Category Archives: Evolution

President Donald Trump, his White House and the team of surrogates and pro-Trump media members have gone to great pains to try and keep up with the drips coming out thatare backing up the theory that the Trump campaign metwith Russian sources to, at the very least, get information about Hillary Clinton as part of a disinformation campaign.

On Monday, Trump defended son Donald Trump Jr. from reports that he met with Russian sources in order to find out what information they had on Clinton, saying that most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one his son attended. Notably, the presidentseemed to imply that his son was a politician.

This defense of his son is a drastic shift from his previous line. As the New York Times put it just last week: The original statement, drafted aboard Air Force One by advisers and then approved by Mr. Trump, said only that the Russian lawyer had discussed adoption policy during the meeting, without mentioning that the meeting had been offered as a chance to provide information about Mrs. Clintons dealings with Russia. It was also a seismic shift from his position since at least January thatwas that there was absolutely no connection with any Russians whatsoever.

Meanwhile, former Trump campaign director Michael Caputo went from no contact to so what? in two days, which should qualify as a record somewhere.

I had no contact with Russians and I never heard of anyone in the Trump campaign talking with Russians, he said Friday after meeting with the House Intelligence Committee. On Monday, Caputo reiteratedhis points from Friday, saying that talk of collusion was a fishing expedition. But Caputoalso triedto deflect from the allegations, saying, we both get involved in foreignelections in our own way to try and tilt them in our favor.

And, when it comes to pro-Trump media, Fox News Jeanine Pirro, who praised Trump forstanding up to fake news hogwash, isalso trying to change her story. In May, she told Fox &Friends that Trump has got to understand he is in treacherous waters now. Youre talking about every step as potentially being evidence to impeach him in some way.

But this weekend, Pirro defended the president in a different way.

There is no law that says a campaign cannot accept information from a foreign government, Pirro said, ignoring that there is a law the Federal Election Campaign Act which prevents foreign nationals from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly, and barsAmericans from solicit[ing], receiv[ing] or accept[ing] contributions or donations from them.

When Trump was interviewed by Pirro in May, he told the Fox News host, There is no collusion. We had nothing to do with Russia. One would think that Pirro would have been slightly upset that something he told her to her face would later turn out to be completely false. But, two months after he told Pirro something completely untrue, the former prosecutor laid out the line of defense that Trump himself would take Monday:Any politician who cared about getting elected would do exactly what the Trump campaign did.

As someone whos run for office five times, if the devil called me and said he wanted to set up a meeting to give me opposition research on my opponent Id be on the first trolley to hell to get it. And any politician who tells you otherwise is a bald-faced liar.

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Here's the evolution of Donald Trump's Russia defense - Salon

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

One Market

One Market

Chef Mark Dommen keeps the plates moving out of the kitchen for the lunch crowd at One Market. 2016.

Chef Mark Dommen keeps the plates moving out of the kitchen for the lunch crowd at One Market. 2016.

One Markets barbecue pop-up reflects the evolution of S.F.s downtown lunch scene

Theres a midday crowd filtering in and of out of One Market restaurant these days, but unlike the Financial Districts usual power lunch crowd, these diners are largely uninterested in a multi-course lunch over the restaurants $22 flounder entrees and $23 shrimp Louis salads. Instead, theyre breezing through the dining room to reach the restaurants barbecue pop-up in the atrium and order a pulled chicken sandwich ($11) or a to-go plate of ribs (8.50).

Back Porch BBQ is a reaction to downtown San Franciscos changing demographics, says One Markets chef Mark Dommen. Younger, more affluent diners are dictating the citys food culture and in Dommens eyes, they want comfort food consumable on the go a shift seen in the continued rise of food trucks and quick-service places in the last few years.

Thats not say there is no demand for the classic One Market experience. Most of the tables were full during a recent midweek visit, yet at the same time, a steady stream of young folks made their way to the summer-only pop-up.

Its a new chapter for Dommen, who said the world of barbecue is one hes been excited about exploring. The restaurant has a brand new smoker and since it became operational a few months back, Dommen and his team have been learning its ins and outs.

Dommen also admitted that while the idea is to have the pop-up run close by the end of summer, theres a chance it could last longer. Depending on the publics reaction, he said he could see it surfacing in off summer months when the weather is colder and people might be craving something smokey.

Everything on the Back Porch BBQ menu is a la carte. Customers either eat outside at One Market or take it to-go. (The largest dish on the Back Porch menu is the dozen St. Louis-style spare ribs for $30.) Doubling down on the quick service aspect, Dommen and his team have made it to where the cue can be ordered online and picked up at the atriums back door. Walk-up orders are welcome too.

Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @JustMrPhillips

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One Market's barbecue pop-up reflects the evolution of S.F.'s ... - San Francisco Chronicle

Thailand is pressing ahead with its digital economy policy but still ranks low in terms of how successfully it has made the digital jump, a new survey shows.

The country ranked 40th out of 60 in the Digital Evolution Index 2017 (DEI) compiled by the Fletcher School at Tufts University in partnership with Mastercard.

IT industry experts said the country must focus on improving regulatory frameworks, public trust and insufficiently skilled and shrinking workforce to accelerate this digital transformation as the country moves to embrace a new economic model dubbed Thailand 4.0.

The index measures four key drivers -- internet access; consumer demand in digital technology; the institutional environment, such as government policy, laws and resources; and innovation, including investment in research, and digital start-ups -- and 170 unique indicators.

The DEI study characterised countries as belonging to one of four groups.

Stand Out: These countries demonstrate high levels of digital development while continuing to lead in innovation and new growth. Singapore, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, Estonia, Hong Kong, Japan and Israel are in this group.

Stall Out: Many developed countries such as in Western Europe, Nordic countries, Australia and South Korea have a history of strong growth, but their momentum is slowing. Without further innovation they are at risk of falling behind.

Break Out: This group shows a relatively lower level of digital advancement but demonstrates the fastest momentum, making it attractive to investors. Countries include China, Kenya, Russia, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Mexico.

Watch Out: These countries face significant challenges as they are constrained by low levels of digital advancement and slow growth. They include South Africa, Peru, Egypt, Greece and Pakistan. The study placed Thailand in the last category, reflecting its low level of digitisation, slow momentum in terms of filling infrastructural gaps, institutional constraints, and low sophistication of consumer demand.

One key concern is that the digital economy policy has only been implemented on a superficial level, said Thanachart Numnonda, an executive director at the IMC Institute.

The country is still lacking a comprehensive legal framework to increase trust in digital developments, cybersecurity and data protection, added Mr Thanachart, who formerly served as president of the Association of Thai ICT Industry.

Moreover, it still relies too much on paperwork when faster electronic alternatives could be adopted, critics say.

Even though Thailand has started adopting electronic services to make life more convenient for the public, and is adopting big data analytics in planning and decision-making, it needs a bigger digital workforce and more IT experts from abroad, experts contend.

"The adoption rate of smartphones and social media is high but we are still very low in terms of using mobile wallets and mobile payments," said Mr Thanachart.

Nonetheless, wireless penetration is relatively high and digital policy is on the right track, meaning the chief problems lie in execution and implementation, according to Jarit Sidhu, a research manager at IDC Thailand.

Regulations also need to be better managed, he said, noting that over-the-top content services should not fall under the control of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission.

Meanwhile, many large private corporations have made an early start in their digital transformation but the education sector has not kept pace by failing to provide them with a digitally skilled workforce, critics say.

Despite this, there are indications Thailand is improving. Citing another study called the Global Connectivity Index (GCI) 2017 that was commissioned by China's Huawei and conducted by IDC, Mr Jarit said Thailand ranked 33rd out of 50 countries. Two years ago it ranked 39th in an earlier version of the same study.

GCI described Thailand as an early adopter in terms of information and communication technology development. It said the country performed outstandingly in its broadband assessment, and GCI awarded it top marks for mobile broadband coverage.

These achievements have been attributed to the government's digital economy plan, which was tasked with getting nearly 40,000 villages connected using broadband, including free WiFi.

According to the study, Thailand is on the right track to becoming a digital infrastructure hub.

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Nation ranks 40th in digital evolution - Bangkok Post

The researchers examined the biological processes of E.coli, a common bacteria. Credit: NIAID

A common bacteria is furthering evidence that evolution is not entirely a blind process, subject to random changes in the genes, but that environmental stressors can also play a role.

A NASA-funded team is the first group to design a method demonstrating how transposons DNA sequences that move positions within a genome jump from place to place.

The researchers saw that the jumping rate of these transposons, aptly-named jumping genes, increases or decreases depending on factors in the environment, such as food supply.

This is a new window into how environment can affect evolution rates, said Nigel Goldenfeld, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute for Universal Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We can measure evolution rates for the first time, and we can see evolution acting at the molecular level.

Thomas Kuhlman, a physicist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said bacteria species can also play a role in jumping rates, as well as the environment.

The activity of these transposal elements is not uniformly random; its not just a pile of cells, he said.

Kuhlman and Goldenfeld recently published a paper on the research, Real-time transposable element activity in individual live cells, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was led by Neil Kim, a physics graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and also included work from fellow students Gloria Lee, Nicholas Sherer and Michael Martini.

The NASA Astrobiology Institute funded the research.

True colors

Twinkling transposons in live cells. Credit: Nigel Goldenfeld and Thomas Kuhlman

Goldenfeld studies the role of the environment on evolution, while Kuhlman focuses on the biological processes of E. coli, a common bacteria that lives in the digestive tracts of humans and animals and the cause of infections by way of contaminated feces.

The two researchers came up with a novel approach to watching the movement of jumping genes by engineering an E. coli that expresses a fluorescent protein when the transposons jump out of a genome. Because the cell lights up when this occurs, the researchers were able to record the cells that jump more than others.

The cells light up only when a transposon jumps, Goldenfeld said. So we can see how often they jump, and when they jump, and where they jump from.

Goldenfelds team also constructed a computer simulation of the jumping activity that was able to rule out random activity as the primary reason for jumping. Once they compared the simulation with the laboratory trials, it was clear that the transposons were not jumping randomly. Goldenfeld said the findings shed more light on the mechanisms of evolution.

A fundamental assumption of evolution has been that mutations and other instabilities in the genomes randomly occur in an organism as a blind evolutionary force, and those that are beneficial to the cell lead to reproductive success. Another possibility, less accepted by biologists, is that the environment prompts the cell or organism to mutate in order for the cell to prosper better. These adaptive mutations, or stress-induced mutations, occur in response to stressors in the environment.

Our work shows that the environment does affect the rate at which transposons become active, and subsequently jump into the genome and modify it, Goldenfeld said. Thus the implication is that the environment does change the evolution rate. What our work does not answer at this point is whether the transposon activity suppresses genes that are bad in the particular environment of the cell. It just says that the rate of evolution goes up in response to environmental stress.

This conclusion, he added, was already known through other studies, for certain types of mutation, so is not in itself a complete reversal of the current dogma. We hope that future work will try to measure whether or not the genome instabilities that we can measure are adaptive.

Kuhlman said he has hopes of future research on more complex organisms.

The next step is operating in yeast, as a very simple eukaryotic cell. Then eventually much further down the road, well get [the process] working in mammalian or human cells.

The research is not only useful for understanding the origins of life, but also uncovering situations where cells undergo rapid mutations. One possible application could be routing out the pathways of cancer, which happens when cells abnormally grow and cause problems with the rest of the body.

Goldenfeld added that the findings also have clear implications to astrobiology.

One of the things that astrobiology is concerned with is the interaction between the environment and the rate of evolution, he said. Our work showed for the first time that there are environmental influences on the rate of transposon activity, because we could literally measure the effect. We did this quantitatively and compared it with theoretical predictions that assumed that transposon activity was random. We could show that the activity is not random at all.

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A Simple Bacteria Reveals How Stress Drives Evolution - Astrobiology Magazine (registration)

Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Global Trade's Evolution May Check Trump's Protectionism Wall Street Journal (subscription) President Donald Trump has looked to make protectionism respectable again, citing Abraham Lincoln's embrace of tariffs, pulling the U.S. out of a Pacific trade pact and preparing tariffs on steel imports. But changes in the international economy and ...

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Global Trade's Evolution May Check Trump's Protectionism - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Jose Mourinho has revealed Marcus Rashford has grown three centimetres in the past year as the Manchester United striker put his increased physicality to good use by scoring twice in a 5-2 win over LA Galaxy.

Rashfords exploits upstaged Romelu Lukaku after the Belgium striker missed a glorious chance to score four minutes into his United debut at the StubHub Centre, but Mourinho offered a robust defence of his new 90 million recruit.

He didnt score goals but he played better than the ones who did score goals, the United manager said.

It is doubtful Mourinho meant Rashford, who scored with two fine finishes but should have claimed a hat-trick after missing an excellent opportunity late in the first half before making way for Lukaku at half-time when the manager made 11 changes.

Rashford is sporting a significantly more muscular frame and Mourinho explained that, as well as bulking up, the 19 year-old has also grown since he took charge at the club in May last year.

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Jose Mourinho hails Marcus Rashford's physical evolution - 'He's three centimetres taller with muscle' - Telegraph.co.uk

The Village Reporter and the Hometown Huddle

Evolution encyclopedia - Yazak The Village Reporter and the Hometown Huddle Christian dating teaching band the and created timer to flash male of After increased onto His after evil test List State away known at in every prescribed w a are the bumped market. to at then bank for online. took a can forces warning had our between ... and more »

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Evolution encyclopedia - Yazak - The Village Reporter and the Hometown Huddle

Senator Konni Burton (R-Colleyville) watches nominees get approval despite her vote of no on the UT Board of Regents before the Senate for confirmation on March 11, 2015.

Senator Konni Burton (R-Colleyville) watches nominees get approval...

AUSTIN - Nine years ago, fresh off a term as a Smith County commissioner in northeast Texas, JoAnn Fleming drove to Dallas for a "boot camp" with other like-minded conservatives.

It wasn't on the radar of the public or most of the Texas political establishment. But many now consider it a key event in the birth of the tea party movement.

The goal was to examine how government works - and how they could force changes to make officials more accountable.

Also on the agenda: how to get their point across, voter to voter.

"Konni Burton was there, as were a lot of other people whose names would become familiar to a lot of Texans in the years to come," Fleming said, referring to the Republican who went on to become a state senator from Colleyville. "I had thought that once I was through with elected office, I'd take two years off to become a normal person again. Obviously, I didn't."

Within weeks, she said, the tea party movement in Texas was born.

It was a seed that quickly blossomed on the national stage with calls from grass-roots activists to cut federal spending, taxes and the size of government, and reduce the federal deficit. The movement burgeoned just as Democrat Barack Obama was moving into the White House.

Back in Texas, the tea party emerged as a decentralized movement that slowly expanded its focus to state government in Austin, even as a few Texas elected officials including then-Gov. Rick Perry joined their ranks to help bash federal overreach and the wasteful bureaucracy in D.C.

Now, with Republicans firmly in charge in both capitals, Texas' tea party activists are shifting their focus to the next phase in their evolution: as a political movement that is now an established insider power player at the Capitol, despite its historic outsider bravado.

Tea party caucuses have grown ranks in both the state House and Senate - the Freedom and Liberty caucuses, they are called - and Burton is now a senator in the chamber where staunch GOP conservatives are in charge, starting with the presiding officer, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

'Coalition approach'

The next step for the tea party will be played out front and center in the special legislative session that begins Tuesday. Gov. Greg Abbott, who formally announced his re-election bid Friday, has set a 20-issue agenda - much of it tailor-made for tea party regulars - that will pit the strongly conservative Senate against the more moderate House over controversial issues such as the bathroom bill, property-tax reforms, school-choice for special-needs children and how to better finance public schools.

"We are moving from solely a tea party effort to a coalition approach because we have common ground with a lot of other organizations on other issues," said Fleming, who is executive director of Grassroots America - We The People, a tea party group. "People in the tea party movement have been asking for some time how we can get help to effect change, and the answer is that it takes time to build trust and build coalitions. That's where we are now."

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

In recent months, even during the regular legislative session that ended in May, tea party groups from around Texas partnered with local pro-business groups, toll-road opponents, medical organizations, mainstream Republican groups and immigration-reform organizations, to push for the passage or defeat of legislation, both in Austin and in Washington. With the special session just days away from its start, the coalition supporting passage of many - if not all - of Abbott's agenda has grown to more than 60 groups.

'Natural progression'

At a June 26 summit meeting in Dallas, 121 leaders representing 59 organizations met to discuss the special session - including members of the State Republican Executive Committee, GOP county chairs and conservative organizations - and plan their lobbying strategy.

That promises to put additional pressure on the Texas House, where Speaker Joe Straus has publicly compared some of the items to horse manure and suggested that a number may not get approval in the House. Ten of the 20 bills were approved by the Senate during the regular legislative session, and Patrick predicted on Thursday that the rest will easily pass his chamber - likely very soon after the 30-day special session begins.

"This is no longer solely a tea party effort," said Del Carothers, a Georgetown rancher who has been active with several Texas tea party groups since 2011.

"We have grown way past where we started out. Once you get a civics lesson on how our government actually operates, you know it has to change to be responsive to the people. And you know that if you really care about citizen-driven government and freedom, which is what the Founding Fathers intended, you have to be involved and make that happen," he said.

"If you sit around on your ass, government will run your life and they'll waste your money."

Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist who has studied the rise of the tea party as a political force, said the increasing clout of the activists should come as no surprise in Red State Texas.

"The tea party movement had been building for some time, and it took off in Texas when Gov. Perry gave his Tax Day speech in 2009 and went from being a pragmatic centrist to straddling the tea party line," he said. "The next natural progression is for these groups to start exerting their influence in who is elected and to expand their clout by building coalitions with other groups. That's what's happening now."

In Texas, where many legislative seats are filled by the candidate who wins the Republican primary, tea party candidates often win. Perhaps their biggest surprise was the 2013 election of Ted Cruz over Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for a U.S. Senate seat.

"In the special session, where all the items are of a conservative nature, the hiding places will be gone for Republicans who want to say they're conservative but not vote that way," said Dale Huls, with the Clear Lake Tea Party near Houston. "The best vote some of them can make may be the one not taken, especially in the House, because if they vote against our issues we're going to be watching everything they're doing.

"This is put up or shut up time."

For Republicans who refuse to support the tea party agenda, Huls and other activists said the coalition of groups wants them censured by the Republican Party of Texas. Even before the special session begins, a deeply divided Republican Party of Bexar County passed a resolution on Monday calling for "a change in leadership in the Texas House" - a surprising move considering that Speaker Straus, a target of tea party anger on many issues, is from San Antonio.

'Everybody can win'

Despite the predictions that the tea party influence could push much of Abbott's more controversial agenda items, including the bathroom and property-tax reform bills, to pass during the special session, when they failed during the regular session, House leaders privately say they think that is unlikely. That's because most of the controversial bills will simply not have enough support from Republicans and Democrats to pass in as strident a form as the Senate wants, said one House committee chairman.

"The agenda for the special session is part of an election campaign," said longtime Austin political consultant Bill Miller. "It's set up perfectly so that if not everything the tea party wants is passed, the governor can say well I tried. Re-elect me, and we'll get it done next year. Dan Patrick can say the Senate passed everything, and Joe Straus can say it was the will of the House, and the Senate and the House are much different chambers.

"Everybody can win."

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Texas tea party: the birth and evolution of a movement - Houston Chronicle

DAYTON, Tenn. (AP)

The Tennessee town known for the famed 1925 "Scopes monkey trial" saw no protesters Friday as it unveiled a statue of the lawyer who argued for evolution near a sculpture of his creationism-advocating legal rival.

About 75 people were on hand at the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton as officials revealed the statue of skeptic Clarence Darrow, who argued for evolution. His likeness stands on the opposite side of the courthouse from a 2005 statue of William Jennings Bryan, the Christian defender of biblical creationism.

Though pockets of opposition to the statue exist due to religious objections, no protesters showed at Friday's ceremony for the sculpture championed by atheists. Some attendees donned 1920s-era garb for the festivities.

The new statue hasn't drawn teeming crowds like the ones that forced some 1925 trial proceedings to be moved outdoors. Historians say the trial started as a publicity stunt for the small town, and it succeeded in grabbing plenty of national headlines.

The one small hitch Friday had nothing to do with public backlash - the group had trouble peeling off the black cloth that covered the statue. Former Star Trek actor John de Lancie used an umbrella to help pry it off the Darrow sculpture's head.

Philadelphia-based sculptor Zenos Frudakis crafted the Darrow statue, funded largely by $150,000 from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The group said the project would remedy the imbalance of Bryan standing alone.

Historians say the trial came about after local leaders convinced John Thomas Scopes, a 24-year-old high school teacher, to answer the American Civil Liberties Union's call for someone who could help challenge Tennessee's law that banned teaching evolution. He was found guilty but didn't spend time in jail.

Bryan, a three-time Democratic candidate for president, died just five days after the trial ended.

Formally known as Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes, the case was immortalized in songs, books, plays and movies.

The unveiling Friday helped kicked off Dayton's annual Scopes Trial festival, a 10-day event featuring a theatrical production.

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Statue of 'Scopes monkey trial' evolution backer unveiled - WYFF Greenville

How Cindy taught me a theory of evolution The Hindu Children are the greatest manipulators in this world. We parents believe foolishly that we are the ones who control our children! Our son had been trying to convince me to allow him to own a pet dog for quite some time, but in vain. Being a single ...

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How Cindy taught me a theory of evolution - The Hindu