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Dr. Keith Whitfield appointed new president of UNLV – KTNV Las Vegas

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

The Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) Board of Regents voted to appoint Dr. Keith Whitfield as UNLVs new president. He becomes UNLVs 11th permanent president and the first Black president in the universitys 63-year history.

Dr. Whitfield, currently the provost and senior vice president of academic affairs and a professor of psychology at Wayne State University in Detroit, will begin Aug. 24 and serve a 4-year contract.

Prior to his time at Wayne State University, Whitfield was vice provost for academic affairs at Duke University and held appointments as professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, research professor in the Department of Geriatric Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, and senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. He also was the co-director of the Center on Biobehavioral Health Disparities Research.

As provost of Wayne State University, Whitfield is responsible for faculty hiring, promotion and tenure, and budget and policies for faculty and staff. He is also responsible for student affairs, including student success, curriculum, housing and other student-related auxiliaries. Under his leadership, the university achieved remarkable gains in its graduation rate, increased overall enrollment, launched an innovation and entrepreneurship hub, and strengthened multiple business and philanthropic relationships.

An active administrator and researcher, Whitfield has authored or co-authored over 200 publications and has earned funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging (NIA), and the National Science Foundation. His current research focuses on the relationship between stress and longevity in African American families. Hes a member of the NIAs National Advisory Council on Aging.

Dr. Whitfield was one of four finalists who interviewed with UNLV students, faculty, employees, and community members since Monday. The ad hoc UNLV President Search Committee, made up of 29 members, including members of the Board of Regents, UNLV faculty, classified staff, students, and community stakeholders, recommended Dr. Whitfield for the job on Wednesday.

The search committee used in-person interviews and live-stream technology to ensure an inclusive and transparent search process, while conducting the search in consideration for the health and well-being of all those involved.

The son of a U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonel, Whitfield received a bachelors in psychology from the College of Santa Fe and masters and Ph.D. degrees in life span Developmental Psychology from Texas Tech University and did post-doctoral work in quantitative genetics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Bats Can Survive Carrying Deadly Viruses, And We’re Starting to Figure Out How – ScienceAlert

Posted on July 27, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Our collective pandemic experience has made us keenly aware that bats have an uncanny ability to carry around deadly viruses, but somehow still survive.

There is a lot we don't yet know about this enviable virus resistance - along with other bat abilities, such as extreme longevity - but new highly-detailed genome sequences may provide some clues.

"Thanks to a series of sophisticated statistical analyses we have started to uncover the genetics behind bats' 'superpowers,' including their strong apparent abilities to tolerate and overcome RNA viruses," said Stony Brook University evolutionary and conservation biologist Liliana Dvalos.

By comparing the genomes of six bat species with other mammal genomes, the researchers have found evidence that the immune systems of bats functions in a unique way to other mammals. And better understanding exactly how they fight off viruses could help us do the same.

These virus resisting superpowers have allowed bats to thrive in many environments around the world. They now make up 20 percent of all living mammal species, with over 1,400 identified bat species.

And despite their ability to carry germs, they play vital roles in our ecosystems.At least 500 plant species depend on bat pollination (like bananas, mangos, and agave), other plants depend on their poop, and some species keep insects in check (including pesky mosquitoes) by devouring them.

Understanding their resistance and its unfortunate virus-incubating side effect, could help us co-exist more safely.

Dvalos and colleagues sequenced and compared the genomes of six very different bat species: insectivorousRhinolophus ferrumequinum,Molossus molossus,Pipistrellus kuhliiandMyotis myotis, frugivorousRousettus aegyptiacusand omnivorousPhyllostomus discolor.

They then compared these with 42 other mammal genomes, allowing them to find the parts that differ in bats, and therefore identify the genetic instructions that code for unique bat traits.

As well as a strong evolution on hearing-related genes - likely connected to their incredible echolocation abilities - the team found bats have lost a family of mammalian genes involved in our immune system. These include some immune-stimulating inflammation genes associated with autoimmune diseases in humans.

Changes in another group of immunity genes called APOBEC were also seen. These genes have been lost, expanded or duplicated across different bat species. They create enzymes involved in blocking a virus's ability to insert its genes into their host genome - a critical part of the virus's ability to replicate.

"More and more, we find gene duplications and losses as important processes in the evolution of new features and functions across the Tree of Life," explained Dvalos.

Within the bat genome the team also found what we might think of as fossilsed viruses - old bits of virus genes that were inserted into the bat genome and then passed on through generations.

Humans have these fossil viruses too and they provide a record of viral infections through our evolutionary history, like a genetic memory.

The bat genome had a higher diversity of these virus fossils, and they revealed bats have survived viruses that were previously thought to only infect birds.

Taken together, these findings support growing evidence that bats can tolerate and survive viral infections better than most mammals, because their immune system works differently.

"Our reference-quality bat genomes provide the resources required to uncover andvalidate the genomic basis of adaptations of bats, and stimulate new avenues ofresearch that are directly relevant to human health and disease," the researchers wrote in their paper.

Maybe bats can one day share their antivirus superpowers with us as well as their germs.

This research was published in Nature.

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Bats Can Survive Carrying Deadly Viruses, And We're Starting to Figure Out How - ScienceAlert

Longevity And Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Analysis, Trends, and Forecasts size- COVID-19 2023 – Cole of Duty

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Theglobal longevity and anti-senescence therapies marketshould grow from $329.8 million in 2018 to $644.4 million by 2023 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.3% during 2018-2023.

Report Scope:

The scope of this report is broad and covers various therapies currently under trials in the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market. The market estimation has been performed with consideration for revenue generation in the forecast years 2018-2023 after the expected availability of products in the market by 2023. The global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market has been segmented by the following therapies: Senolytic drug therapy, Gene therapy, Immunotherapy and Other therapies which includes stem cell-based therapies, etc.

Revenue forecasts from 2028 to 2023 are given for each therapy and application, with estimated values derived from the expected revenue generation in the first year of launch.

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The report also includes a discussion of the major players performing research or the potential players across each regional longevity and anti-senescence therapy market. Further, it explains the major drivers and regional dynamics of the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market and current trends within the industry.

The report concludes with a special focus on the vendor landscape and includes detailed profiles of the major vendors and potential entrants in the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market.

Report Includes:

71 data tables and 40 additional tables An overview of the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2017 and 2018, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2023 Country specific data and analysis for the United States, Canada, Japan, China, India, U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Middle East and Africa Detailed description of various anti-senescence therapies, such as senolytic drug therapy, gene therapy, immunotherapy and other stem cell therapies, and their influence in slowing down aging or reverse aging process

Coverage of various therapeutic drugs, devices and technologies and information on compounds used for the development of anti-ageing therapeutics A look at the clinical trials and expected launch of anti-senescence products Detailed profiles of the market leading companies and potential entrants in the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market, including AgeX Therapeutics, CohBar Inc., PowerVision Inc., T.A. Sciences and Unity Biotechnology

Summary

Global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market deals in the adoption of different therapies and treatment options used to extend human longevity and lifespan. Human longevity is typically used to describe the length of an individuals lifetime and is sometimes used as a synonym for life expectancy in the demography. Anti-senescence is the process by which cells stop dividing irreversibly and enter a stage of permanent growth arrest, eliminating cell death. Anti-senescence therapy is used in the treatment of senescence induced through unrepaired DNA damage or other cellular stresses.

Global longevity and anti-senescence market will witness rapid growth over the forecast period (2018-2023) owing to an increasing emphasis on Stem Cell Research and an increasing demand for cell-based assays in research and development.

An increasing geriatric population across the globe and a rising awareness of antiaging products among generation Y and later generations are the major factors expected to promote the growth of global longevity and anti-senescence market. Factors such as a surging level of disposable income and increasing advancements in anti-senescence technologies are also providing traction to the global longevity and anti-senescence market growth over the forecast period (2018-2023).

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the total geriatric population across the globe in 2016 was over REDACTED. By 2022, the global geriatric population (65 years and above) is anticipated to reach over REDACTED. An increasing geriatric population across the globe will generate huge growth prospectus to the market.

Senolytics, placenta stem cells and blood transfusions are some of the hot technologies picking up pace in the longevity and anti-anti-senescence market. Companies and start-ups across the globe such as Unity Biotechnology, Human Longevity Inc., Calico Life Sciences, Acorda Therapeutics, etc. are working extensively in this field for the extension of human longevity by focusing on study of genomics, microbiome, bioinformatics and stem cell therapies, etc. These factors are poised to drive market growth over the forecast period.

Global longevity and anti-senescence market is projected to rise at a CAGR of REDACTED during the forecast period of 2018 through 2023. In 2023, total revenues are expected to reach REDACTED, registering REDACTED in growth from REDACTED in 2018.

The report provides analysis based on each market segment including therapies and application. The therapies segment is further sub-segmented into Senolytic drug therapy, Gene therapy, Immunotherapy and Others. Senolytic drug therapy held the largest market revenue share of REDACTED in 2017. By 2023, total revenue from senolytic drug therapy is expected to reach REDACTED. Gene therapy segment is estimated to rise at the highest CAGR of REDACTED till 2023. The fastest growth of the gene therapy segment is due to the Large investments in genomics. For Instance; The National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.) had a budget grant of REDACTED for REDACTED research projects in 2015, thus increasing funding to REDACTED for approximately REDACTED projects in 2016.

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Longevity And Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Analysis, Trends, and Forecasts size- COVID-19 2023 - Cole of Duty

Precision Medicine Software Market Is Slated To Grow Rapidly In The Forthcoming Years With Top Leading Players Syapse, Allscripts, Qiagen, Roper…

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

The Precision Medicine SoftwareMarketreport is one of the most comprehensive and important data about business strategies, qualitative and quantitative analysis of Global Market. It offers detailed research and analysis of key aspects of the Precision Medicine Software market. The market analysts authoring this report have provided in-depth information on leading growth drivers, restraints, challenges, trends, and opportunities to offer a complete analysis of the Precision Medicine Software market.

Global Precision Medicine Software Market is presented to the readers as a holistic snapshot of the competitive landscape within the given forecast period. It presents a comparative detailed analysis of the all regional and player segments, offering readers a better knowledge of where areas in which they can place their existing resources and gauging the priority of a particular region in order to boost their standing in the global market.

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Top Key Players Present in Global Precision Medicine Software Market Are:Syapse, Allscripts, Qiagen, Roper Technologies, Fabric Genomics, Foundation Medicine, Sophia Genetics, PierianDx, Human Longevity, Translational Software, Gene42, Inc, Lifeomic Health

Different leading key players have been profiled in this research report to get a clear idea of successful strategies carried out by top-level companies. On the basis of geographical segmentation, the global Precision Medicine Software Market has been fragmented across several regions such asNorth America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Europe.This Market research report highlights those leading players who are planning to expand opportunities in the global market.

The Precision Medicine Software Market research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data and statistically-supported and industry-validated market data and projections with a suitable set of assumptions and methodology. It provides analysis and information by categories such as market segments, regions, and product type and distribution channels.

The Global Precision Medicine Software Market is gaining pace and businesses have started understanding the benefits of analytics in the present day highly dynamic business environment. The market has witnessed several important developments over the past few years, with mounting volumes of business data and the shift from traditional data analysis platforms to self-service business analytics being some of the most prominent ones.

By ApplicationApplication A, Application B, Application C

By Products:Cloud-based, On-premise

For the future period, sound forecasts on market value and volume are offered for each type and application. In the same period, the report also provides a detailed analysis of market value and consumption for each region. These insights are helpful in devising strategies for the future and take necessary steps. New project investment feasibility analysis and SWOT analysis are offered along with insights on industry barriers. Research findings and conclusions are mentioned at the end.

Reasons for Buying This Report:

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Table of Content

Chapter 1Industry Overview

Chapter 2Major Segmentation (Classification, Application and etc.) Analysis

Chapter 3Production Market Analysis

Chapter 4Sales Market Analysis

Chapter 5Consumption Market Analysis

Chapter 6Production, Sales and Consumption Market Comparison Analysis

Chapter 7Major Manufacturers Production and Sales Market Comparison Analysis

Chapter 8Marketing Channel Analysis

Chapter 9Industry Chain Analysis

Chapter 10Global and Regional Market Forecast

Chapter 11Major Manufacturers Analysis

Chapter 12New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis

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Empathy Is the Intersection Between User, Customer and Employee Experience – CMSWire

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

PHOTO:Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash.

What do design thinking, user experience, customer experience and employee experience have in common? They are all focused on empathy, learning how a person's experience with a business, product, service or employer can be improved.

Empathy is used in design thinking, UX, CX and EX to provide a better journey that is, to improve and personalize the touch points that a person has with a business, product, service or employee. Empathy can be a potent tool in the business toolbox, and can enhance products, services and businesses.

A 2019 report from BusinessSolver showed that 82% of employees would consider quitting their job for a more empathetic employer. More than three-quarters (78%) also said they would be willing to work longer hours for a more empathetic organization. In a report from Ipsos on behalf of PepsiCo Beverages North America, results showed that nine out of 10 consumers in the United States feel it is critical that brands show empathy and take measurable action if they want continued loyalty and support. Clearly, empathy is a core business value in 2020 and should be part of the corporate social responsibilities of socially responsible and successful businesses.

Design thinking is about understanding the needs, emotions, motivations and drivers of behaviors of customers and employees. Since design thinking is about empathy for another persons experience, its applicable for both employee experience and customer experience strategies, as well as user experience programs.

According toBrian Spain, consultant for InTouch Solutions, design thinking is a way to introduce people to thinking, concepts, or products and services through a lens that respects the perspective of the audience and works to incorporate audience feedback. Spain starts by gathering facts and observations and looking at a problem, or opportunity from a contextual perspective, before drilling down into details. He then begins the process of interviewing your audience (individuals, or small groups) to clarify assumptions and present them with very rough conceptual approaches, offerings or ways you would interact with them in order to gain their feedback in a back-and-forth way. At that point, Spain said its time to refine concepts or proposed interactions before more time is spent developing a complete finished product, service or experience. Design thinking is an iterative process that never really ends as it leads to further refinements, adjustments and changes as additional feedback is gathered and analyzed.

User experience (UX) design is the process in which a product or service comes together everything from acquiring and integrating the product or service, including branding, the design itself, usability and functionality. It revolves around the experience of the end user, what their expectations are, how they will use the product or service, how it feels to them when they actually get their hands on the product or service every aspect of their journey.

Husam Machlovi, CEO of With Pulp, a user experience design and development studio, said UX design is an ongoing process that aims at making better solutions for people. It starts with good listening skills. The users journey is the key to the design process and its important to understand what the stakeholder is trying to get done, what their frustrations are with the current method of doing things and what's working well. This is the case for any stakeholder, whether its an employee, customer or user. As with design thinking, the process never ends because it can always be improved. Once a solution is shared with stakeholders, design managers should observe and go through the listening process again," Machlovi said. "And then form a new hypothesis. And so on and so forth.

Customer experience (CX) is the king of the buzzwords right now because we live in a customer-centric world. CX starts when a prospective customer realizes they have a need that must be filled, continues through the period where they are searching for a solution, on through the decision to use a specific business, the purchasing process and on to the phase after which they have purchased and used the product, service or solution. They will either end their journey or hopefully continuing being a loyal customer. CX strategies may include the use of a customer data platform (CDP), a voice of the customer (VoC) campaign, as well as the use of extraneous data from email, reviews, feedback and word of mouth.

Alyssa Jarrett, director of brand and content marketing at Iterable, said her company learned that we must strive to learn what our customers want from us what can we provide them that they cannot get on their own at this very moment? Asking this question helps better empathize with your customers experiences and distill the message that serves them best.

Jarrett said its important to let customers know that the business understands and aligns with their values. Each of our customers is set upon their own unique journey," she said. "Its the marketers role to support them from touchpoint to touchpoint as if were doing it together. This comes from communicating in supportive ways that demonstrate we get it." She points to Penzeys Spices as an example. The company infuses marketing messages with viewpoints on social and political issues, calling out political leaders or inviting customers to buy and donate spice kits to those in need.

Employee experience (EX) is the journey employees undertake during their time with a business. It begins with the pre-screening process then the hiring and onboarding process, continues through training, the daily experience at work, on through promotions, and on to their last days with the business. Happy employees equate to happy customers so businesses that focus on EX tend to do better with CX as well. Employee feedback is crucial as are voice of the employee (VoE) campaigns, both of which provide insights to improve the employee journey.

Coonoor Behal, design thinking expert, founder and CEO of Mindhatch, said businesses should think of their employees as they do their clients. There's always a kind of primary and secondary customer," she said. "You have to serve your primary customer, like the people buying your service. You also need to design for your secondary customer, which is your employees. Much like design thinking, EX is about learning to empathize with the drivers of the behaviors, needs and emotions of employees. Behal suggested companies take a human-centered approach to actually understanding your employees and their needs and their wants and their challenges.

Related Article: What Design Thinking Can Bring to Employee Experience Programs

Empathy involves seeing another persons situation from that persons perspective and sharing that persons emotions and distress. This involves, literally imagining oneself as that person in the exact situation the person is currently going through. From a business perspective, being able to feel empathy for your customers and employees provides leaders with actionable insights that enhance products, services or solutions as well as the lives of customers and employees.

Sympathy, on the other hand, is used to convey compassion, pity, concern, care, commiseration or feelings of sorrow for someone experiencing something bad. In other words, while you might feel bad for the person, you dont know what it is like to be in their shoes.

Saleema Vellani, innovation strategist for World Bank Group andadjunct professor of design thinkingat Johns Hopkins University, said not understanding the difference between sympathy and empathy can cause serious problems for CX and EX teams. Sometimes when we're trying to practice empathy, we're actually mistakenly practicing sympathy," she said. "And even though these words have different meanings, a lot of teams are actually incorrectly using sympathy and empathy." Teams often make the mistake of thinking they are synonymous and "that confusion actually leads to a huge gap in addressing real human needs.

With design thinking, UX, CX and EX, it is not enough to have sympathy. To be able to improve the customer and employee journey, a leader must be able to put themselves in the mind of each person, whether they are a customer, end-user or employee. For example, they must be able to imagine how it feels for a new employee to start a job but not be able to fulfill their new tasks because of a week-long delay between when HR hired them and IT set them up with access to the required software or tools. Or a customer who has filled out a form on a business website and completed the credit card information, only to be directed back to the shopping cart because one of the items in their cart was out of stock and they have to re-enter their information all over again.

These are the types of intersection points or pain points in the employee and customer journey that require empathy. Each time a leader can place themselves in the shoes of a customer, user or employee, especially during one of the pain points in the journey, they can take action to improve that journey.

Vellani teaches her clients that design thinking is about increasing the connection between leaders and the people they serve through connection. The goal is to move to compassion. So empathy is a step up from sympathy. You're just stating, hey, I feel for you or I hear you, which is a step up from pity, which is like, I'm sorry for you. Sympathy is more like I feel for you. You're acknowledging the suffering of others, but you're not actually trying to feel what the other person is feeling. Empathy is more like 'I feel with you.'"

More than anything, it's about relationships and being able to develop authentic human connections between our business and our customers in our community, she said.

Vellani said design thinking cant happen without empathy and that empathy begins with self-awareness. This is where design thinking and innovation can be very much about output and empathy is part of the process. It's somewhere between input and output because you're trying to understand your user and you're trying to know your audience. But it's not just about trying to understand your audience it really starts with knowing who you are ... its about developing the capacity to have empathy.

Related Article: Can We Create Empathy in Others?

The definition of an empathy map, as defined by the Nielsen Norman Group, a UX research group, is a collaborative visualization used to articulate what we know about a particular type of user.

Understanding people and their motivations is key to any customer experience," said Adeline Heymann, associate VP of loyalty experience strategy atKobie. "You need to uncover motivations and unmet needs to inform a human-centered design that grows loyalty. Empathy mapping is a key design thinking tool to that end, allowing you to visualize and understand the end-user. It can be foundational to leveraging UX, CX and EX to better serve your customers.

To create a better journey for users, customers and employees, it is vital to empathize with them through each touchpoint. Heymann said UX, CX and EX all aim to create frictionless, integrated journeys for the end-user which will ultimately build loyalty over time. Theyre all based on holistic interactions and experiences with not only the company or product but also external forces like people and environment, which is particularly important as the goal is to determine which parts of the experience you can optimize to drive loyalty.

The empathy map is broken down into four areas which are largely based on the two types of empathy cognitive empathy and emotional empathy. Cognitive empathy is derived from acknowledging that a person is acting or feeling the way they do for reasons that are logical to them, while emotional empathy is more about feeling what a person feels for the reasons they feel that way. The four areas covered by an empathy map are:

What a user says is collected from user feedback, sales calls, interviews and usability studies. It might go something like this: I continue to use Amazon.com because they always direct me quickly to the product I am looking for.

What a user thinks requires empathy with the user, customer or employee and seeks to determine what a person may be thinking when they encounter a problem, stumbling block or bottleneck. It would look something like this: I have tried to add this item to my shopping cart three times but it is not appearing there when I check. Am I missing something?

What a user does is easier to figure out because data that is collected during their experience shows what they have done. It might be something like this: searches multiple times while trying to find a specific product or adds several items to the shopping cart, then abandons the cart before checking out.

What a user feels is more of an emotional breakdown of their experience and also requires empathy and imagination. It may go something like this: irritated: could not find what they were looking for or satisfied: they were directed immediately to the category of products they were looking for.

An empathy map cannot be created without first knowing what the user, customer, or employee feels strongly about and identifying the user, customer or employee touchpoints or pain points. But once created, it can be a valuable tool to understanding the needs, requirements and areas that can be improved in the user, customer or employee journey.

Related Article: Use Design Thinking to Put Yourself in Your Customers' Shoes

Bernard May, CEO of National Positions, an internet marketing firm, said "empathy really comes down to doing the right thing for everyone involved our customers, prospects, and our team. It is the difference between what works and what matters. There may be a million ways to create something that works, but it takes far more diligence and perspective to develop and implement something that truly matters when it comes to the brand experience.

There is a natural order among the practices, May said, and when it comes to the relationship between CX, EX and UX, the overall experience comes from the order in which they are considered and implemented."

Part of the EX is going to stem from the CX one is going to contribute to the other. May said to begin with the experience a business wants the customer to have.

"If this is e-commerce, you may want a streamlined experience so customers can easily find and purchase your product. For SaaS brands, you may want customers to realize the value your service offers, so your solution can be implemented in record time," May said.

The experience you want customers to have is going to fuel the user experience you create within your processes. From there, turn to the employee experience. "Employees want to feel connected and invested in your brand message, offering, goals, and overall values, which need to be considered in the content you create to breathe life into your user experience, May said.

By creating a positive experience for users and customers, employees will have a hands-down more positive experience themselves. Your employees are going to feel the effect of the user experience you create, positive or negative," he said. "So even the longevity and sustainability of your employees are going to be a factor when building and improving the customer and user experience. They are interconnected, but at the end of the day, the CX (strategy) needs to come first so that everything else can be built to support and bring this experience to fruition.

The bottom line is learning how people feel about the products they use, the experiences they have with a business, and the experiences they have as employees allows leaders to gain actionable insights to improve the journeys of the human beings that interact with their businesses. Empathy can improve customer and employee loyalty, create a greater level of personal satisfaction and contribute positively to ROI.

Business has always been and will always be based on relationships between humans," Vellani said. "And no matter how advanced we get with technology, skills like empathy are only going to increase in value.

Anti-Ageing Drugs Market Latest Innovations, Analysis by Key Players Commercial Sector, Overview, Component, Industry Revenue and Forecast to 2025 -…

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Anti-Ageing Drugs Market was valued at USD XX Million in 2018 and expected to reach USD XX Million by 2025 with a CAGR of XX% during the forecast period. The growing influence of lifestyle industry coupled with high levels of disposable income are some of the key factors expected to spur the growth of Global Anti-Ageing Drugs Market.

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The global anti-ageing drugs market is set to witness huge growth potential in the coming years owing to rising awareness among the aging population regarding the use of anti-aging products. The industry however is in its infancy stage due to lot of skepticism regarding the cellular understanding of ageing process. On the other hand, the industry is also witnessing a large amount of research and development activities with drug manufacturers showing an increased focus towards significantly decreasing the impact of ageing and ultimately increasing the lifespan.

Various recent discoveries indicating the use of pharmacology to delay and possibly improve the aging process has spurred the interest of many manufacturers. Aging is a natural process in a human life. However, such discoveries should contribute in increasing the life span of older people as well as maintain their quality of life. The introduction of such anti ageing drugs will lead to the reduction of socio-economic burden in developed countries particularly. Citing this, research and development of anti ageing drugs is on forefront in the developed countries of North America and Europe.

The global Anti-ageing Drugs Market is witnessing a huge surge in research activities of biotechnology companies towards development of drugs to extend normal human lifespan. For instance, Elevian, Inc. is actively conducting research focused on a protein called growth differentiating factor 11 (GDF11). This protein is found to improve brain function, exercise capacity and fasten muscle repair process when introduced in old mice.

Moreover, Elysium Health, one of the prominent players in the anti-aging market space has introduced an over the counter nutritional supplement that intends to boost ones NAD+ levels leading to enhance longevity genes. However, clinical benefit of this supplement is not yet proven.

Increasing target population and growing influence of lifestyle industry are some of the pivotal factors boosting the market growth. The rising ageing population acts as target market for anti-ageing drugs driving the growth of this market. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the proportion of global population over age of 60 years is predicted to double and reach 22% by 2050 from 12% in 2015. Moreover, the growing influence of lifestyle and fashion industry has led to an increased desire among the old to stay young and healthy. Apart from this, the elevating level of beauty standards has led to boost in demand for anti-ageing drugs among all age groups. Rising investments in research and development activities leading to incessant launch of new products is anticipated to be another pivotal

Geographically, this report split global into several key Regions, revenue (Million USD) The geography (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa) focusing on key countries in each region. It also covers market drivers, restraints, opportunities, challenges, and key issues in Global Anti-Ageing Drugs Market.

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Anti-Ageing Drugs Market Segmentation:-

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North America accounted for the largest share in Anti-Ageing Drugs Market Developed economies of U.S. and Canada are the largest revenue contributors to the global anti-ageing drugs market. This should be well justified by the high living standards, huge paying capacity and growing influence of fashion and lifestyle industry among the population. Moreover, the region houses developed infrastructure for carrying out progressive research activities aimed towards development of new anti-ageing products. These factors have collectively led to the expansion of anti-ageing drugs market in the region. Europe is set to witness similar trends as that of North America and grab the second position in the global anti-ageing drugs market. While the growing personal care industry coupled with increasing awareness regarding use of anti-ageing products in the emerging economies of China and India is expected to propel the Asia Pacific anti-ageing drugs market growth in the years to come.

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Anti-Ageing Drugs Market Latest Innovations, Analysis by Key Players Commercial Sector, Overview, Component, Industry Revenue and Forecast to 2025 -...

NT Treaty Commission eyes 2022 submission of final report with consultations to commence – ABC News

Posted on July 16, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

A process of "truth telling" allowing Aboriginal people to recount personal stories is "urgent" and must begin before treaties are negotiated in the Northern Territory, the NT's Treaty Commission says.

In a discussion paper on the framework for establishing treaties in the NT, the commission, led by former Australian of the Year Mick Dodson, says treaties have taken decades to negotiate in other parts of the world and the truth-telling process cannot wait.

"Some of our Elders are very old the process of truth-telling must begin as soon as possible. It is urgent," the paper says.

"The central learning from overseas is that treaties are a long game and take many years to negotiate. The Tla'amin Final Agreement in British Columbia, Canada took 22 years to negotiate and finalise."

The paper also says truth-telling is needed to "reset the relationship" between all Territorians, and to "facilitate healing" and must take place in an empathetic setting rather than during negotiations over a treaty.

"There remain Elders, parents or grandparents in Northern Territory society today who remember first contact," the commission says.

"Truth-telling is at the core of any treaty negotiations and is also at the heart of documenting the unfinished business."

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner committed to establishing treaties between the NT Government and Aboriginal groups after he won office in 2016; his Government later set up the Treaty Commission.

The commission's discussion paper is being released by the NT Government today, just over a month out from the next NT election.

The paper defines a treaty as an agreement between two or more parties reached via a fair negotiation that must recognise Indigenous peoples "as a polity distinct" from other citizens due to their status as formerly self-governing communities.

The paper says treaties must recognise self-determination that includes decision-making amounting to "a form of self-government".

"Critical to any treaty will be the exercise of self-determination in its full form, as never known since 1788."

According to the paper, an example of a self-government arrangement would include allowing a First Nation to set its own educational curriculum or work with the Education Department to deliver one.

The paper also says treaties should include substantive reparations for material loss and human damage and a formal, comprehensive apology for past wrongs.

But the paper also warns that because the NT is not a state, any treaties negotiated by the NT Government could be overruled by the Federal Government and could limit a treaty's ability to deal with financial compensation, ownership, access to and management of land, water, and natural resources.

"The best way to ensure the longevity and enforceability of any treaty rests in good faith and in convincing all parties that a treaty or treaties in the Northern Territory is positive and beneficial to the future of all Territorians," the paper states.

There may also be challenges for Indigenous groups whose traditional lands stretch over state borders.

It says although the traditional estates of many First Nations in the NT cross state boundaries, it might be "impractical" to try to extend treaties into other jurisdictions because adding other parties to the negotiation process would reduce the chance of success.

The paper says the 2018 Barunga Agreement, which kickstarted the treaty process, "clearly" intended for the NT Government and members of a First Nation to qualify as parties.

The Commission raised concerns that Aboriginal people who are not recognised as members of a First Nation may be left out of the process.

Australia is the only Commonwealth country that does not have a treaty with its Indigenous peoples, but states are leading the charge for change.

"Members of the Stolen Generation in the Territory who have not been able to trace their origins or have not been accepted as members of a First Nation would appear to be disenfranchised in the Northern Territory treaty process," the paper said.

But it does say the Treaty Commissioner can consult widely about whether Aboriginal people who are not members of First Nations can enter a treaty.

"When the position of Stolen Generations who have not found their people is considered by members of First Nations, we are confident they will respond with understanding and empathy."

The commission said the paper drew on more than 50 meetings and forums with Indigenous organisations.

It said an 18-month consultation period was now needed before the Treaty Commissioner could hand his final report to the chief minister in 2022 and then treaty negotiations could begin.

The Treaty Commission also recommended establishing three separate bodies for managing treaties and negotiations, including an oversight body, a body to develop legislation and frameworks for negotiations and a treaty tribunal for managing disputes.

The discussion paper also outlines several other responsibilities the bodies can have, and funding arrangements for them, although it does not estimate a total cost for running them.

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NT Treaty Commission eyes 2022 submission of final report with consultations to commence - ABC News

It’s One Of This Year’s Best Health Care ETFs And It Doesn’t Own Any Moderna – MarketWatch

Posted on July 16, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

When it comes to health care exchange-traded funds in 2020, it's a case of haves and have nots.

What To Know:The health care ETF haves are those with robust exposure to Moderna MRNA, +6.90%, or at the very least, hefty allocations to some of the other companies pacing the coronavirus vaccine competition.

In theory, the ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (cboe:AKRG) is a health care ETF have not. As in the fund has no exposure to Moderna, but that's not preventing the actively managed ARKG from delivering a year-to-date gain of 66.41%.

Why It's Important:Outperformance is old hat for AKRG. Over the past three years, the ETF is up 164.7%. Looked at differently, the returns of the S&P 500 Health Care Index and the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index over that same period could be combined and then doubled and the result would be a percentage that still lags ARKG.

Of course, all of that is in the past, but the long-term outlook for genomics investing is bright.

Over the last five years, we have passed key inflection points in the ability to access, manipulate, and understand the molecular building blocks of the human body, writes ARK Director of Research Brett Winton in a recent paper. The genomic age of medicine promises profound ramifications for human health and for the companies involved, among them: (i) tool providers that enable basic research, sharpen the precision of diagnostics, and guide personalized medicine; (ii) diagnostic platforms deploying data that informs the treatment of disease; (iii) and other companies deploying technology and data to create next-generation treatments and cures, increasing returns on therapeutic research and development for the first time in 20 years.

As noted above, in 2020, it's easy for investors to be seduced by health care ETFs highly levered to COVID-19 vaccines, but there's more to the ARKG story and that story extends beyond the time when the virus is a thing of the past.

ARK Invest estimates that by 2024 therapeutic pipelines and tool providers should generate hundreds of billions of dollars in the new revenue and trillions in new market capitalizations as they transition to the genomic age, notes Winton.

What's Next?There are several genomics sub-segments represented in ARKG, but one of the more compelling is Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR). CRISPR is a cornerstone of the livable drugs market.

The addressable market for living drugs in oncology could exceed $200 billion annually as they impact more types of cancer at earlier stages than historically has been the case. Enabled by gene-editing, the applications could extend well beyond oncology, impacting the longevity of human life materially, according to ARK.

Good news: CRISPR Therapeutics CRSP, +2.65% is ARKG's second-largest holding at a weight of 11.28%. That stock is up almost 88% over the past 90 days.

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It's One Of This Year's Best Health Care ETFs And It Doesn't Own Any Moderna - MarketWatch

Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Analysis Focusing on the Key Issues Surrounding the Growth of the Industry and Further Develop Opportunities – Cole of…

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

The worldwide Anti-Senescence Therapy market report included by Regal Intelligence depends on the year 2019. This market report contemplates Manufacturers (counting worldwide and domestic), Suppliers and Vendors, Regions, Product Type, Product Variants and Application for the conjecture time frame. The analysis gives data on over a wide span of time on the aspects like market trends and improvement, drivers, limitations, advancements, and on the changing capital structure of the Anti-Senescence Therapy Market. The study will help market players and market specialists to comprehend the on-going structure of the market.

The Anti-Senescence Therapy Industry Report gives a concise overview of the market by contemplating different definitions and segments of the business. Notwithstanding, the applications of the business and chain structure are given by intensive statistical research perspective. Besides, prime strategical activities in the market started by the key players, which incorporates product improvement, mergers and acquisitions, associations, and so on., are talked about in this report.

Get Free Sample Report at https://www.regalintelligence.com/request-sample/90404

The major manufacturers covered in this report:Unity Biotechnology, Siwa Therapeutics, Calico LLC, AgeX Therapeutics, Numeric Biotech, Human Longevity, Cleara Biotech, OisinBiotechnologies, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Sierra Sciences, Proteostasis Therapeutics, Senolytic Therapeutics, Allergan,

Types covered in this report are: Gene Therapy, Immunotherapy, Others,

Application Covered in this report areCardiovascular Diseases, Neural Degenerative Diseases, Ophthalmology Disorders, Others

The Anti-Senescence Therapy market report gives a five-year annual trend investigation, as for base and previous year examination, that features market size, volume and share for the key areas. The Anti-Senescence Therapy market has been fragmented in the areas of North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and ROW.

In addition to this, the Anti-Senescence Therapy market includes a section for item portfolio, which subtleties production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate based on item diversification Additionally, the report examines sales volume, the share of the overall industry and development rate based on applications/end clients for every application. The product enhancement likewise incorporates SWOT and PEST analysis to comprehend the regional item division market.

Get [emailprotected] https://www.regalintelligence.com/check-discount/90404

The report offers data of the Anti-Senescence Therapy Industry division by type, application and area. The report features the development approaches and plans, government guidelines, manufacturing procedures and cost structures. It likewise covers specialized information, manufacturing plants analysis, and crude material sources analysis of Anti-Senescence Therapy just as clarifies which item has the most noteworthy entrance, their net revenues, and R&D status.

Table of Contents

Global Anti-Senescence Therapy Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 20261 Report Overview1.1 Definition and Specification1.2 Report Overview1.2.1 Manufacturers Overview1.2.2 Regions Overview1.2.3 Type Overview1.2.4 Application Overview1.3 Industrial Chain1.3.1 Anti-Senescence Therapy Overall Industrial Chain1.3.2 Upstream1.3.3 Downstream1.4 Industry Situation1.4.1 Industrial Policy1.4.2 Product Preference1.4.3 Economic/Political Environment1.5 SWOT Analysis2 Market Assessment by Type2.1 Gene Therapy Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2014-20202.2 Immunotherapy Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2014-20202.3 Others Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2014-20203 Asia Pacific Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Assessment by Type3.1 Asia Pacific Market Performance (Sales, Revenue)3.2 Key Players in Asia Pacific4 North America Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Assessment by Type4.1 North America Market Performance (Sales, Revenue)4.2 Key Players in North America5 Europe Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Assessment by Type4.1 Europe Market Performance (Sales, Revenue)4.2 Key Players in Europe6 South America Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Assessment by Type4.1 South America Market Performance (Sales, Revenue)4.2 Key Players in South America7 Middle Easr and Africa Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Assessment by Type4.1 Middle Easr and Africa Market Performance (Sales, Revenue)4.2 Key Players in Middle Easr and Africa

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Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Analysis Focusing on the Key Issues Surrounding the Growth of the Industry and Further Develop Opportunities - Cole of...

An ex-Googlers new robot reimagines the future of home automation – The Verge

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

It looks like a telescoping grabber tool attached to a hat stand, but it could be the future of home robotics. Meet Stretch, the first device from Hello Robot, a startup founded by former Google director of robotics Aaron Edsinger and Georgia Tech robotics professor Charlie Kemp, that came out of stealth today after three years in development.

Stretch is not a consumer robot thats ready to roll into your apartment and start doing the dishes, but rather a research platform that Edsinger and Kemp hope will lay the groundwork for home automation in the years to come. The bots lightweight and low-cost design could be a blueprint for future robots, especially those designed to help look after the elderly or people with physical disabilities, allowing companies to automate a range of household tasks the way the Roomba has automated vacuuming.

Our long term mission is to see these types of robots in homes and workplaces being useful and helpful to people, Edsinger tells The Verge. What we anticipate now, though, is research labs, corporate R&D, and venture-backed startups using this for a variety of applications, all of which will move the ball forward for these mobile manipulators.

The problem with these mobile manipulators as robots with grabbing arms and hands are known is that theyre big and expensive, creating a bottleneck for researchers.

Yes, some companies do show off humanoid robots at trade shows that they claim can vacuum the floor or fetch you a beer from the fridge, but these machines are just puppets, only able to work in limited circumstances and no more functional than Nintendos R.O.B. robot toy. At the other end of the spectrum, mobile manipulators used by academics and researchers, like Willow Garages PR2, are far more capable but also heavy, complex, and pricey. The PR2, for example, weighs 220kg and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Its not easy to move about or test in new environments, and it represents a sizable investment.

Its like a giant old computer when what you want is a laptop, says Edsinger.

Stretch, by comparison, has been designed with simplicity and low cost in mind. Instead of using an expensive industrial arm with multiple joints and degrees of freedom, it has a single telescoping grabber attached to a central hoist that achieves a similar range of motion at a fraction of the price. A single Stretch unit costs $17,950 still expensive when compared to the consumer market but a bargain for academics and researchers.

The arm is touch-sensitive for safety and can carry items up to 1.5kg in weight. It definitely takes a hit in terms of functionality (its not strong enough to open a fridge, for example), but its well-matched to moving things about on flat planes like tables, shelves, and counters.

Stretch has a wheeled base like a Roomba thats 34 by 33cm in size, making it small and nimble enough to maneuver around tight spaces like corridors and small kitchens. And it uses an inexpensive depth-sensing Intel RealSense camera and 340-degree LIDAR sensor to survey and navigate its surroundings, allowing it to be operated remotely or autonomously. Theres also a microphone array built into the head that supports speech recognition for voice commands and a programmable LED light ring to give feedback to users.

If any single design choice exemplifies Hello Robots simple is better philosophy, though, its the robots grabber: a minimalist piece of hardware built from a pair of rubber cups and some metal springs.

Kemp says that when designing the bot, they quickly dismissed the idea of using human-like hands, which are overly complex and liable to break. Instead, they wanted a grabber that would stand up to real-world tests. So they looked to a ready-made research group: users on Amazon reviewing home grabbing tools for people with disabilities.

We went through thousands of reviews, looked at the best reviewed grippers out there, used by real people in real homes grabbing objects they really wanted, and this [design] came out on top, both in the evaluations on Amazon and in our labs, says Kemp.

We were able to make a robotic version of it and its really just so versatile and forgiving. It doesnt have to be in the exact right place to work, its just good at grabbing onto stuff.

While the hardware is polished, the unsolved problem for Stretch (and for home robots more generally) is how will these machines be controlled? Are they going to use AI to carry out tasks autonomously, or will they be operated remotely, like the wheeled delivery robots used to deliver groceries and takeouts?

Originally, says Edsinger, the team envisioned Stretch as a consumer product that was teleoperated: something that could be used to help people in assisted living scenarios, for example. They soon realized, though, that the economics of this didnt work out. Stretch is relatively capable, but like all mobile manipulators, its incredibly slow. And if youre going to hire someone to control a robot from afar for hours at a time just to carry out some simple jobs, its cheaper to get them to do the work in person in a matter of minutes.

As we got into it, it became clear that some level of autonomy was needed, says Edsinger.

To that end, the company has imbued Stretch with some basic autonomous capabilities. It can navigate by itself around rooms and grab and pass objects once the action has been initiated. But it cant carry out complex tasks like folding clothes or cleaning surfaces by itself. Thatll be up to other researchers to test and implement.

The agnosticism in Stretchs design, though, reflects the desires of Edsinger and Kemp to make sure the project has longevity. As the mantra of the robotics industry goes: robots are hard, and startups in this area fail frequently when faced with real-world challenges.

Edsinger is a veteran of Googles abortive foray into robotics. The startup he co-founded, Meka Robotics, was bought by the search giant in 2013 along with a string of other robot companies, including Boston Dynamics. There were high hopes for Googles entry in the market, but the companys efforts fizzled out as it realized the limitations of consumer robotics.

Even, now, says Edsinger, the business case isnt quite there yet for a consumer robot ... the technology isnt quite there yet.

The answer, he says, is to not rush things. He and Kemp have avoided the rocket fuel of venture capital in the hopes of building a sustainable business through sales. The research edition of the Stretch robot has already been sold to a half-dozen research labs, which they say will provide invaluable feedback on what the market really needs.

We realized that the best thing for us to do to really solve this problem is to be around for a while, says Edsinger, to not take a giant swing for the fences and disappear if we miss.

For all of the unanswered questions facing Hello Robot, Edsinger and Kemp are certainly adamant about the possibilities of Stretch. Its just simpler and easier to use than anything else on the market, they say, and it opens up a lot of possibilities for home robotic research.

Kemp, for example, has been using Stretch prototypes around his house for years. Hes used the robots to play games with his children and carry out basic chores. One Thanksgiving, when he was away from home with family, he even used Stretch to feed his cat. Controlling the robot over the web using his laptop, he was able to open up tins of cat food and tip them into a bowl as well as fill up glasses of water from the refrigerator and pour those out.

Ive had this long term dream of having a versatile robot in my home, and now Ive got one, its just a lot of fun, he says. If you have a $400,000 robot its really hard to imagine hiding Easter eggs with it for your kids. It constrains your thinking when you have these huge, expensive robots. But its not so with a machine that costs less than $20,000.

Both men are understandably cagey when it comes to suggesting a timeframe for when a robot like Stretch might be doing useful work as a consumer device. But its certainly a matter of years, perhaps even decades. They point out that the Roomba (a phenomenal product) took decades of work to get to its current abilities, and it only does a single, relatively simple task. Theyre hoping to create machines that do much, much more.

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An ex-Googlers new robot reimagines the future of home automation - The Verge

How is data analytics enhancing the skills of MBA grads? – Deccan Herald

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

With digital transformation under way and businesses realising the relevance of big data in todays competitive era, more and more companies are looking for MBA graduates with data analytics skills.

With increase in the worldwide usage of internet, businesses are looking to add talented individuals to their team who can help them turn this data into a potentially beneficial decision making process.

Consequently, mastering data analytics can help MBA graduates enhance their skills and make a strong footing in the competitive job market.

Digital transformation

Technology and digitalisation are no longer some side aspects of running a successful business; these aspects are now fully integrated into a plethora of business processes. Whether we look at e-commerce, insurance companies or advertising firms, data-based insights are heavily influencing the end business decisions.

While businesses used consumer data earlier as well to understand their customers, the process was a lot more tedious, where some professionals were required to door-to-door or in-person surveys; however, with digitalisation, the data is readily available on the cloud and the data analysers can speed up the process with the right skills and ultimately strengthen the business decisions with less human error.

If we look at the job posts and their consequent descriptions today, it is evident that all businesses- small, mid-level, large enterprises- are looking for professionals who possess data analytics skills. Even employers who come for campus placement have started asking for graduates with the relevant data analytics background.

As a matter of fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the data analysis and related jobs are projected to grow at a rate of 11 % by the year 2024. This potential growth projection is higher and faster than any other occupation.

Furthermore, this growth potential is clearly visible in the current job posts shared by various organisations in the industry, be it tech, transport, marketing, or even oil and gas.

Role of data analytics

Understanding the importance of data analytics in business, today, is a must. It can not only help build a stronger foundation for businesses to grow but also has the potential to streamline the various areas of business ranging from human resources and management to operations and marketing.

It further allows businesses to better handle their data, resources, and materials to ultimately develop more strategic and smarter plans to fulfill their short as well as long term goals.

While data analytics seems confusing and complicated to the laymen, with the right knowledge it can prove to be extremely useful, as it can help recognise and reveal the relevant information for growth and consumer satisfaction.

An elective in data analytics can help prepare the understudies a number of soft and hard skills required for the job before entering the real business world, such as:

Algorithms and Coding

Data cleaning and preparation

Data analysis and exploration

Statistical knowledge

Creating data visualisations

Creating dashboards and/or reports

Writing and Communication skills

Domain knowledge

Problem solving

These skills ultimately aid the understudies in comprehending and properly implementing crucial aspects of business in terms of efficiency, productivity, consumer retention, and profit. The apparent benefits along with the increased gap between the available data and its usage further suggests that career longevity in data analytics is over the top.

(The author is with Sri Balaji University, Pune)

Originally posted here:
How is data analytics enhancing the skills of MBA grads? - Deccan Herald

New Report: and China Genomic Biomarker Market Share, Growth, Trend Analysis and Forecast from 2020-2026; Consumption Capacity by Volume and…

Posted on July 11, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

LOS ANGELES, United States: QY Research has recently published a report, titled Global and China Genomic Biomarker Market Size, Status and Forecast 2020-2026. The research report gives the potential headway openings that prevails in the global market. The report is amalgamated depending on research procured from primary and secondary information. The global and China Genomic Biomarker market is relied upon to develop generously and succeed in volume and value during the predicted time period. Moreover, the report gives nitty gritty data on different manufacturers, region, and products which are important to totally understanding the market.

Key Companies/Manufacturers operating in the global and China Genomic Biomarker market include: , Bio-Rad, Beckman Coulter, Myriad Genetics, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Roche, QIAGEN, Epigenomics, Almac, Pfizer, Human Longevity, ValiRx, Personalis, Eagle Genomics, Empire Genomics, Agilent, Illumina

Get PDF Sample Copy of the Report to understand the structure of the complete report: (Including Full TOC, List of Tables & Figures, Chart) :

https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/1955234/global-and-china-genomic-biomarker-market

Segmental Analysis

Both developed and emerging regions are deeply studied by the authors of the report. The regional analysis section of the report offers a comprehensive analysis of the global and China Genomic Biomarker market on the basis of region. Each region is exhaustively researched about so that players can use the analysis to tap into unexplored markets and plan powerful strategies to gain a foothold in lucrative markets.

Global and China Genomic Biomarker Market Segment By Type:

Protein MarkerNucleic Acid MarkerOther Genomic Biomarker

Global and China Genomic Biomarker Market Segment By Application:

HospitalsDiagnostic and research laboratories Based on

Competitive Landscape

Competitor analysis is one of the best sections of the report that compares the progress of leading players based on crucial parameters, including market share, new developments, global reach, local competition, price, and production. From the nature of competition to future changes in the vendor landscape, the report provides in-depth analysis of the competition in the global and China Genomic Biomarker market.

Key companies operating in the global and China Genomic Biomarker market include , Bio-Rad, Beckman Coulter, Myriad Genetics, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Roche, QIAGEN, Epigenomics, Almac, Pfizer, Human Longevity, ValiRx, Personalis, Eagle Genomics, Empire Genomics, Agilent, Illumina

Key questions answered in the report:

For Discount, Customization in the Report: https://www.qyresearch.com/customize-request/form/1955234/global-and-china-genomic-biomarker-market

TOC

1 Report Overview1.1 Study Scope1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Global Genomic Biomarker Market Size Growth Rate by Type: 2020 VS 20261.2.2 Protein Marker1.2.3 Nucleic Acid Marker1.2.4 Other1.3 Market by Application1.3.1 Global Genomic Biomarker Market Share by Application: 2020 VS 20261.3.2 Hospitals1.3.3 Diagnostic and research laboratories 1.4 Study Objectives 1.5 Years Considered 2 Global Growth Trends2.1 Global Genomic Biomarker Market Perspective (2015-2026)2.2 Global Genomic Biomarker Growth Trends by Regions2.2.1 Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Regions: 2015 VS 2020 VS 20262.2.2 Genomic Biomarker Historic Market Share by Regions (2015-2020)2.2.3 Genomic Biomarker Forecasted Market Size by Regions (2021-2026) 2.3 Industry Trends and Growth Strategy 2.3.1 Market Trends 2.3.2 Market Drivers2.3.3 Market Challenges2.3.4 Market Restraints 3 Competition Landscape by Key Players3.1 Global Top Genomic Biomarker Players by Market Size3.1.1 Global Top Genomic Biomarker Players by Revenue (2015-2020)3.1.2 Global Genomic Biomarker Revenue Market Share by Players (2015-2020)3.2 Global Genomic Biomarker Market Share by Company Type (Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3)3.3 Players Covered: Ranking by Genomic Biomarker Revenue3.4 Global Genomic Biomarker Market Concentration Ratio3.4.1 Global Genomic Biomarker Market Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI)3.4.2 Global Top 10 and Top 5 Companies by Genomic Biomarker Revenue in 20193.5 Key Players Genomic Biomarker Area Served3.6 Key Players Genomic Biomarker Product Solution and Service3.7 Date of Enter into Genomic Biomarker Market3.8 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion Plans 4 Genomic Biomarker Breakdown Data by Type (2015-2026)4.1 Global Genomic Biomarker Historic Market Size by Type (2015-2020)4.2 Global Genomic Biomarker Forecasted Market Size by Type (2021-2026) 5 Genomic Biomarker Breakdown Data by Application (2015-2026)5.1 Global Genomic Biomarker Historic Market Size by Application (2015-2020)5.2 Global Genomic Biomarker Forecasted Market Size by Application (2021-2026) 6 North America6.1 North America Genomic Biomarker Market Size (2015-2026)6.2 North America Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Type (2015-2020)6.3 North America Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Application (2015-2020)6.4 North America Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Country (2015-2020)6.4.1 United States6.4.2 Canada 7 Europe7.1 Europe Genomic Biomarker Market Size (2015-2026)7.2 Europe Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Type (2015-2020)7.3 Europe Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Application (2015-2020)7.4 Europe Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Country (2015-2020)7.4.1 Germany7.4.2 France7.4.3 U.K.7.4.4 Italy7.4.5 Russia7.4.6 Nordic7.4.7 Rest of Europe 8 China8.1 China Genomic Biomarker Market Size (2015-2026)8.2 China Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Type (2015-2020)8.3 China Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Application (2015-2020)8.4 China Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Region (2015-2020)8.4.1 China8.4.2 Japan8.4.3 South Korea8.4.4 Southeast Asia8.4.5 India8.4.6 Australia8.4.7 Rest of Asia-Pacific 9 Japan9.1 Japan Genomic Biomarker Market Size (2015-2026)9.2 Japan Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Type (2015-2020)9.3 Japan Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Application (2015-2020)9.4 Japan Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Country (2015-2020)9.4.1 Mexico9.4.2 Brazil 10 Southeast Asia10.1 Southeast Asia Genomic Biomarker Market Size (2015-2026)10.2 Southeast Asia Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Type (2015-2020)10.3 Southeast Asia Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Application (2015-2020)10.4 Southeast Asia Genomic Biomarker Market Size by Country (2015-2020)10.4.1 Turkey10.4.2 Saudi Arabia10.4.3 UAE10.4.4 Rest of Middle East & Africa 11Key Players Profiles11.1 Bio-Rad11.1.1 Bio-Rad Company Details11.1.2 Bio-Rad Business Overview11.1.3 Bio-Rad Genomic Biomarker Introduction11.1.4 Bio-Rad Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020))11.1.5 Bio-Rad Recent Development11.2 Beckman Coulter11.2.1 Beckman Coulter Company Details11.2.2 Beckman Coulter Business Overview11.2.3 Beckman Coulter Genomic Biomarker Introduction11.2.4 Beckman Coulter Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)11.2.5 Beckman Coulter Recent Development11.3 Myriad Genetics11.3.1 Myriad Genetics Company Details11.3.2 Myriad Genetics Business Overview11.3.3 Myriad Genetics Genomic Biomarker Introduction11.3.4 Myriad Genetics Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)11.3.5 Myriad Genetics Recent Development11.4 Thermo Fisher Scientific11.4.1 Thermo Fisher Scientific Company Details11.4.2 Thermo Fisher Scientific Business Overview11.4.3 Thermo Fisher Scientific Genomic Biomarker Introduction11.4.4 Thermo Fisher Scientific Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)11.4.5 Thermo Fisher Scientific Recent Development11.5 Roche11.5.1 Roche Company Details11.5.2 Roche Business Overview11.5.3 Roche Genomic Biomarker Introduction11.5.4 Roche Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)11.5.5 Roche Recent Development11.6 QIAGEN11.6.1 QIAGEN Company Details11.6.2 QIAGEN Business Overview11.6.3 QIAGEN Genomic Biomarker Introduction11.6.4 QIAGEN Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)11.6.5 QIAGEN Recent Development11.7 Epigenomics11.7.1 Epigenomics Company Details11.7.2 Epigenomics Business Overview11.7.3 Epigenomics Genomic Biomarker Introduction11.7.4 Epigenomics Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)11.7.5 Epigenomics Recent Development11.8 Almac11.8.1 Almac Company Details11.8.2 Almac Business Overview11.8.3 Almac Genomic Biomarker Introduction11.8.4 Almac Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)11.8.5 Almac Recent Development11.9 Pfizer11.9.1 Pfizer Company Details11.9.2 Pfizer Business Overview11.9.3 Pfizer Genomic Biomarker Introduction11.9.4 Pfizer Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)11.9.5 Pfizer Recent Development11.10 Human Longevity11.10.1 Human Longevity Company Details11.10.2 Human Longevity Business Overview11.10.3 Human Longevity Genomic Biomarker Introduction11.10.4 Human Longevity Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)11.10.5 Human Longevity Recent Development11.11 ValiRx10.11.1 ValiRx Company Details10.11.2 ValiRx Business Overview10.11.3 ValiRx Genomic Biomarker Introduction10.11.4 ValiRx Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)10.11.5 ValiRx Recent Development11.12 Personalis10.12.1 Personalis Company Details10.12.2 Personalis Business Overview10.12.3 Personalis Genomic Biomarker Introduction10.12.4 Personalis Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)10.12.5 Personalis Recent Development11.13 Eagle Genomics10.13.1 Eagle Genomics Company Details10.13.2 Eagle Genomics Business Overview10.13.3 Eagle Genomics Genomic Biomarker Introduction10.13.4 Eagle Genomics Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)10.13.5 Eagle Genomics Recent Development11.14 Empire Genomics10.14.1 Empire Genomics Company Details10.14.2 Empire Genomics Business Overview10.14.3 Empire Genomics Genomic Biomarker Introduction10.14.4 Empire Genomics Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)10.14.5 Empire Genomics Recent Development11.15 Agilent10.15.1 Agilent Company Details10.15.2 Agilent Business Overview10.15.3 Agilent Genomic Biomarker Introduction10.15.4 Agilent Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)10.15.5 Agilent Recent Development11.16 Illumina10.16.1 Illumina Company Details10.16.2 Illumina Business Overview10.16.3 Illumina Genomic Biomarker Introduction10.16.4 Illumina Revenue in Genomic Biomarker Business (2015-2020)10.16.5 Illumina Recent Development 12Analysts Viewpoints/Conclusions 13Appendix13.1 Research Methodology13.1.1 Methodology/Research Approach13.1.2 Data Source13.2 Disclaimer13.3 Author Details

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Installing a brand new roastery during a Covid-19 lockdown? Singapore’s PPP Coffee did it in pursuit of the sweetest cup – Malay Mail

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

With their newly-installed Probat G45 roaster, PPP Coffee hopes their coffee will be sweeter and cleaner than before Pictures courtesy of PPP Coffee

SINGAPORE, July 14 Every journey begins with a single step. The idea is, if that step goes well, everything will be smooth sailing thereafter.

When Leon Foo, founder of Singapore roastery PPP Coffee (formerly known as Papa Palheta), decided it was time for their business to move to the next level, little did he know hed spark off one of the biggest challenges of his career.

Investing in a new roaster seemed a no-brainer.

After 10 years in specialty coffee, Foo wanted to ensure longevity of the business, to future-proof against rise in demand and shifts in customer taste.

The process took over six years.

Foo first began his search for a Probat double wall drum roaster in 2014. He didnt find one till three years later, in a factory in Italy.

Built in 1950, it was a rare machine with only a handful left in the world. PPP Coffee embarked on the restoration in 2018, rebuilding the machine in the UK and only completing the task this year.

Thanks to the new set of burners and accompanying technology, the heat transfer on the Probat G45 is more convective and evenly distributed on the double walled drum. This enhancement is what PPP Coffee is counting on to set it apart from their old roaster (or other roasters for that matter).

Foo explains, The burners are able to be modulated to a greater degree of accuracy. This enables us to roast and profile our coffees to bring out the clarity and sweetness more. Our coffee will be sweeter and cleaner than ever.

PPP Coffee decided to document the entire operation from beginning to end. The result is a new short film on YouTube The Pursuit Of The Sweetest Cup that chronicles the journey of the new roasting machine from Italy to Singapore.

What made PPP Coffees struggle so enthralling was how they went about setting up the Probat G45 without the right personnel, the right parts and a pandemic raging across the globe.

With the Circuit Breaker in Singapore that began in early April and borders closing worldwide, everyone faced a logistical nightmare.

With looming orders during the Circuit Breaker when both manpower and the supply chain were severely constrained, Foos team had to approach this in a methodical manner.

He recalls, We had many meetings on how to approach the installation and our down time with the roaster. Every progress was scheduled to the T by the hours and days. Subcontractors also pulled in their weight to help make things happen in shorter time periods.

The in-house team strived to minimise downtime in order to alleviate the burden of increasing orders. The trick was to stay flexible and agile. Foo says, We had to pivot our plans and timeline every day with each emerging issue faced during the installation.

Another conundrum was the process of securing the spare roaster parts that was still stuck in Nottingham, UK. PPP Coffee relied on Mr Chew, a local maestro they nicknamed the MacGyver of Equipment Parts.

Foo shares, Mr Chew had to fabricate the parts according to what was missing. He even added improved design features to some of these parts to make them work better and more efficiently.

Given all the trouble and heartache, why did they even change their roaster, particularly donating their old machine to a museum in Indonesia? Surely that was a disruption even a thriving business couldnt afford?

For Foo, it was about taking steps his competitors are reluctant or unable to take. He says, A decision like this would probably take others years, or even decades before they consider such a move and most would probably not.

What was one of the biggest trials for Foo and his team at PPP Coffee has also become one of their biggest triumphs. The road ahead wont be easy more rocks than roses but if this episode has taught them anything, its that anything is possible if they go at it together and they go at it strong.

Foo sums it: It takes many hands to make the coffee taste great, and if we can bring that extra 10-15 per cent difference in taste, we are glad to be making that difference in this pursuit.

Any coffee professional would tell you that theres no end to learning about coffee. The story of PPP Coffees Probat G45 and their search for the sweetest cup proves theres no end to learning about the human spirit either.

Its the journey of a lifetime.

Watch PPP Coffees new short film The Pursuit Of The Sweetest Cup | Probat G45 here. For more coffee stories, visit lifeforbeginners.com/coffee/.

PPP coffee is available online at pppcoffee.com and Pulp, 29-01 Jalan Riong, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.

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Installing a brand new roastery during a Covid-19 lockdown? Singapore's PPP Coffee did it in pursuit of the sweetest cup - Malay Mail

VIDEO: Trio of orphaned Alberta grizzly bear cubs find new home at Vancouver zoo – Terrace Standard

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Greater Vancouver Zoo in Aldergrove is now a permanent home to three grizzly bear cubs, who would have otherwise been euthanized.

The trio one male and two female was orphaned when their mother was shot and killed by a poacher in southwest Alberta, animal care manager Menita Prasad said.

Alberta Fish and Wildlife officers first brought them into the Calgary Zoo in early May after agroup of scientists, wildlife conservationists and animal advocates sent a letter to Alberta government, urging it to rehabilitate the cubs so they can be released back into the wild.

The Calgary Zoo saved them and took good care of them until two weeks ago, said general manager Serge Lussier, who said the zoo ran out of space for the six-month-old cubs.

Lussier accepted the zoos offer to have them relocated permanently to the Aldergrove zoo, in their own one-acre enclosure.

The grizzly bear triplets are adapting well to their new surroundings and are having fun discovering their new habitat, said Lussier.

On the first day they found the pond, he remarked, which they have swam in the past few days.

In the wild, on average, grizzly bear cubs will stay with their mothers for up to three years. So there is a lot that they need to learn, Prasad explained.

These learned skills include hunting, hiding, foraging basically how to survive on their own, she continued.

As such, zoo staff will need tomonitor the cubsgrowth and provide them with special care over the next few years.

Prasad mentioned because of human intervention that took place at an early age, it is not ideal for the cubs to be released into wild.

Currently, the little grizzlies are on a mix of formula and some solid forms of nutrition, including dog chow.

They love each other even though they do scrap every once and a while, Prasad related.

Families can now enter to name one of the three cubs online at gvzoo.com.

Winners will get a free years pass to the zoo and a behind-the-scenes experience with the cubs.

RELATED: Orphaned baby black bears being raised at Greater Vancouver Zoo

The Greater Vancouver Zoo is home to another grizzly bear, a female named Shadow, who is now 22 years old.

We have the expertise and the longevity of care to do this, Lussier lauded.

The 120-acre facility is also home to three black bears from Alaska which also first came to the facility as cubs.

Aldergrove

(Greater Vancouver Zoo/Special to the Aldergrove Star)

(Sarah Grochowski/Aldergrove Star)

(Greater Vancouver Zoo/Special to the Aldergrove Star)

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VIDEO: Trio of orphaned Alberta grizzly bear cubs find new home at Vancouver zoo - Terrace Standard

Global Anti-Senescence Therapy Market 2020 Business Strategies, Product Sales and Growth Rate, Assessment to 2025 – 3rd Watch News

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

COVID-19 Updates We will be covering the overall impact of COVID -19 on the market value, market share & growth of the market and how the major players in the particular market are adapting these changes.

MarketResearchBazaar has added latest research report on Global Anti-Senescence Therapy Market, this report helps to analyze top manufacturers, regions, revenue, price, and also covers Industry sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.

The global Anti-Senescence Therapy market was valued at $XX million in 2019, and MAResearch analysts predict the global market size will reach $XX million by the end of 2026, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2019 and 2026.

Download Premium Sample of the Report: http://marketresearchbazaar.com/requestSample/23572

In this report, the study analysis was given on a worldwide scale, for instance, present and traditional Anti-Senescence Therapygrowth analysis, competitive analysis, and also the growth prospects of the central regions. The report gives an exhaustive investigation of this market at country &, regional levels, and provides an analysis of the industry trends in each of the sub-segments, from sales, revenue and consumption. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the main players in related regions is introduced, from the perspective of sales, revenue and price.

According to Research, the global Anti-Senescence Therapy market was valued at USD xxx million in 2019, and it is expected to reach a value of USD xxx million by 2026, at a CAGR of xx% over the forecast period 2021-2026. Correspondingly, the forecast analysis of Anti-Senescence Therapy industry comprises of Asia, North America, South America, Middle East and Africa, Europe, with the sales and revenue data in each of the sub-segments.

At the upcoming section, this report discusses industrial policy, economic environment, in addition to the fabrication processes and cost structures of the industry. And this report encompasses the fundamental dynamics of the market which include drivers, opportunities, and challenges faced by the industry. Additionally, this report showed a keen market study of the main consumers, raw material manufacturers and distributors, etc.

Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (M USD), market share and growth rate of Anti-Senescence Therapy in these regions, from 2014 to 2026 (forecast), covering

Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)

North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)

South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia)

Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)

Global Anti-Senescence Therapy market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer, the top players including

Unity Biotechnology

Siwa Therapeutics

Calico LLC

AgeX Therapeutics

Numeric Biotech

Human Longevity

Cleara Biotech

OisinBiotechnologies

Recursion Pharmaceuticals

Sierra Sciences

Proteostasis Therapeutics

Senolytic Therapeutics

Allergan

On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into

Gene Therapy

Immunotherapy

Others

On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate of Anti-Senescence Therapy for each application, including

Cardiovascular Diseases

Neural Degenerative Diseases

Ophthalmology Disorders

Others

If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.

Enquiry Before Buying: http://marketresearchbazaar.com/enquiry/23572

Major Point of TOC:

Chapter One: Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Overview

Chapter Two: Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Segment Analysis by Player

Chapter Three: Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Segment Analysis by Type

Chapter Four: Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Segment Analysis by Application

Chapter Five: Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Segment Analysis by Sales Channel

Chapter Six: Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Segment Analysis by Region

Chapter Seven: Profile of Leading Anti-Senescence Therapy Players

Chapter Eight: Upstream and Downstream Analysis of Anti-Senescence Therapy

Chapter Nine: Development Trend of Anti-Senescence Therapy (2020-2029)

Chapter Ten: Appendix

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Nine Seasons In, Catfish Reflects the Savvy of Its Audience – PRIMETIMER

Posted on August 5, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Nev Schulman and Kamie Crawford host Catfish's ninth season, premiering tonight on MTV. (Photo: MTV)

When it premiered in 2012, Catfish: The Series was one of the more tantalizing premises MTV had ever found for a reality series. By virtue of the fact that he'd been a victim of catfishing himself (per the 2010 documentary on which the show is based), host Nev Schulman could empathize with those who might have fallen for a grift, thus helping to soften the concept's creepier voyeuristic qualities. But he also knew how to lead a team to investigate the authenticity of online love. (Co-host Max Joseph, the other half of Schulman's team, departed the show in 2018; Schulman is now joined by co-host, Kamie Crawford.)

Upon its premiere, it was the perfect combination of morbid fascination, guilty pleasure, and genuine human interest, and what's more, it was instructive for anyone who conducted any part of their social life online (so, basically, everyone). Still, it was a premise that should have lasted one season, maybe two. There are a finite number of outcomes to a typical Catfish scenario, after all: either the purported catfisher is someone the victim knows; they are a complete stranger who catfishes as a hobby; they are exactly who they say they are, full stop; or they are exactly who they say they are, but with a few careful omissions. The "victim" may choose to continue their romance, they may remain friends with their catfish, or they may walk away angry. Every story seems to follow one of these paths.

Complicating matters, once everyone knew the show existed, anyone receiving a call from MTV inviting them to be part of a "documentary series about online relationships" ought to have been able to connect the dots. And even if they weren't appearing on the show itself, once the term "catfish" became part of the vernacular, how were people still falling for these ploys in the first place?

Surprisingly, though, the supply of catfishers and catfishees has seemed to remain bottomless. Each new social networking platform, from Snapchat to Tinder to TikTok, brings a new flourishing ecosystem of fake profiles and budding virtual relationships, ensuring that MTV could continue to find fresh, compelling love stories (and "love stories") featuring relatable, memorable people. Anyone who's seen even a handful of episodes has their favorites: the poor guy who remained convinced he was BFFs with the real Katy Perry, the guy who got catfished by his own cousin, the "medium" who convinced a girl she'd had contact with the girl's deceased father. The show has not only thrived for eight seasons and counting, it's spawned two spinoff series and numerous compilation specials, and today it kicks off its ninth season.

The show's continuing appeal should, by all rights, hinge on preserving the element of surprise, but while Catfish does occasionally throw a curve ball at its viewers, the surprise is only one ingredient in the recipe to its longevity, and it's no longer the most crucial one. Put another way, Catfish no longer cares if you understand how its sausage is made.

Just as a lonely singleton chatting with a too-good-to-be-true online paramour might start spotting inconsistencies, anyone who's watched more than a few episodes of Catfish can't help but spot the cracks in the show's purported "reality." To cite a frivolous example, the uniform sparseness of every subject's "living room" makes it obvious that most episodes are filmed in Airbnbs, to the point where the hosts have mostly stopped maintaining the artifice. More important to the fabric of the show, however, nearly everyone knows by now that the show's production team doesn't begin sourcing its stories by seeking out people who suspect they're being catfished, but by throwing out a net for the catfishers themselves.

The secret to Catfish's success may be that not only doesn't it ignore its audience's powers of perception, it's begun to riff on its format in ways that directly speak to their savvier viewers. In recent years, the show has frequently revisited new exploits by repeat catfishers, and it's even featured Schulman himself as a subject after he was (allegedly) catfished a second time. The message: even if you know where it's going, you'll still enjoy the ride, and you might make a few unexpected stops. It's a message that hews close to that of the original film. Back in 2010, we knew Nev Schulman was being deceived, but following him as he arrived at that conclusion drove the narrative.

While the webs Schulman is now helping untangle are usually nowhere near as complicated as his original one, there's still something about feeling two steps ahead of the people onscreen that's terribly addictive and oddly reassuring. (That best friend taking a keen interest in helping to solve the mystery? That's a big red flag.) Not to mention the fact that whenever the series does produce a total blindside of a reveal these days (as it occasionally does), it lands even harder.

The term "catfish" itself, per the film that spawned the series, comes from a fishing technique whereby a predator fish is stored in a tank with cod to keep them active and fresh. So it's no surprise that occasional format shakeups and a shift in its objective have kept Catfish's viewers from getting complacent, even as the content of the tank stays largely the same. After all, that's the Catfish way.

Catfish returns with new remotely-produced episodes tonight at 8:00 PM ET on MTV.

People are talking about Catfish in our forums. Join the conversation.

JessicaLiese has been writing and podcasting about TV since 2012. Follow her on Twitter at @HaymakerHattie.

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Nine Seasons In, Catfish Reflects the Savvy of Its Audience - PRIMETIMER

How the Peoples Bodega Provides Free Food to Protesters – Eater

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Over the past month, mass protests calling for the abolition of police and a national reckoning with anti-Blackness have spread across the country. In that time, various volunteers and organizations have risen to the challenge of feeding those on the frontlines, like the Sikh gurdwaras serving dal to hospital workers and protesters, or the good samaritans, unaffiliated with any organization, handing out snacks at marches. And then theres the Peoples Bodega, a mutual aid organization that considers the needs of the community and packs them into a van.

The Peoples Bodega is, essentially, a traveling food and necessities pantry. In New York and LA, it caters to protests, its vans driving to different parts of a march to make sure everyone is served. Though the Peoples Bodega began in LA, the word bodega has a distinctly New York (specifically Nuyorican) feel. The bodega is your neighborhood spot where you know the person behind the counter; its the center of your community, even if that community is just your block. You can be fed there, yes, but also pick up first-aid supplies, housewares, phone cards, or any other small things you need to live your day-to-day life. The Peoples Bodega takes that concept and brings it to the protests, supplying water, sports drinks, and snacks alongside hand sanitizer, sunscreen, condoms, and tampons (plus, if you feel like hopping in the back of the van, a place to change your tampon). But unlike your neighborhood convenience store, everything is free.

On June 28, the 51st anniversary of the Stonewall riots, I rode with the Peoples Bodega to serve New Yorks Queer Liberation March. Organized by the Reclaim Pride Coalition, the march was for Black lives and against police brutality. Thousands gathered in glitter, leather, and shirts reading BLACK TRANS LIVES MATTER. The Peoples Bodega set up two tables in Manhattans Foley Square, where the march began. It was 1 p.m. and people were hungry and thirsty, everyone aware of the fact that theyd need to be full and hydrated as they marched in the 88-degree heat. The provisions the Peoples Bodega supplies are calibrated for a marchers needs enough food and water to keep you going, but never too much to slow you down.

Making its way to Washington Square Park, the march took a slightly circuitous route to avoid police presence. The Peoples Bodega volunteers packed into two vans and tracked the movement on their phones, weaving through the streets of downtown Manhattan to meet up with the march halfway through its route. In the back of the van, towers of water shifted and teetered with each turn. Chloe, one of the organizers, emphasized to me that all the supplies have been donated: Even though the volunteers put out calls for specific staples on Instagram, theyre not always in control of what they get.

That day, they estimated theyd give out about 1,600 bottles of water, as well as plenty of Nature Valley and Nutrigrain bars, but also fruit snacks, lollipops, a box of store-brand Graham crackers, and some coveted packets of Oreos and Nutter Butters. There were a few cases of day-camp favorite Little Hug, those neon-colored fruit drinks that come in barrel-shaped bottles. Sometimes, people drop off homemade sandwiches or whole pizzas, though thats rare. Some items are always around: Kind bars, Chloe says, are the food of the revolution.

It was hard to convince people that the supplies were free. But on a sweltering day when people had already marched for a mile, the organizers at the Peoples Bodega pushed cold water and sports drinks, granola bars and clementines and fruit snacks, repeating again and again that these items cost nothing until people were convinced. Yes, at least in this instance, these basic human needs cost nothing.

Once the confusion over cost (or lack thereof) is settled, the demonstrators are typically thrilled and grateful. Once the march caught up with us, the Peoples Bodega volunteers ran in a constant loop from van to table, carrying pallets of water and Costco-brand sports drinks, which went so fast they never even made it into the cooler. Cries of Thank you! and Oh my god, youre angels! emanated from the crowd, the humidity outside building to a storm that would erupt later that night. Everyone was drained, but at the sight of snacks, they turned giddy. Sugar and salt would keep them going.

Providing these essentials for free, whether its a single granola bar or dozens of breakfast sandwiches for the people occupying City Hall, is what Chloe believes mutual aid is all about: using what we have to make sure everyone gets what they need. The point is avoiding the direct exchange of money for goods, she said. When I ask if any of the food has come from restaurants or grocery stores to support the mission, she shakes her head. All our donations come from people. Sometimes the donations are food, and other times theyre in the form of monetary donations through PayPal.

The question hovering over the protests currently is: How long is this going to last? Right now, were in a perfect storm for public actions mass unemployment and remote work allow more time for political organizing. The pandemic has kept people from most other social engagements while exposing many of the cracks in our society, from racism to the lack of a social safety net to the severe underfunding of public health and public education. But protest momentum is a hard thing to sustain, especially as states keep pushing the reopening of the economy. Will the Peoples Bodega still be needed in a month?

Chloe emphasizes that it will remain in the struggle until full abolition is achieved. Currently, the group is planning for other forms of longevity as a mobile community center and food pantry. But part of their mission is to do everything they can to keep that protest momentum going. By providing food, water, and other necessities, the Peoples Bodega is making the bar of entry to protesting as low as it can possibly be you can show up without a mask, without sun protection, and hungry, and someone will take care of you. The food is fuel to keep you fighting.

Food media largely avoids the concept of food as fuel. I mean, is there anything so dreary? It evokes the unseasoned chicken breasts and steamed broccoli of gym rats, the calorie counting of diet culture, Soylent. In food media and foodie culture, food can and should be anything but fuel. Its culture, its history, its a way to share tradition and heritage, its something to bond over, its a lens through which well, you know the rest.

But for the Peoples Bodega, food is fuel. Thats precisely its glory.

After the march passed, the van made its way to Washington Square Park. Later that day, police pepper-sprayed the crowd just as Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted that the city celebrates the Black, trans activists who built the movement and continue to lead today. But before that, as the van arrived at the park, the marchers were still exuberant, many of them fortified by the sustenance provided by the Peoples Bodega. A volunteer ran out for ice. Another offered to cart water around the park to those who may have missed the table. They apologized to marchers for running out of sports drinks, but displayed every Kind bar and box of raisins they had left. I watched as people bonded, sucking on Fruit by the Foot, comparing Dum Dum flavors, and feeding their friends and partners nuts and candy. The food may be fuel, but by the act of giving it away and the power of mutual aid, it is transformed. Here, a pack of peanuts is love. A Gatorade is solidarity. A free Kind bar is the sign that were all in this fight together.

In the following days, the Peoples Bodega organizers restock and replan, coordinating donation pickups and Costco runs. They will be at the next march, electrolytes in hand, to fuel the revolution.

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First Edition: July 27, 2020 – Kaiser Health News

Posted on July 27, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.

Kaiser Health News:Its About Love And Solidarity: Mutual Aid Unites NYC Neighbors Facing COVIDNancy Perez, a 45-year-old resident of the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, contracted COVID-19 in March. She stayed quarantined in her room for a month to isolate from her two sons and grandson. A few days before she got the virus, shed met a volunteer with Bed-Stuy Strong one of the many mutual aid groups around the country that have rallied to provide help in the face of the pandemic. Bed-Stuy Strong assembled an army of volunteers to help vulnerable neighbors with food deliveries and basic supplies. While Perez was in isolation, volunteers regularly delivered cooked food for her sons, ages 17 and 20, and her 4-year-old grandson. (Lawrence, 7/27)

Kaiser Health News:The Color Of COVID: Will Vaccine Trials Reflect Americas Diversity?When U.S. scientists launch the first large-scale clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines this summer, Antonio Cisneros wants to make sure people like him are included. Cisneros, who is 34 and Hispanic, is part of the first wave of an expected 1.5 million volunteers willing to get the shots to help determine whether leading vaccine candidates can thwart the virus that sparked a deadly pandemic. If I am asked to participate, I will, said Cisneros, a Los Angeles cinematographer who has signed up for two large vaccine trial registries. It seems part of our duty. (JoNel Aleccia, 7/27)

Kaiser Health News:Employers Require COVID Liability Waivers As Conflict Mounts Over Workplace SafetyAfter spending a May day preparing her classroom to reopen for preschoolers, Ana Aguilar was informed that the tots would not have to wear face masks when they came back. Whats more, she had to sign a form agreeing not to sue the school if she caught COVID-19 or suffered any injury from it while working there. Other teachers signed the form distributed by the Montessori Schools of Irvine, but Aguilar said she felt uncomfortable, although it stipulated that staff members would be masked. At 23, she has a compromised immune system and was also worried that she could pass the coronavirus on to her fianc and other family members. (Meyer, 7/27)

Kaiser Health News:Last Thing Patients Need During Pandemic: Being Last To Know A Doctor Left NetworkAs the coronavirus spread silently through New York City early this year, Deborah Koeppel had an appointment with her cardiologist and two visits with her primary care doctor. Both physicians are members of Concorde Medical Group, a practice in Manhattan with an office conveniently located a few blocks from where Koeppel works. She soon received notices telling her after the fact that those doctors were not in her health plans network of providers. According to the notices, she was on the hook for $849 in out-of-network cost sharing for three visits, which typically would cost her nothing from in-network providers. (Andrews, 7/27)

NPR:Florida Case Count Surpasses That Of New York, The Country's Original EpicenterFlorida has recorded more coronavirus cases than New York. Only California, the most populous state in the country, has more. As of Sunday afternoon, data from Johns Hopkins University shows 423,855 people in Florida have tested positive for the coronavirus, compared to 411,736 in New York. California leads with 450,242 cases. (Treisman, 7/26)

Tampa Bay Times:Florida Coronavirus Cases Show Little Sign Of Slowing As State Surpasses New YorkThe number of infections and deaths tied to the novel coronavirus in Florida showed little sign of slowing Sunday as the state surpassed New York for the second-highest number of confirmed cases in the United States. Only California, with a population nearly twice as high as Floridas, has more cases. Floridas Department of Health reported 9,344 infections and 78 fatalities. The overall caseload is 423,855 since March 1, and the number of deaths tied to the virus is 5,972. (Dawson, 7/26)

The Hill:US Surpasses 1,000 COVID-19 Deaths For Fourth Straight DayThe U.S. tallied over 1,000 coronavirus-related deaths Friday for the fourth straight day this week, yet another sign of the alarming spike in COVID-19 cases across the country.There were 1,178 new deaths Friday alone, according to the COVID Tracking project, compared with 1,038 Tuesday, 1,117 Wednesday, and 1,039 Thursday. Over 137,000 people have died in the U.S. and over 4 million people have contracted the virus in the country since the outbreak began. (Axelrod, 7/25)

NPR:U.S. Coronavirus Hot Spots: Mid-Atlantic And Northeast Could BackslideFor weeks the U.S. coronavirus pandemic has largely been driven by spiraling outbreaks in the South and West. But some forecasters say Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states could soon be in deep trouble again, too. The warning comes from researchers at the PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which has built a model to provide four-week forecasts for every U.S. county. NPR spoke to David Rubin, PolicyLab's director, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. (Aizenman, 7/24)

Stat:Trump Unveils Four Executive Orders Aimed At Lowering Drug PricesThe Trump administration unveiled four executive orders on Friday aimed at bringing down pharmaceutical prices, a last-ditch effort by the White House to cut drug costs before the November election. It remains unclear whether the Trump administration is capable of finalizing many of the actions by Election Day and whether it intends to do so. (Florko and Facher, 7/24)

Politico:Trump Signs Limited Drug Pricing Orders After Last-Minute Debate"The four orders I'm signing today will completely restructure the prescription drug market," Trump said in a speech, hearkening back to his 2016 campaign promise to slash costs. But the ambitious plans are rife with limitations. The rebate order comes with a caveat that any plan cannot increase seniors' premiums, the unworkable problem that led the adminstration to kill its original rebate rule last year. (Owermohle, Cancryn and Luthi, 7/24)

Politico:Trumps Talking Health Care Again, With 2020 In MindPresident Donald Trump is suddenly talking about health care again. He signed several executive orders on drug pricing on Friday. He vowed to unveil some new health plan by the end of next week, although he hasnt provided specifics or an explanation of how hell do it. His aides are touting a speech in which Trump will lay out his health care vision. White House counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway has been calling Trump the health care president. (McGraw and Ehley, 7/26)

AP:AP-NORC Poll: US Course At Record Low, Trump Sinks On VirusA new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also finds Trumps approval for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic falling to a new low, with just 32% of Americans supportive of his approach. ... Even as he tries to refocus his contest with Biden on divisive cultural issues and an ominous law and order message, Trumps reelection prospects are likely to be inextricably linked to his handling of the pandemic and whether voters believe the country will head back in the right direction under his leadership. The AP-NORC poll makes clear the challenge ahead for Trump on that front: 8 in 10 Americans say the country is heading in the wrong direction. (Pace and Fingerhut, 7/26)

Politico:Make America Normal Again: Trump Backers Plead For A Virus PlanPresident Donald Trump restarted the White House coronavirus briefings. He urged Americans to wear masks. He even scrapped his partys convention. To many of his own allies, its still not enough. Trumps political allies, alarmed by his sinking poll numbers, are warning that the presidents best chance to get reelected is to outline more detailed plans to conquer the coronavirus he keeps trying to wish away. They are advising him to offer people something concrete they can look to as the pandemic surges in dozens of states, eroding months of progress. (Kumar, 7/24)

The Wall Street Journal:GOP To Propose Aid Bill, With Extra Jobless Benefits Set To ExpireAfter days of disagreements between the White House and GOP lawmakers, Republicans are set to release their proposal for the next coronavirus relief bill on Monday, with millions of Americans on the verge of losing expanded unemployment benefits.Lawmakers now have little time before the $600 weekly supplement to jobless benefits ends. In negotiations with Democrats, three months before the election, an agreement on unemployment insurance might prove to be the most difficult to reach. (Ballhaus and Duehren, 7/26)

The Hill:White House, Senate GOP Race To Finalize Coronavirus Package Ahead Of Monday RolloutThe White House and Senate Republicans are workingto finalize a coronavirus relief package ahead of a Monday rollout. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were back in the Capitol on Sunday for a second day of meetings with GOP staff as they work to lock down the forthcoming proposal. As he left the Capitol, Meadows told reporters that they had"been working through just some of the technical language" and had reached "an agreement in principle." (Carney, 7/26)

The Hill:Mnuchin: It 'Wouldn't Be Fair To Use Taxpayer Dollars To Pay More People To Sit Home'Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin took a hard line Sunday against the $600 increase in unemployment benefits that was a part of the last coronavirus relief measure, saying, It just wouldnt be fair to use taxpayer dollars to pay more people to sit home than they would working and get a job. GOP lawmakers have taken a hard line against theenhancement as they negotiate with the White House over a new relief measure. The initial bill won blowback from Republicans who said some people would make more money not working than going to work. (Budryk, 7/26)

The New York Times:Trump Officials Float Idea Of Narrow Bill To Extend Unemployment BenefitsTop Trump administration officials proposed on Sunday potentially short circuiting free-ranging stimulus talks with Democrats to rush through a much narrower bill prioritizing an extension of federal unemployment benefits that are set to expire this week for millions of Americans. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, said he would now like to see lawmakers act this week to extend and alter the unemployment program, give tax credits to businesses to help ease reopening costs and grant employers new liability protections while setting aside a long list of other objectives, including Democrats priorities. (Fandos and Cochrane, 7/26)

AP:White House Pushes Narrow Virus Aid; Pelosi Blasts GOP DelayHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday assailed Republican disarray over a new pandemic relief package as the White House suggested a narrower effort might be necessary, at least for now. The California Democrat panned the Trump administrations desire to trim an expiring temporary federal unemployment benefit from $600 weekly to about 70% of pre-pandemic wages. The reason we had $600 was its simplicity, she said from the Capitol. (Mascaro and Superville, 7/26)

The New York Times:Fires And Pepper Spray In Seattle As Police Protests Widen Across U.S.Weeks of violent clashes between federal agents and protesters in Portland, Ore., galvanized thousands of people to march through the streets of American cities on Saturday, injecting new life into protests that had largely waned in recent weeks. One of the most intense protests was in Seattle, where a day of demonstrations focused on police violence left a trail of broken windows and people flushing pepper spray from their eyes. At least 45 protesters had been arrested as of early evening, and both protesters and police officers suffered injuries. (Baker and Bogel-Burroughs, 7/25)

AP:Police And Protesters Clash In Violent Weekend Across The USProtests took a violent turn in several U.S. cities over the weekend with demonstrators squaring off against federal agents outside a courthouse in Portland, Oregon, forcing police in Seattle to retreat into a station house and setting fire to vehicles in California and Virginia. A protest against police violence in Austin, Texas, turned deadly when a witness says the driver of a car that drove through a crowd of marchers opened fire on an armed demonstrator who approached the vehicle. And someone was shot and wounded in Aurora, Colorado, after a car drove through a protest there, authorities said. (Martin, 7/26)

Reuters:Seattle Black Lives Matter Clashes Spark 45 Arrests, 21 Police InjuredDozens were arrested and many police injured in clashes around Seattles biggest Black Lives Matter protest in weeks on Saturday, police said, with a renewed energy sparked by violent clashes between activists and federal agents in nearby Portland, Oregon. Police said officers used non-lethal weapons in attempts to disperse the thousands of marchers in the late afternoon after some protesters set fire to the construction site for a King County juvenile detention facility and courthouse. By 10 p.m., police had made 45 arrests in connection with todays riot in the East Precinct, the Seattle Police wrote in a Twitter post. Scruggs, 7/25)

The New York Times:Hurricanes Choice For Texans: Shelter From The Virus Or The StormBartt Howes boat was his refuge from the pandemic. Battling diabetes and H.I.V., he knew that catching the coronavirus as well could kill him, so he had been living alone on the docked boat for three months. Then Hurricane Hanna began to slam the Texas coast on Saturday, forcing Mr. Howe to trade one deadly menace for another: To avoid injury or death in the hurricane, he had to risk infection ashore. I had managed to stay safe all this time, but the storm kicked me out of my boat, he said with a hint of resignation. Now here I am, back on land, on borrowed time. (Sandoval, 7/26)

AP:Tropical Storm Hanna Drenches South Texas Amid Virus CrisisA day after roaring ashore as a hurricane, Hanna lashed the Texas Gulf Coast on Sunday with high winds and drenching rains that destroyed boats, flooded streets and knocked out power across a region already reeling from a surge in coronavirus cases. Downgraded to a tropical storm, Hanna passed over the U.S.-Mexico border with winds near 50 mph (85 kph), the National Hurricane Center said. It unloaded more than 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain on parts of South Texas and northeastern Mexico. Border communities whose health care systems were already strained by COVID-19 cases with some patients being airlifted to larger cities found themselves under siege from the first hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic season. There were no immediate reports of any deaths on either side of the border. (Mone and Merchant, 7/26)

The Washington Post:Tropical Storm Hanna Unloading Flooding Rains In South TexasOn Sunday evening, Hanna continued its march southwest as a tropical depression, slipping into Mexico while still lashing the Rio Grande Valley with prolific rainfall. The direct strike by Hanna comes at a time when the Lone Star State is grappling with a spike in coronavirus cases. (Cappucci, Samenow and Freedman, 7/26)

The New York Times:FEMA Sends Faulty Protective Gear To Nursing Homes Battling VirusExpired surgical masks. Isolation gowns that resemble oversize trash bags. Extra-small gloves that are all but useless for the typical health workers hands. Nursing home employees across the country have been dismayed by what theyve found when theyve opened boxes of protective medical gear sent by the federal government, part of a $134 million effort to provide facilities a 14-day supply of equipment considered critical for shielding their vulnerable residents from the coronavirus. (Jacobs, 7/24)

The Washington Post:Sen. Hawley Lays Down New Antiabortion Marker For Supreme Court NomineesSen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he would not support any nominee for the Supreme Court unless they had publicly stated before their nomination that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established federal protection for abortion, was wrongly decided. I will vote only for those Supreme Court nominees who have explicitly acknowledged that Roe v. Wade is wrongly decided, Hawley said in an interview with TheWashington Post. By explicitly acknowledged, I mean on therecord and before they were nominated. (Costa, 7/26)

Politico:Trump Administration Invests $472M More In Moderna Vaccine CandidateThe Trump administration is going to pump another $472 million into expanding Modernas clinical trial to test the safety and efficacy of its coronavirus vaccine candidate. What happened: Moderna announced Sunday that the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, known as BARDA, is pouring the additional dollars the day before the phase three trial of the vaccine candidate is slated to start. (Roubein, 7/26)

Reuters:Moderna Gets Further $472 Million U.S. Award For Coronavirus Vaccine DevelopmentThe U.S.-based drug maker said the additional funding will support its late-stage clinical development including the expanded Phase 3 study of Modernas vaccine candidate. In April, Moderna had received $483 million from the U.S. federal agency that funds disease-fighting technology, when the experimental vaccine was in an early-stage trial conducted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. (7/26)

The Hill:Meadows Says White House Is 'Hopeful' It Can Announce New Coronavirus Therapies 'In The Coming Days'White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Sunday that the administration is hopeful it can announce new therapies to treat the coronavirus in the coming days. Meadows told ABCs This Week that the White House has been working around the clock,with a focuson COVID-19 therapeutics, vaccines and mitigation therapies.The president has been very clear whatever amount of money and whatever amount of time needs to be invested, were doing that, the White House chief of staff said. (Coleman, 7/26)

The Hill:Azar: If We Wear Masks, We Can Avoid Further ShutdownsHealth and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Sunday that widespread social distancing and mask usage would eliminate the need for resuming shutdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic. If we wear our masks we can avoid further shutdowns but if we dont that will be the consequence, Azar said Sunday on CBS Face the Nation. (Budryk, 7/26)

Politico:Azar Blames Testing Delays On StatesHHS Secretary Alex Azar Sunday blamed the current delays in coronavirus testing on the states, which he said have been too slow to spend federal dollars to boost the countrys testing amid the virus's spread. The Trump administration has frequently sought to put the responsibility for the coronavirus response on governors and local officials, even as many public health officials as well as governors have called for a coordinated national emergency response. (Roubein, 7/26)

Politico:U.S. Testing Czar: Everyone Who 'Needs' A Covid-19 Test Can Get OneAdmiral Brett Giroir, the Trump administration coronavirus testing czar, said that anyone who needs a coronavirus test can get one but he acknowledged that the average turnaround time for tests is too long as states smash records for numbers of cases. Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," he pushed back at former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney who earlier this month called his familys difficulties obtaining tests promptly inexcusable" this many months into the pandemic. (Roubein, 7/26)

The Hill:Ex-CDC Director On US, COVID-19: 'We Are A Laggard'Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden on Sunday said the U.S. had been a laggard in addressing the coronavirus pandemic, specifically pointing to lack of centralized information. Ill be frank, we are a laggard, Frieden said on Fox News Sunday. We are one of the top in the world in terms of the cumulative death rate unlike many other countries that have high death rates, ours is continuing to increase. (Budryk, 7/26)

The Hill:CDC: Even Mild Coronavirus Symptoms Can Persist For WeeksCOVID-19 can result in prolonged illness even in people with mild symptoms, including young adults, according to a newanalysisreleased Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).It has been known that people severely ill after contracting COVID-19 can stay sick for several weeks. But less has been known about theeffects of the disease on people with milder symptoms who dont require hospitalization. (Hellmann, 7/24)

Stat:Covid-19 Vaccines May Cause Mild Side Effects, Experts SayWhile the world awaits the results of large clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccines, experts say the data so far suggest one important possibility: The vaccines may carry a bit of a kick. In vaccine parlance, they appear to be reactogenic, meaning they have induced short-term discomfort in a percentage of the people who have received them in clinical trials. This kind of discomfort includes headache, sore arms, fatigue, chills, and fever. As long as the side effects of eventual Covid-19 vaccines are transient and not severe, these would not be sources of alarm in fact, they may be signals of an immune system lurching into gear. (Branswell, 7/27)

The New York Times:Your Coronavirus Antibodies Are Disappearing. Should You Care?Your blood carries the memory of every pathogen youve ever encountered. If youve been infected with the coronavirus, your body most likely remembers that, too. Antibodies are the legacy of that encounter. Why, then, have so many people stricken by the virus discovered that they dont seem to have antibodies? Blame the tests. (Mandavilli, 7/26)

The Wall Street Journal:A Big Unknown In Covid-19 Vaccine Development: How Long Will Protection Last?If any of the most-advanced Covid-19 vaccines prove to work safely, they may protect people for months or years rather than the rest of their lives, according to emerging science and health experts. Only a handful of vaccines generate lifetime immunity for most people, such as the ones for measles, a viral infection that naturally produces lifelong immunity. Experts caution against expectations of such longevity for Covid-19, citing experience with other respiratory viruses plus emerging data on the longevity of the antibodies that can prevent the virus from entering human cells and replicating. (Hopkins, Hernandez and Loftus, 7/26)

The Washington Post:Coronavirus Vaccine Trials Aim To Include The Black And Hispanic CommunitiesEach fall, the Rev. Rob Newells urges the congregation at Imani Community Church in Oakland, Calif., to get a flu shot. He builds bridges everyday between the countrys most vulnerable, marginalized communities and the medical system, defusing suspicion about HIV prevention treatments and educating people about medical research. He prods health-care leaders to think harder about their messengers: Dont send a white doctor to tell black people what they need to do for their own good. But with the first massive coronavirus vaccine trial in people set to start Monday, Newells finds himself in an unfamiliar place: on the fence about what to tell his colleagues, his community, his cousins. Biomedical research, Newells knows, is a long and painstaking process and he is concerned about a vaccine campaign that seems so narrowly focused on speed. (Johnson, 7/26)

Stat:Covid-19 Surge Helps AI Researchers Amass Lung ScansAt first, the images of lungs infected by the novel coronavirus were hard to come by. It was early in the pandemic, and Joseph Paul Cohen, a researcher at the University of Montreal, was trying to stockpile radiology scans to train an artificial intelligence model to recognize warning signs of severe illness. With so few images available, the work was next to impossible. But in recent weeks, the resurgence of Covid-19 in the U.S. and other hotspots has solved that problem, allowing him to amass hundreds of lung scans from clinical reports published around the world. (Ross, 7/27)

The New York Times:Corporate Insiders Pocket $1 Billion In Rush For Coronavirus VaccineOn June 26, a small South San Francisco company called Vaxart made a surprise announcement: A coronavirus vaccine it was working on had been selected by the U.S. government to be part of Operation Warp Speed, the flagship federal initiative to quickly develop drugs to combat Covid-19. Vaxarts shares soared. Company insiders, who weeks earlier had received stock options worth a few million dollars, saw the value of those awards increase sixfold. And a hedge fund that partly controlled the company walked away with more than $200 million in instant profits. (Gelles and Drucker, 7/25)

The Washington Post:ADHD Video Game Treatment Approved By FDACan a video game help children struggling with ADHD? That question inspired hopeful headlines last month after the Food and Drug Administration permitted marketing of the first digital game that may be prescribed to treat children ages 8 to 12 who have been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. In EndeavorRx, designed for iPhones and iPads, children guide an avatar surfing through molten lava and an icy river, dodging fires and icebergs while grabbing flying objects. The game is not yet available for purchase, nor has a price been released, but its Boston-based developer, Akili Interactive Labs, may now feature its unique status in ads and pursue coverage by insurance plans. (Ellison, 7/26)

CIDRAP:Study Finds No Transmission Of COVID-19 From Moms To NewbornsA study yesterday in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health found no evidence of COVID-19 transmission between 120 babies born to mothers with COVID-19, even after 2 weeks of breastfeeding with appropriate hygiene precautions. The findings led the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to change its guidance on infants and COVID-19positive mothers. The guidelines now recommend that newborns "room-in" with infected others after delivery if proper hygiene precautions are taken, including wearing a mask when appropriate and practicing hand hygiene. (7/24)

CIDRAP:Pilot Study Evaluates Use Of Dogs For SARS-CoV-2 DetectionA small pilot study suggests trained scent-detection dogs have the potential to be used for mass detection of people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, German researchers reported yesterday in BMC Infectious Diseases. In the study, eight dogs were trained for 1 week to detect SARS-CoV-2 from saliva or tracheobronchial secretions of patients infected with the virus. During the training, dogs were presented with positive and negative samples (confirmed by RT-PCR tests) using a device with seven scent holes with tubes leading to metal containers that held the samples. Only one hole had a container with a positive sample, and the other six had containers with control samples. After a week, the researchers conducted a double-blind, randomized controlled trial. (7/24)

AP:US Agency Vows Steps To Address COVID-19 InequalitiesIf Black, Hispanic and Native Americans are hospitalized and killed by the coronavirus at far higher rates than others, shouldnt the government count them as high risk for serious illness? That seemingly simple question has been mulled by federal health officials for months. And so far the answer is no. But federal public health officials have released a new strategy that vows to improve data collection and take steps to address stark inequalities in how the disease is affecting Americans. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stress that the disproportionately high impact on certain minority groups is not driven by genetics. (Stobbe, 7/25)

USA Today:Diabetes And COVID: Coronavirus Highlights America's Health ProblemsDr. Anne Peters splits her mostly virtual work-week between a diabetes clinic on the west side of Los Angeles and one on the east side of the sprawling city.Three days a week she treats people whose diabetes is well controlled. They have insurance, so they can afford the newest medications and blood monitoring devices. They can exercise and eat well. Those generally more affluent West LA patients who've gotten COVID-19 have developed mild to moderate symptoms feeling miserable, she said but treatable, with close follow-up at home. ... On the other two days of her work week, it's a different story. (Weintraub, 7/27)

The New York Times:In Era Of Sickness, Doctors Prescribe Unusual Cure: VotingThe sign is easy to miss in the waiting room of the emergency department at Massachusetts General Hospital, next to the reception desk and a hand sanitizer pump. Register to vote here, it says, above an iPad attached to a podium. The kiosk has stood there since November, before the pandemic began and stayed there through the worst weeks of April, when 12 gasping patients were put on ventilators during a single grueling 12-hour shift. Now, as the number of coronavirus patients has slowed to a trickle, Dr. Alister Martin, the 31-year-old emergency room doctor who built the kiosk, is determined to keep trying to register voters. (Stockman, 7/25)

NPR:Gene Therapy Sees Encouraging Success In Child With Duchenne Muscular DystrophyThis is the story of a fatal genetic disease, a tenacious scientist and a family that never lost hope. Conner Curran was 4 years old when he was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic disease that causes muscles to waste away. Conner's mother, Jessica Curran, remembers some advice she got from the doctor who made that 2015 diagnosis: "Take your son home, love him, take him on trips while he's walking, give him a good life and enjoy him because there are really not many options right now." (Hamilton, 7/27)

NPR:Could A Flu Shot Reduce Your Alzheimer's Risk?For years, public health officials have been trying to dispel the myth that people who get a flu shot are more likely to get Alzheimer's disease. They are not. And now there is evidence that vaccines that protect against the flu and pneumonia may actually protect people from Alzheimer's, too. The evidence comes from two studies presented Monday at this year's Alzheimer's Association International Conference, which is being held as a virtual event. (Hamilton, 7/27)

The Washington Post:References To White Men Still Dominate College Biology Textbooks, Survey SaysCharles Darwin. Carolus Linnaeus. Gregor Mendel. Theyre all men. Theyre all white. And their names appear in every biology book included in a new analysis of college textbooks. According to the survey, mentions of white men still dominate biology textbooks despite growing recognition in other media of the scientific contributions of women and people of color. The good news, the researchers say: Scientists in textbooks are getting more diverse. The bad news: If diversification continues at its current pace, it will take another 500 years for mentions of black/African American scientists to accurately reflect the number of black college biology students. (Brookshire, 7/26)

NPR:ADA At 30: 'We Are Not The Ones That Need To Change'Before the Americans with Disabilities Act granted people with disabilities greater protection and accessibility, a little-known law set the groundwork. In 1977, Judy Heumann helped lead a peaceful protest that forced the government to follow through with Section 504. As part of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, the law would force hospitals, universities and other public spaces that received federal money, to remove barriers to accessibility for all Americans. But its implementation was long delayed over the costs necessary to retrofit buildings to comply with the law. (Shapiro and Bowman, 7/26)

AP:TV Reporter Credits Viewer With Noticing Cancerous LumpA television news reporter in Florida is crediting an eagle-eyed viewer for noticing a lump on her neck and emailing her that she should get it checked out. Victoria Price, a reporter for WFLA in Tampa, followed the advice and was diagnosed with cancer. Price tweeted that she is undergoing surgery on Monday to remove the tumor, her thyroid and a couple of lymph nodes. (7/26)

Politico:Sinclair To Delay Segment Featuring 'Plandemic' Conspiracy TheorySinclair Broadcasting on Saturday said it will delay its scheduled airing of a news segment featuring a viral conspiracy theory surrounding Anthony Faucis role in the Covid-19 pandemic.America This Week host Eric Bolling was scheduled to air an interview with Judy Mikovits, a medical researcher featured in the Plandemic video that claims Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, was responsible for the creation of the coronavirus, Media Matters reported. (Eliza Weaver, 7/25)

The Wall Street Journal:Sinclair Postpones Controversial Show About CoronavirusSinclair Broadcast Group Inc., the owner of 191 television stations across the U.S., delayed the airing of an interview about the alleged origins of the coronavirus pandemic that drew widespread criticism on social media. An episode of America This Week, which was slated to air over the weekend, features an interview with medical researcher Judy Mikovits, who has claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the governments top infectious-disease expert, helped manufacture the coronavirus and spread it to China. Dr. Mikovitss claims have previously attracted attention in the documentary Plandemic, which was earlier pulled from major online platforms including Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.s YouTube. (Rizzo, 7/26)

AP:Workers Praise Disney Virus Safety, But Will Visitors Come?Every week, it seems, Kaila Barker, her husband and their five children change their minds about whether to travel from their home in Connecticut to Floridas Walt Disney World as planned in September. On the one hand, the lack of crowds means more opportunities to go on rides without long waits. On the other hand, Connecticut and Florida have implemented pandemic-related quarantines for each others residents and visitors, and the Barkers worry whether the Disney magic will get lost with mandatory mask-wearing for visitors and workers, temperature checks and no parades, fireworks shows or up-close meet-and-greets with costumed characters. (Schneider, 7/26)

The Wall Street Journal:Major Truck-Stop Chains Will Require Drivers To Use Face MasksThe biggest U.S. truck-stop operators will require customers to wear masks starting next week, joining major retailers, restaurants and airlines in rolling out policies aimed at reducing the spread of coronavirus. Pilot Co., which operates 780 travel centers under the Pilot Flying J and other brands, said its mandate will take effect July 28. Similar policies kick in July 29 at Loves Travel Stops & Country Stores Inc. and TravelCenters of America Inc. sites. (Smith, 7/24)

USA Today:Walmart Mask Incident In Minnesota: Pair With Swastikas Banned A YearA Minnesota man and woman who wore face masks with swastikas on them in an incident captured on video have been banned fromWalmart storesnationwide for at least a year.The video, posted to Facebook on Saturday byRaphaela Mueller, shows a man and woman in a Walmart in Marshall, Minnesota, wearing red face coverings with swastikas. The woman flips off the camera while the man checks out groceries. (Culver, 7/26)

AP:Some US Police Resist Enforcing Coronavirus Mask MandatesLang Holland, the chief of police in tiny Marshall, Arkansas, said he thinks the threat of the coronavirus has been overstated and only wears a face mask if hes inside a business that requires them. He doesnt make his officers wear them either. So the day after Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed an order requiring masks to be worn in public throughout Arkansas, Holland made it clear his department wasnt going to enforce the mandate in the Ozarks town of about 1,300, calling it an unconstitutional overreach. (DeMillo, 7/26)

AP:Amid Virus, Uncertainty, Parents Decide How To School KidsJoshua Claybourn is leaning toward sending his kindergarten daughter to in-person classes at a private school next month. Holly Davis sixth-grade daughter will learn online, though the family has not yet decided what to do for school for a teenage daughter who requires special accommodations for hearing problems and dyslexia and another whos starting college. As they decide how their children will learn this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic, parents are anxiously weighing the benefits of in-person instruction against the risks that schools could shut their doors again or that their children could contract the virus and pass it on. (Webber and Groves, 7/26)

The Hill:McEnany Likens Schools To 'Essential Places Of Business' In Push For ReopeningThe White House would support sending children back to school even if future studies showed kids transmitCOVID-19 at a higher rate than currently known, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Friday, arguing schools are "essential places of business." McEnany fielded multiple questions from reporters about President Trump's push for a return to in-person learning this fall even as he cancels some events for the Republican National Convention due to concerns about holding a mass gathering during the pandemic. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, also said Friday it's "an open question" how rapidly children under the age of 10 spread the virus. (Samuels, 7/24)

AP:Colleges Plan For Virus Testing, But Strategies Vary WidelyFor students heading to Colby College in Maine this fall, coronavirus testing is expected to be a routine part of campus life. All students will be required to provide a nasal swab every other day for two weeks, and then twice a week after that. All told, the college says it will provide 85,000 tests, nearly as many as the entire state of Maine has since the pandemic started. Colby, a private school of 2,000 students, joins a growing number of colleges announcing aggressive testing plans to catch and isolate COVID-19 cases before they spread. Harvard University says all students living on campus will be tested when they arrive and then three times a week. Boston University plans to test most students at least once a week. (Binkley, 7/26)

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First Edition: July 27, 2020 - Kaiser Health News

Why The Founder Of TOMS Shoes Wants You To Learn Ten New Habits – Forbes

Posted on August 3, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Blake Mycoskie, co-founder of Madefor

The story of Blake Mycoskie starting TOMS Shoes is well known in entrepreneurial circles.While many would be content after building a half billion-dollar business, Blake is not one of them.After experiencing his own burnout after TOMS, Blake was inspired to start Madefor, a 10-month program where people learn a new habit or practice each month.We sat down to talk about the inspiration for Madefor and why this focus on well-being is more important than ever.

Dave Knox:With Madefor, you are in the middle of building your second business.What is the biggest lesson you took away from building TOMS that you are applying to Madefor?

Blake Mycoskie: I think the biggest thing that I took away is really when you're focused on building a business that has a big mission and specifically one that can serve so many people, it's really easy to build incredible culture in your company and attract amazing talent as a result. At first, when I was trying to put together this kind of dream team of scientists on human behavior, I thought it was going to be really challenging to do because they are very busy and get a lot of requests for their time and attention. But when we told them that our mission was to eliminate some of the suffering that comes from modern living, and use the science that they have studied in their lab to help people sleep better, and eat better, and feel better, and be more connected and more grateful, every single one of them just signed on immediately. So many of these scientists dedicated their lives to something very specific.How do you optimize the perfect night's sleep.How do you really declutter your life, both in your work life and in your personal life, in a way that frees your mind up to be more creative? Giving them the opportunity to get that science out of their labs and into the hands of people in a way that they can not only learn these habits, but more importantly, sustain them, everyone jumped on. I think I learned that because that was the same case with TOMS, when we said," We're going to sell shoes so that we can give shoes to children in need," we had some of the top talent in the country join the company. I think having a big mission and especially one that hits home is an incredible way to build the necessary talent for a new startup.

Knox:Building a company is a roller coaster. What was the impetus that had you want to jump back on and build a second venture?

Mycoskie:After spending over a decade building TOMS to a half a billion- dollar business and giving 96 million children's shoes, I felt pretty dang content with the entrepreneur business aspect of my life. I wasn't really thinking that I was going to jump back into a startup or a business, at least until my kids went to college. But what happened was is I had a deeply profound, personal experience that radically changed my life, and my mental health, and my wellbeing, and my physical health, and so much so that my only response out of the gratitude from my experience was to share this with as many people as possible. In doing that, I developed this Madefor program, which is a 10- month program where people learn a new habit and practice, one a month for 10 months. And they are the exact habits and practices I learned from some of the top scientists in the world. I just felt like I had to share it, and that turned into a new business.

Knox:How did you go about finding those experts and the habits that inspired Madefor in the first place?

Mycoskie:I was on this journey to really learn from the best minds in science, around how people would really live their best life, who's really flourishing and why, and most particularly why I wasn't feeling that way. I had all the kind of markers of success, an incredible business, helped millions of kids around the world, a great family and friends. But in 2017, I found myself quite burned out and actually diagnosed with mild depression. As I looked deep into it, what I recognized was there were a lot of these basic things from a physical and mental and even purposeful level that I kind of put on the back burner when I was charging and working so hard in building TOMS. And at that same time, I met a gentleman who ultimately became my business partner, named Pat Dossett, and he was a Navy Seal for nine years and had a very specific focus on after his time on the teams of really human potential and flourishing. When I talked to him about some of my own struggles, he and I together, agreed to reach out to the scientific community. The first person we reached out to was a neuroscientist at Stanford named Andrew Huberman who really opened our eyes to this idea of a fixed mindset versus growth mindset, and how the neuroplasticity in your brain can allow you to learn and sustain new habits that will make a huge difference in your life, no matter how old you are. The other thing that Andrew really helped us do is identify the other top scientists studying really critical habits like human connection, gratitude, breath work, sleep, all around the country. We just went on this one-year-long research and experimentation phase where we not only tested these practices on ourselves, but really learned from these scientists. Ultimately, after doing extensive research for over a year, we found that there weren't 12 things, there were only 10. So the Madefor program is only 10 months. And with those 10 things, we spend a lot of time testing on ourselves and with beta groups to really understand what is the proper order. And the order is really set to coincide with neuroplasticity and how you can not only learn but sustain these habits. Some people would say they sequentially get harder. I actually think that you are just priming your brain so that you can take on different ones in the order that they go. But ultimately, they end with helping all of our members answer this question that I believe all of us answer or want to answer at some point in our life, and that is what am I made for? And that's where the name Madefor comes from.

Knox:One of the most fascinating parts of the program is the fact that while everything in the world is going digital, you guys chose to go analog. What drove that choice?

Mycoskie:The answer is science. My business partner, Pat Dossett, is the most non- bullshit guy you'll ever meat. He is just allergic to anything that feels like a fad, or a trend, or anything like that. While there are huge trends in using digital devices to tell us our heart rates and our sleep and all of these things, what the science showed was it is extremely difficult to learn and sustain a new habit if you're constantly digitally distracted. We decided to make our program completely analog by sending you a kit once a month. And in that kit, you are going to learn one basic thing. Now, these are not crazy, bio-hacking, out-there stuff. This is stuff like, how can you absolutely know that you're doing everything possible, in a very simple way, to optimize and get the perfect amount of sleep? The right amount of deep sleep and the right amount REM sleep where you are looking at how do you wake up feeling more refreshed than you've ever felt in your life? And why, scientifically is that so important for your longevity and your mental clarity, and your mood? The thing is, is we decided that it was going to be more expensive, and it was going to take more time, but ultimately we're all about effectiveness. And the most effective way to help someone learn a new habit or practice and sustain it is to eliminate the digital distraction from the program. Once you sign up, there's very little digital interaction beyond that, and everything that you need comes in the box each month. In that box, we have the curated science. We take literally decades of science and curate it to about a 25 minute read that has been written by an incredible writer, who really can distill complex science into a very easy to understand concepts. The second thing is either one or two tools that Madefor has designed specifically for helping you adopt and learn that habit. And then the third thing in the box is your challenge card and your accountability measures so that you can really stay on-track during the month, as you learn that new habit and practice.

Knox:As you launched the business, what do you find is the spark for somebody signing up for Madefor?

Mycoskie:I think at some point, just like my own journey, is you need some form of a pain point. I don't think it necessarily needs to be a huge pain point like I was experiencing, mild depression and burnout, but it kind of is one of those things where you wake up one day and you're like," You know what? I really just don't sleep as well as I did when I was in my twenties, and it's getting worse as I get older. I don't really know what to do about it." Or," I always am dependent on that double espresso shot in the afternoon to give me energy and something innately just doesn't feel right on that. I feel like I'm running my adrenals and that's going to catch up with me." Or," I've been working so hard as an entrepreneur, or a CEO, or an executive that I've really lost touch with some of my closest friends. I really want to understand how that human connection and what are some very simple but effective ways that don't take a lot of time, but maybe will help me feel more connected, and that might help me feel better in my life?" It's all these little things that lead. It's usually not a big thing. We're trying to get to people early. The thing is, if we can help people develop these strong baselines that will really make them feel great and help them mentally and physically, and connect them more, and help them sleep better, and help their bodies move better, and get rid of those aches and pains, if we can do that, then they're less likely to go down this path of having what I would call a real mental health crisis.

Knox:With TOMS and now Madefor, your focus is on sparking positive change.What advice do you give to people on their companies authentically making a difference and not having it come off like a marketing play?

Mycoskie:I think so many companies and CEOs get this totally wrong, to be honest. You already kind of answered the question by using the word authentic. That word gets thrown around a lot, so I am sometimes hesitant to use it, but truly I haven't found a better word that better describes how a company can integrate a cause or a mission into their business. It has to be authentic. Usually, the way it is most authentic is if it comes from a personal experience that the CEO or the founder had. So obviously TOMS, I saw many children who were suffering from not having shoes in South America, and that personal story is what led to the initial growth of TOMS, and so many people connecting to the brand and the one- for- one movement. Now, my experience with having some burnout and dealing with the challenges of modern living and looking to science to help me feel better, is how we can authentically share that our mission is taken from a personal experience that wants to be shared with the world. And so that's the exact same type of situation. I really think that it's so critical that there's that personal story, that personal connection, from the leader of the organization, if you're going to integrate a cause or a mission into your business.

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Why The Founder Of TOMS Shoes Wants You To Learn Ten New Habits - Forbes

Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC): Farm Like The World Depends On It – CleanTechnica

Posted on July 25, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Agriculture

Published on July 24th, 2020 | by Andrea Bertoli

July 24th, 2020 by Andrea Bertoli

If you spend any time grocery shopping, you have probably noticed a proliferation of product labels organic, keto, vegan, made with whole grains, and more. Some of these labels have strict standards, some do not. And there is soon going to be a new label on products that means so much more: in 2020 were likely to see the label ROC added to products, and its a really good move.

ROC stands for Regenerative Organic Certification, and as a climate-smart consumer, its important for you to learn more about the nuances between this new label and regular organic.

Regenerative, as in healing, nourishing, and building; supportive of life cycles and biodiversity, and fair for humans and better for animals. The term was created in 2018 by the Rodale Institute, and is the certification now overseen by the Regenerative Organic Alliance.

So-called conventional agriculture, which is fossil-fuel dependent and relies heavily on chemical inputs to fertilize and protect the crops, can damage soil by depleting it of nutrients and damaging the very important soil microbiome. Heavy use of chemicals can also create superbugs, and these chemicals contribute to groundwater and waterway contamination (see, for example, the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico).

Organic agriculture is great: its better for the planet and people because farmers do not rely on chemical-intensive inputs to manage their crops. It reduces the pesticide/herbicide exposure risk to farmworkers, reduces consumers exposure to pesticides/herbicides, and is often less damaging to soils and the localized ecosystem. Organic certification ensures that producers follow strict guidelines about the seeds, the soil amendments and inputs, the crops themselves, as well as the processing facilities.

And yet, when I first started farming, I was shocked to learn that many organic amendments include things like blood, feather, and bone meal waste products made with dead animals and their by-products. Not only is this super gross, it also supports the meat industries by making the waste products into a valuable commodity.

Most importantly, however, is that many organic-certified inputs do not actually improve the soil. While organic is better, it is not always proactively building, nourishing, and supporting the ecosystem in a holistic way. This is the gap that regenerative agriculture seeks to ameliorate. As weve learned more in recent years about the massive worlds of the microbiomesof land and sea, its become clear that the soil microbiome is more important than we thought.

Wheat fields in Nepal. Photo by Kakapoudel7 / CC BY-SA 4.0 license, via from Wikimedia Commons.

Soil is so much more than the dirt under our feet: its a living medium that is full of microorganisms and organic matter, and it helps support the plants. These microorganisms are the basis of life in healthy soils, and building a healthier planet begins by improving the health of the soils. In an undisturbed ecosystem, this natural cycling of nutrients ensures longevity of the ecosystem when we till and plant and dig and fertilize, we lose the connection to this natural cycle, and thus damage the health of the soil.

As I wrote in an article on our former site, Planetsave, soils are so often thought to be just a blank medium. However, soils are actually teeming with life of bacterial and fungal origin. Healthy soilssupport life on this planet in many ways, including filtering and regulating water flow into surface water; sustaining plants and animals; filtering pollutants, cycling nutrients like carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus; and giving structure to the land, ensuring that the trees, topsoil and even human structures maintain their place on the land. But perhaps most importantly, when soils are healthy, they store huge amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere. But our current methods of agriculture have left us with degraded soils.

Healthy soils are extremely important, both for the sustainability of crop growth and nutrition, but also because truly healthy soils act as large carbon sinks for our increasingly carbon-rich atmosphere (and ICYMI, this is a big problem). The healthier our soils are, the more carbon they can absorb from the atmosphere.

The science is clear: soil health is intrinsic to climate health. According the the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO):

Agricultural soils are among the planets largest reservoirs of carbon and hold potential for expanded carbon sequestration (CS), and thus provide a prospective way of mitigating the increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2. It isestimated that soils can sequester around 20 Pg C in 25 years, more than 10 % of the anthropogenic emissions.

Building a better agricultural system thats focused on rebuilding our soils, providing better food, and improving livelihoods is long overdue.

Another issue thats important to consider is that farmers and ranchers are not incentivized to improve the soil often they are working to produce as much food as possible, and they might not have the time nor have the inclination to do the intense work of cover cropping, composting, and creating/adding the plans and soil amendments that will improve their crops in the long term.

If youve never thought about the importance of soil before, this is your warning light! According to some reports, we have only 60 years of functional topsoil left. Topsoil is very limited, and we need to undertake rapid and massive transformation to protect whats left and make the effort to build more.

ROC was established in 2017 by a group of farmers, business leaders, and experts in soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness now known as the Regenerative Organic Collective. As written on their site: We exist to heal a broken system, repair a damaged planet, and empower farmers and eaters to create a better future through better farming. Elsewhere on the site, they explain their goal as birthing a new standard to elevate farming around the world.

They have developed a very specific process by which producers can become certified, and it dovetails with existing certifications, like Organic certification or Demeter certification (the program that certifies biodynamic production). There are already lots of great brands on board, like Justins, Patagonia Provisions, Navitas Naturals, Dr. Bronners soaps, Natures Path organics, and of course, Rodale Institute, which has been talking about regenerative agricultural practices for years as the soil solution we need.

Its hard to argue with their vision for the world free of:

When organic first became a mainstream movement, it was derided as elitist, or superficial with the assumption that it was a silly project for wealthy elites, and that it wasnt actually going to help that much. But hopefully the above information can convince you this is not a political issue. Making a big shift away from chemical-intensive and fossil-fuel driven farming into a system that is holistic and regenerative is literally about saving the remaining soil we have and protecting the planet for generations of eaters to come.

Thankfully, bigger brands are paying attention to this important movement. General Mills announced in 2019 a huge commitment to regenerative agriculture, and if the movement continues and is supported by consumer, many other large companies will soon follow suit.

There is no official timeline yet, but hopefully well start to see this important label in the final months of 2020.

Tags: Agriculture, farming, farms, general mills, Patagonia, regenerative Organic Certification, Regenerative Organic Collective, Rodale Institute, soil microbiome, soils

Andrea Bertoli I'm a marketing and sales professional focused on mission-driven businesses, and currently I manage Sales and Partnerships for CleanTechnica. I'm also a journalist, green investor, wellness educator, surfer, and yogi. Find delicious food and wellness stuff on my Instagram @VibrantWellness.

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