Category Archives: Evolution

Roth Capital cut shares of Evolution Petroleum (NYSEAMERICAN:EPM Get Rating) from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, Marketbeat.com reports. They currently have $9.50 price objective on the energy companys stock.

Shares of NYSEAMERICAN:EPM opened at $4.95 on Wednesday. Evolution Petroleum has a 12-month low of $3.60 and a 12-month high of $8.17. The company has a market cap of $167.02 million, a PE ratio of -45.00 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 2.22 and a quick ratio of 2.22.

Evolution Petroleum (NYSEAMERICAN:EPM Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 10th. The energy company reported $0.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.23. The business had revenue of $25.69 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $25.09 million. Evolution Petroleum had a positive return on equity of 14.47% and a negative net margin of 8.88%. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Evolution Petroleum will post 0.72 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of EPM. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. raised its position in Evolution Petroleum by 97.0% during the first quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 3,656 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 1,800 shares in the last quarter. Copeland Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in Evolution Petroleum during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $31,000. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SA raised its position in Evolution Petroleum by 253,450.0% during the first quarter. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SA now owns 5,071 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $34,000 after purchasing an additional 5,069 shares in the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in Evolution Petroleum during the first quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Finally, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. acquired a new position in Evolution Petroleum during the first quarter valued at approximately $55,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 61.84% of the companys stock.

Evolution Petroleum Company Profile (Get Rating)

Evolution Petroleum Corporation, an oil and natural gas company, engages in the development, production, ownership, and management of oil and gas properties in the United States. The company holds interests in a CO2 enhanced oil recovery project in Louisiana's Delhi field. Its Delhi Holt-Bryant Unit covers an area of 13,636 acres located in Northeast Louisiana.

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Evolution Petroleum (NYSEAMERICAN:EPM) Lowered to Neutral at Roth Capital - Defense World

FAIRFIELD, N.J., July 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bleakley Financial Group (Bleakley), is pleased to announce that it has become an independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA). Since 2015, Bleakleyhas been affiliated with Private Advisor Group, one of the largest and fastest-growing independent wealth management firms in the country.* Private Advisor Groupwas selected as the preferred partner and RIA of choice to provide regulatory, compliance, and operational support, as Bleakley embarked on its own journey toward full independence after departing from Northwestern Mutual. During their seven-year relationship, both firms have grown significantly and worked closely toward fulfilling Bleakley's aspiration to operate its own RIA and complete their transition to their own independent business. Bleakley Financial Grouplaunched its new RIA in the Spring of 2022 and has taken a phased approach to completing their transition to full independence.

Andy Schwartz,Principal of Bleakley Financial Group remarked, "Our partnership with Private Advisor Group has been exceptional in every facet of supporting our firm and helping us reach our goals. We consider them personal friends, in addition to outstanding business partners, and will continue our relationship well into the future."

Private Advisor Group's CEO, RJ Moore, commented, "We are excited for the principals and advisors at Bleakley Financial Group. Much has been accomplished during our partnership and we look forward to continuing in supporting each other's successes and the progression of firms in our profession."

Bleakley is comprised of over 50 advisors in thirteen states and as of December 31st, 2021, services approximately $9 billion in brokerage and advisory assets.

Private Advisor Group is comprised of more than 700 financial advisors nationwide with over $30 billion in assets under management as of December 31st, 2021.

About Bleakley Financial Group

For more than 30 years, Bleakley has been providing customized financial planning and wealth management services to a diverse array of clients across the country. Bleakley prides itself on delivering personalized guidance to fit the goals and lifestyle needs of each customer. With more than three decades of experience, our state-of-the-art financial planning comes with a personal touch. Our team consists of more than 160 investment professionals, from financial advisors and research assistants to client support.

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For more information, visit http://www.bleakley.com.

About Private Advisor Group

Founded in 1997 in Morristown, NJ, Private Advisor Group is one of the nation's leading financial services firms. With over $30 billion in assets under management, the firm strives to improve financial outcomes for individual investors and inspire growth, fiduciary adherence, legacy planning and a client-centric approach for independent financial advisors' practices. Barron's has recognized Private Advisor Group as a top ten registered investment advisory firm since 2019.

*Barron's "Top 100 RIA Firms" ranking is based upon quantitative and qualitative criteria including: regulatory records, client retention reports, assets managed, revenue generated, technology spending, number of clients, size and diversity of staff, placement of a succession plan, and more. Investor experience and returns are not considered. Neither Private Advisor Group nor its financial advisors pay a fee to Barron's in exchange for the ranking.

For more information, visit http://www.privateadvisorgroup.com.

Securities offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, a registered investment advisor and separate entity from LPL Financial.

Media Inquiries:

Andy SchwartzPrincipal, Bleakley Financial GroupAndy.Schwartz@bleakley.comOffice: 973-244-4202

Kelly CoulterMarketing Director, Private Advisor GroupKelly.coulter@privateadvisorgrouop.com480-815-8695

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Bleakley Financial Group Announces the Evolution of Their Business to an Independent Registered Investment Advisor - Yahoo Finance

Express News Service

CHENNAI: March 27, 2022, Hagley Oval, Christchurch. India was playing South Africa in their final league game of the Cricket World Cup a must-win encounter for them to progress to the semifinals. South Africa needed three runs to win from two balls. Mignon du Preez was on strike, batting on 51 from 61 balls. At the other end was Deepti Sharma, standing steely-eyed at the top of her mark, ready to bound in.

Mignon seemed all set in her stance, with her trademark paradoxical movements. Having struggled in the earlier games, she had enjoyed one of her better days in the tournament. She was the one who could potentially end the World Cup dream of Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami.

Meanwhile, 9.4 overs into her day, Deepti had had an excellent outing, conceding just 38 runs in her spell. Defending only seven runs in the final over, the off-spinning all-rounder had given away just four and been a part of a run-out in the first four deliveries.

There were long discussions among the Indian team after almost every ball in that over - fields adjusted, plans altered and re-altered and attempts made to calm everyone down. If there ever was a clutch moment in the game that was it.

The pressure was palpable. But Deepti remained visibly calm. Still supremely self-assured, she took a few quick steps into her run-up and went through with her action. Mignon waited for the ball, but it never came, still lodged firmly in the bowlers hand. It was the mandatory Deepti-Sharma-fake-delivery of the match one that left the batter in anticipation. It was an act that came as no surprise - something that has become her trademark when under the pump.

It comes to me pretty naturally, said Deepti when asked about it in an exclusive chat with The New Indian Express from Bengaluru. I have been doing it for several years now. Second thing, you'll also get a glimpse of what the batter is trying to do, whether it's stepping out or going on the back foot, added the off-spinner.

And she had a point. But just like any other cricketing tactic, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesnt. On that day, in the most important match of the tournament for India, it almost worked. Mignon stepped out to launch Deepti down the ground on the very next delivery but was caught at long-on by Harmanpreet Kaur Except that Deepti had overstepped.

While Mignon took South Africa home and India faced an early exit, one of the things that stood out that night was the calmness that Deepti showed under pressure. The calmness, that is, despite the no ball. She was no longer the nervous 19-year-old who tried to slog her way through the 11 runs that were required in the last two overs of the 2017 World Cup final. She was now more aware of her game, more in control of her emotions and had clearer, more precise plans whenever she took the field.

But even back in 2017, there was never any question about her potential: she became the first teenager to score 200-plus runs and take more than 10 wickets 216 runs and 12 scalps in a Womens World Cup. However, in the most important moment of the final during the chase, she panicked.

In the five years since Deeptis confidence has grown leaps and bounds. Shes gone from someone who buckled under pressure, to a player who now thrives under it a quality that showed on that day in the final moments of Indias final World Cup league match against South Africa at Christchurch.

How did she get to this point? Because confidence isn't built overnight. It comes from hours, weeks, months and years of work behind the scenes on both the technical and mental front. And for Deepti, like most top athletes, hard work is her default setting. But in recent times, her work, she says, has been driven by two key aspects - visualization and improvisation.

Till now whatever matches I have played, after a match I always go back and see how I did in the videos and what I can improve, she said. For example, it's not like if I do well, I don't go and look at it and see what I did right and then when things go a bit up and down, suddenly, I go and follow what was the issue in the batting, what was the problem.

For me, every match, irrespective of whether I did well or not, whatever innings I played, I liked to go back and watch it. Even the positives, whatever boundaries I hit or good innings I played, it has helped me a lot. When I go back, I practice based on that whether it's bowling or batting. I feel that it has helped me improve a lot.

Between July 23, 2017, and March 2020, Deepti was the fourth-best off-spinner in the world in terms of wickets (24 scalps at an average of 36.20 with a 4.15 economy) behind Sana Mir, Leigh Kasperek and Ashleigh Gardner. Among Indians, Poonam Yadav and Ekta Bisht were the two spinners to have more wickets than her in that period.

When the pandemic broke, India did not play any international cricket for over a year. When they returned, Deepti hit a bit of a roadblock in 2021, taking just five wickets in 10 innings with that average shooting up to 76.80. But it was not just her; every Indian spinner, barring Rajeshwari Gayakwad who averaged 31.12, had a bad year. No one else averaged below 40. In 2022, however, they did better and so did Deepti, taking 17 wickets in 12 innings so far.

Deepti's growth is not only evident in the numbers, but also in the fact that she has become India's go-to bowler in recent times. With India's pace attack lacking international experience apart from Jhulan Goswami ( Shikha Pandey has played only three ODIs since March 2020) the off-spinner has often been tasked with bowling in the powerplay and death overs, something she had to do in that World Cup game against South Africa as well.

Its a skill Deepti has practiced a great deal over the years, doing a lot of spot bowling to get used to bowling with the new ball. So, the funda is the same, if you know where you have to bowl and how to execute it, that's all there is. You know, the batter shouldn't get any room as with just two fielders outside, it will be easier for them. I just keep in my mind to stick to my strengths, said the 24-year-old.

Whether it's powerplay, middle overs or death, I like bowling in every situation. That's what I practice for and once you keep doing that, you get used to it. It doesn't matter if it's powerplay or slog-overs as long as you know where to bowl. Once you are confident, you can bowl in any given situation.

While Deepti has truly grown into a top-class off-spinner, with the bat, her journey has been quite a contrast. She made her India debut as a backup opener in some style, smashing a 188 the highest individual ODI score by an Indian against Ireland as a teenager. As years went by, she has batted in all positions between 1-9 and has often been used as a floater, largely in the lower middle order. Deepti has batted 68 times so far but has got an extended run of sorts (more than 10 times) only in two positions - No 3 and 6.

Just like any other batter, the southpaw has had her share of challenges, struggling to keep pace with the demands of a new position 1804 runs at an average of 35.37 while striking at 64.63. But shes hardly shied away from those battles, trying to contribute to the best of her abilities, adjusting her methods along the way. And similar to her bowling, visualisation and improvisation seems key to her preparation in adapting to different roles in the batting order.

So, what happens with my role is that (it is) based on which position I get to bat, I always try to do my best for the team. Whatever role I get, it doesn't matter. It's all about making sure I contribute to the team's cause. See, when you open the batting, you'll have some time to settle in, and powerplay makes it a bit easy with just two fielders outside the circle. You will have the opportunity to score the maximum runs possible. In middle overs, you'll have to play according to the scoreboard, read the match situation and react accordingly.

I always try to stay positive. Whatever match is there, every match I look at it the same way, whether it's domestic or international. The focus remains the same. Mentally, if you think about it, it's still the same. Just the bowlers, their pace and standards differ a little bit. But yes, my mindset will remain the same. If you keep it the same, it helps is what I believe.

After all these years, Deeptis keenness to stay positive throughout the challenges and heartbreaks and her ability to keep things simple on and off the field is what has helped her grow in confidence, not just as a player but also as a person. And when any player shows that kind of level-headedness and maturity in their cricket, they always get noticed.

It happened to Deepti as well when she was named vice-captain to Mithali in the last couple of ODIs against New Zealand earlier this year. When the former Indian skipper did not take part in the recently concluded Womens T20 Challenge, Deepti led Velocity to the final. It was the first time she was captaining a team, something she seemed to have enjoyed doing as well.

It was a great experience. I was confident because when you get to do it in a match on a big stage like the T20 Challenge, it is a sign of positivity, she said, before adding, you could say it comes with an extra responsibility to do your best for the team, whatever the team or any player needs, you make sure that you give them the opportunity to do what they want. Whether it's a bowler or a batter, whatever demands are there for the team, I always back the players.

Our team had a lot of youngsters as well, playing for the first time in the T20 Challenge. I told them, 'whoever gets an opportunity in the match, stick to your strengths, whether it's bowling or scoring shots, just try to do that and more importantly believe in them. It'll always help you do well.' All I gave was a little bit of motivation and they did extremely well, which benefitted the team as well. It was a different feeling to play in the final as a captain.

There is a calmness and keen understanding in the way she speaks - a stark contrast to the hesitant teenager who took her initial steps in international cricket. Between two World Cup heartbreaks, Deepti has evolved from a nervous young talent to a utility cricketer who has constantly upskilled herself, is well aware of her strengths and limitations and can hold her nerve in clutch situations. And as she keeps repeating through the chat, visualisation and improvisation are at the centre of it all.

But there is one more underlying theme to her evolution. Its the fact that she doesnt say no to anything thats asked of her and tries to fulfil it to the best of her abilities. She is a trier who never gives up. And its a quality that no one can take away from her.

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The evolution of Deepti Sharma between two World Cup heartbreaks - The New Indian Express

If you look different to your close relatives, you may have felt separate from your family. As a child, during particularly stormy fall outs you might have even hoped it was a sign that you were adopted.

As our new research shows, appearances can be deceptive when it comes to family. New DNA technology is shaking up the family trees of many plants and animals.

The primates, to which humans belong, were once thought to be close relatives of bats because of some similarities in our skeletons and brains. However, DNA data now places us in a group that includes rodents (rats and mice) and rabbits. Astonishingly, bats turn out to be more closely related to cows, horses, and even rhinoceroses than they are to us.

Scientists in Darwin's time and through most of the 20th century could only work out the branches of the evolutionary tree of life by looking at the structure and appearance of animals and plants. Life forms were grouped according to similarities thought to have evolved together.

About three decades ago, scientists started using DNA data to build "molecular trees". Many of the first trees based on DNA data were at odds with the classical ones.

Sloths and anteaters, armadillos, pangolins (scaly anteaters), and aardvarks were once thought to belong together in a group called edentates ("no teeth"), since they share aspects of their anatomy.

Molecular trees showed that these traits evolved independently in different branches of the mammal tree. It turns out that aardvarks are more closely related to elephants while pangolins are more closely related to cats and dogs.

There is another important line of evidence that was familiar to Darwin and his contemporaries. Darwin noted that animals and plants that appeared to share the closest common ancestry were often found close together geographically. The location of species is another strong indicator they are related: species that live near each other are more likely to share a family tree.

For the first time, our recent paper cross-referenced location, DNA data, and appearance for a range of animals and plants. We looked at evolutionary trees based on appearance or on molecules for 48 groups of animals and plants, including bats, dogs, monkeys, lizards, and pine trees.

Evolutionary trees based on DNA data were two-thirds more likely to match with the location of the species compared with traditional evolution maps. In other words, previous trees showed several species were related based on appearance.

Our research showed they were far less likely to live near each other compared to species linked by DNA data.

It may appear that evolution endlessly invents new solutions, almost without limits. But it has fewer tricks up its sleeve than you might think.

Animals can look amazingly alike because they have evolved to do a similar job or live in a similar way. Birds, bats and the extinct pterosaurs have, or had, bony wings for flying, but their ancestors all had front legs for walking on the ground instead.

(Oyston et al., Communication Biology, 2022)

Above:The color wheels and key indicate where members of each order are found geographically. The molecular tree has these colors grouped together better than the morphological tree, indicating closer agreement of the molecules to biogeography.

Similar wing shapes and muscles evolved in different groups because the physics of generating thrust and lift in air are always the same. It is much the same with eyes, which may have evolved 40 times in animals, and with only a few basic "designs".

Our eyes are similar to squid's eyes, with a crystalline lens, iris, retina, and visual pigments. Squid are more closely related to snails, slugs, and clams than us. But many of their mollusk relatives have only the simplest of eyes.

Moles evolved as blind, burrowing creatures at least four times, on different continents, on different branches of the mammal tree. The Australian marsupial pouched moles (more closely related to kangaroos), African golden moles (more closely related to aardvarks), African mole rats (rodents), and the Eurasian and North American talpid moles (beloved of gardeners, and more closely related to hedgehogs than these other "moles") all evolved down a similar path.

Until the advent of cheap and efficient gene sequencing technology in the 21st century, appearance was usually all evolutionary biologists had to go on.

While Darwin (1859) showed that all life on Earth is related in a single evolutionary tree, he did little to map out its branches. The anatomist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was one of the first people to draw evolutionary trees that tried to show how major groups of life forms are related.

(Ernest Haeckel)

Haeckel's drawings made brilliant observations of living things that influenced art and design in the 19th and 20th centuries. His family trees were based almost entirely on how those organisms looked and developed as embryos.Many of his ideas about evolutionary relationships were held until recently.

As it becomes easier and cheaper to obtain and analyze large volumes of molecular data, there will be many more surprises in store.

Matthew Wills, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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New DNA Technology Is Shaking Up The Branches of The Evolutionary Tree - ScienceAlert

An international team of 114 scientists has performed the most comprehensive study of aging and longevity to date with data collected in the wild from 107 populations of 77 species of reptiles and amphibians worldwide.

MSU Professor Anne Bronikowski

The team, led by researchers at Michigan State University, Pennsylvania State University and Northeastern Illinois University, reported its findings in the journal Science on June 23.

Among their many findings, the researchers documented for the first time that turtles, salamanders and crocodilians (an order that includes crocodiles, alligators and caimans) have particularly slow aging rates and extended lifespans for their sizes.

We are committed to studying long-lived species in the wild because nature has already done the experiment of how to age slowly, wrote MSU researchers Anne Bronikowski and Fredric Janzen.

Bronikowski is one of the leaders of the study who recently joined MSU as a professor of integrative biology in the College of Natural Science and at the W. K. Kellogg Biological Station, or KBS. Janzen is the director of KBS, as well as a professor in the College of Natural Science and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

MSU Professor Fredric Janzen

Anne sometimes calls these examples evolutions solutions to growing old, Janzen said.

They are relevant to studies of human frailty because our cellular and genomic pathways are shared across much of animal life, Bronikowski said.

If we can understand what allows some animals to age more slowly, we can better understand aging in humans as well, and we can also inform conservation strategies for reptiles and amphibians, many of which are threatened or endangered, said David Miller, a senior author of the Science paper and an associate professor of wildlife population ecology at Penn State.

In their study, the researchersapplied methods used in both ecological and evolutionary sciences to analyze variation in aging and longevity of reptiles and amphibians. These cold-blooded" or ectothermic animals offer a contrast to "warm-blooded" or endothermic mammals and birds.

One of the interesting findings was that each group has a slow or negligible aging species across all these different ectotherms, wrote Bronikowski and Janzen.

It sounds dramatic to say that they dont age at all, said Beth Reinke, the first author of the Science report and an assistant professor of biology at Northeastern Illinois University. But basically their likelihood of dying does not change with age once theyre past reproduction.

The face of a tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus), a slow-aging reptile found in New Zealand. Credit: Sarah Lamar

Negligible aging means that if an animals chance of dying in a year is 1% at age 10, if it is alive at 100 years, its chance of dying is still 1%. By contrast, in adult U.S. females, the risk of dying in a year is about 1-in-2,500 at age 20 and 1-in-24 at age 80, said Penn States Miller, citing a current U.S. Social Security Administration actuarial table. When a species exhibits negligible mortality senescence, this mortality aging just doesnt happen.

The researchers also compared their findings in ectotherms to what is known about endotherms and explored previous hypotheses related to aging.

For instance, the thermoregulatory mode hypothesis suggests that endotherms age faster than ectotherms because endotherms have higher metabolisms to help regulate their body temperatures.

People tend to think, for example, that mice age quickly because they have high metabolisms, whereas turtles age slowly because they have low metabolisms, Miller said.

The teams findings, however, reveal that ectotherms aging rates and lifespans range both well above and below the known aging rates for similar-sized endotherms. Thus, it appears that the way an animal regulates its temperature cold-blooded versus warm-blooded is not necessarily indicative of its aging rate or lifespan.

A photo of a painted turtle (Chrysemys picta), a widespread North American species of freshwater turtle. Credit: Beth A. Reinke

We didnt find support for the idea that a lower metabolic rate means ectotherms are aging slower, Miller said. That relationship was only true for turtles, which suggests that turtles are unique among ectotherms.

Then theres the protective phenotypes hypothesis, which suggests that animals with traits that confer protection such as armor, spines or shells have greater longevity. This, in turn, promotes slower aging.

The team documented that these protective traits do, indeed, enable animals to age more slowly and live much longer for their size than those without protective phenotypes.

These various protective mechanisms may reduce animals mortality rates within generations, said Reinke. Thus, theyre more likely to live longer, and that can change the selection landscape across generations for the evolution of slower aging. We found the biggest support for the protective phenotype hypothesis in turtles. Again, this demonstrates that turtles, as a group, are unique.

In fact, a tortoise named Jonathan recently made news for being the worlds oldest living land animal at 190 years old.

It could be that their altered morphology with hard shells provides protection and has contributed to the evolution of their life histories, including negligible aging or lack of demographic aging and exceptional longevity, said MSUs Bronikowski.

A female Darwins frog (Rhinoderma darwinii) in southern Chile. Credit: ONG Ranita de Darwin

Bronikowski helped seed the study with support from a grant from the National Institute on Aging, one of the National Institutes of Health, to study aging in painted turtles. Hugo Cayeula, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lyon in France, was leading a similar project on frogs and amphibians, so it made sense to collaborate, Bronikowski said.

From there, Northeastern Illinoiss Reinke reached out to more and more researchers to include more and more ectotherms (for a full list of authors and their affiliations, please see the published manuscript in Science).

The teams novel study was only possible because of the contributions of a large number of collaborators from across the world studying a wide variety of species, Reinke said.

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Revealing 'evolution's solutions' to aging | MSUToday | Michigan State University - MSUToday

The middle ear of humans evolved from fish gills, according to a study of a 438 million-year-old fossil fish brain.

Scientists discovered the fossil of the braincase of a Shuyu fish. Despite its skull only being the size of a fingernail they were able to recreate seven virtual casts of the brain.

They also unearthed the first 419 million-year-old armored galeaspid fossil completely preserved with gill filaments.

The team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found the spiracle, slits behind the eyes leading to the mouth which allows some species to breathe.

In sharks and all rays, the spiracle is responsible for the intake of water before being expelled from the gills.

The spiracle evolved into the ear of modern four-legged vertebrates eventually becoming the hearing canal used for transmitting sound to the brain via tiny inner ear bones.

This function has remained throughout the evolution to humans.

The detail derived from the two fossils is the last piece of the jigsaw proving the line from fish gills to the human ear.

The human middle ear houses three tiny, vibrating bones which are key to transporting sound vibrations into the inner ear, where they become nerve impulses that allow us to hear.

Professor Zhikun Gai from IVPP and first author of the study said: "These fossils provided the first anatomical and fossil evidence for a vertebrate spiracle originating from fish gills."

A total of seven virtual endocasts of the Shuyu braincase were reconstructed.

Almost all details of the cranial anatomy of Shuyu were revealed in its fingernail-sized skull, including five brain divisions, sensory organs, and cranial nerve and blood vessel passages.

The fossils found in China's Changxing, Zhejiang Province and Qujing, Yunnan Province were hailed as the 'missing links' from the gill to the middle ear.

Professor Min Zhu, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences added: "Many important structures of human beings can be traced back to our fish ancestors, such as our teeth, jaws, middle ears, etc.

"The main task of paleontologists is to find the important missing links in the evolutionary chain from fish to humans.

"Shuyu has been regarded as a key missing link as important as Archaeopteryx."

Professor Per Ahlberg from Uppsala University and academician of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences who collaborated on the research, said: "Our finding bridges the entire history of the spiracular slit, bringing together recent discoveries from the gill pouches of fossil jawless vertebrates, via the spiracles of the earliest jawed vertebrates, to the middle ears of the first tetrapods, which tells this extraordinary evolutionary story."

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

This story was provided to Newsweek by Zenger News.

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Middle Ear of Humans Evolved From Fish Gills, According to Study - Newsweek

Photo credit: Foam, via Flickr (cropped).

I am reviewing Jason Rosenhouses new book,The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism(Cambridge University Press), serially.For the full series so far, go here.

Because of the centrality of the searching protein space model to Jason Rosenhouses argument, its instructive to illustrate it with the full rigor of his track 2 (see my post from yesterday on that). Let me therefore lay out such a model in detail. Consider a 100-dimensional discrete hypercube of 100-tuples of the form (a_1,a_2, ,a_100), where thea_is are all natural numbers between 0 and 100. Consider now the following path in the hypercube starting at (0, 0, , 0) and ending at (100,100, , 100). New path elements are now defined by adding 1s to each position of any existing path element, starting at the left and moving to the right, and then starting over at the left again. Thus the entire path takes the form

0: (0, 0, , 0)

1: (1, 0, , 0)

2: (1, 1, , 0)

100: (1, 1, , 1)

101: (2, 1, , 1)

102: (2, 2, , 1)

200: (2, 2, , 2)

300: (3, 3, , 3)

1,000: (10, 10, , 10)

2.000: (20, 20, , 20)

10,000: (100, 100, , 100)

The hypercube consists of 101^100, or about 2.7 x 10^200 elements, but the path itself has only 10,001 path elements and 10,000 implicit path edges connecting the elements.

For simplicity, lets put this discrete hypercube under a uniform probability distribution (we dont have to, but its convenient for the purposes of illustration Rosenhouse mistakenly claims that intelligent design mathematics automatically defaults to uniform or equiprobability, but thats not the case, as we will see; but there are often good reasons to begin an analysis there). Given a uniform probability on the discrete hypercube, the path elements, all 10,001 of them considered together, have probability roughly 1 in 2.7 x 10^196 (10,001 divided by the total number of elements making up the hypercube). Thats very small, indeed smaller than the probability of winning 23 Powerball jackpots in a row (the probability of winning one Powerball jackpot is 1 in 292,201,338).

Each path element in the hypercube has 200 immediate neighbors. Note that in one dimension there would be two neighbors, left and right; in two dimensions there would be four neighbors, left and right as well as up and down; in three dimensions there would be six neighbors, left and right, up and down, forward and backward; etc. Note also for path elements on the boundary of the hypercube, we can simply extend the hypercube into the ambient discrete hyperspace, finding there neighbors that never actually end up getting used (alternatively, the boundaries can be treated as reflecting barriers, a device commonly used by probabilists).

Next, lets define a fitness functionFthat is zero off the path and assigns to path elements of the form (a_1,a_2, ,a_100) the suma_1 +a_2 + +a_100. The starting point (0, 0, , 0) then has minimal fitness and the end point (100, 100, , 100) then has maximal fitness. Moreover, each successive path element, as illustrated above, has higher fitness, by 1, than its immediate predecessor. If we now stay with a uniform probability, and thus sample uniformly from the adjoining 200 neighbors, then the probabilitypof getting to the next element on the path, as judged by the fitness functionF, is 1 in 200 for any given sample query, which we can think of and describe as amutational step.

The underlying probability distribution for moving between adjacent path elements is thegeometric distribution. Traversing the entire path from starting point to end point can thus be represented by a sum of independent and identically distributed (with geometric distribution) random variables. Thus, on average, it takes 200 evolutionary sample queries, or mutational steps, to move from one path element to the next, and it therefore takes on average 2,000,000 (= 200 x 10,000) evolutionary sample queries, or mutational steps, to move from the starting to the end point. Probabilists call these numberswaiting times. Thus, the waiting time for getting from one path element to the next is, on average, 200; and for getting from the starting to the end point is, on average, 2,000,000.

As it is, the geometric distribution is easy to work with and illustrates nicely Rosenhouses point about evolution not depending on brute improbability. But suppose I didnt see that I was dealing with a geometric distribution or suppose the problem was much more difficult probabilistically, allowing no closed-form solution as here. In that case, I could have written a simulation to estimate the waiting times: just evolve across the path from all zeros to all one-hundreds over and over on a computer and see what it averages to. Would it be veering from Rosenhouses track 2 to do a simulation to estimate the probabilities and waiting times? Throughout his book, he insists on an exact and explicit identification of the probability space, its geometry, and the relevant probability distributions. But thats unnecessary and excessive.

In many practical situations, we have no way of assigning exact theoretical probabilities. Instead, we must estimate them by sampling real physical systems or by running computer simulations of them. Even in poker, where all the moving parts are clearly identified, the probabilities can get so out of hand that only simulations can give us a grasp of the underlying probabilities. And whats true for poker is even more true for biology. The level of specificity Ive given in this hypercube example is way more than Rosenhouse gives in his searching protein space example. The hypercube makes explicit what he leaves implicit, namely, it distinguishes mathematically the entire search space from the evolutionary paths through it from the neighborhoods around points on the path. It thus captures a necessary feature of Darwinian evolution. But it does so at the cost of vast oversimplification, rendering the connection between Darwinian and real-world evolution tenuous at best.

Why have I just gone through this exercise with the 100-dimensional discrete hypercube, giving it the full track 2 monty? Two reasons. One, it is to rebut Rosenhouses insistence on Darwinian gradualism in the face of intelligent design (more on this later in this review series). Two, it is to show Darwinist critics like Rosenhouse that we in the intelligent design community know exactly what they are talking about when they stress that rather than brute improbability, the real issue for evolvability is the improbability of traversing evolutionary pathways subject to fitness. Ive known this for decades, as have my intelligent design colleagues Mike Behe, Steve Meyer, and Doug Axe. Rosenhouse continually suggests that my colleagues and I are probabilistically nave, failing to appreciate the nuances and subtleties of Darwinism. Were not. Ill be returning to the hypercube example because it also illustrates why Rosenhouses Darwinism is so implacably committed to sequential mutations and must disallow simultaneous mutations at all costs. But first

Next, Rosenhouse and Mathematical Proof.

Editors note: This review is cross-posted with permission of the author fromBillDembski.com.

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Rosenhouse and Discrete Hypercube Evolution - Discovery Institute

By Seth Matlins Managing Director, Forbes CMO Network

No matter how you measure marketing influence, no matter the tweaks made to methodology over time, no matter the sea-change across the marketing landscape itself, the chief marketers being inducted into this first class of The Forbes CMO Hall of Fame, have been mainstays of The Forbes Worlds Most Influential CMOs List since its launch in 2012.

We consider this proof positive of their enduring influence on the brands and businesses they help lead, on industry, the marketing community and the attitudes and behaviors of people the world over. Individually and collectively, they have shown us what true (marketing) leadership and impactin the face of unimaginable and unforeseen changelooks like.

Given their influence, given the scope and scale of their achievements over time we thought their perspective on the changes these Chief Marketers have seen (and driven) over the past decade, and the ones they expect to continue to confront in the exercise of their influence were worth sharing.

While we werent able to connect with each of those being inducted, we asked those we did how, over the past decade, they thought marketing and marketing influence had evolved, and what and/or who moving forward a chief marketers influence will be in service of? Weve organized the perspectives theyve shared in 3 buckets.

Some of answers have been edited for clarity. They are presented in alphabetical order:

Whats clear from whats been shared is that the worlds most frequently recognized influential marketers recognize in turn that while theyve been and will be confronted by torrents of change, what remains unchanged is that understanding and serving the user to drive growth remains fundamental even if and as the how-to-do-it continues to evolve. While one could reasonably argue this isnt news, given that change often begets more change and a reflexive shift in focus, wed suggest that maybe this is exactly the point.

Whats equally clear and we hope offers reason for optimism at a time when socio-economic indicators globally provide few, is that these chief marketers clearly see their role and influence serving more than a shot-term sales imperative but, rather, the long-term best interests of an eco-system of stakeholders and the world at large. And that they consider the activation and expression of purposea word oft over and mis-usednot as window dressing but as an economic engine.

Finally, by definition, induction into any Hall of Fame is rooted in looking backwards, in what has already been done and accomplished and contributed. But, we consider at least the early years of The Forbes CMO Hall of Fame more as a living museum because those inducted continue to do, contribute, accomplish and, yes, influence.

With this in mind, we give the last word to inductee Michelle Peluso:

Heres to owning our own future and having the curiosity, grit, and grace to shape it.

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Forbes CMO Hall Of Fame Inductees On The Evolution Of Marketing And Marketing Influence - Forbes

Evolution Hospitality, the Queen Marys caretaker for the past year, will enter into a five-year management agreement with the City to get the ship reopened to the public.

I know many of the residents here are excited to see more activity and events come back to life in our Queen Mary, Councilmember Suely Saro said during a Tuesday council meeting. I know that we went through a very hard time with the Queen Mary.

The ship has a long history of failed operators, one of which defaulted on their loan and two of which filed for bankruptcythe most recent being Urban Commons via Eagle Hospitality in 2021.

Before, in the past 40 years, weve really tried to manage this asset by shifting all the requirements, all the responsibilities, but also all the benefits to a private company, City Manager Tom Modica said, noting that operators were often saddled with debt to obtain the lease in the first place. That proved really not to be a model that was successful.

Instead of continuing with the failed model, the City is sparking up a management agreement with Evolution Hospitality to manage the ship in exchange for a portion of the areas revenues.

The City retains significantly more responsibility for this asset [the Queen Mary], such as major capital improvements. But the City also is entitled to a majority of net profits generated at the site, said Johnny Vallejo, acting director of the Economic Development Department.

That means that the City is required to pay for larger capital improvements for restoration and preservation, of which there are plenty. A 2017 marine survey estimated a $289 million price tag for long-term repairs and maintenance of the historic ship.

Evolution will be responsible for maintaining the ship and will retain a historic resource advisor to assist them.

For the past decade, Evolution Hospitality has been the caretaker of core maintenance and security of the ship and surrounding area. The company is a subsidiary of Aimbridge Hospitality, one of the worlds largest hotel operators.

This is what almost anyone does who owns a hotel property. They then bring on someone whos a hotel expert and these are one of the best experts in the nation, Modica said. So they do it for a percent of the gross revenue [] If history is any indication, this property all made money for the hotel itself.

Under the five-year agreement, Evolution Hospitality will be responsible for the Queen Mary leasehold area, including the ship and adjacent parking. The company will operate the Queen Mary Hotel, attractions, retail, food and beverage, parking and ship-based special events.

The management agreement includes buffers for past misfortunes: additional auditing mechanisms, such as mandatory monthly financial reports, annual audited financial reports and proposed budgets for capital projects and expenditures.

During an investigation into the operation of the Queen Mary, former operator Urban Commons refused to hand over certain financial records, despite the Citys right to audit the financials of the company.

It is incredibly important that we have access to the operation fund to help manage that operation fund, to audit, we have access to that, Vice Mayor Rex Richarson said. The performance standards, I think are good, there is an incentive to do well.

The City will pay an estimated $2.87 million for pre-opening and reopening costs for the ship, paid by the Tidelands Area Fund Group and year-end budget savings.

The rest is here:

Queen Mary's longtime caretaker Evolution Hospitality will enter 5-year agreement to manage ship - Signal Tribune

When scientists find a new disease-causing virus in humans, the first question they want answered is: Can this thing spread easily from person to person? And if not, will it someday?

Avian influenza can infect humans, but its not very good at passing from one person to another. Same with the coronavirus that causes MERS, another severe respiratory illness. Though hundreds of cases of both have been reported over the past two decades, neither virus seems inclined to evolve toward efficient person-to-person transmission.

In less than three years, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has mastered it.

SARS-CoV-2 has accumulated a suite of mutations over an astonishingly short period of time that have made it now one of the most infectious human pathogens on the planet. And for the first time ever, scientists have the tools and the knowledge to closely track that evolution in near-real time, studying the small but mighty genomic mutations that have transformed the virus to the point where it hardly resembles the strain that began infecting humans in China in late 2019.

Mapping the evolution of this virus has fed academically curious minds in every nation, and its had real world implications too. Identifying and describing new variants has helped guide public health responses and is now informing the next generation of vaccines and drug therapies.

The coronavirus rapid evolution also is helping scientists anticipate the future of the pandemic, and what mutations may make it a less or more formidable foe in years to come.

This is the first time in human history that weve been able to witness a global pandemic at the genomic, evolutionary level, said Joe DeRisi, president of San Franciscos Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, which has done genomic sequencing on the virus since the start of the pandemic.

Joe DeRisi, president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, stands for a portrait on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020, in San Francisco.

Whats been especially fascinating, and at times alarming, is the speed of this virus evolution. That SARS-CoV-2 would mutate to better adapt to humans was always anticipated, but the pace of that adaptation has been breathtaking.

Scientists say thats in large part due to the scale of the pandemic more than half a billion infections worldwide have afforded the virus near-boundless opportunity to mutate. But its a matter of timing, too. As a human virus, SARS-CoV-2 is still in its infancy, developing rapidly to flourish in its new environment. Meanwhile, human immunity to the virus due to infection and vaccination has become increasingly complex, applying constant pressure to further evolve.

Its normal to see this kind of evolution this constant battle between human and pathogen, said Fenyong Liu, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeleys School of Public Health. Each of us is focused on survival. We develop a better system to beat them, and theyre going to mutate and try to escape. It happens with all infectious diseases, but for COVID, the whole process really sped up because of the scale of it.

Tanya Alexander waits in line for COVID-19 test with her grandson Sincere Perkins, 9, at Bayview Opera House in San Francisco on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022.

Predicting how evolution will shape the next iterations of this virus is tricky, and scientists lack the technology to do it with any precision. How the virus has mutated over the past two and a half years provides some clues: Scientists have identified dozens of specific mutations mostly associated with increasing infectiousness that have recurred in multiple variants. Those mutations likely will keep showing up, re-sorting themselves in different combinations that give the virus further survival advantages. Some of the mutations could become permanently embedded in the virus genetic code. A few already have.

Recently, the virus has mutated to evade hard-won human immunity, and most experts in virology believe it will continue down that evolutionary path. It could also acquire new mutations that make it more infectious, though its already become so efficient at spreading among humans that its hard to imagine how much more gains it can make there, some scientists say.

The most critical question and possibly the toughest to answer is whether the virus will evolve to cause more or less severe disease in humans. Many experts believe that viruses tend to become more benign over time one of the current coronaviruses that now causes the common cold may have been the source of a deadly pandemic in the late 1800s but thats not a sure thing, and no one can say how long such evolution may take. Omicron and its subvariants are causing milder disease than their predecessors, but it would be nave to assume a future variant couldnt arrive with mutations that make it fiercer once again, experts say.

Social distancing circles at Dolores Park on Saturday, May 23, 2020, in San Francisco. The 10-foot circles, which were eight feet apart from each other, were an effort to curb coronavirus spread.

Hopefully it will adapt and become a very mild seasonal disease, and our immune systems will adapt, too, Liu said. But in reality, the virus has unlimited capability to adapt and mutate.

Scientists began tracking the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 almost immediately after the virus was isolated and identified in early January 2020. Once the first genomic sequence was complete and had been shared on a public database, infectious disease experts around the world started hunting for mutations, largely to keep tabs on how the virus was spreading.

Most people by now are familiar with the role mutations play in giving the virus certain advantages. But most mutations dont actually have an obvious effect on the virus, theyre simply glitches in the code. Those mutations can serve as evolutionary breadcrumbs, though, allowing scientists to follow the virus trail as it travels widely around the globe. And throughout the pandemic, public health experts have used mutations to identify and control clusters of infections.

Still, scientists are most invested in tracking consequential mutations that may alter the public health response. For example, arrival of the incredibly infectious omicron led many officials to recommend people start wearing higher quality masks, and eventually triggered another universal mask mandate in California to help curb the spread.

The most influential mutations mostly have been identified in the spike protein, the section of the virus that projects out of the surface and latches onto the ACE2 receptor, a protein on the exterior of human cells through which SARS-CoV-2 gains entry.

The first significant mutation known as D614G and nicknamed Doug arrived sometime in spring 2020; it basically made the ACE2 receptor more accessible. It was like putting a wedge in the door to keep it open, said Shannon Bennett, chief of science at the California Academy of Sciences.

Shannon Bennett, chief of science for the California Academy of Sciences, studies infectious diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans. Here, she plays her piano at her home on March 20, 2020, in Mill Valley, Calif.

That mutation granted the virus an early boost in infectiousness, and it has stuck around in every important variant since. Identifying a mutation of that significance was surprising, and exciting, Bennett said. It was the kind of early evolutionary shift that scientists have never been able to capture before. With earlier viruses HIV, for example by the time scientists identified and were able to study them closely enough to look for mutations, they were already well established in humans and had likely gone through years of vigorous adaptations.

After D614G, the virus quickly accumulated mutations that mostly improved its ability to transmit and infect. Scientists havent yet determined exactly what all those changes are doing, at the biological level, to increase infectiousness. Some may allow the virus to replicate faster in the nose or bind more tightly to the ACE2 receptor, making it harder for the immune system to shake off an early infection. Mutations could also make the virus more durable, for instance able to survive for longer periods in the air.

By the end of 2020, it was becoming apparent that the virus was evolving quickly in an environment of widespread transmission. Troubling new variants were emerging at regular intervals, each causing new waves of infection in the country in which they emerged and sometimes on a global scale. And each new variant seemed to be at least somewhat more infectious than the one preceding it. Alpha, which dominated in the U.S. in early 2021, was perhaps 50% more infectious than the original virus, and delta, which fueled the summer 2021 surge, was perhaps 90% more infectious than alpha.

Nurse practitioner Paige Yang mixes a dose of Evusheld, a preventative monoclonal injection, at Total Infusion in Oakland, Calif. on March 16, 2022. The medication is used to prevent COVID-19 among immunocompromised patients.

Omicron, which carried dozens of new mutations, was again more infectious up to fivefold over delta. And each of its subvariants has been more infectious still. The currently circulating strains, all offspring of omicron, are nearly as infectious as measles, which is the most contagious of all known human infections.

Scientists say the virus may have hit peak infectiousness, or close to it. Now, its evolving to get around the immune response, and that trend likely will continue. Early studies show that the two up-and-coming variants in the U.S. BA.4 and BA.5, which currently make up roughly a third of cases are the most immune evasive so far; people who are vaccinated or have already been infected, or both, may still be vulnerable.

I think theres a max in terms of how transmissible it can be, said Nadia Roan, an investigator at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco who studies immunology. Now almost the entire world has some form of immunity, whether from infection or vaccination or both, and thats the big pressure. A virus that is able to take off right now has to be immune evasive.

Scientist Xiaoyu Luo, postdoctoral scholar Julie Frouard, lead scientist Nadia Roan, PhD, and research assistant Matthew McGregor wear masks and lab coats while walking through the lab at Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco on Thursday, August 13, 2020.

Immune evasion is such a concern that many experts believe the world needs to focus resources on developing next-generation vaccines that will target parts of the virus less prone to mutations. Manufacturers of the two main U.S. vaccines Pfizer and Moderna are working to update their products to better match the currently circulating variants, but thats difficult to do when the dominant variant changes every few months.

Ideally, scientists would develop a vaccine that neutralizes the virus preventing it from ever taking hold and stopping transmission entirely and doesnt fade over time. The latter may not be possible, though. It doesnt seem that this coronavirus will be inducing the same immunity that polio and measles induces that lasts for your entire life, said Raul Andino, a UCSF virologist.

Eventually, the pace of evolution in SARS-CoV-2 may slow down, or at least produce fewer consequential mutations that cause fresh surges several times a year. But its tough to guess when that will happen.

Virus evolution is relentless. The virus never takes a rest, never takes a break, and it never stops mutating, DeRisi said. The truce may come when we figure out what kind of yearly boosters we need, or what vaccination works.

We want to get the virus to where it just doesnt matter anymore, he said. Were not there yet. But theres reason to be optimistic, and also reason to be cautious and not let our guard down.

Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @erinallday

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Will COVID evolve to cause less severe disease? Why we can't assume the answer is yes - San Francisco Chronicle