Monthly Archives: August 2017

New Gene Editing Study Raises Possibilities, Questions – Chicago Tonight | WTTW

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An international team of scientists published a new study last week documenting edits theyd made to viable human embryos carrying a genetic mutation, one associated with a life-threatening heart condition. It is the first study of its kind to take place in the United States.

The researchers were able to remove a problematic mutation in the MYBPC3 gene with a higher success rate than in similar studies. After adjusting their method, 72 percent of the embryos were free of the mutation. The scientists believe they may be able to address other monogenetic diseases using the same technique, CRISPR-Cas9.

But the notion of altering human DNA to eradicate inherited diseases is generating concern, too. These genetic changes would permanently affect the DNA passed through a family line, for one. Other critics raise the possibility of altering embryos to create desired characteristics (though it would be much harder for scientists to target genes associated with humor, creativity or physical traits).

Cardiologist and geneticist Dr. Elizabeth McNally is the director of the Center for Genetic Medicine at Northwestern University. She joins Phil Ponce in discussion.

Related stories:

UIC Launches Stem Cell, Regenerative Medicine Center

June 12: Researchers at UIC will focus on understanding tissue regeneration and spearheading future developments in stem cell biology as a means to repair diseased organs and tissues.

The Science and Ethics of Editing Human Embryos

Feb. 28: Earlier this month, an influential group backs editing the genes in human embryos to eliminate disease. Chicago Tonight guests discuss human gene editing and some of the ethical issues it raises.

Baby with 3 Parents: Genetic Technique Offers Hope, Controversy

Sept. 29, 2016: A baby has been born with the DNA of three parents. We hear about the promise the technique offers for avoiding some birth defects, and the ethical concerns it raises.

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New Gene Editing Study Raises Possibilities, Questions - Chicago Tonight | WTTW

Researchers use CRISPR to manipulate social behavior in ants – Phys.Org

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This photograph shows Ooceraea biroi workers tagged with color dots for individual behavioral tracking. Credit: Daniel Kronauer The Rockefeller University

The gene-editing technology called CRISPR has revolutionized the way that the function of genes is studied. So far, CRISPR has been widely used to precisely modify single-celled organisms and, more importantly, specific types of cells within more complex organisms. Now, two independent teams of investigators are reporting that CRISPR has been used to manipulate ant eggsleading to germline changes that occur in every cell of the adult animals throughout the entire ant colony. The papers appear August 10 in Cell.

"These studies are proof of principle that you can do genetics in ants," says Daniel Kronauer, an assistant professor at The Rockefeller University and senior author of one of the studies. "If you're interested in studying social behaviors and their genetic basis, ants are a good system. Now, we can knock out any gene that we think will influence social behavior and see its effects."

Because they live in colonies that function like superorganisms, ants are also a valuable model for studying complex biological systems. But ant colonies have been difficult to grow and study in the lab because of the complexity of their life cycles.

The teams found a way to work around that, using two different species of ants. The Rockefeller team employed a species called clonal raider ants (Ooceraea biroi), which lacks queens in their colonies. Instead, single unfertilized eggs develop as clones, creating large numbers of ants that are genetically identical through parthogenesis. "This means that by using CRISPR to modify single eggs, we can quickly grow up colonies containing the gene mutation we want to study," Kronauer says.

The other team, a collaboration between researchers at New York University and the NYU School of Medicine, Arizona State University, the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Vanderbilt University. , used Indian jumping ants (Harpegnathos saltator). "We chose this species because they have a peculiar feature that makes it easy to transform workers into queens," says Claude Desplan, a Silver Professor at NYU and one of the senior authors of the second study. If the queen dies, the young worker ants will begin dueling for dominance. Eventually, one of them becomes a "pseudoqueen"also called a gamergateand is allowed to lay eggs.

"In the lab, we can inject any worker embryo to change its genetic makeup," Desplan says. "We then convert the worker to a pseudoqueen, which can lay eggs, propagate the new genes, and spawn a new colony."

Desplan, co-senior author Danny Reinberg, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at NYU Langone, and Shelley Berger, the Daniel S. Och University Professor in the departments of Cell and Developmental Biology and Biology at Penn, began studying these ants several years ago as a way to learn about epigenetics, which refers to changes in gene expression rather than changes in the genetic code itself. "The queens and the worker ants are genetically identical, essentially twin sisters, but they develop very differently," Desplan says. "That makes them a good system for studying epigenetic control of development."

The gene that both research teams knocked out with CRISPR is called orco (odorant receptor coreceptor). Ants have 350 genes for odorant receptors, a prohibitively large number to manage individually. But due to the unique biology of how the receptors worka great stroke of luck, in this casethe investigators were able to block the function of all 350 with a single knockout. "Every one of these receptors needs to team up with the Orco coreceptor in order to be effective," says Waring Trible, a student in Kronauer's lab and the first author of the Rockefeller study.Once the gene was knocked out, the ants were effectively blind to the pheromone signals they normally use to communicate. Without those chemical cues, they become asocial, wandering out of the nest and failing to hunt for food.

More surprisingly, knocking out orco also affected the brain anatomy in the adult animals of both species. In the same way that humans have specialized processing centers in the brain for things like language and facial recognition, ants have centers that are responsible for perceiving and processing olfactory cues that are expanded compared to other insects. But in these ants, the substructures of these sensory centers, called the antennal lobe glomeruli, were largely missing.

"There are many things we still don't know about why this is the case," Kronauer says. "We don't know if the neurons die back in the adults because they're not being used, or if they never develop in the first place. This is something we need to follow up on. And eventually, we'd like to learn to what extent the phenomenon in ants is similar to what's going on in mammals, where brain development does depend to a large extent on sensory input."

"Better understanding, biochemically speaking, how behavior is shaped could reveal insights into disorders in which changes in social communication are a hallmark, such as schizophrenia or depression," Berger says.

In a third related study from the University of Pennsylvania, researchers led by Roberto Bonasio altered ant behavior usingthe brain chemical corazonin. When corazonin is injected into ants transitioning to become a pseudo-queen, it suppresses expression of thebrain protein vitellogenin. This change stimulated worker-like hunting behaviors, while inhibiting pseudo-queen behaviors, such as dueling and egg deposition.

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Further, when the team analyzed proteins the ant brain makes during the transition to becoming a pseudo-queen, they found that corazonin is similar to a reproductive hormone in vertebrates. More importantly, they also discovered that release of corazonin gets turned off as workers became pseudo-queens. Corazonin is also preferentially expressed in workers and foragers from other social insect species. In addition to corazonin, several other genes were expressed in a worker-specific or queen-specific way.

"Social insects such as ants are outstanding models to study how gene regulation affects behavior," says Bonasia, an assistant professor of Cell and Developmental Biology. "This is because they live in colonies comprised of individuals with the same genomes but vastly different sets of behaviors."

Explore further: 'Princess pheromone' tells ants which larvae are destined to be queens

More information: 1. Cell, Trible et al: "orco mutagenesis causes loss of antennal lobe glomeruli and impaired social behavior in ants." http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)30772-9 , DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.07.001

2. Cell, Yan et al: "An engineered orco mutation produces aberrant social behavior and defective neural development in ants" http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)30770-5 , DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.06.051

3. Cell, Gospocic et al.: "The neuropeptide corazonin controls social behavior and caste identity in ants" http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)30821-8 , DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.07.014

Journal reference: Cell

Provided by: Cell Press

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Researchers use CRISPR to manipulate social behavior in ants - Phys.Org

New version of DNA editing system corrects underlying defects in RNA-based diseases – Phys.Org

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Muscle cells from a patient with myotonic dystrophy type I, untreated (left) and treated with the RNA-targeting Cas9 system (right). The MBNL1 protein is in green, repetitive RNA in red and the cell's nucleus in blue. MBNL1 is an important RNA-binding protein and its normal function is disrupted when it binds repetitive RNA. In the treated cells on the right, MBNL1 is released from the repetitive RNA. Credit: UC San Diego Health

Until recently, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique could only be used to manipulate DNA. In a 2016 study, University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers repurposed the technique to track RNA in live cells in a method called RNA-targeting Cas9 (RCas9). In a new study, published August 10 in Cell, the team takes RCas9 a step further: they use the technique to correct molecular mistakes that lead to microsatellite repeat expansion diseases, which include myotonic dystrophy types 1 and 2, the most common form of hereditary ALS, and Huntington's disease.

"This is exciting because we're not only targeting the root cause of diseases for which there are no current therapies to delay progression, but we've re-engineered the CRISPR-Cas9 system in a way that's feasible to deliver it to specific tissues via a viral vector," said senior author Gene Yeo, PhD, professor of cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

While DNA is like the architect's blueprint for a cell, RNA is the engineer's interpretation of the blueprint. In the central dogma of life, genes encoded in DNA in the nucleus are transcribed into RNA and RNAs carry the message out into the cytoplasm, where they are translated to make proteins.

Microsatellite repeat expansion diseases arise because there are errant repeats in RNA sequences that are toxic to the cell, in part because they prevent production of crucial proteins. These repetitive RNAs accumulate in the nucleus or cytoplasm of cells, forming dense knots, called foci.

In this proof-of-concept study, Yeo's team used RCas9 to eliminate the problem-causing RNAs associated with microsatellite repeat expansion diseases in patient-derived cells and cellular models of the diseases in the laboratory.

Normally, CRISPR-Cas9 works like this: researchers design a "guide" RNA to match the sequence of a specific target gene. The RNA directs the Cas9 enzyme to the desired spot in the genome, where it cuts DNA. The cell repairs the DNA break imprecisely, thus inactivating the gene, or researchers replace the section adjacent to the cut with a corrected version of the gene. RCas9 works similarly but the guide RNA directs Cas9 to an RNA molecule instead of DNA.

The researchers tested the new RCas9 system on microsatellite repeat expansion disease RNAs in the laboratory. RCas9 eliminated 95 percent or more of the RNA foci linked to myotonic dystrophy type 1 and type 2, one type of ALS and Huntington's disease. The approach also eliminated 95 percent of the aberrant repeat RNAs in myotonic dystrophy patient cells cultured in the laboratory.

Another measure of success centered on MBNL1, a protein that normally binds RNA, but is sequestered away from hundreds of its natural RNA targets by the RNA foci in myotonic dystrophy type 1. When the researchers applied RCas9, they reversed 93 percent of these dysfunctional RNA targets in patient muscle cells, and the cells ultimately resembled healthy control cells.

While this study provides the initial evidence that the approach works in the laboratory, there is a long way to go before RCas9 could be tested in patients, Yeo explained.

One bottleneck is efficient delivery of RCas9 to patient cells. Non-infectious adeno-associated viruses are commonly used in gene therapy, but they are too small to hold Cas9 to target DNA. Yeo's team made a smaller version of Cas9 by deleting regions of the protein that were necessary for DNA cleavage, but dispensable for binding RNA.

"The main thing we don't know yet is whether or not the viral vectors that deliver RCas9 to cells would illicit an immune response," he said. "Before this could be tested in humans, we would need to test it in animal models, determine potential toxicities and evaluate long-term exposure."

To do this, Yeo and colleagues launched a spin-out company called Locana to handle the preclinical steps required for moving RCas9 from the lab to the clinic for RNA-based diseases, such as those that arise from microsatellite repeat expansions.

"We are really excited about this work because we not only defined a new potential therapeutic mechanism for CRISPR-Cas9, we demonstrated how it could be used to treat an entire class of conditions for which there are no successful treatment options," said David Nelles, PhD, co-first author of the study with Ranjan Batra, PhD, both postdoctoral researchers in Yeo's lab.

"There are more than 20 genetic diseases caused by microsatellite expansions in different places in the genome," Batra said. "Our ability to program the RCas9 system to target different repeats, combined with low risk of off-target effects, is its major strength."

Explore further: For first time, scientists use CRISPR-Cas9 to target RNA in live cells

More information: Cell (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.07.010

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New version of DNA editing system corrects underlying defects in RNA-based diseases - Phys.Org

siRNA Treatment for Brain Cancer Stops Tumor Growth in Mouse Model – Technology Networks

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Early phase Northwestern Medicine research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has demonstrated a potential new therapeutic strategy for treating deadly glioblastoma brain tumors.

The strategy involves using lipid polymer-based nanoparticles to deliver molecules to the tumors, where the molecules shut down key cancer drivers called brain tumor-initiating cells (BTICs).

BTICs are malignant brain tumor populations that underlie the therapy resistance, recurrence and unstoppable invasion commonly encountered by glioblastoma patients after the standard treatment regimen of surgical resection, radiation and chemotherapy, explained the studys first author, Dou Yu, MD, PhD, research assistant professor of Neurological Surgery.

Using mouse models of brain tumors implanted with BTICs derived from human patients, the scientists injected nanoparticles containing small interfering RNA (siRNA) short sequences of RNA molecules that reduce the expression of specific cancer-promoting proteins directly into the tumor. In the new study, the strategy stopped tumor growth and extended survival when the therapy was administered continuously through an implanted drug infusion pump.

This major progress, although still at a conceptual stage, underscores a new direction in the pursuit of a cure for one of the most devastating medical conditions known to mankind, said Yu, who collaborated on the research with principal investigator Maciej Lesniak, MD, Michael J. Marchese Professor of Neurosurgery and chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery.

Glioblastoma is particularly difficult to treat because its genetic makeup varies from patient to patient. This new therapeutic approach would make it possible to deliver siRNAs to target multiple cancer-causing gene products simultaneously in a particular patients tumor.

In this study, the scientists tested siRNAs that target four transcription factors highly expressed in many glioblastoma tissues but not all. The therapy worked against classes of glioblastoma BTICs with high levels of those transcription factors, while other classes of the cancer did not respond.

This paints a picture for personalized glioblastoma therapy regimens based on tumor profiling, Yu said. Customized nanomedicine could target the unique genetic signatures in any specific patient and potentially lead to greater therapeutic benefits.

The strategy could also apply to other medical conditions related to the central nervous system not just brain tumors.

Degenerative neurological diseases or even psychiatric conditions could potentially be the therapeutic candidates for this multiplexed delivery platform, Yu said.

Before scientists can translate this proof-of-concept research to humans, they will need to continue refining the nanomedicine platform and evaluating its long-term safety. Still, the findings from this new research provide insight for further investigation.

Nanomedicine provides a unique opportunity to advance a therapeutic strategy for a disease without a cure. By effectively targeting brain tumor-initiating stem cells responsible for cancer recurrence, this approach opens up novel translational approaches to malignant brain cancer, Lesniak summed up.

This article has been republished frommaterialsprovided by Northwestern University. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Reference

Dou Yu, Omar F. Khan, Mario L. Suv, Biqin Dong, Wojciech K. Panek, Ting Xiao, Meijing Wu, Yu Han, Atique U. Ahmed, Irina V. Balyasnikova, Hao F. Zhang, Cheng Sun, Robert Langer, Daniel G. Anderson, Maciej S. Lesniak. Multiplexed RNAi therapy against brain tumor-initiating cells via lipopolymeric nanoparticle infusion delays glioblastoma progression. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017; 201701911 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1701911114

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siRNA Treatment for Brain Cancer Stops Tumor Growth in Mouse Model - Technology Networks

‘Deadpool’s Tim Miller To Helm William Gibson’s Cyberpunk … – Deadline

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EXCLUSIVE: Back when Deadline revealed that Deadpool helmer Tim Miller had dropped out of the sequel of his hit movie over creative differences, Fox insiders said the studio would work hard to make sure that it found a major project for Miller and his VFX studio Blur to build from the ground up. Theyve found one: Neuromancer, the classic cyberpunk novel by William Gibson. Simon Kinberg will produce.

The studio will soon set a writer to adapt a tale that has drawn the interest of several filmmakers in the past. The logline: Case was one of the best console cowboys until he stole from one of his employers, who in turn damaged his nervous system so that he cannot access cyberspace anymore. Broke and destroying himself, Case is contacted by Molly, a heavily modified razorgirl, to work for a shadowy colonel who needs a cyberspace cowboy for a secret mission. The employer fixes Cases damaged brain, but implants a slow dissolving poison to make sure the cyberspace wiz does his bidding, in attempting to abduct a perverse psychopath who is able to create holograms with the force of his mind.

This is the second project that Miller has set at Fox; Mark Bomback is writingInflux, an adaptation of the Daniel Suarez novel that is expected to launch a film trilogy. Millers attention right now is on the resurrection of The Terminator franchise that he is teamed on creatively with creator James Cameron. That film is expected to start production next spring. Right now, they have a writers room with several scribes figuring out where to take the Skynet saga that Cameron hatched in 1984. The film is a major part of this weeks new deal between Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

Miller is repped by WME, Anonymous Content and attorney Gregory Slewett of Bloom Hergott.

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'Deadpool's Tim Miller To Helm William Gibson's Cyberpunk ... - Deadline

TMW Systems appoints new senior director, product management – Fleet Owner

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Jay Delaney has joined TMW Systems as senior director of product management. Delaneys primary area of responsibility will be the TMW.Suite transportation management software (TMS) platform, where he will direct product strategy and lead the companys Product Advisory Council (PAC).

Delaney comes to TMW from Hub Group, Oak Brook., IL, where as director of application development he assisted in the selection, integration and development of trucking management software, mobile applications and other solutions. He began his career in 1988 as a technology support supervisor for United Parcel Service in Atlanta. He served that company over the next 13 years in multiple roles of increasing responsibility, including director of IT development. Delaney subsequently held leadership positions with Cendian, DHL and Schneider National, TMW Systems noted.

With his proven expertise in designing, implementing and managing industry-leading solutions, Jay will be an invaluable asset to TMW and the thousands of businesses that rely on our TMS products, said Ray West, senior vice president and general manager, TMW. He will play a key role in expanding the product roadmap for the TMW.Suite platform and oversee a variety of strategic initiatives focused on helping carriers, third-party logistics providers and brokers leverage our technology for clear and sustained competitive advantage.

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TMW Systems appoints new senior director, product management - Fleet Owner

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NeoSync Secures $13 Million in Financing with Valiance Life Science Investments and Current Investors – PR Newswire (press release)

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NeoSync plans to use the proceeds from this latest financing round to fund a registration trial using their proprietary NEST technology in Treatment Resistant Depression. The investment will also accelerate the company's efforts to prepare for future commercial release of this novel technology.

"This latest round of funding will allow us to execute remaining activities needed to gain regulatory clearance for our novel device," said Kate Rumrill, President and CEO of NeoSync. "We believe, once commercially available, our device will open up broader access to TMS, in a more convenient environment for patients."

"With its unique and innovative NEST technology, NeoSync is well positioned to change the way TMS treatment is perceived and delivered," said Jan Pensaert, founder and CEO of Valiance. "A home-use device is a very compelling proposition for patients suffering from depression and we are delighted to support NeoSync's management team in their efforts to make their device a clinical and commercial success."

About NEST sTMS Technology NEST (NeoSync-EEG Synchronized TMS) deliverslow energy, alternating magnetic field stimulation in daily 30 minute sessions to gently adjust a depressed brain toward a more normal state. Unique among TMS therapies,synchronized TMS (sTMS) used byNEST is personalized to a patient's individual alpha brain frequency, as measured by a briefelectroencephalogram(EEG) recording.NeoSync's patented device design and configuration provides a unique ability to bring TMS therapy to a broader patient population with an at-home treatment option, under the care of their physician.

About NeoSync, Inc. NeoSync is aclinical-stage companypioneering personalized transcranial magnetic stimulation for the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder and other diseases of the Central Nervous System (CNS). With their proprietaryplatform technology they are well-positioned to unlock the enormous potential of an existing but still nascent market, with a disruptive home use design.The Company is led by experienced medical device executives and entrepreneurs. Headquartered in Boston, MA, NeoSync is privately held.

About Valiance Valiance is a specialist growth capital investment firm based in London, backing serial entrepreneurs with excellent track records and assisting them through the growth stages of their businesses towards an exit. Valiance is authorized and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and Guernsey Financial Services Commission.

Media Inquiries Contact: info@neosync.com

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/neosync-secures-13-million-in-financing-with-valiance-life-science-investments-and-current-investors-300502299.html

SOURCE NeoSync, Inc.

http://www.neosync.com

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NeoSync Secures $13 Million in Financing with Valiance Life Science Investments and Current Investors - PR Newswire (press release)

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Head-To-Head Analysis: PhotoMedex (PHMD) vs. EDAP TMS (EDAP) – Week Herald

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EDAP TMS (NASDAQ: EDAP) and PhotoMedex (NASDAQ:PHMD) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, dividends, institutional ownership, profitabiliy, earnings and risk.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

8.2% of EDAP TMS shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 5.2% of PhotoMedex shares are owned by institutional investors. 22.4% of PhotoMedex shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for EDAP TMS and PhotoMedex, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

EDAP TMS currently has a consensus target price of $7.00, indicating a potential upside of 149.11%. Given EDAP TMSs higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe EDAP TMS is more favorable than PhotoMedex.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares EDAP TMS and PhotoMedexs top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

EDAP TMS has higher revenue and earnings than PhotoMedex.

Profitability

This table compares EDAP TMS and PhotoMedexs net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Volatility & Risk

EDAP TMS has a beta of 0.98, suggesting that its stock price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, PhotoMedex has a beta of 0.74, suggesting that its stock price is 26% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

EDAP TMS beats PhotoMedex on 10 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About EDAP TMS

EDAP TMS S.A. (EDAP) is a holding company engaged in developing and marketing the Ablatherm and Focal One devices. The Company operates two divisions: High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) and Urology Devices and Services (UDS) (including lithotripsy activities). The Company is developing HIFU technology for the treatment of certain other types of tumors. The Company also produces and commercializes medical equipment for treatment of urinary tract stones using extra-corporeal shockwave lithotripsy (ESWL) and distributes other types of urology devices in certain countries. The HIFU division is engaged in the development, manufacturing and marketing of medical devices based on HIFU technology for the invasive treatment of urological and other clinical indications. The UDS division is engaged in the development, marketing, manufacturing and servicing of medical devices for the invasive diagnosis or treatment of urological disorders, urinary stones, and other clinical indications.

About PhotoMedex

PhotoMedex, Inc. is a global health products and services company providing integrated disease management and solutions to dermatologists, professional aestheticians and consumers. The Company provides products and services that address skin diseases and conditions, including acne and photo damage. The Company operates through three business segments: Consumer segment, Physician Recurring segment and Professional segment. The Company provides skin health solutions to spa markets, as well as traditional retail, online and infomercial outlets for home-use products. The Companys Consumer segment is engaged in the designing, development, manufacturing and selling of long-term hair reduction and acne consumer products. Its Physician Recurring segment is engaged in the sales of skincare products. Its Professional segment is engaged in the sale of equipment, such as medical and esthetic light and heat based products. Its LHE brands includes Mistral, Kona, FSD, SpaTouch Elite and accessories.

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Head-To-Head Analysis: PhotoMedex (PHMD) vs. EDAP TMS (EDAP) - Week Herald

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fMRI, EEG may detect consciousness in TBI patients – Medical Physics Web (subscription)

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Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) are using the novel approach of combining functional MRI (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) to determine the level of consciousness in intensive care unit patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), according to a study published online in Brain (Brain doi: 10.1093/brain/awx176).

The strategy reportedly is the first attempt to use the two modalities collaboratively on acutely ill patients whose clinicians face critical decisions of how or whether to proceed with life-sustaining treatment.

"Early detection of consciousness and brain function in the intensive care unit [ICU] could allow families to make more informed decisions about the care of loved ones," said co-lead author Brian Edlow, from MGH's Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, in a release from the university. "Also, since early recovery of consciousness is associated with better long-term outcomes, these tests could help patients gain access to rehabilitative care once they are discharged from an ICU."

Previous research has suggested that as many as 40% of conscious patients are misclassified as unconscious. While fMRI or EEG can detect cases of more obvious consciousness among patients who have progressed to rehabilitation or nursing care facilities, no study has been conducted on seriously injured ICU patients.

The researchers enrolled 16 patients with severe traumatic brain injury at MGH's ICU. At the start of the study, eight patients could respond to language, three were classified as minimally conscious with no language response, three were classified as vegetative, and two were in a coma. The study also included 16 healthy age- and sex-matched volunteers who served as a control group.

Functional MRI scans were performed as soon as the subjects were stable enough for the procedure. When possible, EEG readings were taken within 24 hours after the fMRI scan.

The researchers also set up scenarios to test the subjects' abilities. For example, the subjects were asked to imagine squeezing and releasing their right hand while in the MRI scanner and while EEG readings were taken. This test is designed to detect a mismatch between their ability to imagine performing a task and their ability to physically express themselves, known as cognitive motor dissociation.

Through the exercise, the researchers detected evidence of covert consciousness in four (50%) of the eight patients who were unable to respond to language in the bedside exams, including the three classified as vegetative. Interestingly, approximately 25% of the healthy controls had no detectable brain response in the hand-squeeze imagery test.

The subjects were also exposed to brief recordings of spoken language and music during both fMRI and EEG to detect activity in certain regions of the brain. In this test, higher-order cortex activity was seen in two additional subjects.

While higher-order cortical activity doesn't prove that a patient is conscious, finding a response in those structures could have implications for a patient's eventual recovery, Edlow said.

In fact, no associations were found between early brain responses and long-term outcomes. The researchers suggested this could be due to the study's small cohort or the fact that several patients were sedated during the fMRI and EEG tests.

A negative response is not necessarily an indication that a patient has a low likelihood of recovery, Edlow added. In fact, one comatose patient who had no responses to language, music or motor imagery in early fMRI and EEG tests proceeded to an excellent recovery six months later.

It's "difficult to measure the false-positive rate for stimulus-based fMRI and EEG tests in these patients, since there is no definitive, gold-standard test to diagnose their level of consciousness," he said. "Much more work needs to be done to determine the utility of these techniques for detecting consciousness in patients with severe traumatic brain injuries."

Indeed, the researchers plan to continue their work to improve the accuracy of these tests with a larger follow-up study in the near future.

This article was originally published on AuntMinnie.com. 2017 by AuntMinnie.com. Any copying, republication or redistribution of AuntMinnie.com content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AuntMinnie.com.

MPI helps diagnose traumatic brain injury fMRI algorithm maps brain function CBCT made for point-of-care brain imaging Trimodal brain scans with MRI/PET/EEG

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fMRI, EEG may detect consciousness in TBI patients - Medical Physics Web (subscription)

Too politically correct? Board drops ‘Lynch’ from school names – Fox News

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A school board in Portland, Ore., has dropped Lynch from the names of two elementary schools,claiming it had negative connotations and made some people feel uncomfortable.

The move Wednesday evening by the Centennial School Districts board also included a slight alteration to the name of a third school.

But the move has sparked criticism, including on social media, from some community residents and former students.

They claim the boards decision is a sign of political correctness running amok.

The district had received complaints in recent years that the names of Lynch Meadows Elementary School, Lynch View Elementary School and Lynch Wood Elementary School reminded them too much of lynch mobs and lynchings, conjuring the image of people being hanged by an angry mob, KATU reported.

All three schools were named after the Lynch family, who donated land for the schools more than a century ago.

Theres disagreement over the derivation of lynch mob and lynching. Some say it started with an 18th century politician named Charles Lynch, NPR reported. Others link the words to Capt. William Lynch, an 18th century Virginian who was a proponent of quickly dispensed justice although accounts vary.

Complaints suggested that the names of Lynch Meadows Elementary School, Lynch View Elementary School and Lynch Wood Elementary School could make people feel uncomfortable as the word "lynch" has negative associations.

On Wednesday, the school board agreed to drop Lynch from bothLynch Meadows and Lynch Wood Elementary. But it agreed to rename Lynch View Elementary as Patrick Lynch Elementary School, KOIN6 reported.

As Sharlene Giard, the school boards chairwoman, told the community Wednesday: We have children of color and other cultures and we want to make sure that they are able to cross the threshold of those three schools and be comfortable in their surroundings.

We have children of color and other cultures and we want to make sure that they are able to cross the threshold of those three schools and be comfortable in their surroundings.

But after the school boards decision, community members voiced their dissatisfaction.

Im just disheartened because where will it stop? one local resident said, according to KOIN 6. Any moment someone could be offended by any name. Do we keep changing the name of everything? That would be the question, right?"

Its official. We are now Meadows Elementary School. I wont change the name of the group! wrote Andrea Vaughn in a Facebook group called Lynch Meadows Elementary School Alumni.

Another former student, Rob Grimes, criticized the school district on its Facebook page, calling the boards decision pure ignorance. He accused the board of disrespecting the Lynch family that donated the land.

"This isn't even a matter of political correctness because it wouldn't apply or make sense in this case, Grimes wrote. This is just pure ignorance and playing to the fears or concerns of the very few.

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Too politically correct? Board drops 'Lynch' from school names - Fox News

Reject dysfunctional lawmakers, political correctness at polls – MDJOnline.com

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DEAR EDITOR:

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, has delayed the vote on the drastically needed military spending bill by at least six weeks by demanding an end to the National Defense Authorization Acts indefinite detention of suspects (read, terrorists). Our military has been decimated by Obamas sequestration and it will take years, even decades to rebuild its strength. The delay being caused by this radical senator is inexcusable.

I guess Paul wants us to make Kissy, Kissy and, ala Obama, release them from GTMO to rejoin ISIS, al-Qaida or other terrorist groups. Former GTMO detainees numbering 122 including 87 released by Obama have re-engaged in terrorism.

These terrorists are not prisoners of war, they are criminals in an undeclared war being waged by Muslim extremists. For the safety of our nation and that of the world, they cannot be released and GTMO, not the continental US, is the place to keep them.

Paul and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-California, who are both looking to repeal Authorization for Use of Military Force, need to have their heads examined but are most probably beyond the point of recovery. Our polarized, dysfunctional Congress gridlocks on the smallest of issues and loss of this power by the President could have us sitting there watching the world go up in flames.

Paul has additionally criticized the missile attack on the Shayrat Air Base in Syria from which weapons outlawed under the Chemical Weapons Convention had been deployed by Bashar al-Assad from that site and resulted in the mass murder of civilians. That attack certainly had greater justification than Clintons 1998 cruise missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan that he used to divert attention from his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

What America needs is the ouster at the polls of dysfunctional senators and representatives of both parties and the rejection of political correctness. Dominance by groups (LGBTQ or O whatever it calls itself today, ACLU and related splinter groups) that do not represent the thinking of the majority of American citizens will, if it does not end, eventually see the destruction of everything for which our nation stands.

R.S. Pino

Marietta

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Reject dysfunctional lawmakers, political correctness at polls - MDJOnline.com

Broadway: The Great Comet Killed by Political Correctness, Bad … – ShowBiz411.com

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Home Theater Broadway: The Great Comet Killed by Political Correctness, Bad Producing and Really...

The Great Comet aka Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 is closing on September 3rd, the victim of stupidity. It was killed by political correctness, bad producing, and really bad PR.

I first saw The Great Comet on Gansevoort St. in a tent. It was dinner theater and quite amusing. Then it moved to a tent on West 45th St. When it was finally moved to the Imperial Theater on Broadway, pop star Josh Groban starred as Pierre. The box office was great. He and the show received Tony nominations.

But Groban could only stay so long. The producers knew this in February when they announced his replacement: a totally unknown actor from Hamilton named Okieriete Oak Onaodowan. Im sure hes very talented, but hes not a star or even a name anyone knows. Why did the producers think replacing Josh Groban with such a person regardless of color or nationality would be a good idea? Beats me.

If there was some push to get a black Pierre, why not Brian Stokes Mitchell? Norm Lewis? Leslie Odom, Jr? James Monroe Inglehart, from Aladdin? Did no black star want to do it? What about Usher? Jamie Foxx?

So then came Oak, as he is known. But he is known to few. So the box office literally went off a cliff. Overnight, the show dropped from an average $1 million a week take to around $840,000. The producers realized Oak despite his great talent was not drawing a crowd. The idea came to ask Mandy Patinkin to step in. Even for three weeks, that would get the box office back up and more.

But political correctness stepped in. Replace a black actor with a white actor? There was an outcry. Patinkin, who would have been a great Pierre, pulled out. It didnt matter that Oak, the black actor, had replaced Groban, a white actor. The whole thing is crazy. This had nothing to do with color. It had to do with saving the show. Theater is color blind. But its not star blind. This show required a name on the Marquee. Maybe Oak could have come back after Patinkin righted the ship.

But now, with no Mandy, no Oak, no nobody of an color, The Great Comet will close. All those jobs down the drain. And for what? Botched PR. Botched producing. Nobody wins, everyone loses. What a shame.

Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.

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Broadway: The Great Comet Killed by Political Correctness, Bad ... - ShowBiz411.com

Disney’s Q3: An Earnings Beat, A Strategic Evolution – Seeking Alpha

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Before I go any further, let me say - and I'm sure other articles may have started at the beginning like this - that the financial press can now place a moratorium on all articles concerning the theory that Disney (NYSE:DIS) is going to buy Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX).

Okay, that's out of the way. Now, on to quarter three.

According to Seeking Alpha, Disney's management came in ahead of expectations by three pennies with adjusted earnings of $1.58 per share. Sales, however, of $14.24 billion, which were flat year-over-year, missed by $180 million. EPS was down 2%; it should be noted. Overall, not a great start.

Free cash flow for Q3 was better by 33%, however, at $3.3 billion, according to the release. For the nine-month frame, the growth in that metric was only 3%, and it should be noted that nine-month operational cash flow was actually down 9%.

Disney is known for its cash-generation abilities and its great dividend potential over time, so the cash-flow picture, aside from the quarterly free cash, was perhaps only okay this time around. But that can happen in any given three-month period. More disappointing were the segment operating income results for the media networks and studio divisions - down 22% and 17%, respectively. They were also down over the last nine months as well - 11% and 8% on the same respective basis. Plus, consumer products/interactive media was down 11% in profit generation on the nine-month. Guess that's understandable given the studio decline, but still, merchandising is an area that I like to see growing a little more strongly, even in non-holiday quarters (it also shows that Disney probably has more work to do on its interactive segment, which has been a problem spot in recent years).

If you're a Disney stock fan, this wasn't your quarter. I am, and it wasn't. The shift in cable-bundling/over-the-top subscription services is forcing weakness on the company's big asset, ESPN, and it is now that the story gets very interesting. It goes from one focused on stats to one focused on streaming.

For Disney to get into the streaming business, it needed to reinforce its position in the BAMTech asset we've heard so much about in past quarters. The company has done that: for a little under $1.6 billion, CEO Bob Iger acquired another 42% of the business. Given the 33% already owned, the company is now up to 75% ownership. Disney can now call the shots and create its own ESPN product it can distribute on its own, Netflix-style.

The company doesn't intend on stopping there, though. It also wants to create a new streaming asset that will cater to families.

Obviously, this is an important time in Disney's corporate history for a true evolution is going on. It was expected, but it is also necessary. Disney is a great content supplier, but as many have now pointed out, Disney needs to learn the ropes of creating, from scratch and via acquisition (i.e., BAMTech), a branded platform. This brings up a whole portfolio of questions/risks. Indeed, as I was reading through articles (and comments to articles), I came away with the feeling that this directional change could be riskier than it seems upon first study; again, though, it is necessary.

Here are some examples from my own perspective that I think shareholders need to consider. I believe Disney is still a long-term buy, but I also believe that the story has changed in certain respects.

Let me start with debt levels, cash flow and dividend growth. Right now, Disney has $18.8 billion of debt borrowings. I have a feeling that Disney is going to have to increase its debt level significantly over time as it builds out its streaming services. Is that bad? According to this article, it isn't. The debt the company has now isn't straining it. From the quarterly report, it can be seen that at the beginning of July 2016, the net interest expense was $70 million. At the beginning of July 2017, that statistic increased to $117 million.

Obviously, the net interest expense widened, but it is still inconsequential in the overall picture. Nevertheless, it's cleaner in my mind if Disney tries to keep debt levels down over time. I don't think that can happen now, and I think the company will become more conservative in its dividend increase evaluations. That doesn't mean the stock is a sell; it just means that, given Disney's priority on growth over income in the past, and given that producing content for new streaming services most likely will require big investments/acquisitions, it is worth placing such theory into the mix. There have been many articles over the years about Disney's dividend; there should be a few more analyzing that aspect of the investment idea with this change in strategy, especially with any attempts at quantification of risk of recession and the resultant impact. I know pointing out debt levels in the case of a company like Disney will be criticized, but it is something I think about. Going back to that linked SA article, I do agree with what it intimates: to management, there might not be any preconceived inconvenience to adding $10 billion, say, to the borrowings. Myself, I'm not so sure.

Has Disney found a new CEO yet? We don't know the answer to that; maybe the board already knows and has yet to announce the knowledge. But imagine you are the new CEO-to-be walking into this: a major realignment of the company's long-term goals, engineered by the company's very popular previous boss...what are you thinking at this point? Also, it would be odd if Disney doesn't have someone in mind yet (or at least a very, very short list of not more than two candidates). If the company did not have someone in mind yet, then the person who eventually is identified is going to need a lot of catching-up in the inner workings of this new model, if not in reality (I sometimes think Disney is taking too much time in finding its new CEO) than certainly from the perspective of management (and that is the only reality that matters). Is the board going to be confident in handing over the keys to the kingdom to a new CEO? Is it going to ask Iger to reconsider his retirement?

Just saying that Disney is going to create new streaming services leaves out a lot of details. ESPN is the more obvious of the two - I don't use the product and I'm not a sports expert, but I think it's safe to say that ESPN is ESPN: pay for expensive sports rights, charge a premium to view the events. But Disney's fictional-content service (services, eventually?) is more ambiguous.

From the earnings-call transcript, here is Iger's response to a question on that subject:

"Well, what we're saying specifically is that the Disney-branded app will have the Disney and Pixar films. The disposition of the Marvel and Lucas or Star Wars films, we have not determined yet. We've had a discussion internally about how best to bring them to the consumer."

See, this is odd to me. When I first heard about the plan to create a subscription product, I figure everything from Disney would be in it. Pixar, Star Wars, Pirates, all of it. If I interpret the above correctly, then it would seem that Disney wants to create unique services, perhaps believing that several lower-priced tiers will add up to more than one omnibus streaming entity. The company could be correct on that, but how would it execute in terms of consumer response in a Netflix-branded world? One would assume that to compete with Goliath, you would have to bring everyone you have to the battle. Disney clearly wants to experiment first, solidify later. I can understand that strategy, but I wonder if maybe there was a better way of doing it.

Going back to ESPN, it also occurred to me that this mutation in strategy might make it easier to someday sell/spin-off that business. Yes, Iger is committed, but what about a new CEO? ESPN is basically a big-spending bet on non-fiction; the rest of the company comprises storytelling assets - mythology and merchandising. If Disney wanted to, it could swap its bet on sports for a bet on original-content production in the tradition of Netflix (i.e., spend until it hurts...and then spend some more, if the data allows). ESPN is a great singular investment; Disney proper is a portfolio of business models that interact with each other more closely. A sale of ESPN could bring in a lot of cash that could immediately be put to work creating different franchise episodic IP for Disney's service. While buying BAMTech might seem like a way to keep ESPN in the fold, I wonder if it is the first step in a future sale (which would be some time down the road, if at all).

While I just said that Disney's non-omnibus strategy surprised me, I will concede that investment in original content probably would necessitate some separation from the family-oriented branding model. A separate channel devoted to more adult-targeted stories, or the ability to block that out from younger children, would be logical. The goal on the part of Disney is to siphon off subscribers from Netflix in addition to overlapping; to do that, the company might want, as an example, to invest in low-budget horror movies/episodic. Or to strike its own Adam-Sandler-like deal with a comedian whose box-office prospects necessitated a switch in thinking on the part of agents/managers. Disney can do this...but will it want to? Will such thinking be proprietary to the next CEO?

Iger mentioned in the conference call that premium video-on-demand is not in the mix. When asked about that possibility, he said:

"We're not planning to put our movie, to use this service to encroach on a theatrical window, if that's what you're asking."

Bad move; don't exclude that possibility, Bob. If Disney, every once in a while, took one of its big properties and programmed it on the service a few weeks after release in theaters, then the service becomes unique and more valuable; it would strike a blow against Netflix. Furthermore, producing movies specifically for that purpose would work as well. Imagine if a lower-budgeted Marvel picture were made so that it would do whatever it could at theaters, then was ported over on an accelerated schedule to streaming - it would probably market itself and get the attention of potential subscribers. Even a big Star Wars film could lend itself to this method.

I do like the idea of allowing subscribers the ability to buy content from Disney as well with this new BAMTech-led initiative. From the call, Iger mentioned:

"We do hope to use this service to give people the ability to buy, to download-to-own or download-to-rent Disney movies in the window prior to pay, which used to be called the home video window. There is no reason why we shouldn't be doing that. But the priority here is this is a direct-to-consumer product, a subscription product."

This announcement from Disney's management will be analyzed in the coming weeks. I want to know how Disney's Hulu investment will fare post the development. How ABC will approach its own corporate mandate - will all outside producers of content have to sign over some streaming rights? - vis a vis its new corporate sister. It's possible competitive content creators will look at ABC differently.

My decision regarding the stock is that it is not a sell. There's just too much possibility here on the positive side of things to go bearish. Remember that Disney contains a significant quantity of brand equity; that isn't going away. It also has its parks division, and the cross-promotional opportunities there are numerous. I could imagine a kiosk signing park patrons up for the service near one of the rides; maybe when you book your Disney vacation, you can also book a couple of years on the ESPN over-the-top. The Disney Store could get in on the act. In addition, maybe Disney will sign people for limited-streaming services that are only for a short period of time, almost like an extended rental/pay-per-view - maybe you'll have access to all Star Wars content for six months and be done with it.

As Iger said in the conference call, there are all kinds of scenarios and optionalities to evaluate. For this reason, even with the new risks attached, I believe Disney is still a buy; just don't look at it as necessarily an income play until we see how the future dividend announcements shape up.

Disclosure: I am/we are long DIS, NFLX.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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Disney's Q3: An Earnings Beat, A Strategic Evolution - Seeking Alpha

First mutant ants shed light on evolution of social behavior – The Rockefeller University Newswire

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Ants detect pheromones though porous hairs on their antennae. The researchers generated mutants lacking this ability.

Ants run a tight ship. They organize themselves into groups with very specific tasks: foraging for food, defending against predators, building tunnels, etc. An enormous amount of coordination and communication is required to accomplish this.

To explore the evolutionary roots of the remarkable system, researchers at The Rockefeller University have created the first genetically altered ants, modifying a gene essential for sensing the pheromones that ants use to communicate. The result, severe deficiencies in the ants social behaviors and their ability to survive within a colony, both sheds light on a key facet of social evolution and demonstrates the feasibility and utility of genome editing in ants.

It was well known that ant language is produced through pheromones, but now we understand a lot more about how pheromones are perceived, says Daniel Kronauer, head of the Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior. The way ants interact is fundamentally different from how solitary organisms interact, and with these findings we know a bit more about the genetic evolution that enabled ants to create structured societies.

Social beginnings

The most important class of pheromones in ant communication are hydrocarbons, which can communicate species, colony, and caste identity as well as reproductive status. These pheromone signals are detected by porous sensory hairs on the ants antennae that contain what are called odorant receptorsproteins that recognize specific chemicals and pass the signal up to the brain.

Work in the Kronauer lab, led by graduate student Sean McKenzie and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has shown that a group of odorant receptor genes, known as 9-exon-alpha ORs, are responsible for sensing hydrocarbons in the clonal raider ant species Ooceraea biroi.

McKenzie and his colleagues also examined the genomes of related insects to determine where 9-exon ORs emerged in the evolution of this species, and found that there was an enormous duplication in this gene in a relatively short evolutionary timescale: While the ancestors of bees and ants only had one to three copies of this gene, clonal raider ants have about 180 copies. The massive expansion of 9-exon ORs happened concurrently with the evolution of complex social behavior, suggesting that the duplication of odorant receptor genes was vital to the development of ant communication.

Communication interrupted

To further dissect the role of odorant receptors in ant communication and social behavior, the Kronauer lab disrupted a gene called orco, required for the function of all odorant receptors. Introducing the mutationusing a genetic manipulation technique known as CRISPRwas easy. The challenge was keeping the mutant ants alive.

We had to convince the colonies to accept the mutants. If the conditions werent right, the worker ants would stop caring for larvae and destroy them, says graduate fellow Waring Trible, who led this portion of the study, published separately in Cell. Once the ants successfully made it to the adult phase, we noticed a shift in their behavior almost immediately.

Researchers tracked color-coded ants, using an algorithm to analyze following behavior.

Ants typically travel single-file, sensing the route by detecting pheromones left by the ants in front. Using an automated system that tracks color-coded ants and an algorithm that analyzes movement, the researchers observed that, among other behavioral abnormalities, the mutant ants couldnt fall in line. The finding suggests that the missing odorant receptors are crucial for pheromone detection, and therefore social organization.

The lack of odorant receptors also changed the shape of the ants brains. This was a surprise, says Trible, because brain anatomy is not affected in orco mutants in other insects, like the fruit fly. Our findings suggest that ants are fundamentally differentthey need functional odorant receptors for the brain to develop correctly. This points to how crucial sensing odors is to ants, an ability that may be less important in other insects.

Now that the lab is able to generate mutant ants, Kronauer has a bucket list of genes to explore, including those related to the division of labor between groups. Weve successfully taken a gene out, and next wed like to put a gene in. We have a whole new world to explore, says Kronauer.

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First mutant ants shed light on evolution of social behavior - The Rockefeller University Newswire

Wanda’s Cash Cow Evolution – Bloomberg

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Investors in Dalian Wanda Group Co.'s companies haven't had much good news of late.

Billionaire owner Wang Jianlin's global buying spree is on Beijing's radar and aslowing Chinese box office is taking a toll on his cinema operations. No wonder Wang is taking a leaf out of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing'splaybookand focusingon cash generation first and foremost.

Hong Kong-listed Wanda Hotel Development Co. said in a statement late Wednesday that it had agreed to sell controlling stakes in property projects from Australia to Chicago to affiliateDalian Wanda Commercial Properties Co., leaving it to concentrate on the management of theme parks and hotels.Last month, most of those domestic theme park and hotel assets were soldto property developers Sunac China Holdings Ltd. andGuangzhou R&F Properties Co. in a$9.4 billion transaction. Shares in Wanda Hotel jumped as much as 41 percent Thursday, before closing up 19.8 percent.

Room Upgrade

Shares in Wanda Hotel Development have almost doubled this year

Source: Bloomberg

Shareholders are right to cheer. This restructuring will turn Wanda Hotel from a company bleeding cash into a cash cow.Sunac is nowobligedto pay Wanda Hotel about 650 million yuan ($98 million) every year for the next two decades in management fees. To put this amount in perspective, last year, Wanda Hotel generated just HK$385 million ($49 million) in operating cash flow. In addition, getting the hotel projects off its hands means Wanda Hotel no longer needs to incur any heavy capital expenditure.

House of Horrors

Wanda Hotel's finances have been pinched by expensive project developments

Source: Bloomberg

Wang's hope is that Wanda Hotel will now command a higher valuation.International hotel operators trade at an average 26.3 times forward earnings. With Wanda Hotel going asset light, shouldn't it join the ranks ofMarriott International Inc. and Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., too?

Wanda Hotel shares, YTD

+98.6%

Having a listed company with a higher valuation can only serve Wang well, because he needs the money. Banks are scrutinizing his funding, and there's little sign that Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties will get approval to list in China anytime soon. In last year's take-private agreement, Wang promisedthat if he couldn't re-list the unit by August 2018, he would pay investors up to 12 percent annual interest.

Don't expect this latest deal to close quickly, however. A transaction of this size will probably be counted as a reverse takeover, which in Hong Kong means having to meet rules associated with a new listing.

Investors may be experiencing some temporary euphoria, but the hurdles Wang faces aren't over yet.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the authors of this story: Nisha Gopalan in Hong Kong at ngopalan3@bloomberg.net Shuli Ren in Hong Kong at sren38@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Katrina Nicholas at knicholas2@bloomberg.net

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Liberals Are For ScienceUntil They’re Not – Power Line (blog)

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I think it was our pal Charles Kesler who first quipped that social Darwinism was the only kind of Darwinism liberals opposeda line I have deployed to great effect many times. But it appears he may be mistaken about this. It appears that liberals are increasingly upset with evolutionary science as it reveals gender differences, and goodness, some of this science might even show up on a Google search, at least for a few more hours.

Next time you hear the nonsense to the Republican war on science, point people to this delicious Slate headline and article from today:

Science is sold to us as an almost holy, objective pursuit: a pure endeavor, a way of pursuing truth and only truth. . .But nowhere is it more evident that this perspective is flawed than when we consider the uses and abuses of evolutionary biology and its sibling, evolutionary psychology.

It is impossible to consider this field of science without grappling with the flaws of the institutionand of the deificationof science itself. For example: It was argued to me this week that the Google memo failed to constitute hostile behavior because it cited peer-reviewed articles that suggest women have different brains. The well-known scientist who made this comment to me is both a woman and someone who knows quite well that peer-reviewed and correct are not interchangeable terms. This brings us to the question that many have grappled with this week. Its 2017, and to some extent scientific literature still supports a patriarchal view that ranks a mans intellect above a womans. . .

Sciences greatest myth is that it doesnt encode bias and is always self-correcting. In fact, science has often made its living from encoding and justifying bias, and refusing to do anything about the fact that the data says somethings wrong.

Does this last paragraph apply to the climate science community I wonder? Meanwhile, down with evolutionary biology! Burn the heretics!

Grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy the whole thing, which gets worse as it goes.

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Liberals Are For ScienceUntil They're Not - Power Line (blog)

ANALYSIS-Buoyant bitcoin stirs crypto-bubble fears – Nasdaq

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Reuters (Repeats to update graphic) * Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market hit record highs * Fuelled by dozens of launches of new currencies via 'ICOs' * Critics warn of bubble, advocates say bull run ahead * Cryptocurrencies graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2gWgyLc?eikon=true By Jemima KellyLONDON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Bitcoin and other"cryptocurrencies" are big money, virtually as big as GoldmanSachs and Royal Bank of Scotland combined. The price of a single bitcoin hit an all-time high of above$3,500 this week, dragging up the value of hundreds of newer,smaller digital rivals in its wake. Now some investors fear agiant crypto-bubble may be about to burst. It has been a year of unprecedented growth for the largelyunregulated market, with dozens of new currencies appearingevery month in "Initial Coin Offerings" or ICOs. They haveachieved value almost instantly, drawing in those who are eagerto get in and make a quick buck. At the start of 2017, the total value - or market cap - ofall cryptocurrencies in existence was about $17.5 billion, withbitcoin making up almost 90 percent of that, according toindustry data firm CoinMarketCap. It is now around $120 billion - around the same value asGoldman and RBS together - and bitcoin makes up only 46 percent. Bitcoin Cash, a clone of bitcoin that was split off from theoriginal last week by a rival group of developers, was valued atmore than $12 billion less than 24 hours after it had startedtrading. [nL1N1KN1WQ] "It's just created new value out of nowhere," said RobMoffat, a partner at Balderton Capital, a London-based venturecapital firm who focuses on fintech. "There's no fundamentalsbehind any of this - it's all based on public perception, so youcan start to see some really strange phenomena." For an interactive Reuters graphic of the topcryptocurrencies, click on: http://tmsnrt.rs/2gWgyLc?eikon=true Cryptocurrencies - so-called because cryptography is used tokeep transactions secure - allow anonymous peer-to-peertransactions between individual users, without the need forbanks or central banks. They use blockchain technology, a sharedrecord-keeping and processing system that means digital moneycannot be copied and spent more than once. Billionaire U.S. investor Howard Marks likens the market tothe dotcom bubble of the turn of the century - whose demise hepredicted. He said in a recent investor letter that digitalcurrencies were an "unfounded fad ... based on a willingness toascribe value to something that has little or none beyond whatpeople will pay for it". But advocates of cryptocurrencies say 2017 is just thebeginning of bull run. They argue the finite nature of thesecurrency units - there will never be more than 21 millionbitcoin, for example - as well as the technological innovationthat underpins them will ensure their enduring value. "The idea of this thing being a bubble is silly. We're inthe bottom of the first innings," said Miguel Vias of Ripple,the third-biggest cryptocurrency, who was previously global headof precious metals and metal options at CME Group. DASH TO ETHER Whichever way cryptocurrencies move, they are likely to movetogether because their values are highly correlated, feeding offeach other and magnifying the market effect. That's partly down to investor sentiment, but also becausethe start-ups issuing new coins in ICOs generally collect moneyin a more liquid cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin or, morecommonly, Ethereum's ether - the second-biggest cryptocurrencyin total value. That has driven demand for ether, which has climbed over3,000 percent so far this year and now has a market cap ofaround $28 billion. Bitcoin, which was launched in 2009, was the firstsuccessful cryptocurrency and is still easily the biggest, witha market cap of over $54 billion. Its price has shot up around 225 percent so this year, andperformed better than any conventional, central-bank issuedcurrency in every year since 2010 bar 2014. The blockchain-based currencies that have been built sincebitcoin - 842, at last count - vary hugely in terms of theircredibility. Sceptics say bitcoin and its rivals are not particularlyuseful as currencies, as they are still volatile and notaccepted by most merchants. They are mostly just used forspeculative trading purposes. There are some signs of acceptance of the biggest players bythe establishment, however; Ethereum has been piloted by theUnited Nations as a way to distribute funds to Syrian refugees.Ripple has been successfully used as a payment method betweensettlement systems in a Bank of England trial. Some other, smaller cryptocurrencies such as Dash, Moneroand Z-cash are seen as having real value by some users becausethey offer an even higher level of anonymity than the likes ofbitcoin. Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks this week said itwould accept Z-cash for online donations. [nL8N1II1MV] 'DARWINISM IN REAL-TIME' It is mainly the new "token" cryptocurrencies that areissued in ICOs with no regulatory oversight, which have explodedsince the start of the year, that are causing the most anxiety. One, the "Useless Ethereum Token", which appears to havebeen set up as a way of showing how worthless many of the ICOsreally are, is nonetheless changing hands for 3 cents a unit."No value, no security, and no product. Just me, spending yourmoney," its website states. "It's just so easy to raise money on an ICO right now, itjust feels like there's a gold rush going on there," saidMoffat. "Some of the new currencies - beyond bitcoin andEthereum - could crash to zero." By mid-July, about $1.1 billion had been raised in ICOs thisyear, roughly 10 times more than that in the whole of 2016,according to cryptocurrency research firm Smith + Crown.(Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2ueAWvr) [nL1N1KG1XR] The rapid ascent of ICOs prompted the U.S. Securities andExchange Commission (SEC) to warn last month that some ICOsshould be regulated like other securities. [nL1N1KG1XR] This is new digital territory and how the rapidlyproliferating cryptocurrency market will play out is anyone'sguess. While critics say the highly correlated nature of thecurrencies means the weakness of newer entrants could bring thewhole house down; others argue market forces will ensure thebest players prevail. "Will some of these (currencies) go away? Of course," saidVias of Ripple. "We're going to see Darwinism in real-time here.Only the strong will survive." <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Graphic of top cryptocurrencies http://tmsnrt.rs/2gWgyLc?eikon=true ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Pravin Char) ((jemima.kelly@thomsonreuters.com; +44)(0)(20 7542 7508;Reuters Messaging: jemima.kelly.thomsonreuters@reuters.net))Keywords: MARKETS CURRENCIES/CRYPTO (ANALYSIS, GRAPHIC, PIX)

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ANALYSIS-Buoyant bitcoin stirs crypto-bubble fears - Nasdaq

Could This Squishy Robot Be the Future of Robotics? – Gizmodo – Gizmodo

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The phones in our pockets might be getting more and more complicated, but many researchers advancing the field of robotics are actually engineering simpler bots designed to reliably perform very basic tasks. So instead of one day facing a terrifying future filled with terminators, these squishy rolling donuts might be our biggest threat.

Yoichi Masuda and Masato Ishikawa detail their work on these bots in a paper, Development of a Deformation-driven Rolling Robot with a Soft Outer Shell, published for the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics. Instead of trying to replicate the structure and movements of humans or animals, the researchers have designed this robot to function like the simplest of machines: the wheel.

But a wheel only functions when theres a power source, and designing a robot that only works when its pushed down a hill limits its usefulness. Instead of motors and gears, however, the wheel surrounding this robot is made from a soft material thats squished and stretched by a set of four wires connected to an inner core. Its still mostly dependent on gravity to get around, as the robot is essentially repeatedly falling over as its changing shape makes it unstable. But that also greatly reduces the amount of power it needs to move.

So whats the value of a stripped down robot like this? It cant serve you breakfast in the morning, or pick up a gun and charge into battle, but it can be a valuable tool for exploring areas too dangerous for humans to tread, and too risky to send an expensive piece of hardware. The robots core can be packed with sensors, even a 360-degree camera on either end, and rolled into a warzone for reconnaissance, or pointed at an active volcano and told to drive on in. The odds of it getting back in one piece are slim, but before its demise it could transmit loads of data, which could end up being far more valuable than the robot itself.

[YouTube via IEEE Spectrum]

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Could This Squishy Robot Be the Future of Robotics? - Gizmodo - Gizmodo

HSBC and IBM use robotics to speed up trade financing – Financial News (subscription)

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HSBC and IBM use robotics to speed up trade financing
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HSBC has partnered with technology group IBM to bring the traditionally paper-heavy trade financing process into the digital age. The initiative is the latest effort to make trade transactions, which HSBC said can involve as many as 15 different 40 ...
HSBC taps IBM robotics & cognitive tech for process automationComputer Business Review

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Intelligrated to Feature Robotic Palletizing and Depalletizing Solutions at PACK EXPO 2017 – Robotics Online (press release)

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Intelligrated Posted 08/10/2017

Booth demonstrations focus on the flexibility to accommodate variety of workflows, product types and layout requirements

(CINCINNATI: Aug. 10, 2017)More than 30,000 attendees, over 2,000 exhibitors, more than 40 vertical industries PACK EXPO 2017 is coming soon to the Las Vegas Convention Center. From Sept. 25-27, Intelligrated will showcase its robotic palletizing and depalletizing solutions in booth #C-3906. The robotic solutions on display enable reliable, high throughput with reduced labor requirements and offer the flexibility to accommodate a variety of packaging types, stacking patterns and layout constraints.

The booth demonstration showcases a unitizing approach to robotic palletizing in which loads are built directly onto slip sheets or conveyor, a practice common in manufacturing operations serving a variety of international markets or handling empty containers. Unitized loads travel to the robotic depalletizer on Intelligrated Palmat conveyor, a full-width, heavy-duty modular plastic belt designed for applications with column-stacked or unitized loads that are unstable or difficult to handle. Finally, the robotic depalletizer unloads items and places them on MDR conveyor for transportation back to the palletizer. The demonstration uses a Rockwell Automation-based HMI for clear visualization of equipment status and diagnostics. Attendees come to PACK EXPO facing a variety of competing demands, from expanding inventories and SKU proliferation to limited space and rigorous uptime requirements, says Matt Wicks, vice president, product development, manufacturing systems. As an RIA-certified robot integrator, Intelligrated offers the proven experience and expertise to solve these challenges, along with single-source accountability, dedicated support and integrated software and controls to make the most of automation investments and set up operations for long-term success. Booth visitors can also learn about Intelligrateds IntelliGen palletizing software. IntelliGen offers a user-friendly, flexible solution to easily adjust pattern and load configurations according to changing product dimensions and other variables, without the need for a service call or complex external software programs. Representatives from Intelligrated Lifecycle Support Services will be on hand to discuss system assessments part of the companys comprehensive lifecycle management framework. Engineers with equipment-specific expertise visit customer sites to evaluate component condition and provide recommendations for service, replacement, upgrades or modifications, ultimately helping maximize system uptime and performance.

About Intelligrated Intelligrated, now part of Honeywell, is a leading North American-based, single-source provider of intelligent automated material handling solutions that drive fulfillment productivity for retailers, manufacturers and logistics providers around the world. Through a broad portfolio of automation equipment, software, service and support, Intelligrated solutions give businesses a competitive edge and optimize operational performance through increased flexibility, efficiency and accuracy.

Intelligrated designs, manufactures, integrates and installs complete material handling automation solutions including conveyor, IntelliSort sortation, Alvey palletizers and robotics, and automated storage and retrieval systems all managed by advanced machine controls and software. Intelligrated Software offers warehouse execution systems, a scalable suite of software that manages the entire fulfillment process, including equipment, labor and business intelligence, integrated with voice- and light-directed picking and putting technologies.

From concept to integration to lifecycle support services, Intelligrated delivers dependable, sustained distribution and fulfillment success, and maximum return on investment. Intelligrated backs every project with 24X7 multilingual technical support and access to lifecycle service through a network of national, regional and local service centers.

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Intelligrated to Feature Robotic Palletizing and Depalletizing Solutions at PACK EXPO 2017 - Robotics Online (press release)