Category Archives: Evolution

Privacy can assume many forms and occur on many levels. The technologies that blockchain architects originally envisioned for privacy coins are now being utilized by an array of crypto stakeholders, from enterprises to exchanges. What began as a means of transacting anonymously has spawned a burgeoning industry, built upon technologies designed to conceal, but which can also be programmed to reveal to a select few.

Also read: Chinese Communist Party Reportedly Filling Roles at Top Exchange Huobi

zk-Snarks are best known for their use in privacy coin protocols such as Zcash. These zero knowledge proofs have far broader applications than simply masking the sender and receiver when transmitting crypto via a public ledger. A zero-knowledge proof allows one party to prove to another that a statement is true, without revealing any information about the statement itself.

To break this down into a simple analogy, imagine that Farmer Bob is selling some livestock at the market. He wishes to prove to the auctioneer that there is a cow in his trailer, but without opening the door (cos then the creature would escape). Using a heat sensor installed inside the trailer, Bob can prove that there is a living, breathing animal inside, but the auctioneer will have no way of knowing which cow it is, or even whether the animal is a cow (unless it moos and gives the game away). That, essentially, is how a zk-Snark operates: proof that something is true, while disclosing zero knowledge about the thing in question.

As for how zk-Snarks can be deployed outside of privacy coin transactions, look no further than smart contracts. Quras, for example, is using the technology to provision privacy-enabled smart contracts that run on its eponymous VM. Applications include concealing information pertaining to credit history; enabling healthcare and medical information from IoT devices to be shared confidentially; and facilitating sealed auctions that are executed using smart contracts.

Mohammad Mazen is the CEO of Burency, a cryptocurrency exchange and blockchain research and development platform. Expounding on why private smart contracts are desirable, he told news.Bitcoin.com: Smart contracts have the potential to automate business processes ranging from calculating insurance premiums to powering decentralized synthetics markets, but for this to happen, there needs to be privacy built in. Broadcasting information on-chain nullifies any benefits that might otherwise have been gained through using blockchain, since publicly verifiable smart contracts enable observers to frontrun markets and steal competitors proprietary algorithms. Privacy technology provides a means to conceal the secret sauce thats in a smart contract, while still enabling its integrity to be verified.

zk-Snarks arent the only privacy technology whose applications extend far beyond those originally envisioned by its pseudonymous creator. The origins of Mimblewimble dont need retelling again, but its evolution does. Although utilized by both Grin and Beam and soon Litecoin too it is the Beam iteration of Mimblewimble that has applications for the broadest range of users. Understanding how Mimblewimble works isnt easy, unless youre au fait with elliptic curve cryptography. Even Beams attempt at explaining the process via a series of dumbed down metaphors takes some digesting.

Whats relevant here isnt so much the way in which Mimblewimble works, but the fact that it can provide complete transactional anonymity between parties while being compatible with implementations such as Beam that enable optional audibility. Digitally signed documentation can be attached to transactions, giving an approved auditor permission to view the transactions associated with a particular key. For cypherpunks intent on concealing their activity from snooping governments, that ability will be of little interest, but for businesses that wish to conceal their day-to-day affairs from the public (paying staff, contractors, and purchasing goods) while still remaining compliant from an accounting perspective, its extremely useful.

Bulletproofs are actually part of the zero-knowledge proofs family and allow multiple range proofs from different parties to be aggregated into one proof. What this means, in practice, is that bulletproofs allow for information to be significantly compressed without compromising its validity. When integrated into Monero last year, for example, bulletproofs slashed transaction fees through reducing the average size of each transaction.

There is a number of interesting applications for bulletproofs outside of facilitating confidential transactions. They can be used in proof of solvency, for instance, with one research paper noting: A Bitcoin exchange with 2 million customers needs approximately 18GB to prove solvency in a confidential manner Using Bulletproofs and its variant protocols this size could be reduced to approximately 62MB. The same paper lists a total of eight use cases for bulletproofs, including smart contracts and crypto derivatives.

Privacy coin tech follows the same adoption curve as other disruptive technologies: first its used by criminals, outlaws, and geeks. Then by enterprises, ordinary end users and even governments. Just as it was with encryption, so it is proving to be with privacy-preserving tech: from unknown to ostracized to indispensable in under a decade.

What other privacy technologies have broad applications beyond simply enabling anonymous transactions? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see whats happening in the industry.

Kai's been manipulating words for a living since 2009 and bought his first bitcoin at $12. It's long gone. He's previously written whitepapers for blockchain startups and is especially interested in P2P exchanges and DNMs.

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Conceal and Reveal: The Evolution of Privacy Coin Technology - Bitcoin News

Microchips, equation-decorated whiteboards and NASA coffee cups are all spread across Warrant Technologies' Thinker Labs, which recently opened in Fountain Square Mall in downtown Bloomington.

The creative space is occupied by Derek Whitley, a fifth year Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University. Whitley is pursuing dual doctoral degrees in complex systems at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering and cognitive science in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

While working on his Ph.D., he also has a full-time day job as a senior engineer at Warrant Technologies. And if that's not enough, he is the principal investigator on a grant from NASA, working on artificial intelligence technology for future NASA missions to the moon and Mars.

The grant was awarded to Warrant Technologies and is part of NASA's Small Business Innovation Research program. Warrant Technologies, a certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, is one of roughly 100 first-time recipients of a NASA SBIR grant.

Whitley may not get much sleep, but that's OK with him. After graduating high school in Boonville, Indiana, Whitley joined the U.S. Navy, where he was drawn to computers and technology.

"Joining the Navy, I knew I wanted to be involved with computers, and being a cryptologic technician was my path to the field of advanced technology," he said.

Following the Navy, Whitley moved to Bloomington to do software support for Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane and noticed one of the world's best universities was in his backyard.

"I realized I need to go back to school," Whitley said. "My research has grown as a result of having a full-time job and from being a part of a Ph.D. program, letting me have one foot in industry that allows me to be mindful of the tech world and one foot in academia where I'm paying attention to new papers and research that is emerging."

One of Whitley's Ph.D. advisors, Randall Beer, would agree with that sentiment.

"Derek's work focuses on evolvable hardware -- that is, integrated circuits that can be dynamically reconfigured by an evolution-like process in order to accomplish some task of interest," said Beer, who is a professor of computer science, informatics and cognitive science at IU Bloomington. "Derek's receipt of a grant through NASA to support his application of this approach is quite a testament to his entrepreneurial spirit."

That entrepreneurial spirit led to the creation of Warrant Technologies' Thinker Labs, with a hoped-for outcome of attracting other rising-star scientists to apply for similar grants and retain their talent in Indiana.

Warrant Technologies, founded in 2013, is a systems and software engineering company working primarily with Crane and the Department of Defense. The company also supports the state of Indiana in naval education training command and has 30 employees.

"We're hoping that Thinker Labs will grow as an engine to both attract young scientists and give them an opportunity to work on some exciting projects," said Michael Norris, president and CEO of Warrant Technologies. "At the same time, we want to draw in and attract the external market, both government and commercial, to leverage this talent."

For now, Whitley will continue Phase I of his grant, focusing on creating artificial intelligence methods that do not rely on traditional computers, including artificial intelligence algorithms that "evolve" based on the needs of the technology. For his grant, Whitley proposed an electronic device with a minimal spatial footprint and extremely low power consumption.

"My research at IU is focused on creating new evolutionary artificial intelligence methods that do not execute in a traditional way," Whitley said. "It's effectively using AI to generate a special circuit that runs a different type of AI. It's exciting technology."

NASA feels the same way as it looks to advance the capabilities needed to land astronauts on the moon in five years and establish a sustainable presence there.

"We are excited about the entrepreneurial, innovative ideas that these small businesses are bringing to the table," Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, said in NASA's press release. "The technologies show great promise in helping NASA achieve its objectives across all mission areas, including our efforts to send American astronauts to the moon, and then on to Mars, while also providing a long-term boost to the American economy."

Whitley hopes his work with NASA will also inspire others to shoot for the stars.

"This is cutting-edge technology, and exciting projects like this can help keep talent right here in Indiana," he said. "Every part of the country has had some kind of economic boom that has struck it for some reason or another. Why can't AI take place here in Indiana?"

Nicole Wilkins is executive director of research communications in the Office of the Vice President for Research.

Description of the following video:

[Audio: music begins]

[Video: Dynamic headshot of Derek Whitley and motion graphic title appears]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: After I returned back from the Navy and getting my undergraduate degree coming back to Indiana and working here at Crane ...

[Video: Whitley is shown speaking, corresponding to the voiceover, and title fades away]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: ... I've seen that there is an enormous amount of talent in Indiana.

[Video: Slow motion of Whitley's hands pointing at his technological hardware.]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: There's a whole lot of potential to create technology, to create business, to grow Indiana in a very positive way.

[Video: Whitley is at his desk talking to Mike Norris (without audio of actual clip)]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: I looked into cognitive science to kind of bridge that gap of, alright ...

[Video: Whitley is shown speaking, corresponding to the voiceover]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: complex systems will give me the mode of thinking that I want to be able to ascribe to my scientific research but ...

[Video: Slow motion of technological hardware on Whitley's desk]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: ... cognitive science is going to fill the gap of how do I make cerebral systems.

[Video: Mike Norris is shown speaking, corresponding to the voiceover, as motion graphic title appears]

Norris speaks in voiceover: We are a systems and software engineering company.

[Video: Camera swings from Whitley's computer screens to show Norris standing while listening to Whitley speak]

Norris speaks in voiceover: Our primary customer is NSWC Crane, the DOD, Department of Defense.

[Video: Mike Norris is shown speaking corresponding to the voiceover]

[Video: Sweeping slow motion from left to right of Whitley's mobile robot on a table]

Norris speaks in voiceover: We support naval sea systems command, naval air systems command.

[Video: Slow motion of Norris and Whitley standing next to each other smiling]

Norris speaks in voiceover: We also support the state of Indiana and Naval Education Training command.

[Video: Whitley is shown speaking, corresponding to the voiceover]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: An SBIR is a small business innovation research grant.

[Video: Sweeping left to right of Whitley speaking to someone out of frame]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: Which is a type of grant issued to 'small businesses that can actually compete and perform the work,' technological scientific work, that some agency may want done.

[Video: Slow-motion sweeping left to right of Whitley's mobile robot on table]

[Video: Slow-motion panning of Whitley's technological hardware]

[Video: Whitley is shown speaking corresponding to the voiceover]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: So for example, NASA doesn't have the manpower to go and develop all of the technology that they need developed for shuttle, for robots, for everything.

[Video: Slow motion of space shuttle launch]

[Video: NASA robot]

[Video: Slow motion of Whitley's hands pointing at his technological hardware]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: So they'll issue an SBIR 'so that other companies can go and develop that work, develop that technology, for them.

[Video: Slow-motion sweeping left to right of Whitley's mobile robot on table]

[Video: Whitley is shown speaking corresponding to the voiceover]

[Video: Rotating shot left to right of Whitley talking to someone off screen]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: Now we have this grant from NASA to study and research this exact work.

[Video: Whitley is shown speaking corresponding to the voiceover]

[Video: Slow motion push in on Whitley's technological hardware]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: This allows me the bandwidth to give my direct attention, my day job attention and my academic attention to my research.

[Video: Slow motion from left to right of Whitley sitting down looking up at Norris]

[Video: Whitley is shown speaking corresponding to the voiceover]

[Video: Slow motion of technological hardware]

[Video: Mike Norris is shown speaking corresponding to the voiceover]

Norris speaks in voiceover: We're hoping that the Thinker Lab will turn into and grow as an engine to both attract these young scientists and bring them in, give them an opportunity to work on some exciting projects ...

[Video: Slow motion panning of Thinker Lab logos on windows and doors of Thinker Labs]

[Video: Young man and woman sitting together looking at and working on robotics]

[Video: Young man looking through an opening of technology with safety glasses on]

[Video: Mike Norris is shown speaking corresponding to the voiceover]

[Video: Low angle of Whitley and Norris smiling and walking toward camera]

Norris speaks in voiceover: and at the same time draw in and attract the external market, both government and commercial, to come in and leverage that talent.

[Video: Norris and Whitley having a conversation]

[Video: Norris is shown speaking corresponding to the voiceover]

[Video: Slow motion of Whitley smiling and laughing]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: There's no reasons that scientists, engineers, can't stick around and help grow Indiana.

[Video: Whitley is shown speaking corresponding to the voiceover]

Whitley speaks in voiceover: Why can't AI take place here in Indiana?

[Video: Indiana University Brand logo and words "Indiana University iub.edu" appear then fade out]

[Audio: Music fades out]

Read more here:

Evolutionary AI inspires IU student to shoot for the moon - IU Newsroom

The Romanian meat processing and preservation sector had seen an increased profitability in 2018, but the revenues have decreased. In the same year 35 percent of the companies in the sector registered loses and 50 percent have a level of indebtedness of over 80 percent.

A new study by Coface Romania on the Meat Processing and Preservation Sector indicates a negative evolution of revenues for 2018, with a decrease of approx. 19 percent compared to the previous year. Thus, the African swine fever (ASF) lead to cuts of over RON 1 billion in the turnover of these companies, the consolidated revenues at sectoral level decreasing from RON 6.13 billion (2017) to only RON 4.96 billion (2018), the minimum in the last 5 years. According to NSVFSA (NationalSanitaryVeterinary and Food Safety Authority), almost 1.000 outbreaks of African swine fever are registered in Romania, just two months before Christmas. The Coface study aggregated the data of 507 companies that submitted their financial statements for the year 2018 and generated a consolidated turnover of RON 4.96 billion.

Companies in this sector recorded a current liquidity of 0.96 throughout 2018, while the working capital, at a slightly negative level, was relatively exposed to negative shocks and volatility (lower revenues or non-collection of receivables). The average duration of debt collection increased to 64 days in 2018, compared to 55 days in 2017, indicating a significant call for commercial credit received from suppliers. As a result, due to the growing financial difficulties, companies in this sector pay their suppliers almost 3 weeks later, increasing their dependency on business partners.

In 2018, the net result consolidated at the sector level was 3.5 percent, higher compared to 2017 (1.2 percent). However, 35 percent of the companies recorded a net loss at the end of 2018, with 17percent of the companies having a loss of more than -20 percent, and 7percent of the companies generating more than 20 percent profit.

The marginal increase in profit is due almost exclusively to the price increase in the context of excess demand over the available supply, the latter being affected domestically by the PPA virus. Thus, according to the latest figures published by the NIS (National Institute of Statistics), the average price of pork has increased by 5.4percent in the first 9 months of this year, after an increase of 2.5percent in 2018 and 5.5percent in 2017 (a consolidated average price increase of almost 14percent over the last 3 years).

During the last year, the companies in the analyzed sector allocated significant investments for the expansion of fixed assets. The ratio between capital expenditures (CAPEX) and depreciation ratio was 155percent in 2018, which means that investments in fixed assets covered the depreciated fixed assets. Almost half of the companies (44% percent) made investments in 2018, with a supraunitary Capex/Amortization report.

Of the 372 companies active in this sector, only 134 companies registered revenues of over EUR 1 million in 2018, concentrating almost 99percent of the sector. Analysis of the evolution of companies with turnover of over EUR 1 million reveals that in 2017 the frequency of payment incidents, both major and minor, was very low. However, about a year after the first case of African Swine fever virus, the payment incidents of the big companies in this sector exploded, reaching the maximum of the last five years in the 3rd quarter of 2018.

The Coface study reveals the difficult situation of the meat processing companies operating in Romania: the consolidated revenues have plummeted to the minimum of the last decade, half of the companies are over-indebted, the refuseddebitpayment instruments exploded in 2018, as suppliers are paid with delays, and the outstanding tax liabilities registered in the first semester of 2019 are at the maximum of the last decade. The African swine fever virus (PPA) cut almost 20percent of the revenues of companies in this sector, with losses estimated at almost RON 1 billion. Although the authorities declare that the number of active outbreaks has been decreasing lately, there are two months until the winter holidays and 1,000 active outbreaks. The vulnerable financial situation of companies active in this sector, as illustrated by the study, creates the conditions for more imports of meat products for the end of this year and the next one, stated Iancu Guda, Services Director Coface Romania.

According to an offcial statement of NationalSanitaryVeterinary and Food Safety Authority, Since the first report of the presence of the PPA virus in Romania, as of July 31, 2017 and until now, 524,590 pigs affected by the disease have been eliminated and there are 2,208 cases in boars. In this context, the outstanding tax liabilities reported by the companies active in this sector have exploded, constantly exceeding the threshold of RON 500 million in the period 2017-2018, 3 times over the previous average of the last decade.

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Meat processing and preservation sector: negative evolution of revenues in 2018, with 19 percent decrease - Business Review

Red deer populations in the Scottish Highlands have genetically evolved over the last four decades to give birth earlier in the year in response to climate change and increasing temperatures, according to new research published in the journal PLOS Biology. The genetic changes highlight a rare case of adaptive evolution occurring over a short time period. It is also one of the first examples of wildlife evolution as a direct reaction to climate change.

The study, led by scientists in the United Kingdom and Australia, built on previous research on red deer populations on Scotlands Isle of Rum. Starting in the 1980s, the timing of when red deer on the island give birth has shifted earlier 4 days per decade due to rising temperatures. In total, that means birth timing has advanced nearly 2 weeks in 40 years.

The scientists also looked specifically at genetic data collected from the Isle of Rum red deer over 45 years, from 1972 to 2017. They found that the deer with earlier birth dates experienced significantly greater breeding success over their lifetimes, giving birth to a higher total number of offspring than deer that gave birth later in the year. As a result, the genes that cause such early births are now increasingly common among the red deer population providing a unique demonstration of natural selection at work.

This research is particularly important for understanding how wildlife populations may react to current and future environmental change. This is one of the few cases where we have documented evolution in action, showing that it may help populations adapt to climate warming, Timothe Bonnet, a biologist at The Australian National University and the lead author of the study, said in a statement.

Elisheva Mittelman

See more here:

Red Deer in Scotland Have Genetically Evolved in Response to Climate Change - Yale Environment 360

As a geneticist, I often think about the way genetics and evolution are represented as components of the narratives and mechanics in games. Genetics is often used to explain why heroes or villains have special powers. The deformed enemies of Rage 2 and Fallout are mutants, and mutation is regularly used as a mechanism for acquiring new abilities, such as in Double Fine Productions recent game, RAD.

The word mutant is a genetic technical term referring to an altered form of a gene or an organism that possesses such a gene. Mutants walk among us. We could actually all be described as the children of mutants the descendants of ancestors who acquired genetic mutations over thousands and millions of years that caused them to differentiate and evolve into the modern humans we are today.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, the new game from Patrice Dsilets and the development team at Panache Digital Games, aims to represent mutation and evolution as they truly occur in nature. Its a commitment to scientific accuracy that parallels the focus on historical accuracy that Dsilets showed as creative director for the Assassins Creed games.

Just after starting up a new game, Ancestors presents you with white text on a black background that reads:

Good luck, we wont help you much. And remember Evolution is not set in stone, it is your path to forge.

The game afterward progresses through scenes of animals in the jungle and predators hunting prey and then becoming prey to even bigger predators. Then it gets to an ape with a baby who is attacked by a giant prehistoric eagle. The baby falls, and the scene cuts away.

After that, players find themselves in control of that scared and helpless baby ape. I managed to navigate it to a hiding space, and then, suddenly, I was in control of an adult ape in another location. I was surrounded by other apes my clan and I could hear the cries of that lost baby in the distance. I did what any parent would do when they hear a lost, crying baby: I went to go find it and help.

This first event has you running on instinct. The game does not tell you what to do or how to do it. It does not tell you what its sparse UI elements mean. It does not tell you what the mechanics mean or do. Except for raw contextual button prompts, it tells you essentially nothing about how to play. You are meant to organically discover things like how to access your senses. Using your hearing lets you focus on the sound of the babys cries to put a marker in the world that helps you find it.

This is how the game teaches you to play. Rather than instructing you with words, it gives you a toolbox and lets you discover how to use it on your own to accomplish whatever goals you set for yourself. Dsilets said he tried to set the tone with that into text.

This was to tell the player that it is not about what we designed for them, [but rather] it will be their game, Dsilets said. Its about our [human] path, and inside that path you can forge yourself.

In other words, there is indeed an evolutionary path to be followed in Ancestors, but the game does not force you to accomplish all the various goals or explicitly lay them out for you. Dsilets said the idea is to tap into our biological programming and approach the game with an open mind.

Biologically, were programmed to survive in the savannah, he said. We made a strong decision not to tell you much.

Mechanically, Ancestors is essentially an action-adventure game with roleplaying elements. The moment-to-moment gameplay is about experiencing new things as part of a tribe of pre-humans, learning new skills via the games Neuronal skill tree progression system, and then solidifying those skills in offspring so they pass them on to subsequent generations.

The Neuronal skill tree actually looks a lot like a series of neurons with axons, the long threadlike end of a nerve cell, connecting them together.

Its a brain, but we tried to represent it as graphically as possible, Dsilets explained.

Those neurons start with very high-level classifications like Intelligence, Senses, Motricity, and Communication, but they grow more advanced as you experience more in the game. You can make the entire clan learn the skills represented by those neurons by expending neuronal energy, which is basically experience points. You earn neuronal energy by taking at least one of your clans babies with you when you go into the world and explore.

Dsilets said his team designed the game so that protecting the babies and progressing through generations would be a priority.

At first, (the purpose of the babies) was just experience, he said. But then I realized they also exist to gain mutations to help them survive.

The Neuronal skill tree contains a system of random spontaneous mutations that babies can be born with, which unlock new skills. This was one of the elements that impressed me most as a geneticist. A child might be born with a spontaneous mutation that alters their metabolism so they can better digest food, for example. From that mutation, the potential for more neuronal growth arises as this new advantage spreads to the rest of your clan once you evolve, enabling them to learn new things they never would have even had access to without it. This is very much how scientists think beneficial spontaneous mutations might arise and become prevalent in a species during the process of evolution.

Dsilets said his team began referring to the random generational benefits as loot box babies. While spontaneous mutations can have harmful rather than helpful effects, he said they avoided those because we felt the game was difficult enough.

Besides neuronal energy and spontaneous mutations, the babies also play a major role in locking in skills that are learned in one generation so that they are preserved in subsequent generations.

Its a cool mechanic that represents passage of mutations and knowledge to the next generation, Dsilets explained. It represents the passage of time and knowledge into the children. It gives purpose and weight onto the babies.

The final major element of Ancestors gameplay loop is Evolution. Once enough major experiences have occurred in your clan of pre-humans, the game takes a step back and shows you that all of the things you did with your apes actually occurred over the span of thousands of years.

I was so relieved after the first time I evolved the clan in Ancestors. My scientific mind had been growing concerned that my clan was acquiring spontaneous mutations and new neuronal skills at an absurdly high rate. In just five or six generations we had learned at least 20 new abilities and acquired numerous beneficial mutations. But when I hit that Evolution button, the game showed me that all that I had accomplished had taken well over 100,000 years of evolution to occur. The five generations I had just played were symbolic for the hundreds of generations that it actually took to accumulate those skills and mutations.

The team developed a spreadsheet with all the missions that contribute to the evolution process, ranked them by difficulty, and ensured that the associated reward for completing them would adjust based on which evolutionary stage the clan is at when theyre completed.

Finding a normal fruit and eating it is a basic evolution feat youll get benefit by discovering it earlier in evolution than later, he said. Killing a predator will give you a lot more years [of evolution].

No matter when you complete the missions, Panache made sure to tweak things so that you always take around 8 million in-game years to evolve to the final stage in Ancestors. While they wanted to allow players to have their own unique experiences, they also wanted to represent the truth behind the evolution of our species how long it took and what challenges it involved.

Dsilets said he spent the first two years of the Ancestors project researching human ancestral species. The team consulted experts including a paleoanthropologist, primatologist, and climatologist. But they also had to occasionally take liberties with the milestones in their evolutionary spreadsheet because even scientific understanding of human evolution was changing during that time.

When we started the process, we had a scientific timeline to work from. And at the end of the development process? The scientific timeline had changed! he said, referring to a 2015 discovery that Australopithecus africanus had been using tools and had human-like hands, something that had been proposed but considered doubtful before that.

While Ancestors includes many elements of evolutionary science, there are others that are left out like intermingling and interbreeding between different sub-groups and species of pre-humans. Thousands of years ago, modern humans were living alongside and breeding with our close relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. In fact, many of us have some small amount of Neanderthal DNA in our genomes. Were not sure why those other species died out, but Dsilets said he plans to explore their impact in future volumes of Ancestors.

Excerpt from:

How Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey Turns Human Evolution into a Game - The Escapist

Monday, Sept. 30 is International Podcast Day. The day celebrates the evolution of podcasts in the growing world of technology.

"Everybodys got a story. I dont care who you are," said Dino Tripodis, host of a podcast called "Whiskey Business".

"The only running thing on 'Whiskey Business' is theres a different bottle every week that I share with my guests," Tripodis said. "Its not so much about the whiskey, its about the people. And the guests run from A to Z, literally."

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Tripodis has hosted his show from the bar in his home for the last couple years. The conversations are both funny and intriguing.

"I've had an astrophysicist on. I haven't had a zoologist on yet," Tripodis said while laughing. "I'm waiting for you Jack (Hanna)."

Podcast experts say a successful podcast takes time and a specific niche.

"As we've seen more investment money come into this space and more celebrities take on podcasting as a platform for themselves, the intimacy and the connection that listeners get with the host and with the podcast audience is still there," Cody Boyce said. "I think that's why it's been so popular."

Boyce is the founder and CEO of Crate Media, a Columbus Company that produces podcasts for corporations.

"Companies and brands are starting to see that this thing is taking off," Boyce said. "They want to leverage the same kind of connection with their audience. In most cases, they know exactly who they are speaking to or who they want to speak to and this just gives them another platform to kind of spread that message and even connect on another level with their audience."

According to Edison Research, nearly one out of three people listen to at least one podcast every month.

Continued here:

Celebrating the evolution of podcasts for International Podcast Day - 10TV

One of the most remarkable things about the original Frozen is how it represented part of a sea change for Disney's films in terms of their depiction of love. While the movie isn't completely devoid of romance, it turns some of the classic tropes of Disney's own films on their heads. The movie openly questions the logic of falling in love and marrying someone you just met, the core plot element of many of its forebears. In doing so, it creates space to tell a story about another kind of love not romantic love, but the deep familial love between two sisters, Anna and Elsa. It's a story about women saving each other and themselves, not relying on a prince to do it.

Recently, SYFY WIRE FANGRRLS went behind the scenes at Disney Animation Studios to preview some of the things we'll see in the upcoming sequel. Amid all the special effects demonstrations, character designs, and previews of songs, it was still Anna and Elsa that stood out as the heart of this new film.

Potential spoiler warnings for FROZEN II within!

According to co-director and co-writer Jennifer Lee, who also wrote and co-directed the first film, this relationship was at the forefront of her mind, even during a 2016 research trip to Norway and Iceland, which inspired the eventual story. "We realized on this trip that Anna is your perfect fairy-tale character. She's an ordinary hero, not magical. She's optimistic. Whereas Elsa is the perfect mythic character. Mythic characters are magical. They carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. In fact, the mythic characters often meet a tragic fate, and we realized we had two stories going together, mythic story and a fairy-tale story. In the mythic aspect of it, the fear of that tragic fate is something that Anna's been worrying about and thus protects her sister from."

Preserving the relationship between Anna and Elsa, while still showing how it evolved, was of primary importance to Hyun-Min Lee, animation supervisor for Anna. "In this film, we really tried to keep our focus on making sure that they stay true to who they were in the first film. But also, we wanted to show everybody who they're maturing into as they go into this new journey," Lee said.

"So, in this film, there is a little bit of a role reversal between the two. In the first film, Anna used to be the fearless one, forging ahead. 'I'm just going to go save my sister. Go ahead. I don't care!' And this time Elsa is the one being called into the unknown. And Anna is a little bit more worried and nervous for her sister's safety. And the big difference with the first film is that Anna is not alone anymore."

This change in Anna is signified even in her costumes, explained Griselda Sastrawinata-Lemay, visual development artist for the film. "In Frozen II, we started with Anna's costume with the new Arendelle icon, which signifies the fall season," she said. "In her travel costume, we did so many iterations, and exploration, because we grow as the story grows. And designing for Anna is a little bit tricky, because we decided that Elsa will always be in a light value and color, so she looks like ice. It's challenging to find a color that would be brilliant enough, and strong enough when they're next to each other. The chosen outfit is actually number 122."

As for Elsa, her costume design was greatly inspired by the change her character went through in the first movie, says Visual Development Artist Brittney Lee, who talked about how Elsa's costumes were restrictive and dark in the early parts of the first movie, but that's changed now. "Elsa can be a little bit more glamorous. She's also not restricted so much by real-world materials," Lee explained.

"Once 'Let It Go' happened, we sort of, um, basically set the precedent that she can make her own clothes out of ice. So from that point on, we have more freedom with her to use more ethereal materials, so she gets some tulles, and some silks and that, that's meant to support who she is as the Snow Queen."

It's not all just about fashion styles, either; even Elsa's movements in the new movie are different. Wayne Unten, Elsa's animation supervisor, discussed a major change to how she casts spells, drawing on modern dance as an inspiration for her movements to make them more graceful. "Her fingers, for example, when she's casting the magic, there's a nice flow to them. Instead of, like, a claw type of thing. We did something like that in the first film. But that was only, really, to illustrate a point that ... Remember in the first film, Hans says don't be the monster that they fear you are," Unten said. "And, you know, she was kind of doing kind of like a monster-type claw. So we stayed away from that."

It became very clear that these characters mean as much to the people working on them as they do to the audiences that connected to them when the original movie was released. Becky Bresee, one of the heads of animation and a self-described lifetime fairy tale fan, summed it up early on in the conversation: "When the first Frozen story turned into a sister story, that's when it really spoke to me in a different way. Now I was not only working on it for myself, I was working on a very personal level for my sisters, as well as more so for my daughters. SoFrozen II goes even further for me personally, and I'm so excited for the world to see it, and to revisit our characters all over again."

Frozen II hits theaters November 22.

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The evolution of Anna and Elsa, from Frozen to Frozen II - SYFY WIRE

Malvern, PAHMP, a leading healthcare event and education company, today announced it has entered into a partnership agreement with the Milton H. Erickson Foundation for the Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference, the worlds largest independent educational event for mental health professionals. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Established in 1985 in celebration of the 100th birthday of psychotherapy, the Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference covers emerging research, theory, and clinical practice. Notable keynote speakers have included a range of prominent individuals: Elliot Aronson, Herbert Benson, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Robert Sapolsky, Andrew Weil, and Nobel Laureate, Gerald Edelman. Approximately 7,000 professionals from 50 countries participated in the last conference.

We look forward to this partnership, said Jeff Hennessy, chairman and CEO, HMP. It supports our strategy of building a global portfolio of best-in-class healthcare events and expands our established mental and behavioral health franchise. Above all, we were attracted to this meeting because of the critical role psychotherapy plays in treating persons struggling with mental and physical illnesses. This meeting provides an additional opportunity for HMP to connect clinicians and other professionals with groundbreaking psychotherapy research and deliver clinically relevant education that will improve mental health care in the U.S. and around the world.

HMP enjoys a dominant position in mental and behavioral health. In 2018, HMP acquired the Institute for Behavioral Healthcare (IABHC), a prominent provider of education for front-line clinicians, mental health and substance use treatment center executives, public health professionals, and law enforcement officials and it includes the Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit, the largest gathering of government and public health officials working to address the opioid epidemic. In 2012, the company acquired the U.S. Psychiatric & Mental Health Congress, now known as Psych Congress, the largest independent mental health meeting in the U.S. Over the past seven years, HMP has significantly expanded the portfolio through the development and launch of relevant, complementary offerings, including Elevate by Psych Congress, an educational conference for emerging clinicians; Psych Congress Regional meetings; and the Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Learning Network, a year-round digital resource for mental health professionals. With this latest agreement, HMP will produce more than 300 international, national, regional, and local events across 10 therapeutic areas.

We are pleased to have HMPs leadership on the Evolution meeting, said Jeffrey K. Zeig, PhD, founder and director of the Milton H. Erickson Foundation. This opportunity allows us to capitalize on synergies within HMPs expansive network of mental and behavioral health professionals, accelerating our ability to bring the global mental health community together to share ideas, identify commonalities, promote convergence, and highlight the unifying principles that guide effective and successful clinical work.

About HMP

HMP is the force behind Healthcare Made Practicaland is a multichannel leader in healthcare events and education, with a mission to improve patient care. The company produces accredited medicaleducation events and clinically relevant, evidence-based content for the global healthcare community across a range of therapeutic areas. Its brands includeConsultant360, the year-round, award-winning platform relied upon by primary care providers and other specialists; Psych Congress, the largest independent mental health meeting in the U.S.; EMS World Expo, North America's largest EMT and paramedic event; and the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC), the largest wound care meeting in the world. For more information, visithmpglobal.com.

About the Milton H. Erickson Foundation

Established in 1979, the Milton H. Erickson Foundation is a federal nonprofit corporation formed to promote and advance the contributions to the health sciences by the late Milton H. Erickson, MD. It has grown to become one of the most globally recognized and influential organizations in the field of psychotherapy and fulfills its mission through the organization of congresses, workshops, programs, and the development of clinically relevant content for mental health professionals. For more information, visit erickson-foundation.org.

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HMP to Partner With the Milton H. Erickson Foundation for the Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference - Psych Congress Network

3rd October 2019, St. Louis, MO

Evolution St. Louis is a premier knitting facility using 3D and complete garment seamless knitting technology. Evolution St. Louis

Evolution St. Louis, a premier high-tech knitting facility, based in Missouri, has hired Bruce Goldman as its first director of operations. Goldman brings decades of experience in the manufacturing industry and will lead operations at the companys high-tech knit manufacturing facility in Saint Louis, MO.

I am very excited to join the Evolution St. Louis team to help make St. Louis an industry leader in advanced knitting and manufacturing, said Mr Goldman. As director of operations, I will be overseeing everything from the yarn shipped to the factory to the completed products going out to customers.

Mr Goldman began his career at his fathers knitting mill, teaching himself how to operate electronic knitting machines and later traveling to Germany to be trained to use Stolls high-tech flatbed knitting machines.

Bruce is an essential member of the Evolution St. Louis team, said John Elmuccio, co-founder of Evolution St. Louis. Bruce has the knowledge and know-how to help make St. Louis a hub for advanced manufacturing and production, and his expertise will help Evolution St. Louis reinvent, recreate and revitalise the knit sector.

Evolution St. Louis is a premier high-tech knitting facility using cutting-edge 3D and complete garment seamless knitting technology. Mr Goldman will use his comprehensive knowledge of knitting, manufacturing, electronics and programming to oversee all facility operations including employees and production.

http://www.evolutionstl.com

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Evolution St. Louis appoints new director of operations - Knitting Industry

As intelligence is at the core of all digital businesses, IT and business leaders continue to make analytics and BI their top innovation investment priority, said Jim Hare, research vice president at Gartner. This Hype Cycle helps data and analytics leaders make the transition to augmented analytics, to build a digital culture and operationalizing and scaling analytics initiatives.

The five key trends are:

1. Augmented Analytics

As it matures, augmented analytics will become a key feature of modern analytics platforms. It will deliver analysis to everyone in an organization in less time, with less of a requirement for skilled users, and with less interpretative bias than current manual approaches. As the technology develops, there will be more citizen data scientists. Gartner predicts that, by 2020, citizen data scientists will surpass data scientists in the amount of advanced analysis they produce, largely due to the automation of data science tasks.

2. Digital Culture

Developing an effective digital culture may be the first and most important step an organization takes in its digital transformation journey. Data literacy, digital ethics, privacy, enterprise and vendor data-for-good initiatives encompass digital culture, said Hare.

3. Relationship Analytics

The emergence of relationship analytics highlights the growing use of graph, location and social analytical techniques to understand how different entities of interest people, places and things are connected. Analyzing unstructured, constantly changing data can provide users information and context about associations in a network and deeper insights that improve the accuracy of predictions and decision-making.

4. Decision Intelligence

D&A leaders draw on a wealth of data from ecosystems that are in constant motion. This requires them to use a multitude of techniques to manage data effectively. The unpredictability of the outcomes of todays decision models often stems from an inability properly to capture and account for the uncertainty factors linked to these models behavior in a business context. Decision intelligence provides a framework that brings together traditional and advanced techniques to design, model, align, execute, monitor and tune decision models.

5. Operationalizing and Scaling

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Gartner reveals 5 major trends shaping the evolution of Analytics & BI - Moneycontrol