Category Archives: Evolution

Photo: Skull fragment, Homo erectus, by Commie cretan (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Editors note: In a multipart series, Casey Luskin is reviewing a new book by philosopher William Lane Craig.Look here for the full review so far.

In his bookIn Quest of the Historical Adam, William Lane Craigs rhetorical strategy is essentially to accept whatever mainstream evolutionary paleoanthropology says, and see if Adam and Eve can still stand. As heput itin an interview withChristianity Today, his hope [is] that, by showing there is no incompatibility between contemporary evolutionary science and the affirmation of a single human pair at the headwaters of the human race, we can prevent that obstacle to faith. Even a review of the book in the journal Science observes that Craig takes evolution as a given. In locating Adam and Eve within the speciesHomo heidelbergensis, Craigs goal is to present a position of reasonable faith, and his tactical approach could indeed be useful for those who want to claim that the Bible is not in contradiction with mainstream evolutionary science. Thats fine as far as it goes. But this strategy means that sometimes Craig assents to evolutionary assumptions and arguments that are highly dubious, and he misses opportunities to point out severe weaknesses in evolutionary models.

Craig focuses on various crucial genetic mutation[s] which occurred in the human lineage since our last common ancestor with chimpanzees. These could explain the extraordinary expansion of the brain unique to human beings. His primary examples involve a single base pair substitution in the geneARHGAP11Band three human-specificNOTCh2NLgenes (pp. 277, 278). He acknowledges that we do not know if these mutations had any direct effect on language ability. Yet he later cites human-specific features of two other genes that may be necessary for speech. These genes areAUTS2(which Craig admits has an unknown function), andFOXP2(which Craig argues seems to be necessary for human speech) (p. 325). In 2018 theFOXP2 story was discredited because the genetic signal that was thought to exist in the gene turned out to be a false statistical artifact,1 making it surprising that Craig continues to cite it.

Thus, aside from FOXP2 (which has been discredited), its not entirely clear what import these genetic traits have for human language and cognition. But lets assume for the sake of argument that all of these mutations are necessary though surely not sufficient to explain humanitys advanced cognitive and linguistic abilities. Craig never makes it exactly clear whether he views these mutations as arising and spreading via standard evolutionary mechanisms, or as having been guided by Gods intervention in the natural world. At one point he suggests the mutations could be divinely caused (p. 307), but his general framing lacks such qualifications, suggesting they are ordinary mutations that arose via standard evolutionary mechanisms. Writing in First Things, Craig proposes that God selected two [hominids] and furnished them with intellects by renovating their brains and endowing them with rational souls which sounds like divinely caused mutations. In his book he is open to divine causation in the creation of Adam and Eve, but does not seem strongly committed to it:

The radical transition effected in the founding pair that lifted them to the human level plausibly involved both biological and spiritual renovation, perhaps divinely caused. (p. 376, emphasis added)

In First Things Craig then proposes that Adam and Eve were not as cognitively advanced as modern humans, and postulates that humanity experienced standard evolutionary changes after Adam and Eve including some that would emerge slowly through environmental niche construction and gene-cultural coevolution to evolve the more advanced brains we have today.2What this suggests is that not only does Craig seem to propose or allow that many (if not all) of humanitys intellectual abilities evolved via natural mechanisms, but he effectively believes we evolved upward after Adam and Eve a model which contrasts sharply with the traditional Christian view that humanity has fallen from Adam and Eves initial state.

In his book its never quite clear if Craig thinks that the specific mutations he discusses occurred via standard evolutionary mechanisms, Gods direct intervention, or some kind of hybrid of the two. To give one of multiple examples, he says, The most plausible scenario is that in a common ancestor of humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans, the ancestral PDE4DIP-NOTCH2NL pseudogene was repaired by an ectopic gene conversion from NOTCH2. This event may have been crucial to human evolution (p. 279) To give another example, when discussing ARHGAP11B, he writes that Neanderthals, Denisovans, and humans:

share in this crucial genetic mutation that helps to explain the extraordinary expansion of the brain unique to human beings. Indeed, since the mutation occurred in the species ancestral to Neanderthals, Denisovans, andHomo sapiens, these findings are consistent with the humanity of someone belonging to a large-brained ancestral species likeHomo heidelbergensis, in which the mutation occurred. (p. 278)

Perhaps these mutations were divinely caused. Yet in this retelling, whatever divine causation might mean (in Craigs view), it appears indistinguishable from standard evolutionary explanations. Lets set aside Craigs ambiguity about what he means and just ask: What is the raw data here and does it demand assent to an evolutionary view?

At most, the data he cites simply shows that humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans share certain similar genes and genetic traits which are involved in our brain development and linguistic abilities genes and genetic traits not found in living apes. This is not at all surprising since Neanderthals and Denisovans were highly similar to us, are thought to have had advanced cognitive abilities, and may even belong within our own speciesHomo sapiens. The evidence he recounts is not evidence of evolution. Rather, it simply identifies human-specific genetic features that probably help endow us with our advanced cognitive abilities. Merely identifying important genetic traits does not necessarily tell us that they arose by blind evolutionary mechanisms. After all, these traits could have been intelligently designed or even specially created by God in the creation of Adam and Eve.

But Craigs arguments typically seem to treat these mutations no differently from blind evolutionary events, which suddenly produced humanlike intelligence in some early hominid. Those of us who have been around the debate over evolution for a while have heard these kinds of miracle mutation stories before, and we have multiple reasons to be skeptical.

First, miracle mutation accounts of the origin of human cognition imply a teleology and design to evolution that contradict an unguided evolutionary story. If our cognitive abilities suddenly evolved by just one or two single mutational events, that implies that our profound human intelligence was sitting on a precipice, just waiting for certain specific mutations to occur before modern human minds could arise. But how did our minds get to that evolutionary precipice, where just one or two mutations could produce everything from Lao Tzu to Beethoven to Einstein? The idea implies a teleological, directed, and designed course to the origin of our cognition. Craig seems open to this option, but he never says it is his preference.

Second, miracle mutation accounts of the origin of human cognition lack credibility and often go belly-up upon closer scrutiny. InThe Language of God, Francis Collins asserted that a few specific changes inFOXP2somehow created our major linguistic abilities.3An article inTimeMagazine that same year similarly asserted that two mutations inFOXP2could have caused the emergence of all aspects of human speech, from a babys first words to a Robin Williams monologue.4More recently Yuval Noah Harari argued in his bookSapiensthat humans experienced some kind of a Tree of Knowledge mutation that occurred due to pure chance and caused a cognitive revolution.5

Such arguments that one or a few random mutations magically created humanitys advanced intellectual abilities strain credulity. The origin of human cognition and speech would have required many changes that represent a suite of complex interdependent traits. Two leading evolutionists writing in a prominent text on primate origins explain that human language could not evolve in an abrupt manner, genetically speaking, because many genetic changes would be necessary:

Bickertons proposal of a single-gene mutation is, I think, too simplistic. Too many factors are involved in language learning production, perception, comprehension, syntax, usage, symbols, cognition for language to be the result of a single mutation event.6

Humans are quite different because they possess language, which underlies every major intellectual achievement of humanity. This discontinuity theory is implausible because evolution cannot proceed by inspired jumps, only by accretion of beneficial variants of what went before.7

These authors are correct to reject such single mutation event hypotheses and would be justified in doing the same for two or three mutation events because human cognition is vastly too complex to arise in such a fashion.

Third, Darwinian evolution claims that these traits must arise and spread via random mutation acted upon by natural selection (and other standard evolutionary mechanisms such as genetic drift) blind processes that operate without any intelligent oversight. Such a blind trial-and-error mechanism is highly inefficient at producing new features that require multiple mutations in order to provide an advantage. This is especially true when it comes to an advanced biological feature such as human intelligence, which probably requires numerous complex genetic traits. This suggests a potential challenge to the neo-Darwinian evolution of human intelligence.

To understand this challenge, lets consider a seemingly simple example. In 2004 a study inNatureproposed that a single mutation that inactivated a protein could cause marked size reductions in individual muscle fibres and entire masticatory muscles leading to loss of masticatory strength,8which could have loosened jaw muscles, allowing our brains to grow larger. A news story widely circulated, titled Missing link found in gene mutation, framed the finding this way: an ancient genetic mutation for weaker jaws helped increase brain size, a twist that first separated the earliest humans from their apelike ancestors.9The story sounds plausible, but theres more to it. Leading paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood noted that this mutation alone could never have provided a selectable advantage, and would have required additional changes:

The mutation would have reduced the Darwinian fitness of those individuals. It only wouldve become fixed if it coincided with mutations that reduced tooth size, jaw size and increased brain size. What are the chances of that?

We thus have a situation where multiple coordinated mutations would be necessary to provide the advantage. Yet a 2008 population genetics study inGeneticsfound that to obtain only two specific mutations via Darwinian evolution, for humans with a much smaller effective population size, this type of change would take > 100 million years. The authors admitted this was very unlikely to occur on a reasonable timescale.10In other words, when a trait requires multiple mutations before an advantage is gained, it would require more than 100 million years within a species such as ours.

Craig did not cite the above example in his book, but it is highly analogous to the examples he does raise. He cites at least three mutational events (some of which might themselves have required multiple point mutations) as necessary for the advent of human intelligence. Undoubtedly, numerous complex mutational events would be required to transition from the apelike australopithecine intellect of our supposed ancestors to modern human cognition. If theGeneticspaper cited above is correct, then if among these events, just two point mutations were ever required to yield an advantage, they would be extremely unlikely to arise via blind evolution in a population of hominids on the timescale allowed by the fossil record (i.e., ~750,000 years since the appearance ofHomo heidelbergensis, or ~2.5 million years since our genusHomosupposedly evolved from australopithecines).

This represents a potent challenge to the neo-Darwinian evolution of human cognition that flows directly out of the mathematics of population genetics. Unfortunately, because Craig never directly disputes mainstream evolutionary theory, his readers miss out on an opportunity to hear about this powerful challenge to neo-Darwinism.

Craig doesnt spend much time discussing the origin of the genusHomo, although he does cite anthropologist Ian Tattersall, arguing for the futility of trying to divide what is now a very extensive hominid record between australopiths andHomo (p. 256). In his quest to fit Adam and Eve within mainstream evolutionary science, he misses another major opportunity to point out a serious deficiency in the evidence for human evolution: the lack of fossil evidence documenting a transition from the ape-like australopithecines to the human-likeHomo. This gap in the fossil record is well attested in the literature.

OneNaturepaper noted that earlyHomo erectusshows such a radical departure from previous forms ofHomo(such asH. habilis) in its height, reduced sexual dimorphism, long limbs and modern body proportions that it is hard at present to identify its immediate ancestry in east Africa11 or anywhere else for that matter. Another review similarly notes, it is this seemingly abrupt appearance ofH. erectusthat has led to suggestions of a possible origin outside Africa.12Likewise, a paper in theJournal of Molecular Biology and Evolutionfound thatHomoandAustralopithecusdiffer significantly in brain size, dental function, increased cranial buttressing, expanded body height, visual, and respiratory changes, stating:

We, like many others, interpret the anatomical evidence to show that earlyH. sapienswas significantly and dramatically different from australopithecines in virtually every element of its skeleton and every remnant of its behavior.

Noting these many differences, the study called the origin of humans, a real acceleration of evolutionary change from the more slowly changing pace of australopithecine evolution. It stated that such a transformation would have required radical changes: The anatomy of the earliestH. sapienssample indicates significant modifications of the ancestral genome and is not simply an extension of evolutionary trends in an earlier australopithecine lineage throughout the Pliocene. In fact, its combination of features never appears earlier. These rapid and unique changes are termed a genetic revolution where no australopithecine species is obviously transitional.13

For those unconstrained by an evolutionary paradigm, its not obvious that this transition took place at all. The stark lack of fossil evidence for this hypothesized transition is confirmed by three Harvard paleoanthropologists:

Of the various transitions that occurred during human evolution, the transition fromAustralopithecustoHomowas undoubtedly one of the most critical in its magnitude and consequences. As with many key evolutionary events, there is both good and bad news. First, the bad news is that many details of this transition are obscure because of the paucity of the fossil and archaeological records.

As for the good news, they admit: [A]lthough we lack many details about exactly how, when, and where the transition occurred fromAustralopithecustoHomo, we have sufficient data from before and after the transition to make some inferences about the overall nature of key changes that did occur.14In other words, the fossil record shows ape-like australopithecines (before), and human-likeHomo(after), but not fossils documenting a transition between them. In the absence of intermediates, we are left with inferences of a transition based strictly upon the assumption of evolution that an undocumented transition must have occurred somehow, sometime, and someplace. Evolutionists assume this transition happened, even though we do not have fossils documenting it.

Similarly, the great evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr recognized the abrupt appearance of our genus:

The earliest fossils ofHomo,Homo rudolfensisandHomo erectus, are separated fromAustralopithecusby a large, unbridged gap. How can we explain this seeming saltation? Not having any fossils that can serve as missing links, we have to fall back on the time-honored method of historical science, the construction of a historical narrative.15

Another has commentator proposed that the evidence implies a big bang theory of the appearance ofHomo.16

This large, unbridged gap between the apelike australopithecines and the abruptly appearing humanlike members of genusHomochallenges evolutionary accounts of human origins. Unfortunately Craig mentions none of this problematic evidence in his book. While he convincingly shows that Adam and Eve could be located within an evolutionary scenario, his readers are deprived of opportunities to learn why an evolutionary scenario might not be the right answer, after all.

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Passing over Scientific Problems with Evolution - Discovery Institute

Thomas Feelman and Deagon team up for their first collaboration on DOORN,Evolution.

An abitue on DOORN Records, Thomas Feelman is back on Sander vanDoorns own imprint; this time he is accompanied by Deagon for their hard-hitting groovy single, Evolution.Kicking off with hypnotic vibes and a progressive percussive rhythm, the track rapidly jumps into the first drop. A mix of fast and hard-hitting percussions overwhelms you right from the start. Evolutionslows down a bit on the breakdown where melodic arpeggios kick in and evolve, as the name suggests, into a captivating second drop.

Thomas Feelman is not new to DOORN. He landed on the label for the first time in 2018 withZephyrtogether with the Italian duo SOVTH. He come back last year with Fast Lifenow with more than 200.000 Spotify streams, and, after that, with You & Me.Feelman has a huge catalog of releases on his shoulders. His Never Stopon SIZE Records was a success on the release day and we cant forgetTogetheron Flamingo with more than 700.000 Spotify streams.

For Deagon this is his biggest release to date. Having started his career in 2020, Deagon released on Hardwells Revealed in 2020 his tune Forever Young.

Thomas Feelman & Deagon Evolutionis out now on DOORN and you can stream and download the tune here or below.

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Thomas Feelman & Deagon lands on DOORN with 'Evolution' - The Groove Cartel

The first lizards and snakes evolved slowly, but eventually became much more diverse than their close relatives, the rhynchocephalians, which initially showed fast evolution. Today there are 10,000 species of squamates, but only 1 of rhynchocephalians. Credit: Dr. Tom Stubbs

Researchers at the University of Bristol have found that fast evolution can lead to nowhere.

In a new study of lizards and their relatives,Dr. Jorge Herrera-Floresof BristolsSchool of Earth Sciences and colleagues have discovered that slow and steady wins the race.

The team studied lizards, snakes, and their relatives, a group called the Lepidosauria. Today there are more than 10,000 species of lepidosaurs, and much of their recent success is a result of fast evolution in favorable circumstances. But this was not always the case.

Mr. Herrera-Flores explained: Lepidosaurs originated 250 million years ago in the early Mesozoic Era, and they split into two major groups, the squamates on the one hand, leading to modern lizards and snakes, and the rhynchocephalians on the other, represented today by a single species, the tuatara of New Zealand. We expected to find slow evolution in rhynchocephalians, and fast evolution in squamates. But we found the opposite.

Rates of evolution for lizards and snakes (Squamata, blue line) were far lower than those for Rhynchocephalia (green line) for some 200 million years, and they only flipped in the last 50 million years or so. Credit: Armin Elsler

We looked at the rate of change in body size among these early reptiles, saidDr. Tom Stubbs, a collaborator. We found that some groups of squamates evolved fast in the Mesozoic, especially those with specialized lifestyles like the marine mosasaurs. But rhynchocephalians were much more consistently fast-evolving.

In fact, their average rates of evolution were significantly faster than those for squamates, about twice the background rate of evolution, and we really did not expect this, saidDr. Armin Elsler, another collaborator. In the later part of the Mesozoic all the modern groups of lizards and snakes originated and began to diversify, living side-by-side with the dinosaurs, but probably not engaging with them ecologically. These early lizards were feeding on bugs, worms, and plants, but they were mainly quite small.

Pleurosaurus from the Late Jurassic, some 150 million years ago, of southern Germany, a remarkable, long-bodied swimming rhynchocephalian. Credit: Roberto Ochoa

Prof Mike Bentonadded: After the extinction of the dinosaurs, 66 million years ago, at the end of the Mesozoic, the rhynchocephalians and squamates suffered a lot, but the squamates bounced back. But for most of the Mesozoic, the rhynchocephalians were the innovators and the fast evolvers. They tailed off quite severely well before the end of the Mesozoic, and the whole dynamic changed after that.

This work confirms a challenging proposal made by the famous paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson in his 1944 book Tempo and Mode in Evolution. He looked at the fundamental patterns of evolution in a framework of Darwinian evolution and observed that many fast-evolving species belonged to unstable groups, which were potentially adapting to rapidly changing environments.

Prof Benton continued: Slow and steady wins the race.In the classic Aesops fable, the speedy hare loses the race, whereas the slow-moving tortoise crosses the finishing line first. Since the days of Darwin, biologists have debated whether evolution is more like the hare or the tortoise. Is it the case that big groups of many species are the result of fast evolution over a short time or slow evolution over a long time?

In some cases, they can stabilize and survive well, but in many cases, the species go extinct as fast as new ones emerge, and they can go extinct, just like the napping hare. On the other hand, Simpson predicted that slowly evolving species might also be slow to go extinct, and could, in the end, be successful in the longer term, just like the slow-moving but persistent tortoise in the fable.

Reference: Slow and fast evolutionary rates in the history of lepidosaurs by Jorge A. Herrera-Flores, Armin Elsler, Thomas L. Stubbs and Michael J. Benton, 10 November 2021, Palaeontology.DOI: 10.1111/pala.12579

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Fast Evolution Can Lead to Nowhere: Rapidly Evolving Species More Likely To Go Extinct - SciTechDaily

Image source: Discovery Institute Press.

Editors note: We have been delighted to host a series by Neil Thomas, Reader Emeritus at the University of Durham, How I Came to Take Leave of Darwin, of which this article is the seventh and final installment.Find the full series here. Professor Thomass recent book,Taking Leave of Darwin: A Longtime Agnostic Discovers the Case for Design, is available now from Discovery Institute Press.

After seeing my recent book through to publication, I began to experience the gnawing feeling that, although I had undoubtedly given it my best shot, I had not completely nailed the puzzling phenomenon of just why the Western world had come to accept ideas of evolution and natural selection which I personally had come to see as little but Victorian fables or, more politely phrased, cosmogenic myths for a materialist age.I therefore decided to embark on a companion volume, provisionally titledFalse Messiah: Darwins Origin of Species as Cosmogenic Myth.Here I will make the attempt to drill down even further to the root causes of what appeared to be the Western worlds unprecedented rejection of tried-and-tested philosophers and scientists such as Aristotle, Cicero, Plato, and the physician Galen in a strange capitulation to out there philosophic fantasists like Epicurus and his Roman disciple, Lucretius.

It was the would-be rehabilitation of those ancient materialist thinkers by the Scottish philosopher David Hume, in the late 18th century, coupled with the later Victorian crisis of faith and the sudden irruption into this already volatile mix of Charles Darwin which was to result in the particularly strange irrationalism which has stubbornly persisted right up to the present day.

This abdication of normal canons of reason consisted in people forsaking traditional norms of philosophical common sense and (effectively) throwing in their lot with the ancient goddess of chance, Lady Fortuna (or Lady Luck as she was later to be called), that accursed personification of unreliability whom the ancient philosopher Boethius, Geoffrey Chaucer, and many others have arraigned since time out of mind for being incapable ofanyproductive and dependable action on behalf of struggling humanity.

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Taking Leave of Darwin: A Coda - Discovery Institute

If you are going to launch a postproduction business today you would at the very least offer the flexibility for clients and staff to work from home.

Only this week, Assembly, a new post-production studio servicing advertising, film, and TV markets has launched colour grading, offline editing and dailies with facilities in New York City (and a Los Angeles facility opening in 2022) with a cloud backbone to offer clients a choice between in-person or remote creative sessions.

Founder and president Art Williams, ex of said: The past 18 months has presented the advertising and entertainment industry with a series of non-traditional challenges that have forced the evolution of working culture and industry-dictated protocols. We identified a great opportunity here to break the moulds of traditional working practices niche specialties to build a business that is truly flexible for our creative partners and talent alike.

He could be speaking for a number of other post-production businesses that are starting-up with or evolving to remote cloud-based workflows.

Racoon offers virtual collaboration

Racoon was launched in February by the former management team of one of the largest and most successful bricks and mortar facilities around, London-headquartered The Farm.

Racoon though is an online platform providing all the offline, finishing and mastering services you would expect from a traditional facility, but in a potentially more efficient, agile and sustainable manner.

Increasing fixed costs, decreasing budgets, the move to decentralise the industry from London, the shortage of skills and unsupportive culture many of us find so challenging all point to an absolute need to rethink how we serve up post production to our programme makers, David Klafkowski, Racoon

It is very difficult to change your business model if you are having to fight legacy real estate and technology, says founder and CEO David Klafkowski.

If I had 50 rooms and I was looking to re-engineer by editorial backbone I would actually engage the services of a company like Racoon because it would be more efficient than buying in equipment.

He is careful to avoid calling Racoon a facility, even though it does have premises on Frith Street. However, the only hardware on premise is monitoring. Everything else is in a data centre connected to by dark fibre.

You cant start a business and be entirely virtualised. I knew we would have to have some real estate to bridge the gap. The industry is slow and reluctant to change but also there is a need for people to get together and discuss issues face to face. It just doesnt need to happen anywhere near as much as it used to.

Klafkowski calls the rooms in Soho creative collaborative spaces and creative review spaces although acknowledges someone else might call them edit suites.

Aside from management, Racoons editorial talent is all freelance who can access a virtual Avid workstation from anywhere. It also offers ingest, transcoding and media management as well as traditional in-suite functions like logging and collaborative review. All of this is in the process of being glued together under one online application.

We will offer a set of tools together inside a platform, some will be bespoke, others off the shelf but it will be a single conduit for producers to work with us. It is still version 1.0 and the idea isnt new but its how you glue things together and offer that service consistently that is most important.

All the hardware for storage and processing is hosted in Racoons private cloud, a data centre located adjacent to an internet switch for optimum speed.

An aircon basement in Soho probably costs as much as a data centre but having a data centre that is really well located means we can be cloud first and we can utilise the public cloud when it becomes practical and cost effective to do so.

Right now, Klafkowski feels the costs of ingress and egress of media in the public cloud is cost prohibitive for daily postproduction.

Having worked on a major reality show for an Australian client at the beginning of the year with editors in Portugal, Spain and Italy, Raccoon has also serviced reality shows for Amazon Prime with the aim of landing two to three primetime TV shows before the end of Q1 2022.

Editors really do want to be remote. Its a better lifestyle choice for them and they can be more productive too since they dont have to commute. They dont need to be in central London until doing the final review.

I knew this was the case three years ago. Its madness having all these rooms when most of the time theres one person in them. Its managing that ad hoc usage which is a problem for facilities.

That and the rocketing cost of delivering services from central London. In recent years the London living wage has gone up while Westminster council raised rates by 37% putting an extra 1m on top of a business the size of The Farm.

Increasing fixed costs, decreasing budgets, the move to decentralise the industry from London, the shortage of skills and unsupportive culture many of us find so challenging all point to an absolute need to rethink how we serve up post production to our programme makers.

BeloFX launch in the cloud

Elisabeth Murdoch is backing VFX startup BeloFX a cloud-first facility founded in Canada and the UK by a group of former senior executives at VFX powerhouse DNEG.

The team is led by Matt Holben and Alex Hope, two of DNEGs founders, Ellen Walder, former COO at DNEG, and Graham Jack, former CTO at DNEG. It is based in British Columbia, Quebec, and the UK.

We are remote and cloud firsteverything we design is with that in mind, explains Jack, who is CTO of the new venture. That doesnt mean we wont have own infrastructure or premises but the starting point is to make it work in a decentralised way and open up opportunities for remote collaboration. It would have been challenging to do this five years ago but the technology has now reached a tipping point.

BeloFX is positioning itself as a global boutique doing high end work for top end vfx projects across episodic TV and feature film, says COO Ellen Walder. We think the technology is only ever going to get better. We had our eyes on this for some years now and the pandemic has proved it.

Jack says BeloFXs set-up mirrors the functions of a traditional facility with secure, cordoned off production networks, cloud storage and virtual workstations running in the cloud connected to artists machines via Teracidi PCoIP.

Were trying to embrace infrastructure as a code - the ability to spin up a new region very quickly, he says. While we have an initial base in Canada and the UK if we wanted to spin up a network on the west coast of America we could.

It relies on cloud providers (Azure, Google, AWS) for a secure high speed data backbone although the economics of doing this at scale may necessitate launch of its own data centre.

Artists have already restructured their lives and reorganised how they live their day around child care and how they interact with families. People have embraced flexible working. We definitely want to embrace new technology that makes it possible to build a diverse and inclusive company, one thats merit based, Ellen Walder, beloFX

Were constantly running that analysis, Jack says. Without legacy to hold us back we can completely re-imagine the VFX pipeline. We are uniquely placed to incorporate game engines at a fundamental level. Our view is that if were making iterative creative calls on VFX work we want to be doing that in a realtime environment whether the outcome is a final frame or for display on a LED wall. We can also embrace open standards such as OpenColorIO and Universal Scene Description to share complicated 3D assets and layouts.

He adds, Realtime technology is just the beginning. There are a whole range of exciting technologies that we have been exploring and are looking forward to exploiting as we lead the fundamental change that our industry is poised to make.

Launching as a decentralised facility is also an opportunity to recast the conventions around employment where talent doesnt need to be living around or commuting into central London.

Artists have already restructured their lives and reorganised how they live their day around child care and how they interact with families, says Walder. People have embraced flexible working. We definitely want to embrace new technology that makes it possible to build a diverse and inclusive company, one thats merit based. We believe this breaks down the barriers to employment and progression that there has been in some companies in the past. We are passionate that this is the model of the future.

Green Rock ditch the office

A few months ago, broadcast post house Green Rock closed its physical office in Soho in favour of permanent virtual workflows as it embraces lockdown working practices for the long-term.

The 13-year old business, which has worked on post projects including Netflixs Myths and Monsters, gave up the lease on its Goodge Place office which contained six edit suites.

Its 12 staff are now working from home full-time, as they were under lockdown.

Green Rock founder and CEO Simon Green says the industry is facing a real wakeup moment as businesses attempt to introduce flexible working regimes.

As staff begin to return to offices, there will be a realisation that the solution isnt flexible working, he explains.

Green Rock, which will make considerable rent-related savings, has invested in developing its own virtual edit system, Green Rock Virtual Creative Solutions (VCS), to enable the shift, working with Base Media Cloud and Adobe.

Under lockdown, it was operating a hybrid system under which editors were having to download huge files from the physical edit suites to their desktop computers. However, by shutting the suites it is able to fully embrace a virtual tech platform.

The model will allow the company to take on more work than was previously possible and help it navigate any future lockdowns more easily.

Im having conversations with bigger broadcasters and other companies on more ambitious projects, he says. Working in the cloud means we will have no limits.

Cloud-based editing will also allow Green Rock to scale up and down more rapidly to react to demand.

The pay-as-you-go model gives us ultimate flexibility and scalability, he adds. There is a lot more productivity in the early stage as editors can really get their heads down on their own, he says. In the later stages of an edit, livestreaming video technology allows producers and directors to collaborate seamlessly.

IBC Digitalprovides industry insight and the opportunity to engage with exhibitors in the run up to, and during, IBC2021. Registerhere

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The evolution of post to a cloud-first model - IBC365

Last week, Retail Brew hosted its latest edition of The Checkout, where we discussed all things customer experience with Karla Davis, Ulta Beautys VP of marketing.

The big picture: The last year-and-half-plus forced many retailers to adapt to how consumers now shop for goods, which includes more touchless and frictionless options. But even putting the pandemic aside, retailers like Ulta have worked to enhance the in-store experience in an omnichannel fashion.

Watch the full replay here, and keep scrolling for our top takeaways.

Ultas new NYC flagship, which opened earlier this year, exemplifies the pandemic-era adaptations that the beauty chain made to reimagine the customer experience.

Omni really speaks to the integration of all the channels and not just having all the channels for channels sake, but really making sure that theres a seamless experience across all of them in a way that really kind of works behind the scenes to give the guests what they need, when they need it, and where they need it, Davis said.

Lets get personal: Personalization has also become central to the beauty shopping experience, particularly when it comes to self-care and wellness. Davis said well over 90% of Ultas organizational self goes through its loyalty program, which includes data on 34+ million customers.

By emailing its members, Davis said Ulta gets a clear picture on what the company needs to send to who and when customers need to replenish products.

We want to get to a place where consumers see Ulta Beauty wherever they are and, especially in the digital space, in a way that shows up uniquely for them, she said. Thats really what were working towardmaking sure that we can scale the way to do this, leveraging automation in really creative ways.KM

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The Checkout event recap: Ulta Beauty's Karla Davis on the evolution of the customer experience - Morning Brew

2005 Lancer Evolution VIII MRImage: Mitsubishi

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, in its eighth generation, was the first vehicle to give the U.S. a taste of the legendary rally car for the street. The rest of the world had already been enjoying it since the early 90s. While the Evolution X that followed improved on the car with more power and technology. The favorites (my personal favorites as well) always land on the VIII and IX. Now nearly 15 years after the last IX went out of production, the prices have of course increased, and theyve become even harder to find.

Never intended for mass production, only 21,047 Evo VIII and IX are said to have been made, making them even more elusive for prospective buyers. Looking through various car buying websites I found handfuls for sale: Cargurus found only 21 for sale nationwide; Autotrader found 15 and Cars.com found just three. Dont think about going to Bring A Trailer either. As of writing this, there is one live auction of a 2006 Evolution VIII MR, sitting with a current bid of $25,000.

An analysis of BaT auction results from the last six years shows just how much Evo prices have increased. In 2015, an Evo VIII RS sold for $26,000, and at the beginning of October of this year, an Evo IX MR with just 852 miles on it that sold for $82,000. Thats a solid $56,000 difference in prices in less than a decade.

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We know the whole used car market is terrible right now, but that in no way excuses the price hikes on these cars. Many Evolutions are selling for as much or more than their original $35,000 to $37,000 MSRPs (but if you do factor in inflation some of these prices are on point). Cheaper, as always, gets you more miles of course.

Take this 2003 Evolution VIII. While it may appear like a bargain at $21,999, you have to contend with over 154,000 miles on the odometer. Under 100,000 miles increases prices dramatically. Expect to pay stupidly high prices, often for examples that are priced according to whatever mods the dealer or previous owner installed.

MRs always take the top tier of expensive Evos pricing as well. For example, this 2006 Evo VIII MR for sale in Washington has just under 38,000 miles the dealer is asking $48,000.

Another dealer in Scottsdale, AZ has three Evos in their inventory. All IXs with two of them MR trims. The highest-priced is a 2006 with just over 37,000 miles on it, and its modded to the hilt. The dealer claims its a street-legal 8-second car, wit mods described as big ticket items. It couldmean this car is worth its $56,000 asking price, but only to the right person.

Any way you go about it youre going to pay a steep price for a nice Evolution. And unfortunately like many other JDM icons, these things are getting harder and harder to find, especially stock. Mods no one asked for are only enabling dealers to overcharge for nice examples. Evolutions have always been great, but at these prices, I would see a Lancer in my future before anything else.

The rest is here:

Don't Go Looking For The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII And IX Anymore - Jalopnik

Corey J. Langer, MD, professor of medicine, University of Pennsylvania, director, Thoracic Oncology, Penn Medicine, discusses the evolution of molecular testing in advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer.

Corey J. Langer, MD, professor of medicine, University of Pennsylvania, director, Thoracic Oncology, Penn Medicine, discusses the evolution of molecular testing in advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Molecular testing is routinely ordered for patients with de novo metastatic NSCLC or recurrent disease following prior curative-intent therapy, Langer explains. Although testing isnt ordered for all patients, it should be done in patients with nonsquamous NSCLC regardless of smoking history and nonsmokers or remote former smokers regardless of histology.

Additionally, it is possible routine molecular testing will be done for all patients with NSCLC in the next 1 to 2 years because an increasing number of molecular abnormalities, including EGFR mutations and MET amplifications, have been identified in patients with squamous histology, Langer concludes.

Original post:

Dr. Langer on the Evolution of Molecular Testing in Advanced NSCLC - OncLive

He continued, "I pitched a number of those elements to Jon [Favreau] and that time, and some of that made it into the movie. Michael Riva and his team did such a great job on Tony's workshop."

Fans may have noticed a similar vibe between Iron Man's first super suit and his first on-screen one. Well, that was intentional. "As far as the Mark 1, I was looking at what Phil [Saunders] and Adi [Granov] were doing with the Mark II and III and thought I could try and take the comic reference for Iron Man's first grey suit and add as much reality to it as I could,"Meinerding explained."So that meant keeping the center RT and designing forms around it that allowed highlights to look like they are radiating outward from that center light. I was also looking at doing different finishes on the different parts of the suit so it would appear as if they were coming from multiple different sources."

Among the aesthetics, though, came the technical bits. "There was a degree of trying to include enough bulkiness so Tony could've hidden what he was working on, as well as showcasing how protective and strong the suit is. I added belt drives to the legs to keep the drive mechanism outside the armor of the suit mostly to add a bit more interest and realism," Meinerding noted.

Continued here:

MCU Head Of Visual Development Ryan Meinerding Dishes On The Evolution Of Iron Man's Armors - Exclusive - Looper

In June 2020, and after several years of experimentation, I brought to market a lure called the MAL Lure. This lure was intended to fill a gap where standard presentations fell short, especially during the summer months.

There was once a time when, as a full-time professional fishing guide focused on the year-round pursuitof white bass, I just dreaded the summer months.

This tough fishing would persist right up until turnover, typically in mid to late October.

Through the years, Ive been successful in eliminating unproductive water and getting white bass to biteduring the summer months by making myself become well-versed in interpreting all forms of sonar, andby covering water quickly and efficiently via downrigging.

Still, during those times when downrigging led me to concentrations of white bass, be they located onbottom or suspended, I was hard-pressed to catch more than just a handful immediately after quicklytransitioning from a horizontal approach to a vertical approach.

Slabs, spoons, soft plastics and jigs generated a spurt of initial interest, followed by a very predictable,frustrating shutdown.

I bought some Do-It lead molds and started making my own custom horsehead jigs, complete with theircharacteristic, underslung, spinning blade. That experiment was largely unsuccessful due to my luresslow sink rates, but I did walk away observing that the jigs small spinning blades were a definite triggerfor white bass.

Several summers ago, I decided to venture outside the box to try to crack the code on warm waterwhite bass. I tried doing things on my home waters that no one else was doing. I also traveled to

Queensland, Australia, to fish for Australian bass with professional fishing guide Matthew Langford onLakes Boruma and Somerset during the Australian summer to check out some of the approaches theAussies had come up with using heavy metal tactics for suspended summertime fish holding above thethermocline.

Next, I made my own modified tailspinners. This kept the spinning blade feature of the horsehead jig,but added more weight. I also tried to engineer out of my tailspinners some of the flaws I noted inthose tailspinners already on the market, namely the tendency for the hook to catch on the line or thespinner shaft, and for the blade to spin lazily.

I enjoyed great success with these tailspinners, but I noted that my clients did not do nearly so well onthem as I did. As I analyzed this, I noted that many did not have the fish-fighting experience needed tokeep hooked fish on the hook as the fish was transferred from the water into the boat; we lost way toomany fish during that transition for my satisfaction.

Additionally, many clients had trouble getting and keeping my tailspinners blades turning as needed toattract fish in the first place. So, now I had an effective lure, but it was not user-friendly.

This led me to begin experimenting with inline spinners. I experimented with making my own spinnerswith brass bodies, lead bodies and tungsten bodies, and after many iterations, found something I felthad both fish-catching potential and user-friendly attributes.

I introduced a few clients to the lure and they did very well with it. Then, I began to keep these custom-made versions tied on for general, daily use by all of my clients, including kids and rookies. No one hadany difficulties catching white bass on these lures during the tough summer months. I was amazed atthe results.

Since I had no desire to get into lure production, I brainstormed about how I might have these luresmade to ensure a continuous supply of these for my business. I assumed it was a long-shot actually, Iassumed it was rejection just waiting to happen, but I called the Mepps lure company of Antigo,Wisconsin.

Mepps spinners were the closest in appearance and construct to the effective prototypes I haddeveloped. I worked with them to take characteristics and components from several of their existing

products to form a new product which was deadly for white bass.

Last year, in December, as the water temperature fell to 58, the magic of the MAL Lure all but ranout. The speed at which the lure had to be moved to get the spinner spinning around the lures wire

shaft was too fast for cold-blooded, lethargic fish.

I knew two things for sure first, that a spinning blade is an ultra-attractive feature so far as white bassand hybrid stripers are concerned, and second, that the slab -- a shad-shaped hunk of lead - has puttens of thousands of fish in my boat in the winter months. I wondered what might happen if I combinedthese two powerful entities.

Long story short, this curiosity gave rise to the newest cold-water bait now on the market, introducedand made public this week.

That bait is the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab. This combines a classic, shad-shaped lead body with a smallwillow-leafed spinner blade which is affixed to the lures treble hook using a tiny swivel bonded to thehook.

This bait comes in three sizes: 3/8 ounce, 5/8 ounce, and 3/4 ounce. The baits come powder-coated fordurability in either white or chartreuse.

Most of my field-testing was done last winter in January and February once the water fell into the 50s.

The Bladed Hazy Eye Slab produced extremely well then, and continued to do so even after the severewinter storm took water temperatures into the mid-40s. I have already begun keeping my rods riggedwith these slabs on my boat for times when fish get too finicky to chase hard after the MAL Lures.

On Wednesday, the last 30 of the 100 fish my clients landed were landed on the Bladed Hazy EyeSlab.

In mid-January last year, just before the Tuff-Man Series championship event was to take place, I guidedone of my clients to a 38-plus-pound, five-fish limit of largemouth bass on Stillhouse, all of which werelanded on the standard Hazy Eye Shad -- proof positive that largemouth bass congregate in deep waterin the winter and strike slabs despite the lure being more closely associated with white bass and hybridstriped bass fishing.

I count on the lures I have tied onto the rods I carry on my boat to make my clients successful. Theselures have earned a place on my boat from this time of year right up until the water temperature nips at60F once again in the spring.

If you are like me, you want to see and hold a new lure in your hands before buying it, mainly so you canget a sense for its shape, weight, profile, etc., and see how the fine-tuning which went into the creationof this bait makes it different from a standard slab. These are all things which photographs just cannotconvey. For this reason, Dean Thompson has kindly put on display a full lineup of these new baits atTightlines Premium Fishing Tackle on Business Highway 190 in Killeen.

I also have these available online at http://www.WhiteBassTools.com. Just as necessity truly is the mother ofinvention, I believe fine-tuning inventions is the father of success.

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BOB MAINDELLE: The evolution of lures for the cold-water season - The Killeen Daily Herald