) was also close to playing in the G-League.

The newest prospect from India, Princepal Singh (610), can play both as a power forward and as a centre. The 20-year-old just ended his first season in the NBA G-League with the Ignite team featuring some of the top youngsters who will eligible for the upcoming NBA Draft. Despite his promise, Princepal played just 28 minutes over 16 games.

Ignites coach, Brian Shaw, mentioned that it was difficult to hand Princepal more minutes because the G-League was a league of speedy guards.

As you have seen throughout this season, this is not a league for big men. This is a guards league, Shaw had told Firstpost. Most of the teams we have here have at least four guys on the floor between 63 and 66. The biggest guy on the floor a lot of the times is 67. Maybe 68. Theyre all fast. They can all shoot from the outside. They can all handle the ball. Thats not something that Prince is accustomed to facing. So it was hard to put him into a lot of the games.

Big men from abroad

Another trend in the NBA thats been apparent is the proliferation of the big-men from foreign shores. Some of the top centres in the business currently are foreigners, be it Denver Nuggets Nikola Jokic (Serbia), Dallas Mavericks Kristaps Porzingis (Latvia), Utah Jazzs Rudy Gobert (France), Orlando Magics Nikola Vucevic (Montenegro). Add tall power forwards like Milwaukee Bucks Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) and Philadelphia 76ers Joel Embiid (Cameroon) to the list and a pattern starts to emerge.

While Hibbert credited Team USA, popularly known as the Dream Team, at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 with popularising the game around the world and bringing some of the best centres into the league like the German Dirk Nowitzki, he agreed that given the way the NBA evolved into a league where three-pointers were the preferred weapon for many successful teams like the Warriors and the Houston Rockets, colleges with decent basketball programs too changed their tactics to incorporate more three-point shooting to attract the best players.

Im sure college team coaches were thinking that they wanted the best players in the country to come to their school so they needed to teach an NBA-style program. So colleges probably adjusted too. There was a shift there. They needed bigs who could run, space the floor, said Hibbert, who is the son of Caribbean immigrants.

Last season, Hibbert was on the coaching staff of Philadelphia 76ers where he says he would advice young players coming into the league to space the floor and shoot. You have to shoot like Steph Curry. I used to tell young guys that they had to be a threat from the outside too.

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Roy Hibbert interview: Two-time All-Star talks about the evolution of big men in the NBA - Firstpost

New pathways in plants and microbes

Plants and microbes have interacted through evolution in ways that shaped diversity and helped plants colonize land. Delaux and Schornack review how insights from a range of plant and algal genomes reveal sustained use through evolution of ancient gene modules as well as emergence of lineage-specific specializations. Mosses, liverworts, and hornworts have layered innovation onto existing pathways to build new microbial interactions. Such innovations may be transferrable to crop plants with an eye toward building a more sustainable agriculture.

Science, this issue p. eaba6605

Microbial interactions have shaped plant diversity in terrestrial ecosystems. By forming mutually beneficial symbioses, microbes helped plants colonize land more than 450 million years ago. In parallel, omnipresent pathogens led to the emergence of innovative defense strategies. The evolution of plant-microbe interactions encompasses ancient conserved gene modules, recurrent concepts, and the fast-paced emergence of lineage-specific innovations. Microbes form communities on the surface or inside plant tissues and organs, and most intimately, microbes live within single plant cells. Intracellular colonization is established and controlled in part by plant genes that underpin general cell processes and defense mechanisms. To benefit from microbes, plants also evolved genetic modules for symbiosis support. These modules have been maintained despite the risk of getting hijacked by pathogens.

The hundreds of land plant and algal genomes that are now available enable genome-wide comparisons of gene families associated with plant immunity and symbiosis. Reconstruction of gene phylogenies and large-scale comparative phylogenomic approaches have revealed an ancient subset of genes coevolving with the widespread arbuscular mycorrhiza symbiosis, the most ancient plant intracellular symbiosis, and with other types of more recently evolved intracellular symbioses in vascular and nonvascular plants. Intercellular symbiotic interactions formed with cyanobacteria or ectomycorrhizal fungi seem to repeatedly evolve through convergent, but not necessarily genetically conserved, mechanisms. Phylogenetic analyses revealed occurrence of candidate disease-resistance genes in green algae, as well as orthologs of flowering plant genes involved in symbiosis signaling and sensing microbial patterns. Yet, more research is needed to understand their functional conservation.

The extent to which conserved symbiosis genes also fulfill often opposing roles during pathogen-plant interactions is being explored through studies of pathogen infections in plants capable of supporting symbiotic relationships. The development of plant-microbe systems in genetically tractable species covering the diversity of land plant lineagesincluding angiosperms and bryophytes, such as the liverwort Marchantia polymorphamakes it possible to test hypotheses that emerge from phylogenetic analyses, linking genetic and functional conservation across land plants. Studies in bryophytes illustrate the range of possibilities for pathogen management: ancient genes, such as membrane receptors that perceive fungus-derived chitin; pathways with bryophyte cladespecific components, such as phenylpropanoid-derived auronidin stress metabolites; and jasmonate-like hormonal signaling for immunity.

Only a few plant-microbe interactions have been studied in depth, and those in only a few land plant lineages. Future investigations of interactions occurring across the diversity of plants may unravel new types of symbiotic or pathogenic interactions. The occurrence of microbe-sensing genes in streptophyte algae, harboring the closest algal relative to land plants, suggest the existence of overlooked and potentially ancient symbiotic associations. Genetically tractable plant-microbe model systems in diverse streptophyte algae, hornworts, liverworts, ferns, and the so far unsampled diversity of seed plants will enable dissection of the spectrum of molecular mechanisms that regulate the breadth of interactions occurring in plants. The actual function of the symbiotic genes present in bryophyte genomes also remains to be determined. Furthermore, our understanding of plant-microbe interactions will be enriched by more often combining evolutionary concepts with mechanistic studies. More efforts are needed to decipher the molecular changes that have enabled the emergence of new interactions, signaling pathways, and enzymatic specificities to support symbiosis and to protect against pathogens. Microbes manipulate plant processes, and complementary microbial studies are key to gaining a complete picture of plant-microbe evolution. Knowing the rules of engagement between distantly related plants and their microbes then helps genetic transplantation approaches into crops and the orthogonal engineering of bioprocesses aimed at achieving quantitative resistance against pathogens, improving phosphate uptake, or establishing nitrogen-fixing associations for efficient use in sustainable agriculture.

Some pathogens such as oomycetes are able to infect a wide range of extant plant lineages, including bryophytes (left), and plant pathogen interactions often evolve at a fast pace. By contrast, some symbiotic interactions that look exactly as they do today can be found in the most ancient land plant fossils, here depicted as an illustration of the Rhynie chert fossil plant Aglaophyton major (right). Still, both types of plant-microbe interactions feature evolutionarily ancient as well as rapidly evolving aspects. Extending plant-microbe studies across diverse groups of plant lineages has enriched our understanding of these processes and their evolution.

During 450 million years of diversification on land, plants and microbes have evolved together. This is reflected in todays continuum of associations, ranging from parasitism to mutualism. Through phylogenetics, cell biology, and reverse genetics extending beyond flowering plants into bryophytes, scientists have started to unravel the genetic basis and evolutionary trajectories of plant-microbe associations. Protection against pathogens and support of beneficial, symbiotic, microorganisms are sustained by a blend of conserved and clade-specific plant mechanisms evolving at different speeds. We propose that symbiosis consistently emerges from the co-option of protection mechanisms and general cell biology principles. Exploring and harnessing the diversity of molecular mechanisms used in nonflowering plant-microbe interactions may extend the possibilities for engineering symbiosis-competent and pathogen-resilient crops.

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Plant evolution driven by interactions with symbiotic and pathogenic microbes - Science Magazine

Moving targets of neurotoxins

Proteases that cleave protein targets at specific sequences control many biological functions. The ability to reprogram proteases to cleave new sequences of our choosing would enable new therapeutic and biotechnological applications. Blum et al. report a laboratory evolution method to rapidly evolve proteases that cut new protein sequences and lose their ability to cut nontarget sequences (see the Perspective by Stenmark). Using this method, they evolved botulinum neurotoxin proteases, an important class of enzymes used in patients, to selectively cleave new targets, including a protein unrelated to those natively cleaved by these proteases. This work establishes a powerful approach to generate proteases with tailor-made specificities.

Science, this issue p. 803; see also p. 782

Although bespoke, sequence-specific proteases have the potential to advance biotechnology and medicine, generation of proteases with tailor-made cleavage specificities remains a major challenge. We developed a phage-assisted protease evolution system with simultaneous positive and negative selection and applied it to three botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) light-chain proteases. We evolved BoNT/X protease into separate variants that preferentially cleave vesicle-associated membrane protein 4 (VAMP4) and Ykt6, evolved BoNT/F protease to selectively cleave the non-native substrate VAMP7, and evolved BoNT/E protease to cleave phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) but not any natural BoNT protease substrate in neurons. The evolved proteases display large changes in specificity (218- to >11,000,000-fold) and can retain their ability to form holotoxins that self-deliver into primary neurons. These findings establish a versatile platform for reprogramming proteases to selectively cleave new targets of therapeutic interest.

Continued here:

Phage-assisted evolution of botulinum neurotoxin proteases with reprogrammed specificity - Science Magazine

With declining rates of new infections and the rollout of vaccines, some are beginning to speak of an end to COVID-19. But that rhetoric, in my opinion, is ill-considered and premature. Based on what we know now of SARS-CoV-2, it may no longer be a question of months before an end to the pandemic but a question of years, if not decades. We should plan for it.

Viruses exist to thrive. Those that infect humans are faced with an impressive array of defensive weaponry, not just our natural adaptive immunity but also our intelligently designed defensesvaccines, drugs and social controls. For a virus to survive, it must be adapted to its chosen ecological nichein this case, usand capable of further intricate adaptation to overcome our best efforts at prevention and treatment.

Initially, many assumed that coronaviruses in general and SARS-CoV-2 in particular were more stable and less prone to adaptation than other RNA viruses because of their error-proofing mechanisms. But we have since been proven wrong. Last summer, a researcher in Texas noticed that a mutated SARS-CoV-2 virus with a substitution in the spike protein had overtaken previous forms to become the dominant strain. Since then, multiple new variants have emerged with mutations that can make the virus more transmissible, more lethal and more able to evade our immune defenses.

These variants have seemingly been forged in fires of our own making. In Boston, a middle-aged man struggled with a COVID-19 infection for five months before succumbing to the disease. He was undergoing treatment with immunosuppressive drugs when he fell ill, and, during his illness, he received multiple rounds of additional treatment, with remdesivir nonimmune gamma globulin, and with monoclonal antibodies. Under this intense immune pressure, key mutations in the virus emerged. The doctors and scientists who witnessed their birth called it accelerated viral evolution.

Other viruses, like influenza, have shown themselves similarly capable of rapid evolution when faced with our best defenses. Indeed, based on what weve seen of SARS-CoV-2 and its capacity for variation, Id say this virus is much more like influenza than any other virus known to date.

Which means influenzas evolutionary pathway may hold important clues about the road COVID-19 will follow.

Influenza, as we know, comes and goes in seasonal waves in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. In the tropics it occurs throughout the year, with only shallow peaks. This pattern mimics what we know of cold-causing coronaviruses, which, ever since their discovery in the 1960s, have returned annually to infect us. For the flu, antigenic driftthe accumulation of small genetic changes in the virushas been the primary explanation for recurrent seasonal epidemics. Dominant flu strains evolve from year to year, and the immunity we develop in response to a previous strain has only a muted effect on the new strain. Weve learned more recently that immunity to influenza also fades, often disappearing within a year, which also makes us susceptible to reinfection.

We used to believe that the cold-causing coronaviruses were stablemeaning no antigenic driftbut returned yearly because of faded immune protection. But over the past year, our understanding of coronaviruses has improved and we now know that at least one of the cold-causing coronaviruses, designated 229E, undergoes antigenic drift similar to that of influenza.

SARS-CoV-2, like 229E, has already shown that it can drift. But, like influenza, it has also shown itself capable of much more abrupt and substantial changes.One way these major changes happen occurs when a virus jumps to a new population, for example from animals to humans or back again. When a virus makes this jump, big thingsand often bad thingsmaterialize. Both influenza and SARS-CoV-2 have huge animal reservoirs. Coronaviruses have infected every type of vertebrate, from whales and bats to salamanders and snakes. Influenza is similar. This means they both have the potential to evolve to become much more damaging to our population. The two previous coronavirus outbreaks both started when coronaviruses jumped from animals to humans, from civet cats in 2003 with SARS and from camels with MERS in 2012. The 1918 influenza pandemic likely started with a jump from animals too.

If were lucky, SARS-CoV-2 will evolve, like the 1918 virus dubbed the Spanish flu, to become less lethal. After infecting an estimated 500 million worldwide and killing at least 50 million, the 1918 flu virus receded. But hope that this coronavirus will attenuate over time is no guarantee that it will. We already know that coronaviruses can become much more lethal; we need look no further than SARS-CoV-1, which killed 50 percent of those aged 65 and older, and MERS, which killed one out of three infected.

So where does that leave us?

First, we must accept the harsh truth told by this virus and its variants. We can expect it to come backpotentially for years to comeand we need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that when it does, it may be more lethal and even more transmissible than the variants that exist today. We must adjust our vaccine development pipelines and public health interventions to account for emergent and future variations. Much like what has been proposed with influenza, we must develop COVID risk assessment tools that can identify the viral properties of dominant strainshow transmissible they may be or how resistant they are to current drugs or vaccinesto help us align our public health response with the level of risk. Otherwise, well be setting ourselves up for failure once more.

I have often likened SARS-CoV-2 to the mythical Proteus in Homers Odyssey. Like Proteus, SARS-CoV-2 is the quintessential shape-shifter, able to alter its form whenever grasped. It is only through sheer persistence that Menelaus, the great hero, is able to wrestle Proteus to a standstill. By claiming victory too soon, we risk losing our battle with this shape-shifting virus, a tragedy that would unfold this time not in words but in many more millions of lives lost.

This is an opinion and analysis article.

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How Will the Coronavirus Evolve? - Scientific American

Analysis emerging from various academic platforms in Europe, the US, Turkey and India in the last five years or so, suggests that the world has entered a post-secular age. This is how they understand the growing assertion of religion in the public sphere in these secular countries.

But critics of this thesis fear that it is conceiving secularism in its most simplistic form. Secularism has evolved in a highly complex manner, as demonstrated by two of its most thorough scholars: the anthropologist Talal Asad and the philosopher Charles Taylor.

While tracking its evolution, both saw secularism emerging from a process of reform in Christianity during the Middle Ages, when certain factors led to the need to disenchant Christianity, so that a more orderly and productive society could be formed, free of superstition. Asads approach in this context is bit more nuanced, though, because his overall position is that secularisms origins cannot be pinned entirely to a single occurrence.

In his 2007 magnum-opus,A Secular Age, Taylor writes that the demystification of Christianity aided the once superstitious layman to access a disenchanted understanding of the scriptures. Christian sects such as the Protestant and Calvinist saw having an enterprising disposition a virtue, as long as it benefitted humanity. This not only seeded the idea of humanism, it also gave birth to ideas that formulated the mechanisms of modernity.

According to Asad, in his 2003 bookFormations of the Secular, Christianitys spiritual promise (Christ died to save us all) was folded into a political promise (the world must be changed for Christ). Therefore, both Taylor and Asad see the emergence of the idea of secularism springing not from an averse reaction to religion, as such, but from an urge to reform religion in a rapidly evolving milieu.

The crisis of secularism bemoaned by some scholars fails to acknowledge that secularism itself has evolved in a highly complex manner over time

To Asad, even though the disenchantment process within Christianity saw it accepting reformist ideas, the traditional notions of Christian morality, for example, did not really wither away. They were divorced from the idea of being divinely ordained, and instead expressed through secular formations such as constitutional democracy, state laws and the natural sciences.

Asad writes that religion was never entirely expelled from the public sphere. Indeed, it was privatised (or relegated to the private sphere), but religions that were willing to take part in rational debate, and accept the new secular paradigm, were welcome to operate in the public sphere.

With the expansion of modernity, the idea of secularism spread from Europe to other regions. Coming from a position of economic and military dominance, it was adopted by others. But it mutated to accommodate non-Western realities. For example, although it arrived as an inclusive idea that advocated the privatisation of the sacred and the institutionalisation of the profane as a way to construct a rational nationalistic whole, in communist set-ups it radically hardened by completely expunging religion.

But this hardness was also present in France. According to Taylor, whereas secularism elsewhere in Europe had largely emerged from reformed Christianity, in France it had appeared as a revolt against religion (during the 18th century French Revolution).

Known as Lacit it barely tolerates any display of religion in the public sphere. Unlike inclusive secularism in the US and most other European countries, where the state remains impersonal towards religion as long as it does not threaten the liberal-democratic order, Lacit sanctions the state to aggressively intervene to discourage religion in the public sphere. Interestingly, this is also the form of secularism that Turkey adopted after it became a republic in 1922.

Most anti-colonial movements also adopted secularism by modifying it to suit their nationalisms. For example, Arab Nationalism adopted secularism because it saw its anti-colonial religious contemporaries as competition. It adopted the inclusive secular version, even though Arab nationalist regimes were dictatorial and often jailed leaders of religious groups who challenged the Arab nationalist narrative.

According to the French political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot, a unique mutation of secularism emerged in colonial India. In the 2012 anthologyA Secular Age Beyond the West, Jaffrelot writes that followers of the 19th century Indian Muslim scholar Syed Ahmad Khan, politicised his reformative Islamist narrative by forming the Muslim League. Eventually, the party moved towards demanding a separate Muslim-majority state.

Syed, and then the early 20th century philosopher and poet Muhammad Iqbal and, eventually, the barrister Muhammad Ali Jinnah formulated what Talal Asad calls cultural secularism. Instead of separating religion from politics, they separated the cultural dynamics of Islam from the faiths theological and ritualistic dimensions, to create a political ideology of cultural separatism.

According to Jaffrelot, they placed Islam as a cultural identity-marker in the public arena, whereas the faiths theological and ritual aspects were pushed to the private sphere. This is why the founders of Pakistan were never really demonstrative about their religiosity (or lack thereof). They understood Muslim nationalism as a cultural and political idea of a modern Muslim-majority state, but one that would remain impersonal towards Islams theological/ ritualistic facets.

This project evolved and was institutionalised in the 1960s but, by then, the state was not impersonal in this context and had begun to intervene to push out versions of Islam that threatened the modernist-Islamic paradigm.

Jaffrelot writes that, in 1974, the passage of the Second Amendment constitutionally rolled back the project by making Islam in Pakistan exclusivist. Then, various ordinances between 1979 and 1991 almost entirely expunged the inclusive idea of Islam of the countrys founders. This aided various far-right religious groups to assert themselves in the public sphere, without being challenged by the state.

According to the argument by American political scientists R. Inglehart and Pippa Norris, in their bookSacred and Secular, secularism is in crisis, but mostly in developing countries. This has been the case for quite some time now. India is the exception, where this crisis is relatively recent. Ironically, the crisis in this context in India is being compounded by the act of treating secularism as it was treated in Pakistan from 1974 onwards. The results were disastrous, as they will be in India too.

But Taylor doesnt see Western secularism (or for that matter, its authoritarian Chinese variation) going the same way. According to him, secularism in the West has mutated to allow various Christian and non-theological spiritual groups, as well as non-Christian groups mostly made up of immigrant communities, to flood the public sphere (deep pluralisation).

This flooding is tolerated as long as it does not threaten the liberal-democratic paradigm. Whenever it has, the state hasnt hesitated to intervene.

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 21st, 2021

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SMOKERS CORNER: THE EVOLUTION OF SECULARISM - DAWN.com

The soil-dwelling amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum may seem a world away from the cleanliness of a cancer ward, but these microscopic creatures can teach us much about a disease that still claims the lives of more than 600,000 Americans every year.

Dictyostelium usually exists in a solitary unicellular form, but when food supplies run low, up to 100,000 cells will come together to create a small "slug" that migrates in search of more amenable conditions. Once in a suitable spot, the slug transforms again to create a vertical stalk topped with a bud-shaped fruiting body. Finally, the bud bursts open, scattering microscopic spores that are each capable of germinating into a new amoeba.

Although this unusual life cycle ensures the survival of the population, it doesn't directly benefit every amoeba that joins the slug. Around 1 in 5 cells end up in the stalk and are thus destined to die, sacrificing themselves for the greater good of the colony. Yet, even in this simple society, there are "cheats" that break the rules.

In 1982, Yale University biologist Leo Buss noticed that particular cells in a related Dictyostelium species were more likely to end up in the spore body than in the stalk referred to as "somatic cell parasites" giving them a much better chance of contributing to the next generation.

A quarter of a century later, researchers showed that the same selfish behavior also happened in Dictyostelium discoideum and was due to mutations in any one of more than 100 different genes. Genetic variations making it more likely for a cell to push to the top of the stalk also increased its chances of survival and continuing to multiply, thereby creating a new generation of cells that also carry the same selfish mutation.

The same principle at work in these cheating amoebas can be seen in the emergence of cancer within the tissues of the body. There is growing interest in the long-overlooked concept of cancer as a disease driven by cellular "cheats" mutated cells that outcompete and proliferate faster than their well-behaved neighbors, eventually creating a tumor that grows and metastasizes throughout the body. This view frames cancer as the inevitable consequence of multicellularity.

Cancer is a deep biological phenomenon dating back millions of years, observable in almost all branches of the animal kingdom (with the notable exceptions of comb jellyfish and sponges). We find traces of tumors in long-dead fossils and ancient human remains all over the world. Wherever there are mutated cells within multicellular organisms, there we will find the capacity for cancer.

It is overly simplistic, however, to assume that mutations are the only things that matter when it comes to creating a cancer.

Recent work from researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge, England, has revealed that our bodies become a patchwork of mutation as we age. Our cells pick up all kinds of genetic changes as we go through life, some caused by the biological processes of life itself and others caused by external agents. Many of these alterations would be classified as "tumor drivers" if they were to be found in a cancer.

The extent of this damage is astounding. The Sanger Institute team found that up to half of the cells in the esophagus carry a mutation in the prominent cancer driver gene NOTCH by middle age, despite appearing entirely normal.

Although cancer is common in the population, with 1 in 2 people expected to develop the disease at some point, it's vanishingly rare on an individual level. Barring any underlying hereditary gene variations, each one of us may develop only one, or maybe two or three, primary tumors in an entire lifetime from amidst the trillions of individual cells and cell divisions within our bodies.

Clearly, the ability of cheating cells to develop into a cancer is not just dependent on their genetic makeup but on their environment too. The Darwinian principle of "survival of the fittest" is often mistakenly interpreted as meaning that the biggest, strongest, fastest, or smartest organisms on the block will survive and proliferate.

In fact, natural selection favors those that are the best fit for the environment in which they are living. In the context of cancer cells, this is the microenvironmental milieu of our tissues. The proliferative and migratory abilities of rebellious mutated cells depend not only on their genetic makeup but also on the advantage that these mutations give them in terms of their fitness within the local tissue environment.

Of note, this microenvironment changes as we age. Inflammation, physical changes resulting from the breakdown of collagen and other structural elements, the gradual buildup of mutations in healthy cells, and other processes all shift the molecular landscape within our tissues. Potentially cancerous mutations that might be at a disadvantage in young tissue become a boon in an aging, inflamed environment, providing a selective advantage that enables dangerous cells to prosper.

As well as underpinning the development of tumors in normal tissue, evolutionary principles also lie at the heart of the challenge of treating advanced metastatic cancer. Over recent decades, there has been a move toward an increasingly genetically reductionist view of cancer, driven by the plummeting costs of high-throughput next-generation sequencing technology. This has reinforced a paradigm of ever more targeted therapies for cancer, based on the underlying molecular makeup of an individual patient's disease.

Yet for all the fanfare and high price tags, targeted therapies have not brought the game-changing gains in survival that the headlines might have promised. Immunotherapy does have huge potential, although the current range of checkpoint inhibitors doesn't work for all and in some cases may even make cancers worse.

Notwithstanding the success of Gleevec (imatinib) the poster child for molecularly targeted therapies most of the current generation of treatments bring survival in the order of single-digit years, months, or in some cases mere weeks for advanced metastatic disease. In all too many cases, no matter how successful the treatment initially seems to be, at some point the cancer comes back. At best, oncologists may be able to pursue a "whack-a-mole" strategy, following each failed line of therapy with another until the options run out.

The root cause of this failure is heterogeneity. Cancer cells are on a continual evolutionary journey of mutation and proliferation, creating a genetically diverse population with a range of selective advantages and disadvantages, depending on the selective pressures at work. Once a cancer has grown to a certain size, somewhere in this heterogeneous population will be cells with mutations rendering them resistant to any treatment that can be thrown at them. Even within a tumor the size of a grain of sugar, the seeds of resistance may already have been sown.

It's time to think smarter about how we approach cancer treatment, acknowledging the evolutionary power of cancer and using it to our advantage. Adaptive therapies, developed by pioneers such as Robert Gatenby and his colleagues at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, aim to steer the trajectory of cancer by balancing populations of drug-resistant and sensitive cells through careful monitoring and dosing. This approach has shown remarkable success in advanced prostate cancer and is now being tested in other tumor types.

However, adaptive therapies still aim to control cancer rather than eradicate it. To do that, we need to think about extinction strategies: regimens designed to apply specific selective pressures at the right time to cause the population of cancer cells to collapse, just as multiple different factors (shrinking habitat, disease, predation, and so on) drive animal populations to extinction in nature. Unfortunately, there is little interest in developing and trialing such strategies based on the drugs we already have, compared with the enthusiasm of the pharmaceutical industry for developing ever more costly therapeutics.

This isn't to say that there has been no progress. After more than a century of research, around half of all people with cancer in countries like the United States and United Kingdom will survive for 10 years or more, particularly if diagnosed in the early stages of disease. But armed with a deeper understanding of all three elements of cancer cellular mutations, tissue ecology, and evolutionary pressures we will get closer to catching all of cancer's "cellular cheats" before they can take hold and become resistant to treatment.

Kat Arney, PhD, is a science writer and broadcaster living near London, England. She is the author of Rebel Cell: Cancer, Evolution, and the New Science of Life's Oldest Betrayal (BenBella Books).

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Cheat Code: Cracking Cancer's Evolution to Help Defeat It - Medscape

For roughly three years, Wade Byrd hung out on the couches of various tattoo shops in the Flathead Valley, watching his mentors closely as they designed and worked on clients, creating permanent works of body art with ink.

After much persistence and dedication, Byrd finally earned a spot in the unorthodox apprenticeship program of the tattoo industry, quickly progressing to open his own shop, Artifaction Tattoo Studio, in Kalispell in 2017.

I remember I woke up one day in my apprenticeship and realized, Ive tattooed every day for six months straight,' Byrd said.

After five years as a professional tattoo artist, Byrd relocated his shop from the corner of Sixth Avenue West and West Center Street to downtown Kalispell on Second Street East in December and now has two other artists working for him, including an apprentice, with one more he recently hired. He also has participated in three tattoo conventions in Las Vegas, Eugene, Oregon, and Detroit, which he describes as gun shows for the tattoo industry, and has worked with Ryan Ashley, a renowned tattoo artist.

Before Byrd began his career, he already had a passion for drawing, and he remembers spending most of his time in high school drawing with a pencil and paper during class time. After an introduction to tattoos in his early 20s, he began using his artistic talent to draw tattoo designs. But once a mentor showed him how to design in Photoshop, he shifted from hand drawings to designing with photography.

Using Photoshop, Byrd uses both a black and gray and color realism style to portray realistic images on bodies, with designs ranging from portraits of Kobe Bryant to life-like tiger images.

Once I found a computer, I just do all digital creations, he said. I like to tattoo things that portray emotion and I collage them together using Photoshop, superimpose the design over the persons body to see what it looks like, and I use a lot of skin tone to blend the images together.

Before he discovered Photoshop, Byrd designed illustrative tattoos, which he still does from time to time.

Its always changing, Byrd said. I feel like it evolved from more simple designs into challenging things like realism.

On average, Byrd spends about five to eight hours a day tattooing. And while he has many of his own tattoos, he says once someone has enough covering the body, the number of tattoo hours becomes the best way to quantify instead of the number of tattoos. Byrd estimates he has about 75 hours of tattoos on his own body.

I dont feel an addiction to it, but art is fun to be involved in, Byrd said. I think whats really addicting, if anything, is the self expression.

Since Byrd first started his career as a tattoo artist about five years ago, hes noticed a spike in tattoo interest. Between workplace acceptance of tattoos and the industrys exposure on social media, hes seen a change in demographics, including more workplace professionals getting tattoos.

Byrds downtown shops offers a larger storefront and a better location that can accommodate an ideal number of employees, but Byrd says he had a hard time finding a space before securing the Second Street East spot, with many landlords who wouldnt allow a tattoo shop.

I knew I wanted to get back to a bigger downtown location, he said. And pick up where my dream left off.

Byrd currently has an artist and an apprentice working at the shop, Emilio Crispin and Emily Messerschmidt. Byrd recruited Messerschmidt over the summer while she was visiting from the East Coast and calls her a name to remember, as she quickly progresses.

A third artist, Mike Woods, is also on the way as he relocates from Texas. Woods was a guest artist at Byrds shop earlier this month, and soon afterward he decided to leave his 10-artist shop in Austin to work for Byrd.

Byrd says his background in bartending and construction work helped shape his work ethic for his tattoo artist career, and his dedication has helped him progress.

I never took anything for granted, Byrd said. I was always the hardest worker in the room and I will not let anyone work harder than me.

For more information, visit http://www.artifactiontattoo.com or look Byrd up on Instagram.

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Ink Evolution - Flathead Beacon

The only way to complete the Pokdex and catch them all is to trade with people, as some Pokmon will only evolve by sending them to other players.

ThePokmonseries has always forced players to interact in order to finish each game. This is because somePokmon will only evolve if they are traded with another player, which means that cooperation is needed in order to catch them all.

Part of what madePokmon RedandBlueso popular was the interaction they allowed between players. Online gaming didn't exist out the PC gaming bubble, and most two-player games involved working together to clear levels, or facing each other in fighting games. What separatedPokmonfrom the other games of the era was that it combined the single-player and multiplayer aspects together. The player could grow their team during their journey through Kanto, and then see how that team stacked up against the one owned by their friends. This was all facilitated by the Game Boy's Link Cable, which allowed two systems to connect together.

Related:Hacked Pokmon Are Crashing Sword & Shield Via Surprise Trade

The Link Cable also allowed people to tradePokmon with each other. This step was necessary for completing thePokdex, as somePokmon could only evolve through trade, which is an element that kept on being expanded in subsequentPokmontitles.

The concept of trade evolutions debuted in the first-everPokmonvideo games. The player had to trade Kadabra to evolve it into Alakazam, they had to trade Machoke to evolve it into Machamp, they had to trade Graveler to evolve it into Golem, and they had to trade Haunter to evolve it into Gengar.

The second generation ofPokmongames added four new trade evolutions, but these required thePokmon to be holding an item in order for the evolution to occur. If thePokmon isn't holding the item, then it won't evolve. Onix needs to be traded while holding a Metal Coat to evolve into a Steelix, Scyther needs to be traded while holding a Metal Coat to evolve it into Scizor, Seadra needs to be traded while holding a Dragon Scale to evolve it into Kingdra, Porygon needs to be traded while holding an Upgrade to evolve it into Porygon2, Slowpoke needs to be traded while holding a King's Rock to evolve it into Slowking, and Poliwhirl needs to be traded while holding a King's Rock to evolve it into a Politoed.

The third generation ofPokmonhad two trade evolutions for a singlePokmon. If the player traded a Clamperl while it was holding a Deep Sea Tooth, then it would evolve into a Huntail, but if it was traded while holding a Deep Sea Scale, then it would evolve into a Gorebyss.

The fourth generation ofPokmongames retroactively added trade evolutions for existingPokmon. If Porygon2 is traded while holding a Dubious Disc, then it will evolve into PorygonZ. If Electabuzz is traded while holding an Electirizer, then it will evolve into an Electivire. If Magmar is traded while holding a Magmarizer, then it will evolve into a Magmortar. If Rhydon is traded while holding a Protector, then it will evolve into Rhyperior. If Dusclops is traded while holding a Reaper Cloth, then it will evolve into Dusknoir.

The fifth generation ofPokmongames changed how Feebas evolved. In the older games, its evolution was tied to its Beauty stat. InPokmon BlackandWhite,Feebas evolved while traded holding a Prism Scale. There were also some new trade evolutions introduced during this generation.The player had to trade Boldore to evolve it into Gigalith, and the player had to trade Gurdurr to evolve it into Conkeldurr. There were twoPokmon that could only evolve when traded with each other. Karrablast could only evolve into Escavalier if it was traded with Shelmet, and Shelmet could only evolve into Accelgor if it was traded with Karrablast.

The sixth generation ofPokmonvideo games introduced several new trade evolutions.The player had to trade Phantump to evolve it into Trevenant and the player had to trade Pumpkaboo to evolve it into Gourgeist. If Spritzee is traded while holding a Sachet, then it will evolve into Aromatisse. If Swirlix is traded while holding a Whipped Cream, then it will evolve into Slurpuff.

The last generation ofPokmongames on the Nintendo 3DS didn't add any brand new trade evolutions, but the Alolan version of Graveler needs to be traded for it to evolve into Alolan Golem.

Next:Pokmon Home is Having Some Serious Technical Problems

Animal Crossing New Horizons: Creative Uses For Harv's Island

Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz. A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early 90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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Pokmon: Every Trade Evolution In The Series | Screen Rant - Screen Rant

Simply pop a pen out from your device and immediately start writing Samsung Electronics innovative idea that came to life with the inclusion of the S Pen in the companys Galaxy Note series 10 years ago has since provided users with unique and enriching device experiences.

Since then, the S Pen has undergone multiple innovations to transform it from a mere stylus into an independent device of its own. For example you no longer need to rely on just your smartphone to take a picture; the S Pen can do that for you.

The 10 years that have passed since the debut of the S Pen have been filled with countless innovations and challenges. Follow along with us as we chart the evolution of this significant stylus, from its debut as a simple smartphone accessory to its latest form as its own singular category of device.

The S Pen is designed to provide the experience of writing with a real pen. Since its debut with the first Galaxy Note device in 2011, the S Pen has continued to provide improved pressure sensitivity from 256, 1024, and 2048 levels to a remarkable 4096 sensitivity level. Pressure sensitivity determines how much you can vary the width of the lines you draw with your S Pen; the higher it is, the more precisely the stylus will respond to your control. The S Pens high pressure sensitivity allows you to control the stroke weight of your stylus as you apply varying amounts of pressure to your screen, and the diameter of the S Pens tip has also been reduced over the years from 1.6mm to 0.7mm so as to allow for delicate strokes when drawing.

When it comes to notetaking, every user has their own habits, be it using a specific highlighter to mark important passages in a text or preferring a slim pen tip for writing. The S Pen, which initially provided four pen types Pen, Pencil, Brush and Highlighter today offers a wide variety of pen options, including Calligraphy and Fountain pen options. The true-to-life S Pen experience even comes with a different writing sound for each pen option you choose, and the sound effect of a pen cap closing when the S Pen is re-inserted into the device provides a satisfying, realistic feel, too. Furthermore, the eye-dropper tool, which makes it easy to lift colors from within a Note, has also been added for easy pen color customization.

Since the release of the Galaxy Note9, the S Pen has featured a built-in battery for optimized usage and user convenience. Users need simply plug their S Pen back into their device to automatically charge it; Galaxy Note20 users can enjoy a fully charged S Pen in just 7 minutes, with a standby time of 24 hours.1

Further to these innovations, it is the S Pens response time that truly grants it that life-like writing experience. Since the release of the Galaxy Note20, the S Pen features AI technologies that bolster the pens acceleration and gyro sensors in order to predict pen movement and improve accuracy, resulting in a response time that is 80% faster than the previous model. Combined with the Galaxy Note20s 120Hz display, this faster S Pen provides a remarkably smooth user experience.

Over the past 10 years, the S Pen has developed into a versatile pen with a wide range of features. One such highlight of this evolution is the S Pens Air Command menu, first introduced with the Galaxy Note3. When you eject the S Pen or click its button, a series of essential S Pen feature icons appear on-screen. These days, the Air Command menu emerges in a line, as opposed to the fan shape that earlier models featured, in order to display more icons at once. Users can even customize the actions and icons that appear so as to enjoy effortless and instant access to their most frequently used features.

Colorful messages written down using the Galaxy Note10s Screen off memo feature

Another notable S Pen functionality is the Screen off memo function, which was included to broaden the horizon of quick notetaking. This feature, first featured with the Galaxy Note5, lets users write their notes down directly onto the lock screen once they have popped out their S Pen. The resulting Note is then kept on the Always On Display, or saved to Samsung Notes, and over the years, this feature has seen more options for pen tips, colors and canvas size included to help you capture your inspiration in real time.

The Galaxy Note9s S Pen is powered by a Super Capacitor, which provides ultra-fast charging and supports Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE)

Despite the application of various improvements and innovations since its inception, the S Pen truly became a device of its own with the release of the Galaxy Note9. This revolutionized S Pen featured Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) connectivity, meaning that users can control their music, camera app and more directly from their S Pen within a certain radius similar to a remote control.

Since the release of the Galaxy Note9, the S Pen has only seen more expansions to its scope. The introduction of S Pen Air actions with the Galaxy Note10 line allows users to control their smartphones applications by pressing their S Pens button. With Air actions, you can harness intuitive actions to switch between camera and shooting modes, zoom in or out of a shot and execute a variety of other convenient functions all with customizable gestures.

With the Galaxy Note20 series, gesture control has only gotten easier with the introduction of five Anywhere actions. Users can now customize actions for the Back, Home, Recent App, Smart Select and Screen Write commands, making the S Pen more helpful for device control than ever before.

From a rounded form to a flat symmetrical design to a unibody type, Samsung has constantly been refining the design of the S Pen for more seamless pen handling and the most comfortable writing experiences possible. As a result, the S Pen has developed to be an ergonomic pen that allows users a relaxed grip. Since the release of the Galaxy Note10, the S Pen has boasted a sleeker appearance thanks to its elegant, unibody design, and the Note10 and Note20 series feature the lightest and thinnest S Pen yet, coming in at just 3.04g and 5.8mm.

Galaxy Note9 packaging featuring S Pen imagery

The development of an S Pen that came in a range of color options came about to satisfy those users looking to showcase their personality through their devices. Each color option even matched the corresponding devices S Pen slot. The Galaxy Note9s color options have been a particular highlight, with a clear ocean-blue device paired with a vivid yellow S Pen. The Galaxy Note9s packaging summarized the evolution of the S Pen so far, featuring the stylus on the front of its box to establish that the S Pen truly is the key identifier of the Galaxy Note series.

In order to provide users with the most lifelike pen experience possible, Samsung has been working with a range of pen makers in order to provide different types of S Pen. One result of these efforts is the Lamy Safari Stylus S Pen, a hybrid between the classic S Pen and the world-famous fountain pen brands signature product that featured a thinner nib for more precise writing experiences. Another unique S Pen product came about through a collaboration with South Koreas national ballpoint brand, Monami. This S Pen featured several features bespoke to a Monami pen, including a nib that could be safely stored when not in use. Such collaborations provide users with unique color and design preferences more choice when it comes to customizing their own S Pen experiences.

The Galaxy Tab S7 series S Pen

These days, you can enjoy the versatility of the S Pen on larger screens such as tablets and laptops as well as on your smartphone. Samsungs Galaxy Tab A and S series include an S Pen, as does the Galaxy Book, allowing users to take advantage of their S Pen on increasingly larger canvases. The S Pen models included with Samsungs tablets and laptops have been developed differently to those developed for smartphones, featuring a rounded, unibody design and a glossy finish.

Users of Galaxy Tab S6 and S7 devices can easily store their S Pen on the side and back (respectively) of their tablets thanks to their magnetic storage feature, making it easier to keep track of your S Pen and also providing a simple way for you to charge your S Pen.

The expansion of the S Pen ecosystem also comes with more opportunities for pro-level S Pen usage. The Galaxy Tab S7 is the first to come pre-loaded with Clip Studio Paint, a professional drawing app for illustration, webtoon and animation production, Noteshelf, a dedicated note-taking app, and Canva, a graphic design app. Accordingly, the S Pen is today playing a key role in transforming the tablet into a device capable of servicing any users tastes and interests.

The S Pen has become the key identifying feature of the Galaxy Note series and Samsungs latest tablet line-ups, but this has been taken a step further following its launch along with the Galaxy S21 Ultra earlier this year. The very latest Galaxy S line device provides users with such S Pen benefits as drawing, notetaking and video editing; S21 Ultra users can take advantage of the delicate touch granted by the S Pen for precise and elaborate video editing capabilities unachievable by human fingers alone. The inclusion of the S Pen in an S series device is an innovation that improves both device portability and productivity, and going forward, Samsung is determined to bring the outstanding performance of the S Pen into a wider range of categories for more seamless mobile experiences.

Since its conception, the S Pen has been a landmark innovation. An elegant instrument that lets users create to their hearts content on their digital screens, the evolution of this delicate stylus over the past decade has seen the S Pen grow into an independent smart device of its own. Stay tuned to find out how the S Pen is set to develop further and provide users with even more means of self-expression.

1 Data source: https://www.samsungsvc.co.kr/online/faqView.do?faqId=KNOW1000036790

* All functionality, features, specifications and other product information provided in this document including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability, and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice. Availability may vary by market, operator and connected device.

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From Stylus to Self-Expression: Looking Back at the Evolution of the S Pen - Samsung Global Newsroom