Category Archives: Evolution

Canned wine isnt just found on grocery store shelves and at outdoor festivals these days. Fine wine producers are taking the category seriously today, and an increasing amount of high-end juice is making its way into cans, creating a luxury niche in the fast-growing format.

From a hospitality standpoint, finding a way to create premium wines that were immediately accessible seemed like a no-brainer, says Thomas Pastuszak, the wine director at New York Citys NoMad, who created Vinny in 2018, with the goal of creating a high-quality wine in a can. He contracts with 10 small farms in New York State to create a sparkling white and a sparkling ros, which retail at $20 for a four-pack (250-milliliter)and of course, the cans are part of the James Beard Award-winning bar program at NoMad Bar.

For years, canned wine was seen as a cheap alternative offering convenience in an attractive package, but recently, it appears that the same perception evolution that occurred in the screw-cap market is happening with canned wine.

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I have long been a naysayer for canned wine, because I think about how I like to consume fine wine, says Rob McMillan, the founder of the Silicon Valley Banks Wine Division, who authors the banks annual State of the Wine Industry report. But ignoring cans as a segment means ignoring an on-ramp for younger consumers. The smaller servings also make it possible for all consumers to try better wines for a lower price.

The categorys popularity is undeniable: according to Nielsen, off-premise sales of canned wine in 2019 grew 79.2 percent for the 52-week period ending December 28, 2019. In comparison, during the same period, overall wine sales from off-premise outlets increased just 1.4 percent year-over-year.

As premium wine increasingly joins the canned wine category, retailers and restaurants are figuring out how to position canned wine to leverage its potential.

The Francis Ford Coppola Winery first popularized the can with the debut of the Sofia Blanc de Blancs in 2004, but the major spike in new entrants is more recent: The number of winemakers canning wine grew 180 percent (from 125 to 350) between June 2018 and June 2019, according to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based wine-in-a-can research firm, WIC Research.

The market is dominated by a few big brandsPrecept Wines House Wine, Union Wine Co.and bigger players like E&J Gallo, The Wine Group, and Constellation are now aggressively in the game. Even beer behemoths are capitalizing on the categorys success; AB InBev snapped up Babe Wine from Josh The Fat Jewish Ostrovsky last year, later partnering with the NFL as its first Official Wine Sponsor.

However, WICs partner and co-founder Dr. Robert L. Williams Jr. predicts that the luxury end of the market will also continue to grow. Good wine in a can is good wine, and the opposite is true as well, says Williams. More premium wines will continue to get canned as the market grows and competition increases, he adds.

Early on, two producers saw the growing importance of quality wine inside the can: Union Wine Co.s Underwood label from Oregon, and Alloy Wine Works from Paso Robles, which debuted in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Each aimed to deliver craft quality in unpretentious packaging, and together, they helped drive the categorys growth 125 percent from $6.4 million to $14.5 million between 2015 and 2016 alone.

Union Wine went from an initial 500-case production run to current annual sales of about 400,000 cases. Meanwhile, Alloys founder Andrew Jones, who sold the company to Vintage Wine Estates last year, but remains on board, reports that his production line is currently 20 times what it was when he launched.

It was about meeting people where they wanted to be, says Jones, who also helms single-vineyard project Field Recordings. They wanted top-quality, terroir-driven grapes, treated the same way they would be for the bottle, but in a smaller, endlessly recyclable package that could be consumed anywhere.

A 375-milliliter can of Underwood or Alloys varietal wines typically retails for about $6 to $7, and a four-pack of 187-milliliter Sofia cans retails for $20. But what about wine that sells for $25 a can?

In 2015, SANS Wine Co. began sourcing organically farmed wine grapes from the Napa Valley and putting them in a can.

We started with a white, a red, and a ros, but we saw a place for premium varietal wines on the market, co-founder Gina Schober explains. Our cans are vintage-dated and sourced from a single vineyard. No one else was specifying AVAs, vintages, and vineyards, but we knew there was a market for that.

While the original base-level offerings retail for an above-average $10 per can, SANS now produces a $12 Carbonic Carignan, $15 dry Riesling, and a $25 Cabernet Sauvignon. Since launching, theyve doubled their growth every year; now they produce 5,000 24-can cases annually.

Our philosophy is to treat the grapes as we would if they were going in the bottle, co-founder Jake Stover says. Our interaction with them is minimal. We dont use spray, we dry farm, and we stopped using sulfites in five of the seven wines.

Also filling the organic canned wine void, Winesellers Ltd. started canning their Tiamo brand in 2017 and have been seeing double digit growth ever since.

Canned wines inherent outdoor-friendly convenience has driven other producers to add them to their offerings. Sean Larkin, the founder of premium, hand-farmed wine producer Larkin Wines in Napa Valley, was inspired by the no-glass policy at the beach; he now offers white, red, and ros cans ($144 for a 12-pack).

In South Africa, U.S. expats Charles Brain and Walker Brown launched Lubanzi Wines in both bottles and cans. They launched in 26 states and Canada last year, and hope to continue to grow their distribution; a four-pack of their Chenin Blanc or Red Blend retails for $30.

As wine lovers and adventure seekers who feel deeply connected to the land and people of South Africa, creating a line of cans just made sense because we like to enjoy wine in the wild, on the go, says Brown. Cans just feel more relevant to the way people live their lives.

Even established fine wine importers and distributors are recognizing cans value and potential.

I did not think canned wine could be serious, terroir-driven, or varietally true, says Arjun Dewan, the executive vice president at New York-based importer and distributor Winebow. Dewan changed his mind in 2017 when Winebow began working with Bridge Lane Wine, the second label of Lieb Cellars in Long Island, which specializes in both bottles and alternative formats. Bridge Lanes four-pack of 375-milliliter cans sells for $34 and deliver dry, distinctive wines made from sustainably farmed vineyards.

The Winebow team launched their own line of premium canned ros wine, Amble + Chase, in 2018, which retails for about $5 a can. In March, Winebow also became the New York distributor for Union Wine Co.s Underwood, which now represents six of the top 15 SKUs in Winebows Oregon super premium categoryincluding wine in bottle.

When the Family Coppola first launched canned wine in 2002, the technology of canning sparkling wine was difficult to manage. Because no one else was doing it here, it took us two years to perfect the science of preparing wine for the can, says winemaker Tondi Bolkan. Because theres no oxygen exchange, you have to be thoughtful about what varieties you select and how the wine is treated before canning.

WIC Researchs Williams attributes the stratospheric growth of canned wine in part to improvements in canning technology, as well as subtle shifts in consumer desires.

Cans have gone through the same evolution as screw caps, Williams says. For some people, it will always be a cork or nothing, but the canning technology and working knowledge of what works and doesnt for cans has progressed enough to make cans a net positive for wine itself.

It took some early trial and error to understand how different wines and different acid levels react to the liners in cans, and producers have since adapted for more consistent results. Today, according to a blind taste test conducted by WIC last year, the difference in taste between canned and bottled wine is negligible.

Rich Bouwer, the CEO of Free Flow Wines in Sonoma, California, a leading provider of alternative wine packaging, agrees that its winemakers approach to cans, not the technology itself, that has shifted and resulted in better quality.

Issue one is with the handling of cans, says Bouwer. Cans cant be stacked as high as bottles, because theyll get crushed, and they have to be moved around more carefully, so there has been a learning curve.

Issue two, he says, is understanding that cans are airtight environments, unlike bottles with cork closures. Even more so than screw-caps, there is no transfer of oxygen. Bouwer says that the best way for producers to prevent unexpected quality issues caused by reactions between a can and the wine that may exacerbate over time is to put cans through an aging test.

Every new producer we work with has to have their cans tested by Ball, he says. Theyll red flag any chemical composition issues and test the shelf life.

An increasing awareness of sustainability and wellness among consumers may bolster the positioning of premium canned wine in the marketplace. Organic farming and energy conservation are integral to the philosophy behind canned wine brand Archer Roose, founded in 2015, as does the aluminum package.

A single-serve can eliminate the bottle left unfinished at the end of the night, says Marian Leitner, the founder of Archer Roose. All of our cans are made from recycled aluminum, a material that can be recycled and reused indefinitely. Our cans are back on shelves within 60 days of being recycled. The global recycling rate for glass is only around 26.5 percent, while the global recycling rate for cans is 69 percent.

Brett Vankoski, the co-founder and wine director of Latitude Beverage Co., which has a line of premium canned wines dubbed Lila, also sees a real desire for healthier alternatives in the beverage industry. As an industry we need to find ways to address how smaller formats like cans, especially ones with premium juice, can be a healthier alternative, says Vankoski.

Its cans ability to fit in with current consumption trends, as well as their improved quality, believes McMillan, that means they are here to stay: Cans are not a fad, they are the future.

Kathleen Willcox is a journalist who writes about food, wine, beer, and popular culture; her work has appeared in VinePair, Edible Capital District, Bust magazine, and Gastronomica, and on United Stations Radio Networks, among other venues. She recently coauthored, with Tessa Edick, Hudson Valley Wine: A History of Taste & Terroir. She lives in Saratoga Springs, New York.

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The Evolution of Premium Canned Wine - SevenFifty Daily

It seems the history of oxygen on Earth will have to be adjusted, based on a new paper by Kaarel Mnd from the University of Alberta, Canada, and colleagues. They analyzed carbon-rich sedimentary rocks from two billion years ago and found chemical markersincluding very high levels of molybdenum, uranium and rheniumconsistent with large amounts of oxygen in the ocean and in Earths early atmosphere.

Our planets atmosphere underwent a big transformation about 2.45 billion years ago, in whats known as the Great Oxidation Event. Cyanobacteria in the ocean released oxygen as part of their metabolism, which reacted with methane in the atmosphere to produce carbon dioxide. The Sun was weaker at the time, and combined with the loss of methanea much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxideit resulted in the so-called Snowball Earth, when nearly the whole planet was covered with ice.

Then something else strange happened. Known as the Lomagundi-Jatuli Event, dated at about 2.22 to 2.06 billion years ago, the geological record shows a very long positive peak of the carbon 13 isotope (heavy carbon). This is interpreted to be due to the huge production of organic carbon from inorganic carbon, mostly carbon dioxide, and its later burial. As a consequence, a lot of oxygen (from the original carbon dioxide molecules) was set free. This must have extended the Snowball Earth period even more. Until now, many scientists believed that following the Lomagundi-Jatuli Event, oxygen levels in the atmosphere declined, except in very localized areas. Mnds results may force us to rethink that. Global oxygen levels appear to have remained high for much longer, probably for many tens of millions of years.

This history is of more than academic interest, because oxygen is believed to have been important for the rise of eukaryotes, the first microbes with a nucleus. The fossil record is unclear, but eukaryotes appear to have originated around that same time, and may have been jump-started by a longer period of high oxygen levels. The transition from prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) to eukaryotes was a critical step in the increase of complexity of life on Earth, which eventually ended up with a technologically advanced speciesus (yes, were all eukaryotes).

This brings up the question of how fast evolution can progress toward complexity on a habitable planet. Most scientists believe it takes several billion years, as it did on Earth, because oxygen is needed to fuel the high metabolism of animals. To get high enough oxygen concentrations in the atmosphere, the rocks have to be oxidized first, followed by the oceans. All that takes a very long time. But what if there are environmental mechanisms that keep the oxygen content high early in a planets history, allowing the rise of animals much earliersay a billion years earlier than it did on our own planet? If so, there could be a planet out there with intelligent life thats a billion years ahead of us.

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Long-lasting Oxygen in Earth's Early Atmosphere May Have Jump-Started the Evolution to Animal Life - Air & Space Magazine

The editors at the prominent science journal BioEssays recently published an editorial demanding government-mandated censorship of intelligent design. My colleagues and I had expected something like this before long. They singled out Evolution News in particular as a being in need of prejudicial treatment from the huge tech companies that dominate electronic media. If giants like Google or Facebook hesitate, then says biologist Dave Speijer, the government should Make them.

The threat is no joke. You were aware that censors are already at work suppressing other ideas on the Internet that they dont like. Intelligent design was next in line.

What can you do to make a meaningful statement in favor of free speech? Heres an idea: Get a copy of the new book from Discovery Institute Press, Evolution & Intelligent Design in a Nutshell, the most accessible and up-to-date introduction to ID thats ever been released. It goes on sale today on Amazon, in paperback and Kindle formats.

The five authors, led by Thomas Y. Lo, cover the range of evidence for design in under 150 pages. The origin of the universe, the origin of life, the Cambrian explosion, and more theres no subject we cover at Evolution News that is left out, but it is all treated in a way that anyone can understand.

Why is it an effective counter to the bullies at BioEssays who want to shut down views that point to an underlying purpose in the cosmos?

As Dr. Lo writes in his Introduction, shuffling objective evidence of design under the rug is something that science textbooks have been doing for decades. He tells a moving story about his own journey to maturity as a scientist and as a religious believer, how his Christian faith unraveled when he was a young man, only to be regained as he realized what had been left out of his education: cosmological evidence of creation ex nihilo at the Big Bang, the fine-tuning of the universe, the truth about 19th-century German zoologists Ernst Haeckels classic embryo drawings, the puzzle of the Cambrian event that Charles Darwin acknowledged but that the textbooks papered over or ignored altogether.

He recalls one scientist, University of San Francisco biologist Paul Chien, whom he heard give a lecture thirty years ago. Dr Chien explained the challenge of the Cambrian explosion to standard Darwinian accounts of evolution. Today, Dr. Chien contributed a chapter to the Nutshell book that includes his own personal stories of visiting key Cambrian fossil sites.

The textbooks leave most or all of this out. In the same tradition, todays censors are bent on keeping minds closed. But they are more dangerous because of the way technology has turned social media platforms into potential bottlenecks.

So get Evolution & Intelligent Design in a Nutshell for yourself, or share it with a friend, or with a student. The book is just in time because, under an endless lockdown in many places, theres a bull market for studying at home. You might have a high school student in your household, or a college student, who would benefit from the insights and crystal-clear presentation of Lo, Chien, and their co-authors, Eric Anderson, Robert Alston, and Robert Waltzer.

Arguments for intelligent design, conveyed in weighty tomes, can be daunting for the learner seeking an introduction. As chemist Marcos Eberlin quips, evolutionists hope you dont know chemistry. Sometimes it seems that ID proponents assume that you know not only chemistry, but biology, physics, mathematics, computer engineering, and philosophy, just for starters. Thomas Lo has done a service by cutting through much detail to the core of intelligent design.

For more on BioEssays and its call for suppression, see here:

You are not powerless. Stick it to the censors by ordering your copy now.

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Here's How to Fight Censorship In a Nutshell - Discovery Institute

BMW's kidney grille is such a distinctive design element of the brand's models that it's hard to picture a product from the company without these dual openings at the front. It's now an iconic element for the firm's styling.

The famous design detail has changed many times since 1933, and it has only become bigger and bigger in recent years. Just look at the forthcoming BMW 4 Series for the best example.

But where does the BMW "double kidney" come from and how has it evolved over the years? Let's find out together!

A brief historical note is necessary because when the BMW 303 was born in 1933, the double kidney was nothing more than a radiator grille divided into two long vertical parts that angled rearwards on the outside.

Designer Fritz Fielder used this split design as a way to improve the 303's aerodynamics. His decision kicked off a legend that has continued to appear on BMW's machine. Over time, the iconic grille has changed in height, width, shape, and position, but those who see it know at a glance that the car is a BMW.

The BMW 328 was among the cars that first made the BMW brand (and its grille) known in Europe because of its success in racing.

The style became more famous on the luxurious 327, and the look remained largely intact through the 1940s. In the postwar period, there were the 501 and 502 models that reproduced kidneys with a few changes. On the 503, things started to change when the shape shrunk in height.

In 1956, the 507 brought a complete revolution to the kidney grille. The spectacular sports car with a design by Albrecht von Goertz boasted a pair of short, yet wide horizontal opening that created an integral part of the styling between the headlights.

TheBMW Z8 with a design by Henrik Fisker underthe supervision of Chris Bangle brought the 507's styling back with a more modern appearance. The similarities are obvious, yet don't go so far to make the Z8 look too retro.

In recent years, BMW's designers have tweaked the design to incorporate a horizontal line joining the headlights to the grille. You can see this element on the latest3 Series, 5 Series, and 8 Series. The i3 adapts this look into a smaller size because it does not need air to flow to the engine. With the i8 and latest Z4, the firm stretched the shape to occupy a larger horizontal area of the front end.

The 2011 BMW Vision ConnectedDrive and 2019 BMW Vision M NEXT concepts follow this same general style. However, the designers put a focus on creating more complex polygonal shapes along the edges.

Returning to the earlier evolution of the kidneys, check out look the arrival of the so-called Neue Klasse models in the early 1960s. On these vehicles, the designers used two relatively skinny ovals in the centre and incorporated a wide array of mesh outward to the headlights.

The first 5 Series from 1972, the 1975 3 Series, and the 1977 7 Seriesfurther crystallised this distinctive aspect of BMW's frontal design for the decades to come.The general concept of this styling cue lasted until the mid-1990s on some of the brand's machines.

Even while the company's major models wore the trademark combination of a wide grille opening and circular headlights, other products showed experimentation with something different. Vehicles like the M1, Z1, and original 8 Series still had kidneys, but they were smaller and simpler than other members of the lineup.

The 1989 Z1 and 1990 8 Series actually previewed the future direction for the kidneys that later models adopted. In the 1990s, vehicles like the E36-generation 3 Series, E39-gen 5 Series, and much of the rest lineup no longer head the wide grille from the past decades. Instead, the kidneys were a discreet element of the nose, and body-colour elements surrounded them.

This styling cue continued into the 2000s on vehicles like the 1 Series, 6 Series, X1, and X3.

Over the past ten years, BMW teased the motoring world by showing concepts and even some production cars with an slightly evolved take on the kidney grille.

With the 2018 BMW X5, the designers enlarged the openings horizontally and vertically. Using chrome for the uprights made them even more visually distinctive. So far, the 2019 7 Series and X7 are the most obvious expressions of this styling cue, but we know that more models like this are on the way.

Before that, however, there was the 2013 BMW Pininfarina Gran Lusso Coupe Concept and the 2014BMW Vision Future Luxury were hints of what was to come.

In 2011, the BMW 328 Hommage concept debuted showing a modern take on the classic model. Part of its design was a large, vertical grille that ran from the tip of the bonnet nearly to the ground. With the upcoming 4 Series, we are seeing the company incorporate this cue into a production vehicle.

The 2014 BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage, followed by the 2016 Vision Next 100, 2019 Concept 4, and2020 Concept i4highlighted the slow evolution of BMW designers incorporating the taller kidney grille into increasingly production-ready-looking vehicles. We now know the Concept 4 is a very close preview of what to expect from the next-gen 4 Series when it arrives in showrooms.

Even earlier, there were signs of BMW eliminating the gap between the kidneys and using a single bar between them instead. Vehicles like the 2017 Vision Dynamics,2017 Vision iNEXT and 2018 Concept iX3 showed this evolution.

While they are uncommon, there are BMWs without a kidney grille. The Isetta comes to mind, although it's styling originally comes from an Italian microcar. There's also the BMW 700 that has a rear-engine layout, so the kidneys aren't a styling necessity.

Here's where things get weird because there are vehicles with close relationships to the Bavarian automaker without actually being BMW products that have a kidney grille. First, there'sEisenacher Motorenwerk (or EMW) from the former East Germany. Following World War II, the former BMW factory in Eisenach, Germany, began re-manufacturing pre-war BMW vehicles and later some tweaked versions of these products.

There's also the case of Britain's Bristol Cars in the post-war period. It was able to gain access to BMW technology and even employed BMW 303 designersFritz Fielder to create the Bristol 400 that had a striking styling similarity to pre-war BMW vehicles.

There have also been a few cases of designers wanting to tweak the kidney grille. For example, the Spicup concept (green vehicle below) by Bertone in 1969 opted for an angular shape with rectangular shapes, which wasn't on production BMW vehicles at the time although was somewhat simpler to the later M1. Bertone also created the Garmisch (the beige vehicle below) with a diamond-shaped take on the kidneys.

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Check out the BMW kidney grille's evolution over 87 years - Motor1.com UK

VFD Group has held its 4th Annual General Meeting (AGM), in line with the social distancing rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in view of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

At the 1st Open Virtual AGM (OVA), the financial institution got the approval of its financial statements for the fiscal year 2019 by the shareholders, declared a dividend of N3.30 kobo per 50 kobo share payable as of May 1, 2020; appointment of a new director and re-election of retiring directors. Other agenda of the meeting was the appointment of new external auditors and members of the statutory audit committee.

The OVA accorded every shareholder an opportunity to vote on all the resolutions presented before members, under the chairmanship of Mr Olatunde Busari (SAN). The meeting, which was held via Zoom and live-streamed on YouTube with access to the general public, is a remarkable feat indicative of the Companys transparency.

READ ALSO: Transcript of VFD Groups conference call for FY 2019 results presentation

Busari said, VFD Group has shown its commitment to world-class governance and transparency by being the first public company to organise an OVA that accorded all shareholders an opportunity to vote. We strongly believe that our capital market and public companies will be better governed if every shareholders vote counts every single vote. It is on record that we had 100% participation of all shareholders in the voting process. He urged the regulators to make polling in AGMs for public companies compulsory and also introduce virtual voting to enable every shareholder to cast his or her vote, regardless of geography.

Speaking on the Groups financial performance, the Group Managing Director, Mr Nonso Okpala, said, VFD Group Plcs performance in 2019 has provided the foundation for its emergence as the leading investment company in Nigeria with interest in key sectors of the Nigerian economy. In 2020 and beyond, we will seek to integrate these companies in order to establish a value ecosystem for enhanced efficiency and compelling offering to over a hundred million Nigerians. The base of that ecosystem is our investment in VFD Tech and its recent launch of Nigerians #1 virtual bank called V by VFD which is available on the Apple App Store or Google PlayStore http://www.vbank.ng

Members also approved the appointment of Mr Chuks Ozigbo, as a Director of the Company. It also re-elected Mr Olatunde Busari (SAN), Mr Suleiman Lawal, Mr Azubike Emodi, Dr Samuel Maduka Onyishi and Ms Jewel Okwechime as Directors.

READ MORE: VFD Group Plc appoints new Director

The meeting further served to appoint Deloitte & Touche as the External Auditors of the Company, as well as approve the election of members of the Statutory Audit Committee.Following the General Meeting, the Board of Directors still comprises 13 members including 5 Executive Directors and two Independent Directors.

About VFD Group Plc:

VFD Group Plc is a proprietary investment company with a vision to be a commercially viable investment company with global influence focused on building positive and socially conscious ecosystems. The Group has an investment interest in banking, real estate, technology, hospitality, leasing, financial advisory, remittance and asset management.

The Company was incorporated with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) on 7th July 2009 and commenced business operations the same year.

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Patricia and TraceTV Unveil First Partnership with the Patricia Evolution Series - Nairametrics

Around 1800 miles beneath the Earths surfaces is a magmatic region between the solid silicate-based mantle and molten iron-rich core: The core-mantle boundary.

Its a remnant of olden times, the primordial days about 4.5 billion years ago when the entire planet was molten, an endless sea of magma. Although the regions extreme pressures and temperatures make it difficult to study, it contains clues about the mysterious origin story of the world as we know it.

Were still trying to piece together how the Earth actually started to form, how it transformed from a molten planet to one with living creatures walking around on its silicate mantle and crust, says Arianna Gleason, a scientist at the Department of Energys SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Learning about the strange ways materials behave under different pressures can give us some hints.

Now, scientists have developed a way to study liquid silicates at the extreme conditions found in the core-mantle boundary. This could lead to a better understanding of the Earths early molten days, which could even extend to other rocky planets. The research was led by scientists Guillaume Morard and Alessandra Ravasio. The team, which included Gleason and other researchers from SLAC and Stanford University, published their findings this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

There are features of liquids and glasses, in particular silicate melts, that we dont understand, says Morard, a scientist at the University of Grenoble and Sorbonne University in France. The problem is that molten materials are intrinsically more challenging to study. Through our experiments we were able to probe geophysical materials at the extremely high temperatures and pressures of deep Earth to tackle their liquid structure and learn how they behave. In the future we will be able to use these types of experiments to recreate the first moments of Earth and understand the processes that shaped it.

At SLACs Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray free-electron laser, the researchers first sent a shockwave through a silicate sample with a carefully tuned optical laser. This allowed them to reach pressures that mimic those at the Earths mantle, 10 times higher than previously achieved with liquid silicates, and temperatures as high as 6,000 Kelvin, slightly hotter than the surface of the sun.

Next, the researchers hit the sample with ultrafast X-ray laser pulses from LCLS at the precise moment the shockwave reached the desired pressure and temperature. Some of the X-rays then scattered into a detector and formed a diffraction pattern. Just like every person has their own set of fingerprints, the atomic structure of materials is often unique. Diffraction patterns reveal that material fingerprint, allowing the researchers to follow how the samples atoms rearranged in response to the increase of pressure and temperature during the shockwave. They compared their results to those of previous experiments and molecular simulations to reveal a common evolutionary timeline of glasses and liquid silicates at high pressure.

Its exciting to be able to gather all these different techniques and get similar results, says SLAC scientist and co-author Hae Ja Lee. This allows us to find a combined framework that makes sense and take a step forward. Its very comprehensive compared to other studies.

In the future, the LCLS-II upgrade, as well as upgrades to the Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) instrument where this research was performed, will allow scientists to recreate the extreme conditions found in the inner and outer core to learn about how iron behaves and the role it plays in generating and shaping Earths magnetic field.

To follow up on this study, the researchers plan to perform experiments at higher X-ray energies to make more precise measurements of the atomic arrangement of liquid silicates. They also hope to reach higher temperatures and pressures to gain insight into how these processes unfold in planets bigger than Earth, so-called super-Earths or exoplanets, and how the size and location of a planet influences its composition.

This research allows us to connect the atomistic to the planetary, Gleason says. As of this month, more than 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered, about 55 of which are positioned in the habitable zone of their stars where its possible for liquid water to exist. Some of those have evolved to the point where we believe theres a metallic core that could generate magnetic fields, which shield planets from stellar winds and cosmic radiation. There are so many pieces that need to fall into place for life to form and be sustained. Making the important measurements to better understand the construction of these planets is crucial in this age of discovery.

DOE/SLAC NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY

Header Image Researchers developed a technique that allows them to study the atomic arrangements of liquid silicates at the extreme conditions found in the core-mantle boundary. This could lead to a better understanding of the Earths early molten days, which could even extend to other rocky planets. Image Credit : Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

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The story of Earths evolution is being deciphered - HeritageDaily

Editors note: The following is an excerpt from the the new book from Discovery Institute Press, Evolution & Intelligent Design in a Nutshell. Eric H. Anderson is a software engineering executive and writer on intelligent design.

Nobel Prize recipient and Harvard origin-of-life researcher Jack Szostak once remarked, In my lab, were interested in the transition from chemistry to early biology on the early earth. You want something that can grow and divide and, most importantly, exhibit Darwinian evolution.1

Another noted origin-of-life researcher, Gerald F. Joyce, says much the same thing. When asked about the idea that chemicals might have come together on the early Earth to form something that could copy itself, Joyce responded, Thats what we and others are interested in because thats sort of, you know, the tipping point between chemistry before and biology after.2

Self-replication, then, is not just one more in a long list of problems to be solved for the origin of life. As far as many of the leading origin-of-life researchers are concerned, discovering the pathway to a self-replicating entity is the central challenge, the Holy Grail. Figure out how to get that from purely natural processes, and the hope is that everything else will take care of itself.

But its a Grail that continues to elude the research community, despite the brash claims occasionally made to the contrary.

A few years ago I happened to turn on my car radio and caught the end of a lecture segment on public radio. Evolutionary biologist and prominent atheist Richard Dawkins was the guest. Dawkins held the position of Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University for more than a decade, and one of the questions posed to him made me quickly reach over and turn up the volume.

How close are we to understanding the origin of life? the moderator asked.

I half-expected Dawkins to acknowledge the many difficulties with abiogenesis, to admit that this was a huge open question, and to confess that we dont yet have any good abiogenesis scenarios, while claiming, as so many proponents of evolution do, that the origin of life is a separate question from biological evolution. That is, I thought he might concede the many widely acknowledged difficulties still facing the origin of life but try to contain the damage for the materialistic outlook by emphasizing that at least things were well in hand for evolutionary theory after the origin of the first life.

To my surprise, Dawkins responded rather glibly that we have a pretty good idea how life started. Yes, there are some challenges, he acknowledged, but we know what happened in broad strokes and at this point, he implied, we are basically filling in the details.

Having studied the origin of life at length and being aware of the many and acute problems with abiogenesis theories, it struck me as more than a little irresponsible for someone wearing the title of Professor for the Public Understanding of Science to claim in a public venue to tens of thousands of listeners that we have a pretty good idea how life started.

Why would Dawkins make a statement like that? Was he purposely misinforming listeners about the current state of the science, or was he unaware of the many problems with abiogenesis? Did he really believe what he was saying?

As I analyzed the question further in the coming days, I realized that Dawkinss thinking likely stems from the notion that the origin of life at least the initial starting event was a relatively simple event. Not necessarily a common event or an easily repeatable event, mind you, but a relatively simple one.

In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins paints a picture remarkably similar to Darwins statement in his 1871 letter to Joseph Hooker (quoted in the previous chapter). Nowadays large organic molecules would not last long enough to be noticed: they would be quickly absorbed and broken down by bacteria or other living creatures, Dawkins writes. But bacteria and the rest of us are late-comers, and in those days [on the early Earth] large organic molecules could drift unmolested3 through the thickening broth.4

With this assumed backdrop of early Earth conditions, Dawkins goes on to suggest the first key step in the origin of life: At some point a particularly remarkable molecule was formed by accident. We will call it the Replicator. It may not necessarily have been the biggest or the most complex molecule around, but it had the extraordinary property of being able to create copies of itself.5

This hypothetical self-replicating molecule is crucial to the materialist creation story, and on two counts. First, getting a complete organism to arise by chance is, as is widely acknowledged, too unlikely and never could have occurred. So something simpler, something that had a much greater likelihood of arising by pure chance, something like a simple self-replicating molecule, had to kick-start the process. Second, once this self-replicating molecule came on the scene, then Darwinian evolution could kick in, bringing the impressive power of random mutations and natural selection to eventually transform our simple self-replicating molecule into an actual organism.

At least that is how the story goes.

This particularly remarkable molecule, Dawkins suggests, is easy to imagine, and the remainder of his description of this extraordinary entity consists of a simple, though chemically unrealistic, thought experiment about how such a fascinating molecule might work, making copies of itself, competing with other molecules in the watery environment, and so on.

Origin-of-life researchers, to their credit, havent been satisfied with thought experiments alone. There has been a great deal of effort expended over the past couple of decades trying to create a self-replicating molecule in the lab, and then to apply the lessons learned to the question of the origin of life. Some good work has been done and some interesting results occasionally published, but nobody has been able to create such a molecule.

To be sure, there have been several papers published and news stories released proclaiming that researchers have created this or that self-replicating molecule, but these claims invariably turn out to be misleading. If anyone has actually discovered or created a self-replicating molecule, they are keeping it a very good secret.

This failure to produce such a molecule, keep in mind, is despite decades of research and lavish financial expenditure. The reason for the failure is not for lack of time, effort, and funding. No, the reason is much more fundamental.

There was a sense in Darwins day that microorganisms were rather simple, each one little more than a tiny blob of protoplasm.6 Darwin viewed the organism as a flexible conglomeration of these simple cells. Through no fault of their own, he and his contemporaries of the time knew nothing of genetic information processing, signaling, and feedbacks, nothing of cellular machinery, integrated systems, complex coordination of molecular parts, or the many other requirements for even the simplest working cell.

In The Origin of Species Darwin described organisms as plastic.7 He wasnt referring to the material used to make childrens toys today, but rather to the idea that organisms were flexible and could, he was convinced, be readily shaped and molded by natural selection to essentially any form. From this viewpoint it followed that adding more cells or making changes to the organism should also be a relatively simple process.

However, with the accumulating knowledge of cellular structures in the late 1800s, the discoveries of cellular systems and proteins and metabolic pathways, the unraveling of DNAs structure in the 1950s, and the subsequent discoveries up to the present that continue to uncover new depths of biological complexity, it became ever clearer that cells are anything but simple, and that even the humblest organism is complex beyond anything previously imagined. Not just complex. Complex and coordinated, with a 4-bit digital code, information storage, retrieval and translation mechanisms, error-correction algorithms, functionally integrated systems, and molecular machines marvels of nanotechnology that put to shame anything humans have yet created.

As a result of these discoveries it became increasingly clear that no organism, even a relatively simple single-celled organism, could arise all at once on the early Earth by chance.

But if life couldnt arise by chance as a single event, perhaps a series of events could do the trick. Perhaps if the problem were broken down into simpler steps then it might be possible?

With that thought firmly in mind, abiogenesis proponents busily churned out hypothesis after hypothesis that might help the process along, simpler steps that could perhaps lead to something more.

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The law on medical assistance in death is slowly evolving. Thisyear, after a Quebec Superior Court found the current lawunconstitutional, the federal government introduced newlegislation: An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistancein dying). But there is still a gap between what clients are askingfor in their end-of-life arrangements and what the law according tothe new amendments will allow, say estates lawyers.

Canada has moved in "baby steps" toward medicalassistance in death, says Matt Trotta, a Calgary-based tax, trustsand estates lawyer at Field Law.

"We're getting there slowly. We're moving moretoward what other countries have been doing for a while. . . . Ithink we're on the right track," he says. "And Ithink it's a positive change."

Section 241(b) of the Criminal Code makes it an indictableoffence to "counsel," "abet" or "aid"a person in dying by suicide. Section 14 of the Code makes it acrime for a person to "agree to have death inflicted onthem." Up until 2016, these provisions forbade medicalassistance in death.

But the year before, in Carter v. Canada, the SupremeCourt of Canada found these restrictions were contrary to s. 7 ofthe Charter, which provides for the right to life, liberty andsecurity of the person. The justices decided that denying acompetent adult who "clearly consents to the termination oflife" and suffers from a "grievous and irremediablemedical condition" the right to decide their fate affrontedtheir liberty by interfering with their "bodilyintegrity." Security of the person was compromised throughforcing terminally ill patients to undergo intolerable suffering,they said. The court also reasoned that the laws deprived somepeople of life by forcing them to take their own, prematurely,before their conditions worsened to the point that they'd beincapable of doing so.

The SCC decision was counter to its previous ruling from 1993 Rodriguez v. British Columbia which, thecourt in Carter said, upheld a "blanket prohibition" onmedically assisted death. The change was due to a shift in the"legal conception" of s. 7 including the advanceof the law relating to the principles of overbreadth and grossdisproportionality as well as a new "matrix oflegislative and social facts," said the SCC in the Carterdecision.

Carter forced the feds to act. In 2016, the Liberalgovernment passed amendments to s. 241, adding an exemption formedical professionals providing medical assistance in death. Sincethen, several Charter challenges have emerged contending aspects ofthe legislation and deeming it still too restrictive. On Feb. 24,the federal government announced the introduction of a billamending the law on medical assistance in death. The feds say theirproposed amendments stem directly from the September 2019 QuebecSuperior Court decision Truchon c. Procureurgnral du Canada.

In Truchon, the plaintiffs Jean Truchon andNicole Gladu had been denied medical assistance in deathbecause they fell short of both the federal requirement of having a"reasonably foreseeable death" and the requirement underQuebec's legislation that they be at the "end oflife." They argued that Carter did not require a person befacing imminent death to qualify and such a requirement was counterto their s. 15 right to equality and s. 7 rights. Justice ChristineBaudouin agreed, declaring the 2016 Criminal Code amendments of noforce an effect. Truchon and Gladu were given an exemption to thereasonably foreseeable and end-of-liferequirements.

In response to Truchon, among the proposed changes announced inFebruary is the removal of the requirement that a person be facinga "reasonably foreseeable" death to be eligible, as wellas the inclusion of a waiver of final consent for those near deathand at risk of losing capacity for consent.

"The situation that unfortunately I've seen a coupletimes is where you have a client that is seeking medical assistancein dying, they go through their assessment, they go through theirwaiting period and then, by the time it comes down to giving theirfinal consent, they're already too far gone to do that finalconsent," says Trotta.

He says the new legislation has provided some clarification tomedical practitioners.

"This new bill does have a waiver of final consent and atest on how that works. And I think that's a really importantaddition because it's a big concern for a lot of people who getdiagnosed with Alzheimer's or some sort of neurologicaldegenerative issue. . . . How long do I have to be able to makethese decisions? And what happens if I'm toolate?"

But for those who want to plan for the unknown, who may have afamily history of a degenerative illness but no personal diagnosis,the proposed changes still lack the provision of advancedirectives, says Trotta.

"I think I will have some clients that will be a bitdisappointed that it didn't go far enough and they didn'treally want to tackle some of the some of the bigger issues thatothers countries handle such as advanced decision-making," hesays.

Trotta says advanced directives will be the "nextbattlefront" in the fight for fewer restrictions in medicalassistance in death, noting that it's permitted in othercountries.

Torkin Manes LLP partner Risa Awerbuck says that, although notyet legally binding, she will put provisions in powers of attorneyfor personal care that indicate that, if the client is diagnosedwith an intolerable illness in the future, they want medicalassistance in death. She says she includes this in case thelegislation changes in the future, but at the moment it has nolegal effect.

"Based on how the legislation is drafted, you can't doanything unless you've been diagnosed," says Awerbuck,whose practice focuses on estate planning, including thepreparation of wills, powers of attorney and trusts and estateadministration.

Bruce Hallsor, managing partner at Crease Harman LLP inVancouver, says many of his clients are concerned with theirability to prevent an end-of-life scenario in which they languishin an institution, suffering for a long period of time with noquality of life and no hope for recovery.

"They want to be able to have control over that," hesays. "Obviously, as lawyers, we're always cognizant ofpeople with disabilities, especially mental disabilities and howmuch capacity they have to make those choices. I think most estatelawyers will have encountered situations where grandma's got alot of money, and the next generation wants the money more thanthey want grandma."

Estates lawyers always need to be vigilant against undueinfluence, says Trotta. The new legislation brings in the conceptof an "independent witness" which can be theperson's health-care or personal worker, hesays.

"There's always a risk and whether you're lookingat something like medical assistance in dying or you're lookingat estate planning generally, there's a lot of things that canhappen behind the scenes that people don't see. And it'svery difficult and it's always something that we have to bevigilant about," Trotta says.

1993 Rodriguez v. British Columbia:SCC dismisses application s. 242(b) of Criminal Code banning assisted suicide is invalid on Charter grounds.Medical assistance in dying remains illegal 2015 Carter v. Canada: SCC rules s.242(b) is contrary to s. 7 of Charter, protecting right to life,liberty and security of the person 2016 Parliament of Canada passes federallegislation allowing eligible Canadian adults to request medicalassistance in dying 2019 Truchon v. Procureurgnral du Canada: Quebec Superior Court rulesrequirement of a candidate for medical assistance in death befacing a "reasonably foreseeable death" wasunconstitutional and of no force and effect 2020 (February) Federal government proposes AnAct to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying), tomake Canada's medical assistance in death lawsCharter-compliant.

Most common underlying medical conditions: #1: Cancer. #2:Neuro-degenerative illness. #3 Circulatory/respiratory illness.

Originally published by Canadian Lawyer May 5, 2020

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

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In college and progressive working culture, we are told to never work for free, but unpaid internships have long been viewed as an essential bridge between the scholastic and professional worlds. These internships are considered by some, such as myself, to provide an unjust advantage to those who can afford to work without a paycheck. The majority of people are likely not in a position to choose a resume boost over an income, which rigs the game for all players.

Even as a college student, if I were to excel in a field such as writing, I could profit from my skill set despite my lack of professionalism. However, if I were a student athlete living within the confines of the NCAA and its amateurism rules, I could be the champion of my sport bringing in thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars to my collegiate institution and not be permitted to receive a legal dime.

A student athletes inability to profit from their name, image and likeness is the premier flaw of the billion dollar per year non-profit called the NCAA. But, to the institutions credit, the NCAAs highest-ranking governing body recently announced that it supports a proposal set to allow collegiate athletes to profit from their own enterprise, also known as name, image and likeness.

This new proposal would permit athletes to sign endorsement deals and get paid from other work. The only caveat is that players cannot receive payments from their respective universities, which is why alternative payments from outside sources would be allowed. In an advertisement, for instance, a player is allowed to mention their school, but university logos or other branding would not be permitted if these rule changes are implemented.

Now, as great as it is that the NCAA is finally modernizing its tactics and adapting to the wants and needs of everyone besides the NCAA, the athletes, politicians and advocates who have fought for this change deserve all the credit. The state of California likely motivated the NCAAs proposed changes by passing its Fair Pay to Play Act in September. Having to oversee potentially 50 different state laws and regulations is more challenging than creating new provisions that can be applied to every NCAA school in America. I do not trust the NCAA to properly create such a blanket set of regulations, but it is certainly a step in the right direction, albeit one that is long overdue.

There will undoubtedly be a rocky transition from the NCAAs current phase to the next. But these changes are inevitable, and a period of uncertainty and making the necessary adjustments are part of the process. Every new venture has looming obstacles, but the light at the end of the tunnel for student athletes and college athletics is overwhelmingly worth it. These changes will enhance the lives of young athletes and their families. Additionally, it will preserve the quality of college sports by creating another incentive for its most valuable members.

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Sterling: The long-overdue evolution of the NCAA - Oregon Daily Emerald

New research suggests that a global cooling event that occurred 4200 years ago, led to the evolution of new rice varieties and its expansion across Asia.

The study was conducted by the NYU Centre for Genomics, using a multidisciplinary approach to trace the migration of rice across Asia and reconstruct the associated history. The researchers applied whole-genome sequences of 1400 varities of rice, including japonica and indica, two main subspecies of Asian rice coupled with geography, archaeology, and historical climate data.

Rice is one of the most important crops worldwide, a staple for more than half of the global population. It was first cultivated 9,000 years ago in the Yangtze Valley in China and later spread across East, Southeast, and South Asia, followed by the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. In the process, rice evolved and adapted to different environments, but little is known about the routes, timing, and environmental forces involved in this spread.

For the first 4,000 years of its history, farming rice was largely confined to China, and japonica was the subspecies grown. Then, a global cooling event 4,200 years agoalso known as the 4.2k event, which is thought to have had widespread consequences, including the collapse of civilizations from Mesopotamia to Chinacoincided with japonica rice diversifying into temperate and tropical varieties. The newly evolved temperate varieties spread in northern China, Korea and Japan, while the tropical varieties and spread to Southeast Asia.

This abrupt climate change forced plants, including crops, to adapt, said Rafal M. Gutaker, a postdoctoral associate at the NYU Center for Genomics and Systems Biology and the studys lead author. Our genomic data, as well as paleoclimate modeling by our collaborators, show that the cooling event occurred at the same time as the rise of temperate japonica, which grows in milder regions. This cooling event also may have led to the migration of rice agriculture and farmer communities into Southeast Asia.

These findings were then backed up by data from archaeological rice remains excavated in Asia, which also showed that after the 4.2k event, tropical rice migrated south while rice also adapted to northern latitudes as temperate varieties, said Michael D. Purugganan, the Silver Professor of Biology at NYU, who led the study.

After the global cooling event, tropical japonica rice continued to diversify. It reached islands in Southeast Asia about 2,500 years ago, likely due to extensive trade networks and the movement of goods and peoples in the regiona finding also supported by archeological data.

The spread of indica rice was more recent and more complicated; after originating in Indias lower Ganges Valley roughly 4,000 years ago, the researchers traced its migration from India into China approximately 2,000 years ago.

While the researchers had thought that rainfall and water would be the most limiting environmental factor in rice diversity, they found temperature to be the key factor instead. Their analyses revealed that heat accumulation and temperature were very strongly associated with the genomic differences between tropical and temperate japonica rice varieties.

This study illustrates the value of multidisciplinary research. Our genomic data gave us a model for where and when rice spread to different parts of Asia, archaeology told us when and where rice showed up at various places, and the environmental and climate modeling gave us the ecological context, said Purugganan. Together, this approach allows us to write a first draft of the story of how rice dispersed across Asia.

Understanding the spread of rice and the related environmental pressures could also help scientists develop new varieties that meet future environmental challenges, such as climate change and droughtwhich could help address looming food security issues.

Armed with knowledge of the pattern of rice dispersal and environmental factors that influenced its migration, we can examine the evolutionary adaptations of rice as it spread to new environments, which could allow us to identify traits and genes to help future breeding efforts, said Gutaker.

The research at NYU was supported by the Zegar Family Foundation and the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program (IOS-1546218).

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Changes in climate thousands of years ago caused the evolution of new rice varieties - HeritageDaily