During the last ice age some 100,000 to 15,000 years ago mammoths were widespread in the northern hemisphere from Spain to Alaska.Although some endured on a tiny island in the Arctic until 1650 BCE, most mammoths perished about 10,000 years ago during a time when they still interacted with humans. A new study that estimated a species lifespan from DNA suggests that these mammoths were most likely much older than the human hunters on their prowl, reaching up to 60 years of age.

The team of researchers at CSIRO and the University of Western Australia estimated a species lifespan based on its genome sequence. In order to unravel the lifespan clock, the researchers screened 42 genes from the DNA of 252 vertebrate species, both living and extinct. The higher the density of these genes, the higher the predicted lifespan.

When studying extinct animals, the researchers had to also use their living relatives and descendants for reference. In the case of the wooly mammoth and straight-tusked elephant, the Australian researchers performed estimations based on the genome of the modern African elephant, whose lifespan is of about 65 years.

So how long did mammoths live? The researchers estimate that they were able to live up to 60, and the same applied for straight-tusked elephants. Meanwhile, the maximum lifespan of Homo sapiens was deemed to be 38 years, according to this method. This may seem to invalidate the method seeing how the average lifespan in the United States currently is 78, but this figure actually matches other estimates of early modern human lifespans before the advent of medicine, agriculture, and sanitation.

Neanderthals and Denisovans, our close extinct relatives from the genus Homo, had a maximum lifespan of 37.8, very similar to modern humans living around the same time.

We estimated that Denisovans and Neanderthals both had a lifespan of 37.8 years. This suggests that these extinct Hominidae species had similar lifespans to their early human counterparts, the researchers wrote.

The famous Lonesome George was the last remaining Pinta tortoise (C. abingdoni) when he died in 2012. He had been living in captivity at the Charles Darwin Research Station on the Galapagos Islands since 1972 and died at age 100. Thats relatively close to the maximum lifespan estimate of 120 years found by the study.

Other extinct animals whose lifespan were calculated by the study include the little bush moa (23 years) and the passenger pigeon (28 years). The animal with the largest lifespan is the bowhead whale (268 years). However, the longest-living vertebrate may be the Greenland shark, which could live to see 512 years of age, according to a 2017 study.

The estimates for invertebrates werent nearly as accurate, possibly because they do not exhibit the targetted genes to the same extent as vertebrates.

In the future, these genes could be used to further studying aging. For instance, theres a debate among researchers as to what is the absolute limit of human longevity. The method elaborated by this study, however, cannot be used on individuals.

It cannot be used to determine the lifespan of any individual human and the purpose of this study was to determine an important parameter of ecological significance which may assist in wildlife management, said Benjamin Mayne, a scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Western Australia.

The findings appeared in the journal Scientific Reports.

Read the rest here:

DNA reveals lifespan of mammoth and other extinct animals - ZME Science

Starting a truly innovative tech company is tough in todays world. With so many brilliant ideas available via open sourcing, it seems like every idea has been tried and tested a thousand times already.

But then you meet entrepreneurs such as Sergey Young and Jessica Maslin, whove been successful at creating something that will change our lives in the years to come. These tech luminaries have founded companies, beaten the odds and have been beyond successful in ways one can only dream of.

These men and women are obviously doing something right. Here at Technowize, we take a look at their work which has now made them household names.

A highly acclaimed technologist and investor, Sergey Young, is making longevity his lifelong mission. Young is the founder of the $100 million Longevity Vision Fund, whose goal is to accelerate the most promising longevity breakthroughs and make them accessible and affordable for all. His investment in human longevity, online education, digital healthcare, and real estate technologies spans over 20 years, making him one of the most qualified experts in this field.

Longevity Vision Fund was launched in February 2019, and in those eight months has come a long way. LVF has assembled am impressive Advisory Board of five leading longevity scientists: Vadim Gladyshev, Aubrey De Gray, Richard Faragher, Joao de Magalhaes, and Morten Scheibye-Knudsen.

Sergey Young is on the Innovation Board of XPRIZE Foundation and a Development Sponsor of Longevity XPRIZE. He is also on the Financial Advisory Board for the UKs All Party Parliamentary Group on Longevity.

Alex is Vice President and Head of the North America Strategy Office at Fujitsu, one of the world's leading information and communication technology (ICT) companies, with over $46 billion in annual revenue across more than 100 countries and 162,000 employees.

At Fujitsu, Alex Lam leads the Global Product Business strategy organization for the North American market and oversees strategic planning and business development for Fujitsu's global solutions (Enterprise, AI, SDx) with key Silicon Valley and US-based technology companies. In his role, Lam spearheaded the launch of the Fujitsu Solutions Lab, a technology partner incubator and customer POC showcase for Fujitsu's Enterprise data center solutions with innovative IT technology partners.

Alex Lam is also spearheading a team at the Fujitsu Solutions Lab that promises to revolutionize the CPU/GPU for enterprises. Fujitsu's groundbreaking technology innovation optimizes business processes and leverages the benefits of AI. Fujitsu is developing an AI-specific microprocessor called the Deep Learning Unit (DLU). The companys goal is to produce a chip that delivers 10 times better performance per watt than the competition. This is a progressive goal.

Jessica Maslin and Josh Dubon are the co-founders of Mieron, the Worlds First Virtual Reality NeuroTherapy system that helping to rehabilitate patients all over the world. MieronVR, the companys brand new virtual reality technology is being used by doctors and medical practitioners help patients rehabilitate from spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.

The Mieron library is full of locomotive training exercises, trunk stability, strength and conditioning, upper body mobility, lower body mobility, balance and stability exercises that complement physical therapy and occupational therapy practices. The goal is to improve range of motion, execution of tasks, independence by improved mobility, and mental wellness.

There are two versions of the device currently in production, the Mieron Pro, which is used in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities, and the newly-created Mieron Go, which is a consumer version that patients can use at home.

In 2004, Brian Gill co-founded one of the worlds most successful data recovery labs with his brother Tyler and PhD Greg Piefer. The trio, along with their business partners and Gregs family, then founded Phoenix Nuclear Labs, which currently manufactures the strongest compact neutron generators in the world.

Brian Gill was on the board of PNL when it was decided to spin off medical isotope startup SHINE Medical Technologies to tackle the Mo-99 crisis. Over 56,000 American patients are imaged every day and over 30 medical procedures require Mo-99, and as of 2018 0% of the worlds supply of Mo-99 is produced in the US.

Most recently, he has teamed up with worldwide forensics thought leader Cindy Murphy to found Gillware Digital Forensics. Past successes have allowed him to make over a dozen angel investments, most recently in Medaware Systems, Pacifica Labs and Allergy Amulet.

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Most Innovative People to Watch in 2020 - Technowize

Hermit crabs face a uniquely competitive real estate market. They need bigger and bigger shells throughout their lives, but cant grow these homes themselves. So they rely on castoff snail shells, and are constantly on the lookout for better properties entering the market.

A study that will be published next month in the journal Physica A found that the distribution of these shells in one hermit crab population was surprisingly similar to the distribution of wealth in human societies.

That may make hermit crabs one of the first animals known to experience wealth inequality.

Ivan Chase, an emeritus professor at Stony Brook University in New York and the studys lead author, researches social systems in animals and described a phenomenon called the vacancy chain in hermit crabs in the 1980s.

When a snail dies on the beach, a crab that comes across the empty shell will inspect it closely, turning the shell over in its claws. If the crab decides this home is better than its current shell, it trades up. Another, usually smaller crab may soon find that crabs castoff and move in. Each vacancy lets about three crabs upgrade their shells, Dr. Chase said.

Dr. Chase had always wondered whether this system led to a kind of inequality among hermit crabs, with a few crustaceans hoarding the biggest homes. So in 2017, he and his co-authors started testing the idea. They gathered almost 300 hermit crabs from a Long Island beach and briefly removed the crabs from their shells. They weighed and measured each crab and its residence. Then they looked at how shells of different weights were distributed among the population.

The distribution curve they found peaked around medium-sized shells, then dropped as the shells got larger, before tapering off very gradually through the largest shells of all. This matches the shape of wealth distribution curves in many human societies.

The team used a number called the Gini coefficient to measure overall inequality among the crabs. It found a value similar to that in small human populations, though not as great as in todays large countries. The top 1 percent of hermit crabs owned only about 3 percent of the total shell weight, Dr. Chase and his co-authors noted: There are no Warren Buffetts or Jeff Bezoses. There is also no transfer of shells between crabs and their offspring.

What they discovered suggested that the distribution of shell sizes did not simply depend on crab biology. They did not find similar numbers of crabs in every size of shell, which would be expected if most crabs survive to old age (and if longevity determines shell distribution). Nor did they find that the smallest shells were most abundant, which might occur if crabs most often die young, or are preyed on at a steady rate throughout their life span.

Dr. Chase thinks the resemblance between crab and human inequality might come from similarities between crab vacancy chains and the ways people pass on wealth. While smaller crabs dont exactly inherit their wealth from bigger crabs, the largest shells are a scarce resource that only a few crabs are privileged enough to get their claws on.

Vacancy chains are just another way of transferring property, he said.

Although hes hesitant to draw any societal lessons from the crustaceans, he hopes hermit crabs can one day become a kind of model organism, like lab rats, for scientists studying wealth inequality.

The authors have nicely shown that the wealth distribution in crabs is humanlike, said Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, an anthropologist who studies human wealth inequality at the University of California, Davis. The pattern is very much like what researchers have found in small-scale human societies, both historic and contemporary, she said.

Although the transfer of wealth and property between people is an important contributor to inequality, Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said many other factors matter too, such as social connections and individual differences in skills and education. She doubts vacancy chains are the whole story in crab society, either.

The notion that crabs can teach us about human wealth distribution may be a little preposterous, Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder added. But she said this kind of idea sharing between studies of humans and other animals is making social science, as a whole, richer.

Go here to read the rest:

Even Hermit Crabs Have Wealth Inequality - The New York Times

Its always better to involve us, says Kibarisho Leintoi, a 36-year-old Masai mother of eight children. Even though I cannot read or write, I know what I need for my family to live: we need healthcare and water. Water for the irrigation of her tomato farm and for her 5 goats and 5 cows. Without water, her income shrinks. She used to have the means to send two of her children to school; the others had to help with chores and guarding the cattle. But after a crop failed due to drought, one of those two children had to drop out when she couldnt afford the fees.

Kibarisho in maize field. Photo by UN-REDD Programme

In the past, a little spring of water would have sufficed for the community, but due to the increasing population and livestock pressure, that is no longer sufficient. The people of the Maji Moto community, near Narok county in Kenya, understood that a dam would help them collect the water so they could use it for irrigation and livestock.

The community selected a committee of seven people, among them Kibarisho Leintoi. The committee met with Indigenous Livelihood Enhancement Partners, an indigenous peoples organization that has been working to help establish communities identify and prioritize their needs. When the Maji Moto community told Indigenous Livelihood Enhancement Partners that they needed a dam, they trained the community in proposal writing and helped them find a sponsor. The funds were then overseen by the community after receiving training from Indigenous Livelihood Enhancement Partners on how to monitor and handle funds.

Kibarisho and Noormejooli at the dam. Photo by UN-REDD Programme

Indigenous Livelihood Enhancement Partners showcased that indigenous peoples have the capacity to implement projects and take ownership, with just the right training. After working with communities for many years, Indigenous Livelihood Enhancement Partners won the United Nations Development Programmes tender to develop stakeholder engagement and free prior and informed consent guidelines and toolkits. These will help donors and government to involve communities when setting up projects that affect their livelihoods.

It is important to know who to talk to in the community because in the Masai community, for example, you have a cultural leadership as well as an administrative leadership, says James Twala, programme officer on climate change for Indigenous Livelihood Enhancement Partners. The constitution spells out that in projects affecting their livelihoods, citizens should be involved.

Indeed, in 2010 Kenya adopted a constitution which has had profound consequences on how natural resources, including forests, are managed. Governance over natural resources is shared between the national and county level governments. The constitution requires public participation in the management, protection and conservation of forests. Consequently, various legislations such as the Forest Management and Conservation Act 2016 and the Climate Change Act 2016 target the process and engagement of local communities and minorities in environmental protection and monitoring, as well as benefit sharing. We are not making new laws but making sure that free prior informed consent is respected, continues Twala. Because when projects are community-driven, they feel ownership and the project has a better chance for longevity since the community feels personally and collectively responsible for taking good care of it and maintaining it long after the donor has gone.

James Twala discussing with Massai village elder. Photo by UN-REDD Programme

The guidelines developed by Indigenous Livelihood Enhancement Partners include consultative meetings where people express their needs and the community is informed of the details of the project, including costs. Then the community decides if they give their consent or not, and if they do, community leaders have the option of giving consent verbally or signing the agreement. This consent articulates what exactly will happen, the timeline and the outcome. And lastly, the community and the implementing entity is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the project.

The UN-REDD Programme has been a pioneer of innovative policies that value and protect forests and their social and ecosystem services. Commitments to human rights-based approaches, social inclusion and stakeholder engagement are vital to its mandate and work.

Since 2017, the United Nations Development Programme is the delivery partner for the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, and together with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry applied these guidelines in the development of the project document. During this process, stakeholders recommended a review of forest policy and legislation in Kenya to include the application of these guidelines as part of the REDD+ readiness process. This forest policy review has been initiated and is still ongoing to ensure that free prior informed consent is part of Kenyas forest policies. It gives the opportunity for communities to participate in the decision-making process on projects regarding the forests their livelihoods depend on, says Judy Ndichu, Technical Coordinator for the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility in Kenya.

See the article here:

Managing forests with community participation in Kenya - UN Environment

In the 1960s, NASA scientists were researching many aspects of space travel for humans.

Some of the products of that research were seen by the world, such as the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Others, like how to make food for astronauts out of carbon dioxide, were shelved.

But decades later, Lisa Dyson picked up where those scientists left off. A former strategy consultant with a doctorate in physics, she became interested in how to create protein in a more sustainable way and came upon the old research. She worked on the concept through Kiverdi, a company she founded, which came up with technology to develop protein from air.

Last month, Dyson announced the spinoff of a food company utilizing this technology, Air Protein. The firm, which is working on meat alternative products,expects to make an announcement about when and how they will come to market next year, she told Food Dive.

Dyson said people are becoming more aware of both the ecological impact meat production has on the planet, as well as the pressing need to better produce proteins to feed a growing population.

"This is a great opportunity to introduce an alternative that is super sustainable, significantly more sustainable than any land-based production," Dyson said."You don't need any arable land. You can keep your habitat untouched. You could scale vertically, you know, [producing food] rain or shine, day or night. In the production itself, you can produce the same amount of protein from a soy farm the size of Texas by just having an Air Protein farm the size of Walt Disney World."

Dyson hopes the new technology another way to make sustainable protein will revolutionize both the food business and the longevity of the environment.

While there is no way to get away from the deep science behind this concept, making edible protein from air sounds like science fiction.

NASA's report detailing how the technology works was published in 1967 as part of a more comprehensive study about how to support human life during a space mission longer than a year. Basically, they looked at hydrogenotrophs common microbes, some of which actually live in the human gut that can be used to turn carbon dioxide into a physical protein. NASA looked at harnessing these microbes to convert the carbon dioxide that astronauts would exhale into something they could eat.

Air Protein

Dyson, who gave a TED talk in 2016 about how this technology could work, has taken this research to the next level at her companies.They have developed fermentation vessels that can rapidly and efficiently convert gases to what looks like a protein-rich flour. She said facilities to do this are similar to breweries.

She didn't say where Air Protein's labs are located or how much equipment it has, but Kiverdi's main lab is in Pleasanton, California. Kiverdi has partnerships with other labs, and Dyson said there are several locations that will make Air Protein in the future.

The product made by these fermentation vessels is fairly versatile and has a neutral flavor, Dyson said. While it contains good nutritional credentials it has twice the protein of soy, all essential amino acids and B vitamins it can be used in many different ways. The process can help make meat analogs, pasta, cereals, shakes and protein bars, she told Food Dive.

But considering the vast environmental impact of meat and the protein needs of the human race, Dyson said meat analogs are the place to start even though the field is somewhat crowded. The company sent out pictures of a chicken substitute made from Air Protein with its press release. Dyson said they are still working on perfecting it. Air Protein is the only companywith this technology.

"These are using spices and different types and ways of techniques of taking the flour, and enriching it, and doing different things so that you can get the right texture and flavor," She said.

Air Protein is in development on many different plains, Dyson said.

She said there will be products in development under the Air Protein brand name, and she hopes to make an announcement about them next year. Meanwhile, Dyson said she is in discussion with some companies to form product partnerships, perhaps using Air Protein as an ingredient.She did not say what kinds of products those might be, but hoped to have announcements about those next year as well.

"We'll make many different types of products, and those products will have different groups of consumers that are excited about them," Dyson said. "And that's the benefit of what we're doing, is that we're not limited by one category."

"This is a great opportunity to introduce an alternative that is super sustainable, significantly more sustainable than any land-based production. You don't need any arable land. You can keep your habitat untouched. You could scale vertically, you know, [producing food] rain or shine, day or night."

Lisa Dyson

CEO, Air Protein

Dyson said she expects consumers to get excited and intrigued by Air Protein. Its target audience is any consumer, she said. The prospect of an ultra-sustainable and nutritious ingredient will make consumers want to try it, especially at a time when substitutes for animal-based products are the biggest trend in food.

Some of the NASA scientists who started the research that became both Kiverdi and Air Protein have been excited by Dyson's work, she said. Dyson has been able to blend her knowledge with their work and make air-based food a reality. And Dyson said she thinks this coupled with other sustainable practices like regenerative agriculture can be part of the solution to problems the world faces today.

"There's a range of things that need to come into play with our current food production processes becoming more efficient, becoming more sustainable," she said. "There's so many different things that we need to implement to create a more nutritious soil, healthy soil that can continue to produce crops over the ages. And produce food without the need for soil, without the need for arable land. ... I think that we need to see a plethora of ideas becoming reality."

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Can Air Protein help feed and save the world at the same time? - Food Dive

Dane Koch presented an award to Everyday Hero John Bingle Thompson .(Photo: Lani Garfield, Special to The Desert Sun)

Desert AIDS Project (DAP) held its 6th annual Everyday Heroes event on Dec. 1 at the Palm Springs Cultural Center to shine a spotlight on everyday individuals who inspire others.

CEO David Brinkman said he believes Everyday Heroes connects deeply to the humanitarian work of DAP because each of the honorees, in their own way, helps DAP do the work it does to remove roadblocks to human potential. The work of each of the honorees is heroic and deserves the type of recognition traditionally reserved for major philanthropists in the Coachella Valley.

Steve Kaufer, DAP board chair, opened the program to the standing-room-only auditorium, announcing that Everyday Heroes was born to honor the work of local individuals who, through their kindness and compassion, inspire us all. Kaufer reminded the audience that DAP serves more than 7,000 clients and provides 426 people with housing. And during the 2018-2019 fiscal year, DAPtested more than 2,784 people for HIVand more than 1,349 for Hepatitis C. On-site medical teams provided 5,354 dental visits and 7,160 behavioral health sessions.

Dane Koch, DAPs director of retail, introduced John Bingle Thompson, recipient of the Everyday Heroes award for his commitment to the Revivals retail store as a volunteer since 2015. I choose to volunteer at DAP because I, like most of us here tonight, have lost friends and family to HIV/AIDS, Thompson said as he accepted the award.

Everyday Hero Fiona Foyston seemed genuinely moved by being honored.(Photo: Lani Garfield, Special to The Desert Sun)

Ann Sheffer, co-chair and DAP board member, recognized Fiona Foyston for volunteering at DAP and other local organizations. She quoted Mahatma Gandi who said, The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.Foyston accepted the award by recognizing her grandfather, who instilled in her at an early age to be non-judgmental and to accept everyone as they are. If you want to give your little ones a unique gift, Foyston concluded, introduce them to the worthwhile adventures they can experience by helping others.

Everyday Hero Brett Klein talked about aging with HIV.(Photo: Lani Garfield, Special to The Desert Sun)

Co-chair Tom Truhe introduced Brett Klein, who was recognized for his engagement with and leadership roles in the local LGBT communities and HIV+Aging Research Project. Having lived with HIV for 27 years, he noted how he has become keenly aware of the immense need to understand and explore how aging with HIV can affect your body, mind, soul and healthy longevity.

Molly Bondhus and Wil Stiles were presented the first-ever Barbara Keller Community Action Award.(Photo: Lani Garfield, Special to The Desert Sun)

Co-chair and DAP board member Terri Ketover presented the first-ever Barbara Keller Community Action Award to local retail fashion iconsMolly Bondhus and Wil Stiles.

Molly and Wil are two of the most authentic people I have ever met, Ketover said, and their commitment to justice and humanity is unmatched. Bondhus and Stiles celebrated their boutiques 10th anniversary by donating $500,000 worth of new fashion to Revivals Stores to raise funds for DAP.

Truhe concluded the program by thanking his co-chairs Ketover and Sheffer, and DAPs major and event sponsors Steve Tobin and The Grace Helen Spearman Foundation, GileadSciences, Ann Sheffer and Bill Scheffler, Mike Williams and Canyon Pacific Insurance, Contempo Lending, Lulu California Bistro, News Channel 3 and KESQ, Palm Springs Cultural Center, Gay Desert Guide, The Standard Magazine, Leslie Barclays from Diageo Spirits and Smirnoff, Momentous Events, Promo Homo.TV, CV Independent, Hohn Paschal Photography and The Desert Sun.

At the afterparty, where refreshments weredonated by Jerry Keller and Lulu California Bistro, Willie Rhine, recipient of an Everyday Heroes award in 2018,shared that he appreciates DAP for honoring deserving community members who give back to their community quietly, volunteering their time without fanfare.

Susan Stein, Dr. Oscar Chamudes and Tom Truhe met up under the tent.(Photo: Lani Garfield, Special to The Desert Sun)

Among the community leaders enjoying the evening: former Senator Barbara Boxer, Donna MacMillan, Dr. Les Zendel, David Zippel and Michael Johnston, David Perez, Tom Oliver and Matthew Stocker, Jeffery Bernstein and Dr. Oscar Chamudes, Jeffrey Norman, Tad Green and Ed McBride, Lynn Hammond, Julie Makinen, Ellen Wolf, Gayle Hodges and Art Wedmore, Paul Clowers and Frank Goldstin, Andy Linsky, Kevin Bass, Stuart Leviton and Herb Schultz, Susan Stein, Jerry Keller, Brian Wanzek, Renee Glickman, Dennis Flaig-Moore, Albert Gonzalez and Rhine.

Khalil Gibran in "The Prophet" said it best: You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

Al Jones currently serves as chairman of the Palm Springs International Airport Commission, on the Desert AIDS Project Partners for Life Leadership Committee and on the CSU Palm Desert Campus Advancement Board. He is also an Allegro member of the Palm Springs Opera Guild and a former board member of Sanctuary Palm Springs and The LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert.

6th annual Everyday Heroes Awards 2019

Sunday, Dec. 1

Palm Springs Cultural Center

Benefiting Desert AIDS Project, 1695 N. Sunrise Way, Palm Springs

How to help: To donate or volunteer, call (760) 323-2118 or email info@desertaidsproject.org

Read or Share this story: https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/2019/12/13/everyday-heroes-honored-palm-springs-desert-aids-project/4380509002/

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Everyday Heroes who inspire honored by Desert AIDS Project - The Desert Sun

The longevity of a business is less about how well it does in the good times, and more about how it fares through the rough patches. A farm being resilient can come in many forms, but usually comes down to the strength of the management team running it and the financial nimbleness of the overall operation.

Amy Cronin is a hog farmer, Nuffield scholar and leader of an expanding farm business in Ontario, Missouri, and Iowa. Along with her husband and business partner Mike, Cronin Family Farms has a goal of striving to be the best. They may not always get there, Cronin says, but thats the goal.

Our vision at Cronin Family Farms is Progressive. Prosperous. Best in class, she says.

Having navigated through low hog prices, a major business expansion, a barn fire and now taking on a farm diversification project, Cronin says that communicating ahead of these challenges and decisions is key. We needed to have a serious conversation about how we deal with problems. How we dealt with problems was the determining factor on whether we would or would not expand, she says. We decided to look at our problems and an opportunity. When I look back on it, that is building resiliency.

Its this mindset on viewing challenges differently and using them to better themselves and their business that has allowed their farm to navigate hardship. Moving on is important, says Cronin. They choose to face their problems head-on, put them to bed, and move on. And thats part of resiliency, too dealing with things thoroughly and right away. Its important, she says, to deal with what keeps you up at night.

Innovation and diversification also play a key role in the numbers side of the business. But thats not all about technology, its about management and people. Cronin says theyre always looking at ways to do things differently and better, and that could mean adopting a new management style or creating their own way to do something and incorporating that into the business.

Diversification is key to risk management, yes, but Cronin says they also balance business needs with human needs. Labour is a huge part of making everything work, and Cronin recognizes the need to care for themselves so they can lead a dynamic and fantastic team and take care of them, too.

Cronin uses the quote by Francis of Assisi to guide much of what they do. We start by doing whats necessary, then we do whats possible, and soon we can do the impossible, she says. That impossible right now is making pans for their older children coming back to the farm. Whats necessary and now possible is diversifying into the chicken business. Starting with whats necessary and mastering that, means they can then move on to expanding what is possible for their farm.

Hear more from Amy Cronin in conversation with Bern Tobin at the Agricultural Excellence Conference:

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Master the necessary, do whats possible to build resiliency into your farm - RealAgriculture

The Safdies brothers explain their new movies title: Am I non-judgemental? Yes, that means my gems are uncut. Am I on edge? Yes, my gems are uncut. Do I have depth underneath the surface? Yes, my gems are uncut. Photo: Julia Cervantes/A24

Theres a certain rhythm to Uncut Gems and the way it reaches for things for basketball, for jewels, for wins and losses, for takeout from Smith & Wollensky. It revels in its own excess: every single character is talking at once, trying to buy or sell or cut a deal. Its the Diamond District in 2012 when our hero, Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), is trying to play the part of 47th Streets slickest salesman. A pack of debt collectors are on his trail, but he compulsively romantically, maniacally keeps placing bets. When a middleman walks NBA power forward Kevin Garnett into Howards jewelry store, every moment after feels like a miracle and a curse all at once. Will Kevin come back with the black opal Howard loaned him as a token of good luck? If Howard can auction it off, is it worth as much as he says? Whats the Weeknd doing here?

Gems directors, the Safdie brothers Benny, 33, and Josh, 35 talk like the movies they make: theyll jump up to act out a story or pull out a cell phone to show a photo, speaking fast and a lot as they try to keep up with their next thought. A question about a set can easily prompt an erratic anecdote about the time they walked in on some guy curing meat in a random building in midtown Manhattan. I believe them when they tell me that they rewrote their movie several times, first basing Howards saga around Amare Stoudemire, then Kobe Bryant, and then Joel Embiid, before finally landing on Garnett. Each time, the story of an impossibly lucky gem was reimagined to fit the particulars of each NBA stars career. All of this is a box we put ourselves into, Benny says. We say, Oh we had to do this, we had to do that. We didnt actually have to shoot with a real basketball player and use real games, we chose to. Throughout the course of a conversation with Vulture, the brothers discuss their alternate Uncut Gems plots, the real-life Diamond District figures they befriended, and, of course, what the name of their movie even means.

Josh Safdie: I was trying to explain the whole gems uncut, cut my gems thing to someone. They were like, I dont get it. I was like, Well, this is my take on it. You want to know my take on it?

Hunter Harris: Yes.JS: I want to know your take on it first.

No, no, no. Im interviewing you, I want to hear what you guys have to say.JS: Heres my take on it Am I non-judgmental? Yes, that means my gems are uncut. Am I on edge? Yes, my gems are uncut. Do I have depth underneath the surface? Yes, my gems are uncut. If my gems are cut, Im like naked, ready to be seen. Im potentially dangerous. Uncut is very dangerous, but cut is extra dangerous, because it can have a sharp point. My value is hidden if my gems are uncut, so I have a deeper, bigger value. I might be a little flawed, but Im worth it. Thats gems uncut.

Ah, I see.JS: Ultimately I think its just a very fun play on words, but also, I think its deep. And yes, my gems are uncut.

Benny Safdie: Its also, like, Who are you to cut my gems?

Sort of, Have you no decency? Benny, the last time we spoke, you said that you thought of Howard as literally an uncut gem.BS: The idea is that hes rough on the outside, but if you scratched below the surface, you see the beauty, and you see these things that you didnt quite know were there at first glance. You need to understand him to really love and know who he is.

JS: To me, Howard being an uncut gem is like a corollary to the movie being a radical humanist film, which is kind of in a weird way, all of our movies. Our entire life weve grown up with very flawed people around us, and weve had to see past those flaws, or excuse them, to get at something that makes them relatable, or human, or worthy of value. In the jewelry trade, uncut gems are major gambles. You have to be a genius with your eye to find one [that is actually valuable].

BS: Its not easy to do. If you look at a flawed person and try to see who and what it is that makes them interesting, you learn more about people in general. If you see a stand-up person, sometimes that can make you feel a little bit uncomfortable. Its like, Oh, Im not that good. So if you see somebody who has flaws or issues, it reflects back on humanity in a bigger way.

Theres something else that just popped in my head: if you take a diamond, and its like a rough

JS: I hate diamonds.

Josh, why do you hate diamonds?JS: I mean, look, when you see an IF diamond an internally flawless diamond the purity of it is remarkable: Wow, that actually exists. Its beautiful to see a solid take the form of a liquid with a diamond. That is beautiful. But its the general PR huckster-ism of the diamond industry. Diamonds arent rare. Ultimately, theyre kind of boring Ill take an Indian Star sapphire any day over a diamond. Ill even take like, a cats eye. But like opals in general I mean, a pigeons blood ruby, whoa.

Why opals, specifically, for this movie?JS: Very early on, when we were deciding on which stone should be in the film, it happened to have been right when Ethiopia started to publicize their black opals. It was a big moment in the geological world. The Australians, who are known for their black opals, were actually really pissed about it. Theyre like, Uh-oh, we cant corner the market anymore, so they started an anti-Ethiopia PR campaign. And, sadly, the Ethiopian opals didnt have longevity to them. They started to craze and crack, they were less valuable, which was unfortunate.

JS: White opals are very unlucky, but the black opals are very lucky. And theyre brilliant. You can see the color in them. And they dont have the superstition against them that white opals have.

BS: Some people are afraid of them.

JS: Not black opals, no.

BS: Really?

JS: Well theres a stigma against opals in general, but people who know gems and energies and things, the black opal is an exceptional gem.

BS: But there is something to this idea that people can be afraid of a gem, afraid of an opal.

JS: White opals are predominantly very unlucky, yes. Particularly the Italians, they fucking hate them. They wont go near them. But, the black opal was considered the antithesis of the white opal. Theres a specific color pattern to a black opal its called the harlequin pattern, which is like the most valuable color pattern. Anyway, thats why I prefer a black opal to a diamond.

I want to talk about basketball. Were there other NBA players you reached out to, before Kevin?JS: It started with Amare Stoudemire, who was a Knicks player in 2010. Thats when we started the project. Hes famously a Black Jewish person, so the themes of the movie presented themselves in that way: Ethiopian Jewish tribe. Beta Israelites. Black opals, which were found by a Jewish tribe in the Beta Israelites in Welo mines. Amare is a very spiritual person. He calls himself the spiritual gangster.

But about 20152016, we were having trouble getting financing, finding the right person to star as Howard, and our agency suggested casting up and going with Kobe Bryant. But Kobe they didnt understand the themes of the movie. Hes a West Coast person, we needed East Coast games. Because we had to write around the reality of the games.

Sure.JS: But then I was like, You know what? Theres this one game at the Garden that Kobe dropped 60 points. Lets make that the gem game. And the gem will become a youth elixir, and [the movie will] be about reminding everybody whos the man. In that version, Howards like trying to reclaim his initial win. And, so then we spent two weeks rewriting the whole script, changing the vibe and the themes of the film.

Around Kobe?JS: Around Kobe. And then our agents are like, No, no, no. He doesnt want to act anymore. He wants to direct. And Id just spent two weeks fucking writing this thing! Hes like, Yeah, were not going to send it to him. I was like, What the fuck?!

So then we ended up with Joel Embiid. Because we were like, You know what, were going to update the movie. Its going to be a contemporary film. You want to use a contemporary player. And Joel Embiid presented himself. Before he was even playing in the NBA, he was a legendary Twitter user. He trolled Rihanna. Hes amazing. Hilarious, you know what I mean? And, so I was like, He could be interesting. He could play into the comedy of the film, because his humor is dry and droll. We ended up meeting him through his manager, and his manager ends up in the film.

Who is the manager in the movie?JS: She plays Kevins manager, Jenny Sachs. This is the way the cosmos works: shes studied psychiatry, and worked at a needle exchange. She weirdly saw Heaven Knows What [the Safdies 2016 film]. No one in the sports world saw Heaven Knows What, but she did. She was like vouching for us to Joel, and then we became friends with Joel. And I started going to the Sixers games, and working with Joel, and understanding. Then the themes of the movie became even more overt, with an African player. I was just like, Oh, this is about reclamation, this is about being empowered by reclamation. Joel was into that, things were moving. Now this is the Joel Embiid movie.

When I was writing the scenes, I would send them to Joel. Joel would read them, but mostly Jenny would be like, I dont know if he can do that. I dont know if this is too much. This scene might be too much to ask of him. I got a little nervous about that. But in the end, I knew he was such a cocky guy that it would have been fine. And then the schedule pushed into the NBA season, and we couldnt use an active player. So then we had a list of other players who were recently retired. We went back to Amare.

BS: The list wasnt like this [gestures widely] long.

JS: Amare wouldnt shave his head to match the games that we had to cut in between.

BS: But the thing is [laughs] all of this is a box we put ourselves into. We say, Oh we had to do this, we had to do that. We didnt actually have to shoot with a real basketball player and use real games, we chose to because

JS: We did have to.

Because how else do you make this movie?BS: Thats the point! But everybodys, Oh, just cast an actor.

JS: Someone did try to push that on us.

BS: Really, that is an idea that was put out there. Im like, Maybe you dont understand. Having a real player, and having a player act, and then using those real games on the television creates a good alchemy.

JS: Once we saw the new list [of available retired players], Kevin Garnetts name was on it. As a Knicks fan, I was so, like, We cant put Kevin Garnett in the movie. I hate him. But that was when my film intelligence was kind of eclipsed by my insane, schizophrenic, Knicks fandom, where I actually couldnt see past what I normally would have realized, which was that me hating Garnett is actually a testament to his incredible acting ability, and how he plays a great heel in the NBA. He can get people to despise him, based on his performance on a nightly basis of 20,000 people.

BS: And when we were talking to him, just the way that he told stories Id never seen anything like it before. He would set you up in the room, show you where people were sitting, who was behind him, the noises that were happening, the way the door closed.

JS: Put it this way, he sweats when he tells a story You have to remember, hes a superstar. He went from high school to the pros.

BS: He kind of underplays [his performance in Uncut Gems], like, Oh, I was just playing myself. I was just playing myself. Thats a very difficult thing to do, because you have to be comfortable.

JS: Hes playing the self that he created for the NBA.

Adam Sandler as Howard, wet and beaten in New York City, in a scene from Uncut Gems. Photo: Julia Cervantes/A24

So tell me more about the Diamond District, and re-creating this world that feels at once very alive but also hermetically sealed. How did you make that happen, particularly when Howards actual shop was built on a soundstage, right?BS: For us, it was actually hard because we like to shoot on location all the time. To do that on a stage was out of necessity. We couldnt physically shoot in a real jewelers place. We wouldnt have had a lease long enough, and getting up and down in these buildings is insane.

JS: The lease wasnt the problem.

BS: No, it was mainly just getting in and out of [a jewelers shop]. Theres a certain amount of elevators, and theres so many people going up and down all the time. We wouldnt have been able to get all the stuff in there to build it out. We had this whole idea that people would be coming into work on the district, they would kind of breathe this energy. So, once we moved into a stage, its like: How do we re-create that feeling, that vibe? By bringing a bunch of people there who worked in the district that are in the movie. Sometimes they werent even in the scene, but we had them there just to kind of breathe the energy.

JS: To me, the first major compromise of the film was agreeing to shoot the business on a soundstage. And by the business, I mean his showroom, his back room, the hallway, the elevator bays.

BS: But, for [the shoots that did take place on the streets of the Diamond District], we really wanted to capture the district as it was, kind of unfettered from us. Even though we were having a footprint there, we didnt want to disturb it. We kept it open, which you have to. Legally youre not allowed to close the street, because its business. We embraced that fully. Theres people just walking in and out of the frames, all the time.

JS: In 2012, after the first nostalgic draft was finished, I went and started to involve myself deep in the research in the Diamond District. Its a very consumers materialist world me not being able to buy anything there was actually like a major inhibitor of getting deep in with anyone.

So howd you do it?JS: I had to bring press clippings in, and try to prove that I was a real filmmaker. And, over time, those clippings became a little bit more impressive. Two years into my research, we made a documentary about a basketball player

This is Lenny Cooke?JS: Yeah, that reached the Diamond District crowd. They do a lot of business with athletes, and a lot of athletes were talking about the movie. They also stay on WorldStarHipHop, and the trailer blew up on WorldStar. I actually brought Lenny to the diamond district once, because he used to go. He went to Jacob the Jeweler. There was a jewelry shop called Rafael and Co., who were very helpful to us in the beginning, letting us see how the business operates. But there was another guy named Joe Rodeo. I had a friend, and the friend has since passed, but he was a real character. He was from New York. His name was Tuna. He loved going there, and making a big show of buying shit from these guys, like a watch, or what have you. Finally I was in, because I was now with someone who was buying stuff. When I got to go to the back rooms, I took photos. I wasnt sure that I was ever going to get back to this specific upstairs spot, because its pretty private. I took so many pictures the first time I went in there. I probably took like a hundred pictures of the weirdest stuff

BS: How about Joe?

JS: This guy. His name isnt even Joe! We met him and someone called him that, and they just went with it for a while. They were just like, Yeah, Joe. It was so strange. Joe owned a building 20 West 47th. His son Alon married into a very big family on 47th street, the Nektalov family. Theres a great New York Magazine piece about Nektalov. Nektalov was murdered on Sixth Avenue. Its a crazy story.

Oh my God.JS: So the Nektalov family is Leon Diamonds, and they were huge on the block. They were very hard to get in with. Richie Nektalov ended up helping [us]. Thats whose Rolls Royce it is in the movie that Judd Hirsch gets into.

BS: Thats Richie Nektalovs house, too, and hes also in the Passover scene.

JS: So, the tentacles were wide, you know? Eventually I got in with Joe and his son Alon. And Joe was very skeptical of us. Like, Who are these guys? Can we make money off of them? And I was just trying to earn my place. They showed us this huge penthouse. When I went up there for the first time, there was a guy curing meat, living on an air mattress. I have pictures of it. This guy had a bunch of meat hanging up from the ceiling.

BS: This is on Sixth Avenue and 47th Street, in the middle of Manhattan! Its unbelievable.

JS: Hes curing meat! Id told them I knew all these interior designers and architects. So hes like, If you can help me turn this into a lounge he had this big vision for it, with a sauna, and all this stuff Ill help you in exchange. So I ended up hiring an architect. I brought in this legendary interior designer, who weirdly has also since passed, Jim Walrod.

And then what happened?JS: I said, Ill do this for you Joe, in exchange for a six-month lease on a space in your building. It was the perfect size, but as Benny was saying, it became very impractical to actually shoot in it.

BS: Once you accept that okay, were not going to do it on location, well do it on the stage, you get to design. The design of [Howards shop] is just crazy to get into the details. We could design parts of the space to be a certain height, based on Kevin Garnetts height. So when he goes in, he looks much bigger.

JS: We made the ceilings about half a foot shorter, to make him look taller.

BS: Basically we have this whole space outfitted to look so real, and yet its totally fabricated. Every light was on its own color temperature, its own brightness. It was the most complicated lighting setup you could possibly have.

JS: This has nothing to do with 47th Street.

BS: It does. Its about capturing the vibe. You literally go so far to fake it, to make it look real.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Original post:

Benny and Josh Safdie on the Alternate History of Uncut Gems - Vulture