Category Archives: Evolution

Beijing Enterprises made history 20 years ago when it debuted on Hong Kongs stock exchange 1,300 oversubscribed, as the most sought-after initial public offering in the citys history.

The IPO, which drew huge crowds of people scrambling for application forms underscored the average Hong Kong investors sentiments and the fever pitch frenzy for the largest well-connected mainland government-backed company.

Raising HK$2.5 billion, it was the biggest amount at the time from any listing of the so-called red chips, or overseas-registered mainland enterprises. It also made the only listed conglomerate of the Beijing government in Hong Kong the talk of the town, with just one month before the citys sovereignty was returned to the mainland.

Beijing Enterprises was one of about 10 conglomerate window companies of various levels of mainland governments tasked to raise funds overseas to boost economic development at home.

Back then, the Beijing municipal government picked eight of its quality assets and put them into the newly set up Beijing Enterprises, and floated it, chief executive Zhou Si told the South China Morning Post in an interview.

The assets included the capital citys first department store called Wangfujing, its first Sino-foreign joint venture hotel called Jianguo, its first highway linking the city to the airport, the successful consumer brands Sanyuan dairy products and Yanjing beer.

The assets were well-liked by investors and the companys listing was hugely successful.

Today, there are close to 150 red chips listed in Hong Kong, either incorporated in the city or overseas.

The assets were well-liked by investors and the companys listing was hugely successful

Zhou Si, Beijing Enterprises

Shares of Beijing Enterprises, which attracted subscription 1,276 times the number of shares offered to Hong Kong investors and locked up HK$238.8 billion, surged 222 per cent from the IPO price of HK$12.48 to close at HK$40.2 on their first day of trading.

Two decades later, after multiple boom and bust cycles, its share price has yet to climb back above the debut close, ending Friday at HK$42.70, only over half that of its all-time high of HK$77.80 seen in late 2013.

It is fetching around 7.3 times this years forecast earnings, a fraction of the 19.4 times it debuted at, and half that of current valuation of the benchmark Hang Seng China-affiliated Corporations Index that track red chips.

Fellow red chip Shanghai Industrial, the municipal governments largest overseas conglomerate listed in Hong Kong in 1996, commands a multiple of only 8.6.

Window firms with operations in multiple industries have long lost their pre-eminence as investors prefer specialised firms that are easier to understand and value, said Kenny Tang Sing-hing, chief executive of Junyang Securities. Conglomerates generally attract valuation discounts.

From the shares issuers perspective, a red chip listing is preferred over a floatation of an H share a mainland-registered firm with mainland assets.

Window firms with operations in multiple industries have long lost their pre-eminence as investors prefer specialised firms that are easier to understand and value

Kenny Tang, Junyang Securities

This is because the red chip format has fewer restrictions and approval red tapes on post-listing shares issuance and original owners shares disposal.

However, tighter restrictions on the transfer of mainland state-owned assets to overseas vehicles in the past decade led to a sharp drop in new red chip listings , although mainland firms were still able to gain control of overseas already-listed vehicles and turn them into red chips via asset injection deals.

Data from the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has also demonstrated the trend of H-shares gaining popularity at the expense of the red chips.

The number of red chips rose 149 per cent from 59 in 1997 to 147 last year, while that for H-shares leaped 459 per cent from 39 to 218.

The gap had a lot to do with the jumbo floatations of state financial services and energy companies since 2000, and the divide is more accentuated by their market clout.

H shares accounted for 36 per cent of the Hong Kong bourses total turnover last year, up from 8.5 per cent in 1997. In contrast, that of red chips plunged from 27.6 per cent to 14 per cent during the same period.

For Beijing Enterprises, the past 20 years also saw a complete makeover of its business.

After the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, it dawned on us that having effective management influence over units in eight industries was quite difficult, said Zhou, who joined the firm in 2005 from the municipal government.

We also lacked a clear development direction which investors wanted us to have ... with our share price spiralling down, Beijing Enterprise lost its fund-raising capacity.

After a few years of soul-searching, top management in 2005 decided to sharpen its business focus and undergo major restructuring of its assets.

In 2007, the municipal government injected a natural gas distribution business into Beijing Enterprise, which contributed substantially to business growth as the capital replaced coal with cleaner-burning natural gas as fuel for power and heat generation.

Having also bought in 2013 a major stake in China Gas, one of the nations largest city gas distributors, its natural gas business contributed 76 per cent of its total profit last year.

After the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, it dawned on us that having effective management influence over units in eight industries was quite difficult

Zhou Si

Water, solid waste treatment and other environmental operations accounted for 23 per cent of the earnings, and the remainder was from its brewery operation.

After various asset transfer deals over the years, Yanjing Brewery, the nations fifth largest brewery, is the only one of the original eight business units that remains.

Beijing Enterprises now has a clear positioning as a utilities company, with a focus on industries that bring environmental benefits, Zhou said.

Last year, Beijing Enterprise clinched its biggest overseas acquisition to date. It agreed to pay 1.44 billion euros for a German company which owns 18 plants in Europe that burn municipal waste and generate power.

Zhou said the deal would allow Beijing Enterprises to transfer the worlds most advance expertise in building and running waste-to-energy projects from Germany to China, where the waste treatment industry is undergoing a boom that will last many years.

Beijing Enterprises shares plunge after buying minority stake in Russian oil and gas producer

Although such projects are not technology-intensive, he said China could learn from Germany the skills and know-how in project management and resources integration, as well its craftsman spirit and quality culture.

Looking forward, Zhou said Beijing Enterprises hoped to reap more synergies by tapping the business relations it has build with the governments of a large number of Chinese cities, to which it can cross-sell its expertise in the environmental protection sector.

The firm is also studying opportunities to invest in water and waste treatment projects in various nations in South and Southeast Asia, where Beijing is supporting Chinese firms to finance and build infrastructure along the old land and maritime Silk Road trading routes, he added.

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Beijing Enterprises' makeover traces China's evolution in capitalism over 20 years - South China Morning Post

If your sleep is getting worse with age, evolution might be to blame.

A study recently published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B found that humans' age-specific sleep patterns may have evolved to protect mixed-age groups from potential danger in the night. And in this scenario, the elderly members of these groups may have drawn the short strawtheir restless sleep made them perfect for the night watch.

Looking at sleep patterns is really relevant not only to basic science, but also to increasing our understanding of cross-cultural sleep, says Alyssa Crittenden, a study co-author and assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It provides crucial clues of how species evolved.

The study was conducted among the Hadza people, a hunter-gatherer group in Tanzania. They traditionally sleep outside, without the technology many of us now use to stay comfortable while we snoozefrom air conditioning to a roof over our heads to shield us from the rain. Crittenden has studied the Hadza for 13 years, and she emphasizes the people arent relics of the past. They are as modern and contemporary as you and me, she says. But when it comes to sleep, their chosen environment is unusually similar to that of our ancestorsso they make excellent study subjects.

Most human sleep research has been in sleep labs in Western societies, says first author David Samson, who was a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University at the time of the study and is currently an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Its not a great model, they go from one temperature- and light-controlled room to another.

The researchers studied Hadza adults ranging from those in their late teens to the elderly. While the subjects slept, they each wore an actigraph, which Samson describes as a super Fitbit. Much like its commercial analog, the device is worn on the subjects wrist and can tell if they are asleep or awake based on activity. But the actigraph also has extra capabilities, like measuring the amount of light in the environment, and it can withstand much harsher conditions.

From the actigraph data, the researchers characterized each subjects sleep pattern: when they were sleeping or awake, and how long each period lasted. Some people were lighter sleepers who regularly woke up throughout the night, others slept undisturbed all night; there were subjects that went to bed early and woke up early, while other subjects tended to sleep later in the night and into the morning.

By layering the sleep patterns of all the subjects, they found that over the course of 20 nights, there were only 18 one-minute intervals when all the subjects were asleep at once. At any given time during the night, almost 40 percent of the Hadza were awake (or sleeping lightly) while the rest slept deeply. This lines up with the sentinel hypothesis, a pre-existing idea that having a variety of sleep patterns provided humans with an evolutionarily advantage. If groups of people had varying sleep patterns, they could more easily rest without being vulnerableand they'd all be more likely to survive and successfully reproduce, allowing the mismatched sleep patterns to persist in future populations. The sentinel hypothesis has never been tested in humans before, Crittenden says.

The biological roots of these patterns lie in circadian rhythms, the internal clock that dictates our behavior at any given time of day. Are you an early bird? A night owl? Well, those are actual biological characteristics, known as chronotypes (scientists actually use lark and owl to describe the two extremes). They can even be inherited. Chronotypes encapsulate the unique ways that each of our individual circadian rhythms drive our sleep behavior.

In this study, the researchers compared the subjects chronotypes with demographic variables, and only one seemed to be linked: age. Older subjects were, as the proverb says, "early to bed and early to rise"the lark chronotypeand they tended to wake up frequently during the night. The Hadza don't have official guards posted at night, but since older individuals were more likely to be awake, Crittenden says, they were more likely to be functioning as sentinelsif not in any official capacity. Their wakefulness made them the most likely ones to be alerted to danger.

People have thought about the evolutionary role of elders in human society before, in what is known as the grandmother hypothesis. It suggests that women live beyond their reproductive yearsa trait unique to humans, killer whales, and pilot whalesbecause they play an important role in their familial group's survival. They can help care for grandchildren and teach them how to survive, allowing younger females to focus on reproducing. The researchers expanded that idea to coin the poorly sleeping grandparent hypothesis: In mixed-age groups, grandmothersor grandparents in generalmay sleep discontinuously so that they can remain alert to potential dangers while their offspring rest.

According to Samson, this finding could provide an important new perspective on how people think about and stigmatize insomnia, a condition that is very common among older peoplealmost half of adults over the age of 60 report having trouble sleeping.

It may normalize things we consider to be disorders, Samson says. We tend to label things as a disorder if they dont match up with normal parameters. But insomnia may be an evolutionary mismatch with the modern context.

It could also impact how insomnia is treated in the elderly. For example, cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to be effective in treating insomnia: By identifying the cause of the insomnia, people are able to effectively manage it. Explaining the evolutionary origins of insomnia could play a similar role in treatment.

This was the first study of the sentinel hypothesis in humans, but it wont be the last. Samson and Crittenden hope to study sleep in populations around the world, ranging from rainforests to the Arctic, and compile the results into a global sleep database. If the patterns hold, then they might actually be able to show that the sentinel hypothesis is at play among humans, Crittenden says.

It could help us ask and answer questions about how humans adapted to different ecological niches around the world, Samson says.

So, kids, the next time your parents wonder why you dont wake up earlier, just remind them that you evolved to be this waygetting up early is grandmas job.

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Grandma's insomnia might be a product of evolution | Popular Science - Popular Science

NASHVILLE, Tenn. The famed "Scopes monkey trial" pitted two of the nation's foremost celebrity lawyers against one another, but only one of them was memorialized outside the Tennessee courthouse where the landmark case unfolded -- until now.

On Friday at the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton the public will behold a 10-foot statue of the rumpled skeptic Clarence Darrow, who argued for evolution in the 1925 trial. It will stand at a respectful distance on the opposite side of the courthouse from an equally huge statue of William Jennings Bryan, the eloquent Christian defender of the biblical account of creation, which was installed in 2005.

The trial that unfolded there nine decades ago garnered national headlines in what historians say started as a publicity stunt for the small town. Formally known as Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes, the case generated front-page headlines nationwide and was immortalized in songs, books, plays and movies. Dayton hosts its annual Scopes Trial festival for 10 days, starting Friday, featuring a theatrical production.

Historians say the trial came about after local leaders convinced 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.

In Dayton, home of a Christian college that's named for Bryan, it's not hard to envision the community accepting a statue venerating the august champion of the faith.

But Darrow is another matter.

Rifts over evolution and creationism continue almost a century later, and the Darrow statue was requested by atheist groups.

Pockets of opposition in the town suggest many Christians still see the science of evolution as clashing with their faith. Dayton resident and minister June Griffin has led much of the backlash against the Darrow statue, citing religious convictions.

"This is a hideous monstrosity," Griffin said. "And God is not pleased."

Two weeks ago about 20 supporters and 20 protesters clashed peacefully at the courthouse over the statue, said Rhea County Sheriff's Department Special Projects Coordinator Jeff Knight.

Nevertheless, the Darrow statue hasn't drawn teeming crowds in Dayton like the ones that forced some of the 1925 trial proceedings to be moved outdoors.

Regardless of how people's beliefs differ, the statue helps represent history, said Rhea County historian Pat Guffey. Most people seem OK with it, she added.

"I just think that something that is history should stay, or should be put up, no matter what," Guffey said. "I don't think we should try to change history."

Philadelphia-based sculptor Zenos Frudakis crafted the new 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.

"Bryan was there as an attorney, a prosecutor, and Clarence Darrow as a defense attorney. And now, the history has been restored," Frudakis said.

Frudakis, an admirer of Darrow, said the sculpture offers an honest look at the lawyer.

"He looks like he slept in his suit, which he often did. Sometimes his shirts were torn," Frudakis said of Darrow. "He smoked too much. He drank too much. He was a womanizer. I got as much of that as I could in the sculpture."

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'Scopes monkey trial' town erects evolution figure's statue - Fox News

Donkey Kong 94

I recently made the transfer from my junky old 3DS XL to one of those new 2DS XLs, and the switch has got me digging through my very small collection of 3DS Virtual Console games. The one Ive latched back onto is the oft-overlooked Donkey Kong for Game Boy, commonly known these days by its more specific working title, Donkey Kong 94. Its a fascinating artifact, a game that tricks you into thinking its just some lame Game Boy remake of old-school Donkey Kong, only to reveal its an entirely new, brilliant puzzle-platformer once youve beaten the original games levels.

Even the game it turns out to be isnt quite what it seems. On the surface, its a mixture of Donkey Kong with the puzzling and object-lifting from Super Mario Bros. 2. You enter a stage, and you have to reach the key and carry it back to the locked door at the start, probably collecting some Donkey Kong-esque bonus items along the way. (Collect them all and you can win some extra lives.) But on a deeper level, I could never shake the feeling that its a missing link between the limited run-and-jump move-set of Marios oldest adventures and the expanded acrobatics he developed during his Nintendo 64 days. Two of the more advanced moves from Mario 64 are taken straight from Donkey Kong 94: the backflip, performed by suddenly changing direction and immediately jumping, and the high jump, performed by jumping while crouching. (Technically, pressing jump while crouching puts Mario into a handstand. Another press of the jump button from that position executes the big leap, but its close enough. This is also another link to Super Mario Bros. 2, which included a super-jump you charged up by crouching.) Besides the fact that these maneuvers add a ton of depth to an otherwise relatively simple game, its just so amazing to think it was a freakin Game Boy title that laid some groundwork for Marios move to 3-D. People did some astounding things with that little wonder.

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This overlooked Game Boy game is the missing link in Mario's evolution - A.V. Club

By JONATHAN MATTISE , Associated Press July 13, 2017 - 6:00 PM

NASHVILLE, Tenn. The famed "Scopes monkey trial" pitted two of the nation's foremost celebrity lawyers against one another, but only one of them was memorialized outside the Tennessee courthouse where the landmark case unfolded -- until now.

On Friday at the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton the public will behold a 10-foot statue of the rumpled skeptic Clarence Darrow, who argued for evolution in the 1925 trial. It will stand at a respectful distance on the opposite side of the courthouse from an equally huge statue of William Jennings Bryan, the eloquent Christian defender of the biblical account of creation, which was installed in 2005.

The trial that unfolded there nine decades ago garnered national headlines in what historians say started as a publicity stunt for the small town. Formally known as Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes, the case generated front-page headlines nationwide and was immortalized in songs, books, plays and movies. Dayton hosts its annual Scopes Trial festival for 10 days, starting Friday, featuring a theatrical production.

Historians say the trial came about after local leaders convinced 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.

In Dayton, home of a Christian college that's named for Bryan, it's not hard to envision the community accepting a statue venerating the august champion of the faith.

But Darrow is another matter.

Rifts over evolution and creationism continue almost a century later, and the Darrow statue was requested by atheist groups.

Pockets of opposition in the town suggest many Christians still see the science of evolution as clashing with their faith. Dayton resident and minister June Griffin has led much of the backlash against the Darrow statue, citing religious convictions.

"This is a hideous monstrosity," Griffin said. "And God is not pleased."

Two weeks ago about 20 supporters and 20 protesters clashed peacefully at the courthouse over the statue, said Rhea County Sheriff's Department Special Projects Coordinator Jeff Knight.

Nevertheless, the Darrow statue hasn't drawn teeming crowds in Dayton like the ones that forced some of the 1925 trial proceedings to be moved outdoors.

Regardless of how people's beliefs differ, the statue helps represent history, said Rhea County historian Pat Guffey. Most people seem OK with it, she added.

"I just think that something that is history should stay, or should be put up, no matter what," Guffey said. "I don't think we should try to change history."

Philadelphia-based sculptor Zenos Frudakis crafted the new 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.

"Bryan was there as an attorney, a prosecutor, and Clarence Darrow as a defense attorney. And now, the history has been restored," Frudakis said.

Frudakis, an admirer of Darrow, said the sculpture offers an honest look at the lawyer.

"He looks like he slept in his suit, which he often did. Sometimes his shirts were torn," Frudakis said of Darrow. "He smoked too much. He drank too much. He was a womanizer. I got as much of that as I could in the sculpture."

Read more:

'Scopes monkey trial' town erects evolution figure's statue - Minneapolis Star Tribune

By Matt Vensel Star Tribune

July 13, 2017 5:58am

A number of its quirkier sports from its early days crashed and burned (we miss you, street luge) and the icons who initially captured Americas attention are growing old (Tony Hawk, a rare extreme athlete with crossover appeal, turns 50 next year).

But the X Games are still shredding and by most measures are bigger than in 1995, when ESPN debuted the extreme sports spectacle on ESPN2, the network it had launched in part to attract a younger demographic of sports fans.

This week, when the X Games make their first stop in Minneapolis and are expected to attract more than 100,000 fans over four days, the tricks will certainly be crazier (please dont try at home a double backflip on a motorcycle), the ramps will be taller (the most daunting drop-in ramp is 82 feet high) and the event will have more of a festival feel, with live music and interactive art exhibits.

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X Games' evolution from curiosity to mainstay rooted in breathtaking ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune

July 12, 2017 Vera Engelbrecht and Thomas Happe have gained a glimpse into the evolution of green algae in the lab. Credit: RUB, Marquard

A new jigsaw piece in the evolution of green algae has been identified by researchers at Ruhr-Universitt Bochum together with colleagues from Max Planck Institute in Mlheim an der Ruhr. They analysed the hydrogen-producing enzyme of a phylogenetically old alga. Its properties were radically different from those of analogous enzymes in more recent algae. The team headed by Vera Engelbrecht and Prof Dr Thomas Happe from the research group Photobiotechnology in Bochum outlines their results in the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta.

Docking to photosynthesis

Hydrogen-producing enzymes, so-called hydrogenases, have originally occurred in numerous bacteria. Green algae, too, contain such enzymes, using them for the light-driven generation of hydrogen. "The origins of this enzyme in algae had long been a mystery," says Vera Engelbrecht. "We have now analysed a link in evolutionary history of hydrogenases that had previously been missing."

Algae which are relatively young in evolutionary terms contain specialised hydrogenases that show significant differences to the original varieties in bacteria. They are smaller and have a specific surface used for docking to the cell's photosynthesis machinery. To this end, they bind to ferredoxin, a molecule that mediates electron transfer. Thus, they are able to produce hydrogen using light energy.

Different from young algae

The phylogenetically old alga Chlorella variabilis has likewise the ability for light-driven generation of hydrogen. The researchers from Bochum and Mlheim isolated and characterised the Chlorella hydrogenase. Unlike in young algae, it shares many characteristics with the original bacteria enzyme and is unable to bind to the electron carrier ferredoxin.

"We found the results surprising," explains Thomas Happe. "Chlorella appears to still have an original metabolic pathway, which has changed completely in phylogenetically younger algae." The question why the more recent algae have developed a specialised hydrogenase in order to dock to photosynthesis via ferredoxin remains to be answered. "We are currently attempting to identify the precise metabolic connection of chlorella hydrogenase and to detect photosynthetic protein complexes in the organism that are as yet unknown," says Happe.

Explore further: How green algae assemble their enzymes

More information: Vera Engelbrecht et al, The structurally unique photosynthetic Chlorella variabilis NC64A hydrogenase does not interact with plant-type ferredoxins, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Bioenergetics (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.bbabio.2017.06.004

Researchers at Ruhr-Universitt Bochum have analysed how green algae manufacture complex components of a hydrogen-producing enzyme. The enzyme, known as the hydrogenase, may be relevant for the biotechnological production ...

How green algae produce hydrogen in the dark is reported by biologists at the Ruhr-Universitt Bochum in the "Journal of Biological Chemistry". Hereby, they have uncovered a mechanism for the production of the gas which ...

Researchers from Bochum have engineered a hydrogen-producing enzyme in the test tube that works as efficiently as the original. The protein a so-called hydrogenase from green algae is made up of a protein scaffold ...

(Phys.org) Hydrogen as a regenerative fuel produced in gigantic water tanks full of algae, which need nothing more than sunlight to produce the promising green energy carrier: a great idea in theory, but one that fails ...

New research results from Uppsala University, Sweden, instill hope of efficient hydrogen production with green algae being possible in the future, despite the prevailing scepticism based on previous research. The study, which ...

Researchers at the Ruhr-Universitt Bochum (RUB) have discovered an efficient process for hydrogen biocatalysis. They developed semi-synthetic hydrogenases, hydrogen-generating enzymes, by adding the protein's biological ...

If there is anything scientists are certain of when it comes to bats and their supposed role in causing human disease, it is that they still have a lot to learn.

Those young squirrels now scampering around your neighbourhood were born in this year's earliest litters and are more likely to survive than squirrels born later and still curled up in their nests, according to a new University ...

CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing is based on a tactic bacteria developed to protect themselves from viruses.

Researchers are developing ways to harness DNA, the blueprint of biological life, as a synthetic raw material to store large amounts of digital information outside of living cells, using expensive machinery. But, what if ...

A research group at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, has developed a new method to measure the half-life of RNA molecules. The study revealed that commonly used methods provide distorted results and that RNA molecules ...

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered a key step in the process that HIV uses to inject its genetic material into cells. Working with cultures of cells and tissues, the researchers prevented the ...

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Evolution of a bacterial enzyme in green algae - Phys.org - Phys.Org

Andy Serkis stars for a third time as ape leader Caesar in the sci-fi film 'War for the Planet of the Apes.' 20th Century Fox

Andy Serkis rides to his final journey as ape leader Caesar (with Amiah Miller as Nova) in 'War for the Planet of the Apes.'(Photo: 20th Century Fox)

When Andy Serkis saddlesup as horse-riding ape leader Caesar in War forthe Planet of the Apes (in theatersFriday), itmarksthe end of a six-year, three-film journey.

Playing the role via motion capture, which records an actor's subtlest movements to be enhanced withdigital technology,Serkis introducedCaesar as a laboratory chimp whose intelligence is greatly boosted by anAlzheimer's drug in 2011s Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Andy Serkis arrives for the premiere of 'War for the Planet of the Apes' in New York.(Photo: Jason Szenes, EPA)

Caesar turned revolutionary leader fighting for ape freedom in 2014s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a battle thatcontinues in War.

To have that opportunity to play a character, aging through twists and turns, but also evolving, is fantastic. And hard to let go of, says Serkis, 53.

The actorshares hismemories fromeach performance:

Caesar (Andy Serkis) didn't realize he was an ape in 2011's 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes.'(Photo: Weta Digital)

Serkis modeled his performance as the realistic title character in Peter Jacksons 2005 film King Kongonsilverbackgorillas. But hetook a different approach playing young Caesar, who grew up from infancy in a human household run by caring lab assistant (James Franco).

The actorwas inspired by Oliver, a famous, human-like chimpwho died in 2012.

Oliver was bipedal, rarely walked on all fours. He would sit in chairs. His facial expressions were very human-like, says Serkis. People believed he was almost the missing link. I based Caesar on Oliver.

Young Caesar starts out joyous in his life, full of energy, often more hunched, andunaware he isn'thuman. The ape's youthful exuberancetook its toll.

It was killer playing him as a young chimp on the knees, the legs, the thighs, very physically tiring, says Serkis. In many ways, it became easier to play Caesaras he became more upright.

Caesar grew into a revolutionary ape leader in 2014's 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.'(Photo: 20th Century Fox)

Improvements in the performance-capture suit andhead-mounted camera (to chronicle facial expressions)used byvisual effects company Weta Digital allowed Serkis and director Matt Reeves to take the ape performance out of the studio and into natural environments inDawn.

Horsebackwas Caesar's mode of transport, even if the animalsdidn'tappreciate his ape-like war speech. Every single time, when I got the first word out, myhorse would bolt sideways to try to get out there as quickly as possible," Serkis says. "They did not like it. It made them skittish.

Review: 'War for the Planet of the Apes' hits glorious stride in third film

Caesar grew more upright and used sign language as the leader of an advanced ape society. His human vocabulary grew, too.

But I wore a mouth guard to stop me from thoughtfully forming wordsand overly articulating, says Serkis.

Andy Serkis dealt with the outdoors and snow as Caesar in 'War for the Planet of the Apes.'(Photo: 20th Century Fox)

Serkis skipped the mouthguard in the third film, showing a human command of language, used sparingly."We didn't want it to become too casual," he says

Now fullyupright, Caesar's behavior is brutishin the third film because of the terrible way he'streated."He feels most human-like,"says Serkis. "But Caesar isthe most animalistic in terms of his rage."

Podcast: All hail Caesar (Andy Serkis) in 'War for the Planet of the Apes'

Further suit advancements allowed filmmakers to shoot outdoors in the snow-filled Canadian locations. Butthe form-fitting suits didn'tprovide much warmth.

"We were in the Canadian winter, so it would get very cold and the suits are unforgiving," says Serkis. "The snow and rain werevery tough."

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The unlikely evolution of Andy Serkis' Caesar in 'Planet of the Apes' - USA TODAY

Patch.com

AT&T Launches New '5G Evolution' Network In Indianapolis Patch.com INDIANAPOLIS, IN AT&T customers in Indianapolis got a mid-week surprise as the company launched 5G Evolution in parts of the city in Wednesday. The 5G Evolution network brings faster wireless speeds for Indianapolis customers and those in select ... AT&T launches 'ultrafast' 5G Evolution in Indianapolis | FierceWirelessFierceWireless Evolution from 4G LTE to 5G Wireless Network Gains MomentumNasdaq AT&T unveils '5G Evolution' network in IndianapolisFox 59 Droid Life (press release) (blog) -Android Headlines -PhoneDog all 21 news articles »

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AT&T Launches New '5G Evolution' Network In Indianapolis - Patch.com

The story of the SK Gaming, the Brazilian Counter-Strike powerhouse, has many starting points. For international awareness, it began at MLG X Games Aspen in January 2015. It was an incredibly important event for the region: few tournaments up to that point had a Brazilian qualifier, so it was one of the few chances for a Brazilian team to travel outside the country. In the finals of that qualifier, six players of note were in attendance:

Gabriel FalleN Toledo

Fernando fer Alvarenga

Marcelo coldzera David

Epitacio TACO Pessoa

Lincoln fnx Lau

Joao felps Vasconcellos

KaBuM.TD, with FalleN and fer, eliminated fnxs team, familiarei$, in the semifinals. In the grand finals, KaBuM faced Dexterity, which had coldzera, TACO and felps. The end result was a convincing win for KaBuM, which moved on to play at the main event. That early battle could be considered one of the starting points of the Luminosity Gaming (now SK) legend.

Perhaps the beginning of the legend started in CS 1.6, when the first great Brazilian team mibr won the world championship at ESWC in 2006. That was the lineup that proved to the Brazilians and the world that they could compete with the best. It was there that fnx won his first Major.

Or perhaps it started with an innocuous meeting at WCG 2011, where an unknown coldzera had his picture taken with his FalleN, his personal hero. It was a chance meeting between two players who teamed up years later to conquer the world.

Whatever the case, the rise of the Brazilians is one of the legendary stories in CS:GO history. They started with nothing: no servers, no tournaments, no teams, and no salaries. They gave no excuses. When they had no leader, FalleN took on the role. When they needed an AWPer, FalleN took on the role. When left with no recourse, they started a community stream to get to the Major qualifiers. When they had no slot in North American ESL Pro League, they moved to the United States to get one. They seized whatever opportunities, no matter how infinitesimal the chance for success, and somehow created a miracle. But calling their ascension in the CS:GO world a marvel might be unintentionally insulting. It was accomplished through sacrifice, effort, skill and a little bit of luck.

When I look at the rise of the Brazilians as a whole from KaBuM.TD to SK Gaming, I believe that their guiding principle that has led them to such success has been their ability to learn, change and evolve regardless of difficulty. Each of the six players at different points in time were symbols of that change. That willingness to make difficult decisions when needed has been their hallmark back to the KaBuM.TD days, and it remains a cornerstone of their philosophy today.

FalleN is the leader of the operation. His tactical prowess made him a respected figurehead around the world. But as a leader and as a player he refuses to rest on his laurels. He sees every victory as a stepping stone to the next achievement, every loss as a lesson to be learned. His philosophy of the game has been ingrained into every teammate, and because of that osmosis, FalleN can focus more on his own individual play, comfortable knowing his players will know how to respond in any situation.

Fer was the initial star of the team. Like FalleN, he is someone who learns from his losses and is willing to change. When coldzera and FalleN became the star players, he took a back seat and was able to find a niche, aggressive role that still helped out his team. In the current era, fer is one of the stars of the team and his aggressive play style has shaped SKs current identity. As a player and person, Fer is willing to do whatever it takes to win.

Coldzera is the superstar of the team. He is a generational talent, but like Fer and FalleN, he has assimilated the attitude of learning from losses. Recently we saw a rare underperformance from him at the ESL Pro League Finals. Two weeks later, he had already learned from his loss and become even stronger.

I saw that a lot of my positions were off and I had bad plays in my bomb sites, he told HLTV. So I created more plays for myself and created more setups with my teammates on bomb sites. I also played more death match and put more hours into the game.

Those three were the core of Luminosity from 2015 until SK signed the roster SK last year. For a while they were able to string together good international performances and reach the playoffs, but they had hit their ceiling. They wanted more. They needed more. So when they realized that something needed to change, they decided to make a dramatic roster change six days before the FaceIt Stage 3 Finals in November2015. They brought in TACO and fnx.

The prevailing wisdom was that a team needed time before a roster change could be adequately implemented, processed, and optimized. There was no point in doing it days before a tournament. But the decisiveness, even in the face of supposed common sense, was characteristic of the way this lineup has always dealt with roster changes. They are willing to give a lot of time to teammates to improve and learn. But if they couldnt reach the level required, the team made the change regardless of outside circumstances. Fast, decisive action happens so they can change for the better in the future.

The FaceIt tournament was a watershed moment for FalleN and the team. With so little time to prepare, the team went for a loose style of leadership. It resulted in the teams highest-ever placing as it reached the grand finals. FalleN had already been one of the best in-game leaders in the world, but after that, he realized he could take his own game, his own leadership, to another level. The evolution of that lineup would have been deterred without the speed with which it made the roster change. Fnx and TACO themselves became symbolic of the continued evolution in the team.

Fnx as a player seemed to be undergoing a transformation himself at the time. He had spent months playing in Games Academy and had become a good teammate. His entrance into the Luminosity lineup was symbolic of renewed vigor, reminiscent of his time on mibr all those years ago. As a player, he was willing to do whatever it took to win and because of his great experience and game sense, he fit into the Luminosity system like a glove.

In game he is the easiest player to play with, FalleN said. He just knows everything he needs to do, almost every time.

While fnx symbolized the glory of days past, TACO represented the new generation. He is perhaps most emblematic of FalleNs approach to Counter-Strike. Among all the players who have come under FalleNs tutelage, TACO seems to have gotten the most out of it. He has become one of the most versatile role players in the game and is always willing to play the hard roles, facilitate his teammates and create space. The reason he was chosen wasnt because of any inherent potential, but attitude.

We needed someone to be our entry-killer and TACO had the right mindset for that position, FalleN said. Also, he is very dedicated and seemed the correct guy to pick up.

The team continued to incrementally evolve. The players were able to get over the hump of getting wins in finals. They were able to overcome Natus Vincere a brief stumbling block and they created their own era by winning back-to-back Majors at MLG COlumbus and ESL One Cologne in 2016. Even then, they never stopped learning, never stopped changing. After the MLG Major, they tried to incorporate Cache into their map pool but failed. Instead, they were able to build upon Cobblestone and eventually Dust 2.

But that constant development halted after their Cologne victory. Something imperceptible had changed in the team. They were still getting top finishes, but their maps slowly stagnated, their T-sides became less inspired, and they were no longer selecting new maps or giving out new looks to their defaults. It all came to a head at ELEAGUE Season 2 when they played Astralis in the semifinals. Astralis defeated SK on Train, a map where SK was considered unbeatable. It was clear something had to change, and again SK made a decisive move.

Fnx had symbolized change and regrowth, a return to the glory days. In his Valve profile, the video ends with the line He is no longer a player you have to play with, but a player you want to play with. At some point that was likely true, but no longer. The age-old habits that led to his removal from previous lineups had resurfaced. He had lost his motivation and his will to change. He had to be removed.

It was a bold move as SK had better chances of going farther in the Major with fnx rather than going in with a stand-in, someone who wouldnt be around after the Major. The team did it anyway. With Ricardo fox Pacheco, they were able to create a strong tactical team in a short period of time that reached the semifinals of the ELEAGUE Major. Afterwards, SK finally added its permanent new fifth in felps.

Felps, like coldzera and TACO, was part of the new generation of talented Brazilian players. He was a hyper-aggressive star in a team already packed to the gills with talent. Initially, SK tried to play to his strengths with a looser style of calling. It was largely successful at DreamHack Las Vegas, where SK took second place.

They tried it again at IEM Katowice but fell out of the group stages. Although the skill was there, the loose style was too inconsistent to work against the level of competition SK was supposed to measure up against. Once again, the team knew it needed to change something in its approach. SK decided to orient its tactics around the aggressive gameplay of fer and felps, but with some constraints on what positions they would take and hold. While felps slowly absorbed the overarching notions of FalleNs teamplay, fer was given more freedom to take aggressive risks. That allowed FalleN to increase his output on the AWP and break out of his disconcerting slump. Simultaneously, the more structured play style helped coldzera become the superstar of the team as his mid-round decisions were reemphasized. The eventual approach that emerged from this stretch of tinkering was a hybrid of old and new, tactical and loose. This made a dramatic change in the map pool. Overpass and Train faded away into the background as Mirage, Cobble and Cache took center stage.

Even since the beginning, this Brazilian lineup has continued to evolve. It makes the correct roster changes whenever the current squad runs its course; it alters its style of play according to what players possess and whatever meta is most robust at the moment. This is SKs defining feature and this progress is what has made this team grow stronger from year to year, lineup to lineup.

Cover photo courtesy of MLG and ESL, illustration by Raphie Rosen

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From charity streams to the top of the world: The evolution of SK Gaming - Slingshot Esports