Anatomy of a powerhouse: Expectations at Ohio State now go beyond the Big Ten and Rose Bowl – Suburbanite

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Editors note: How did Ohio State football become a Buckeye Nation of true believers? In a 14-part series, we explore aspects that shaped OSUs evolution from Saturday afternoon diversion to near-religious experience. Today: Chase

Not even two Heisman Trophies can bookend the regret that slides off the shelf of Archie Griffins most painful Pasadena memory, when undefeated Ohio State lost to underdog UCLA in the 1976 Rose Bowl, costing the Buckeyes a national championship.

"Thats the one that haunts me," Griffin said, grimacing more from the recollection of that 23-10 loss than from the sore back that now hampers his golf game.

The Buckeyes were ranked No. 1 in both the Associated Press and United Press International polls, had defeated the Bruins 41-20 in the Los Angeles Coliseum earlier in the season and entered the New Years Day game as two-touchdown favorites.

Yet despite coming up short again Griffin finished 1-3 in Rose Bowls, with two lost chances at national titles the former tailback would not describe 1975 as a failed season just because the Buckeyes were not voted No. 1.

"It cant be national championship or bust," he said.

It cant? Try telling that to Ohio State fans too young to recall when a successful season could be defined by a win over Michigan and playing in the Rose Bowl. These days, anything short of a College Football Playoff appearance, culminating in a national championship, leaves many fans, players and coaches feeling frustrated.

Before the Big Ten reinstituted football on Wednesday, Ohio State coach Ryan Day tweeted " we still have an opportunity to give our young men what they have worked so hard for: a chance to safely compete for a national championship this fall."

Woody Hayes did not think that way. The former OSU coach considered a national championship the outcome of a special season not the goal. Win the Big Ten and Rose Bowl and the chances of being voted poll champions were pretty good.

But there were no guarantees, which explains why Hayes and the next two Buckeyes coaches, Earle Bruce and John Cooper, focused their attention more on winning the conference than winning a national championship that was decided by media and coaches poll voters. During Hayes time, and before, voting to determine the "national champion" took place before the bowl games were played.

As Griffin explained it, "You could win your bowl game and might win the national championship, but it in the end it was still up to the voters."

Cooper learned that the hard way in 1996 the penultimate season before the Bowl Championship Series began when the Buckeyes lone blemish was a 13-9 loss to Michigan in The Slip game. Ohio State dropped from No. 2 to No. 4 in the polls, then defeated No. 2-ranked Arizona State 20-17 in the Rose Bowl.

Cooper hoped voters would bump the Buckeyes to No. 1, but OSU finished No. 2 to Florida after the Gators defeated No. 1 Florida State 52-20 in the Sugar Bowl.

"Im envious of the (playoff) system," the 83-year-old Cooper said. "I had a couple teams that, Im not saying they would have won it but they would have played for the national championship."

Cooper admitted, however, that such wishful thinking fails to consider context and a changing win-at-all-cost culture.

"Times have changed," he said. "The goal back then seemed like it was win your games, beat Michigan and go to the Rose Bowl. It used to be you win the Big Ten, youre going to play in the Rose Bowl.

"I coached at Oregon State and UCLA, and even out there the goal was to go to the Rose Bowl. Bowls were a reward for a good season. Later on, it became you had to win the Rose Bowl."

The BCS changed everything when it arrived in 1998, pitting No. 1 vs. No. 2 in a championship game that removed some subjectivity from the equation. Schools still had to be voted into the top two spots, but the title was decided on the field.

By the time Ben Hartsock arrived at Ohio State, in 1999, the tight end already had put most of the Rose Bowl mystique in his rearview mirror. He grew up listening to his father rave about "The Granddaddy of them All," but as a player, Hartsock knew there were bigger fish to fry.

"The importance of the Rose Bowl felt to me like something my dad focused on," Hartsock said. "I knew how big it was because I was raised in a house that taught that curriculum, but I transitioned away from it."

When Jim Tressel arrived at Ohio State in 2001, he immediately replaced "Rose Bowl" with "national title."

"When Tressel came in, the main focus was Michigan. It starts with beating Michigan, then winning the Big Ten and the national title," Hartsock said. "And winning the Big Ten was the only way to get to the national title. You could argue thats not the case today."

A team now can fail to win its regular-season conference championship and still win a national title, as Alabama did in 2011 (BCS) and 2017 (College Football Playoff). The playoff selection committee emphasizes that its only mission is to choose the four best teams.

Left unsaid is the reality that any team outside the top four and any bowl outside the two semifinals and championship game becomes an afterthought.

Its now all about making the playoff. Ohio State coach Urban Meyer in 2014 even gave a name to the quest: The Chase.

That doesnt mean coaches minimize conference championships. Meyer stressed in 2014 that "we wake up every day to compete for championships in November." But those conference titles are more a means to an end than the ultimate goal. In Ohio States case, the first job is to win the Big Ten East Division, which gets you into the conference championship game, then win in Indianapolis to hopefully earn a playoff berth.

As for the players, todays Buckeyes are more aware of the drive for a national championship than their predecessors. With 24/7 sports media, tuning out the playoff noise is impossible.

Of course, some things never change, no matter the ultimate goal.

In early August, when the Big Ten was adjusting its schedules to eliminate nonconference games during the coronavirus pandemic, OSU quarterback Justin Fields tweeted, "I dont care when we play Michigan, I just want to play them and beat the brakes off them."

roller@dispatch.com

@rollerCD

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Anatomy of a powerhouse: Expectations at Ohio State now go beyond the Big Ten and Rose Bowl - Suburbanite

Anatomy Of A Scandal is being adapted into a Netflix TV show – Cosmopolitan UK

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If there's one thing Netflix is good at (er, they're good at lots of things actually), it's adapting best selling books in TV shows. They did it with Mindhunter; they did it with You, and now they're doing it with Anatomy Of A Scandal.

The book by Sarah Vaughan, which came out in January 2018, tells the story of a high profile couple, whose marriage begins to unravel when he's accused of a heinous crime. Barrister Kate is prosecuting the case, and is not only convinced James is guilty, but also determined he'll go down. It's SUCH a good thriller. Here's everything you need to know about the Netflix adaptation, from release date to cast:

In September 2020, Deadline first announced an adaptation was in the works. Their report revealed Big Little Lies creator David E. Kelley and former House Of Cards showrunner Melissa James Gibson were collaborating to create the series, which will be directed by S.J. Clarkson of Succession and Jessica Jones fame.

The series will be six episodes, each lasting one hour.

Anatomy of a Scandal

6.55

Now this is mainly why we're so excited. The cast is STELLAR.

Sienna Miller will play Sophie, the Oxford graduate and mother of two who has her seemingly perfect life turned upside down by the scandal surrounding her husband, James.

Rupert Friend from Homeland and The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas will play James, the handsome, privileged and charismatic man, who works as a Westminster politician.

As for 'steely' Kate? Downtown Abbey's Lady Mary Crawley aka Michelle Dockery will take on the role of the barrister, who is experienced in sexual assault cases and sees this as the career move of a lifetime.

Getty Images

Hard to know. Filming in London hasn't yet begun, given the filming restrictions caused by coronavirus lockdown, so we could have a while to wait. But worth it!

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Anatomy Of A Scandal is being adapted into a Netflix TV show - Cosmopolitan UK

Reconstructing Kimberella The Disputed Anatomy in Detail – Discovery Institute

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Photo: Kimberella, by the paleobear from Lontananza, Loreto, Peru / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0).

Editors note: We are delighted to present a series of posts by paleontologist Gnter Bechly on the Ediacaran organismKimberella. If identified as an animal, it would predate the Cambrian explosion of bilaterian animal phyla as a kind of advance guard.The question is of interest for debates about evolution and arguments about intelligent design raised by Stephen Meyer, among others.Find the full series aboutKimberellahere.

In my opinion the third phase reconstruction ofKimberella, byFedonkin (2007b)and described here yesterday, is better supported by the fossil evidence than the new reconstruction ofIvantsov (2009). Not only is Fedonkin more likely correct concerning the head and feeding apparatus with a medium sized proboscis armed with two teeth. He also successfully addressed all the arguments that Ivantsov listed against a single shell. You can find a pretty decent life-reconstruction and animation ofKimberellaat thePalaeoZoowebsite.

With their revolutionary new interpretation ofKimberellaas a benthic bilaterian animal,Fedonkin & Waggoner (1997)first recognized the presence of a creeping ventral locomotory organ (foot), which was accepted by most subsequent authors (a notable exception wasDzik 2003).Fedonkin et al. (2007b)explicitly identified this structure as a true foot, possibly comparable in structure with that of monoplacophorans.Fedonkin et al. (2007b)also described fine transverse wrinkles on the sole of the foot, which they interpreted as transverse ventral musculature (compareSeilacher et al. 2003who likewise described the flat foot with a ring of segmental muscles, whose contraction upon death produced equidistant wrinkles). They suggested backward movement by peristaltic waves and also suggested that the foot was contracted in some specimens in a manner similar to modern limpets.

It was againFedonkin et al. (2007b)who first explicitly suggested the presence of a mantle and mantle cavity inKimberella.Ivantsov (2009)agreed, but consistently used the term mantle with quotation marks because he doubted a homology with the molluscanmantleor pallium, which is the technical term for their protruding dorsal body wall.

More recent authors all affirmed the presence of a mantle: For example,Gehling et al. (2014: fig. 9)mentioned that the serrate zone has been interpreted as a corrugated mantle frill overlying a wider central muscular foot.

According toWanninger & Wollensen (2019)Kimberellahas an elongated, slender foot surrounded by a mantle that is separated from the former by a circumpedal mantle cavity (also seeVinther 2015).

In the most recent textbook on invertebrate phylogeny, byGiribet & Edgecombe (2020), the authors say aboutKimberellas anatomy that the softer ventral side has been described as a sole and compared to a molluscan foot. The body is certainly zoned laterally, this zonation viewed as representing the foot and mantle separated by a groove in the mollusc model.

It is safe to say that since the redescription ofKimberellaas a benthic bilaterian animal, the functional interpretation of foot and mantle has met with a broad consensus among the specialists and represents one of the less controversial issues of its anatomy. However, what remains highly disputed is the question of the homology of these structures with the foot and mantle in modern mollusks.

According to esteemed Russian expert Mikhail Fedonkin,Kimberellahad a non-mineralized univalved shell with an elongated oval, shield-like outline (Fedonkin & Waggoner 1997, Fedonkin 2001,2003,Fedonkin et al. 2007b). Likewise, Fedonkin (1998, 2001) andWaggoner (1998)said thatKimberellabore a highly compaction-resistant structure that we interpret as a stiff but un-mineralized shell, andFedonkin (2003)specified that the elongated and high dorsal shell [was] made of flexible and rigid organic material.Fedonkin et al. (2007b)found that the outer surface of the dorsal side of the smaller specimens is covered with numerous round protuberances, uniformly spaced over the major part of the shell, which they interpreted as outgrowths, or bases of mineral spines, or as separate initial nodules of shell formation. This latter hypothesis might explain why these structures are not visible in the larger adult specimens. Finally,Fedonkin et al. (2007b)also recognized that small specimens often are strongly elongated, and suggested that these individuals represent a phase when the formation of the shell had not yet begun or was just incipient. They explained that the taphonomic varieties of the shell imprints clearly demonstrate that the shell was stiff, but thin and flexible, particularly in juveniles, which explains why stretched and laterally bent specimens are generally small.

Based on further new material, the other Russian expert Andrey Ivantsov (2009,2010b) suggested a new reconstruction with hard sclerites, probably of aragonite, rather than a complete consolidated shell. Because of the very different contracted and stretched morphs ofKimberella,Ivantsov (2009: pls I-II,2010b: pl. 1,2013) claimed that a rigid shell was not a possibility, and instead suggested a soft-bodied and extremely flexible organism with multiple dorsal mineralized sclerites. He said that many characters of the imprints contradict the hypothesis of a single shell, including the many stretched and strongly bent specimens. This is somewhat strange, because we have just seen thatFedonkin et al. (2007b)had already explained this phenomenon ontogenetically. Ivantsov also claimed that the absence of any growth lines is very much unlike molluscan shells, even thoughFedonkin et al. (2007b)suggested that the absence of any growth zonation in the shell structure suggests that the shell ofKimberellawas the homologue of the periostracum of later Mollusca. Again and again we find opposite conclusions about the same evidence. Finally, Ivantsov mentioned that the head possessed tubercles similar to the body and claimed that all these considerations leave no doubt thatKimberellahad no single dense shell.Ivantsov (2017)suggested that the dorsal body cover was armored with fine sclerites, apparently mineral, but rapidly dissolving after burial, but this taphonomic hypothesis does not explain why the tubercles are only visible in small specimens.

Most later authors followed the single shell interpretation of Fedonkin:Seilacher et al. (2003)mentioned that the dorsal shield, was soft enough to become deformed during burial.Scheltema & Schander (2006)said thatKimberellahad a single, stiff, unmineralized dorsal exoskeleton, which was formed by the mantle cuticle alone, although there may have been a zone of spines beneath the dorsum.Gehling et al. (2014)featured a reconstruction ofKimberellaas a molluscan grade organism with a single shell and said that this reconstruction ofKimberellaincludes an inferred stiff but flexible unmineralized shield that enclosed internal organs.Vinther (2015)remarked thatKimberellahad a dorsal cuticular shield with tubercular nodes.Finally,Wanninger & Wollesen (2019)claimed that the presence of a single non-mineralized shell inKimberellafits well with the hypothetical ground plan of mollusks, since the discovery of the Ordovician fossilCalvapilosa suggested that the two-shelled state of halkieriids and the multi-shelled state of polyplacophoran mollusks represents a derived condition.

Nevertheless, some later authors rather agreed with Ivantsovs new interpretation. For example,Seilacher & Hagadorn (2010)concurred that Kimberellalacked a rigid shell, while being covered by small sclerodermites (Bengtson 2005,Fedonkin et al. 2007b,Ivantsov, 2009). Even more recently,Parkhaev (2017)concluded that in contrast to the first reconstructions , it was shown thatKimberellahad no firm and solid shell, otherwise it would be difficult to explain the observed variability in the shape and proportions of the body in known specimens.

Lay people must be left quite confused by this contr
oversy and might even conclude that paleontology often seems to boil down to an esoteric exercise in reading tea leaves. Unfortunately, sometimes this is the case indeed. Nevertheless, one should always make an inference to the best explanation. In my view the original interpretation of Fedonkin is better supported and he also sufficiently explained the evidence that allegedly supports the alternative interpretation of Ivantsov. Therefore, I conclude thatKimberellamore likelypossessed a non-mineralized integument, a quasi-leathery shell with a characteristic ornamentation, which was flexible in juvenile specimens but rather stiff in adult ones. But this is just my humble opinion and it is quite clear that this issue is controversial and far from settled.

Fedonkin & Waggoner (1997)speculated that the crenellated structures may have had a respiratory function and even mentioned the possibility that the crenellations may have hosted microbial symbionts.Fedonkin et al. (2007b)said that there is no evidence of gills inKimberella, while the large surface of the multifolded crenulated zone could effectively perform the respiration function. Fedonkin considered these circumpedal respiratorial folds as possible predecessor of the ctenidia (meaning, feathery gills) in aquatic mollusks.

Even though there are indeed no traces of respiratory organs preserved in any of theKimberellafossils, such gills were proposed by Ivantsov (2009,2012) as possibly attached to the scallops along the frilled margin, similar to the serially repeated gills in the Cambrian stem molluskOdontogriphus(Butterfield 2006) and in the circumpedal mantle cavity of primitive living mollusks (Serialia) (Stger et al. 2013). However, Ivantsov also mentioned the alternative possibility that gas exchange occurred across the general body surface. Likewise,Seilacher & Hagadorn (2010)concurred withFedonkin et al. (2007b)andTrusler et al. (2007)that the serial impressions between the foot and the cap probably correspond to flap- or gill-like structures as in modern chitons andNeopilina, and in the CambrianOdontogriphusfrom the Burgess Shale.

However, all this is of course mere speculation in the absence of any conclusive empirical evidence.

Dzik (2003)mentioned that the most prominent aspect ofKimberellafossils is a voluminous depression in their center and proposed that the most likely interpretation is that this was a gut content. This median groove indeed was generally interpreted as simple digestive tract and pharynx (Fedonkin et al. 2007b,Knoll 2011,Vinther 2015). A notable exception wasSeilacher (1999), who thought that the deep cleft along the midline of the foot is clearly a secondary feature related to the burial process and fossilization as ventral death mask (Gehling 1999).Gehling et al. (2014)concurred that the median keel or grove, which is most prominent in smaller specimens, most likely corresponds to a flexible, unmineralized outer integument. Dj-vu, anyone?

Many authors have suggested that the tapered end ofKimberellacorresponded to a kind of proboscis as a feeding apparatus.The alignment between the feeding traces and the tapered open end of the body with the assumed proboscis clearly suggests that this was the anterior (oral) end with the pharynx.

Based on the trace fossil evidence,Ivantsov & Fedonkin (2001b)and Fedonkin (2001,2003) first speculated that the feeding tracks may reflect the work of the proboscis that bears the hook-like organs on its end.Fedonkin (2003)thought that a comparison of the body size ofKimberellaand of the size and pattern of the feeding traces suggests that the hypothetical proboscis could be extended as long as the whole body ofKimberella, and that there were two sharp teeth at its end. Seilacher et al. (2003,2005) also speculated thatKimberellawas a stationary grazer that repeatedly fed with a long proboscis.Dzik (2003)mentioned that in all well preserved specimens ofKimberellathere is a distinctly delimited narrower part of the proposed gut, perhaps representing a muscular oesophagus or even evertible proboscis.

Gehling (1996) andGehling et al. (2005: fig. 12)were the first to clearly document actual fossil evidence for such an extensible head or everted proboscis at the anterior end of theKimberellaanimal. Years later,Gehling et al. (2014: fig. 7)featured more specimens with an everted proboscis, which is never longer than about a fourth of the remaining body length, thus not as long asSeilacher & Hagadorn (2010)and others had speculated.The fact that in most specimens this proboscis is not visible was inferred by these authors to be a result of its retraction within the circumference of the body, but this is completely ad hoc.

This proboscis was described in detail byFedonkin et al. (2007b), who also described a pair of bag-like structures lateral at the base of the proboscis (and thus the assumed pharynx) at the anterior end of the body, which they interpreted as oesophageal pouches or pharyngeal glands (comparable with those found in many extant molluscs) (Fedonkin et al. 2007b: fig. 15; also see: Ivantsov 2009: pl. 1 figs 7-8,Vinther et al. 2012,Vinther 2015: fig. 3E).Fedonkin suggested that the feeding traces were left by a solitary conjugate pair of teeth located at the end of a long proboscis that stretched far forward beyond the main body (Ivantsov & Fedonkin 2001b,Fedonkin 2003,Fedonkin & Vickers-Rich 2007,Fedonkin et al. 2007b).

In the paper byFedonkin et al. (2007b)an alternative interpretation by co-author Ivantsov is mentioned: instead of an elongate proboscis, there could have been a rather wide feeding organ, which could spread like a fan. Equipped with numerous teeth this organ scratched a large surface area of the sea floor in one simultaneous sweep. However, Fedonkin et al. concluded that mechanical constraints and the absence of morphological evidence do not allow us to accept this model.Ivantsov (2009)likewise claimed that the very flexible organism, which must have lacked a hard shell, made a long proboscis unnecessary. Indeed, no such long proboscis is visible in any of the fossil specimens.His alternative view was further elaborated by Ivantsov (2010b,2012,2013), who claimed that: The mobile animal with a long, flexible proboscis freely bending in all directions should leave more chaotic traces. This implies that the animal got deeper into the mat using a larger structure with several teeth and limited ability for lateral bending, rather than separate teeth located at the end of the flexible proboscis. Such a structure was most likely represented by the entire anterior part of theKimberellabody together with a large head, which was able to extend and widen (Ivantsov,2009,2010,2011). He suggested that the tooth battery was folded on both sides of the pharynx, and that the expandable spatulate head was at least partly retracted in the fossil specimens. Nevertheless,Ivantsov (2013)admitted that his hypothesis could not explain the distinct pairs of ridges in the trace fossils. In his most recent paper,Ivantsov et al. (2019)apparently addressed this problem and now says that the head ofKimberellawas wide and spatulate in a straightened state, and it bore two or more sclerotic teeth.

Other authors have added various further speculations about this feeding apparatus.

Trusler et al. (2007)warned that instead of an elongate proboscis bearing only a pair of resistant structures,Kimberellamay have possessed a much more complex radular morphology, again analogous to that present in monoplacophorans , which did not require a lengthy extension of the feeding organ. In fact, it may well be that the feeding structure was entirely beneath the organism or only slightly extended when it farmed the microbial mat and its contents, and only protruded beyond the main body in death when compressed. However, this view is contradicted by the fact that the only known resting trace does not overlap with the surrounding feeding traces (see below).

Seilacher & Hagadorn (2010)suggested that hydrostatics and muscles likely operated this extendable and flexible proboscis. H
ypothetically, such a proboscis could have handed food particles to a proximally situated mouth, in the mode of an elephants trunk or the antennae of the amphipodCorophium. Alternatively, and more likely, the mouth was at the very tip of the proboscis, with radular teeth delivering their crop directly into the esophagus.

Grazhdankin (2014)added that the retractable anterior end ofKimberella quadratapossessed a peculiar sagittate structure , which, at least superficially, is remarkably similar to individual representatives of the generaParvancorinaandTemnoxa. which are both problematic Ediacaran organisms of uncertain affinity.

Budd & Jensen (2017)correctly remarked that the production of the fan-shaped scratch marks would have required a very long introvert in order to create the observed pattern, and this has not been seen. Therefore, they concluded that considerable uncertainty remains as to how the scratches were formed and by what type of device. I fear this is a fair characterization.

For those scientists, who believe that the teeth ofKimberellawere really homologous to a molluscan radula (e.g.,Seilacher 1999,Caron et al. 2006,Seilacher & Hagadorn 2010,Vinther et al. 2012,Stger et al. 2013), there is another fundamental problem: the apparatus is postulated at the end of an everted tubular proboscis (Gehling et al. 2005), which is never the case in mollusks and would rather resemble the introvert in scalidophoran nemathelminths (Cephalorhyncha) (Budd & Jensen 2017). However, the worm-like body plan of such nemathelminths like Priapulida does not agree with the morphology seen inKimberella(Gehling et al. 2014).

Finally, another severe problem remains: even though many of the fossil specimens from the White Sea region are quite well-preserved, there is not a single one that clearly shows a toothed radula-like organ. However, in two specimens (figured byFedonkin et al. 2007b: fig. 15j,Ivantsov 2009: figs 2c and pl. 1 fig. 6,2010b: pl. 1 figs 4-5,2013: pl. II figs 1-2, and2017: fig. 2-2) there is a series of deep grooves near the end of the short proboscis, which may or may not correspond to teeth. Actually, in my view their structure does not fit well with the bifid pattern of theKimberichnustraces, andGehling et al. (2014)had similar reservations.Budd & Jensen (2017)mentioned that these grooves look very similar to structures at the posterior end of the body, which were interpreted by Ivantsov as evidence for longitudinal muscles. Ivantsov explained the general absence of imprints of teeth as an artifact of preservation, based on their covering by the muscular part of the head and the dense mantle, but of course this is just another ad hoc hypothesis.

Thus, as in most other structures ofKimberellathe interpretation of the feeding apparatus turns out to be very controversial: Was there a long or a short proboscis, or no proboscis at all but a broad expandable head? Was there a pair of large teeth, or two sets of small teeth, or no teeth at all? Were the paired bag-like structure muscles, or glands, or something else entirely? Fossils often leave much room for very different interpretations of relatively poor evidence, so that paleontologists always should be very careful not to stack elaborate hypotheses like a house of cards, which of course happens anyway and even quite often so.

Next, Kimberella Controversial Scratch Marks.

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Reconstructing Kimberella The Disputed Anatomy in Detail - Discovery Institute

Forget the GreeksIs This the World’s Oldest Anatomical Text? – Daily Beast

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If you were to take a class on anatomy in med school you would probably be told that the history of anatomy really begins in the Renaissance, when doctors and other luminaries like Leonardo da Vinci first started dissecting human bodies and documenting their findings. You might also learn that prior to this point, doctors worked with the anatomical theories of the ancient Greeks and Romans, whose knowledge was gleaned mostly from the bodies of animals and external observation. The ancient Egyptians, who are well known for cutting up dead bodies, might get a look in, but that would likely be it.

But, now, a new study claims that an ancient manuscript unearthed in a tomb in Southern China may well be the worlds oldest anatomical atlas. The article not only promises to revolutionize our understanding of the history of medicine, it also sheds light on the history and scientific foundations of acupuncture.

In an article inThe Anatomical Record, Vivien Shaw and Isabelle Winder of Bangor University, UK, and Rui Diogo of Howard University published their findings about the Mawangdui manuscripts, a collection of philosophical and medical texts from Changsha in the Hunan province of South Central China. The texts are written on silk and were placed in the tomb of Chancellor Li Cang and his family before it was sealed in 168 BCE. They were rediscovered in the 1970s, but the previously unknown medical texts were somewhat overshadowed by the presence of other important discoveries, like the oldest copy of the I Ching. Because of this, Shaw, Winder, and Diogo are the first to treat these medical texts as evidence of ancient anatomy.

The Mawangduitexts, the authors argue, were written in the second-third century BCE and are roughly contemporaneous with now-lost Greek dissection-based anatomical texts. Of course, the approach taken in these Chinese texts is very different than the one we see in their Greek counterparts. Vivien Shaw said, they looked at the body from the viewpoint of traditional Chinese Medicine, which is based on the philosophical concept of complementary opposites of yin and yang, familiar to those in the west who follow eastern spiritualism.

The Mawangduitexts organize the body into eleven pathways, each of which has particular kinds of disease associated with it. Some of these, Isabel Winder said, map onto later acupuncture meridians, even though acupuncture and acupuncture points are nowhere mentioned. Historians had some evidence for the acupuncture meridians from other ancient Chinese texts, but those texts date to the third century CE and are, thus, roughly four hundred years younger than the ones from Mawangdui.

Their findings, said Shaw, not only re-write a key part of Chinese history and affirm that the Han dynasty was a period of widespread intellectual growth, they also provide medical foundations for acupuncture and change our understanding of how it originally worked.

We believe, she said, that our interpretation of the text challenges the widespread belief that there is no scientific foundation for the anatomy of acupuncture, by showing that the earliest physicians writing about meridians were in fact describing the physical body. Modern acupuncture, Shaw added, is grounded in the belief that it is the function of the meridian points thats important. Originally, however, it seems that Chinese anatomists were interested in mapping the structure of the body. In other words, and regardless of whether or not we think these descriptions of the body are accurate, they are scientific. This means that acupuncture, which is often dismissed as more spiritual than scientific, is grounded in a carefully worked out ancient map of the body that was based on scientific observation.

The reason that the Mawangdui texts have been overlooked as an anatomical resource is because they date from a period when the principles of Confucianism were very much in vogue. Han-era China was governed by Confucian law, which maintained stability and structure through the maintenance of a rigid social structure. One element of this social hierarchy was what is called filial piety, in which children must respect and honor their parents. Venerating ones ancestors did not include cutting up your dead parents. As Isabel Winder, one of the authors of the article, said Confucian cultural practices shunned dissection. However, [the evidence leads us to conclude] that dissection was involved and that the authors [of these texts] would have had access to the bodies of criminals.

This brings us to one of the grizzly secrets of the study of anatomy: to be any good at it you have to be examining actual human bodies. At the time, this was not just a Chinese practice. Herophilus of Chalcedon and his younger contemporary Erasistratus of Ceos, Greek-speaking doctors and medical authors working in Alexandria, Egypt in the first half of the third century BCE, were also dissecting cadavers on a routine basis. As in China (and, later, in 16th 19th century Britain), the bodies used for these experiments were those of criminals. Shortly after Herophilus and Erasistratus died, however, dissection fell into disuse. Though there were some rogue doctors who seem to have been dissecting bodies on the sly it wasnt until the 14th century, when the Italian Mondino de Luzzi publicly performed the first sanctioned dissection in a millennium, that it would begin again in earnest.

While dissection vastly improved medical sciences understanding of the workings of the human body, this doesnt mean that those performing these experiments always accurately described what was in front of them. Leonardo da Vincis scientific drawings of the human body are widely admired for their accuracy, but he sometimes followed tradition rather than the evidence, depicting, as Roy Porter has written in his book The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, a five lobed liver. The human liver only has four lobes; the five-lobe theory was based on the dissection of dogs and pigs and goes back to Hippocrates. We should not assume, therefore, that dissection always deepens and improves medical understanding. It took two hundred years and the creative vision of 16th century anatomist Andreas Vesalius for many ancient medical theories to be questioned and revised.

In between the 3rd century BCE and the rediscovery of dissection in the 14th, European doctors were reliant on the works of famous Greek-speaking doctors Aristotle and Galen, who had only dissected animals. Galen had experience treating gladiators and would have seen the kinds of wounds that would have afforded the opportunity peek inside the body, but there was nothing exhaustive about his exploration of the human body. As a result, all kinds of errorsthe five-lobed liver sketched by Da Vinci, for examplecrept into Western medicine. So, if youre thinking that Chinese medicine sounds unscientific and esoteric, bear in mind that for this 1200-year period of European history you may as well have been seeing a vet.

One of the major contributions of this study is the way that it challenges Eurocentric histories of science and medicine. Rui Diogo, whose lab helped perform the research, told The Daily Beast, that too often textbooks and scientific publications rehearse narratives in which white Europeans (from the Greeks and Romans onwards) make the big discoveries and non-European cultures contribute nothing more than translations of Greek texts or esoteric unscientific knowledge. Discoveries like this one show both that there was a vibrant scientific culture in places like India, China, and Persia and also that medical schemes often dismissed as esoteric have real scientific foundations.

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Forget the GreeksIs This the World's Oldest Anatomical Text? - Daily Beast

Anatomy of a Goal: Mihailovic gives Fire an early lead vs. the Crew – Massive Report

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Welcome back to the Anatomy of a Goal, where each week we dissect one goal (or near goal) from Columbus Crew SCs previous match.

For match 11 of the 2020 MLS Season, we take a look at Djordje Mihailovics 11th minute goal for Chicago Fire that gave the Fire a 1-0 lead against the Crew on Saturday.

Heres a look at the goal from Chicagos young attacker.

Columbus began Saturdays match against a brand-refreshed version of its old foes with a surprising lineup. Designated Player Lucas Zelarayan missed his second straight match with a slight injury while midfield stalwart Darlington Nagbe was a shock exclusion from the lineup with his own injury. The Black & Gold made do by shifting Pedro Santos into the No. 10 role and gave Fatai Alashe his second straight start beside Artur.

The Fires goal begins in the midfield with Alvaro Medran picking up the ball and quickly playing a pass over to Gaston Gimenez.

With Alashe recovering and Santos shifting over to provide pressure, Gimenez pings the ball back out in front of Medran.

Medran has time and space in front of him and heads toward the Crews half of the field. On the other side of the field, Harrison Afful spots the Chicago counter attack and sprints back toward his defensive end.

Medran is able to continue forward and the counter attack is on for the Fire. At this point, Columbus has two defenders providing immediate cover in Milton Valenzuela and Artur, two center backs further back who are split by Chicago striker Robert Beric, and Afful attempting to close down on the free-running Mihailovic. Both of the Black & Golds wingers have pushed up the field, leaving Medran free to carry the ball forward.

Medran crosses midfield without any resistance. Artur shifts away from Ignacio Aliseda in order to provide some pressure on Medran, leaving the Fire midfielder with five options. He can play a quick diagonal pass to Aliseda, play a long ball over the top to Mihailovic, make a through pass to Beric, carry the ball forward or play a diagonal pass in front of Fabian Herbers.

Medran spots Beric running between the Black & Gold center backs and hits a long through ball into space for his striker to run onto. As Medran hits that pass, Josh Williams shifts away from Beric in an attempt to intercept the pass. If he does pick up the ball, this will allow the Crew to clear out of danger. If he is unable to intercept the pass, it will force captain Jonathan Mensah into the difficult position of defending both Berics run as well as any additional runs made to the back post.

On the far side of the field, Mihailovic and Afful are engaged in a foot race down the attacking left flank.

Williams is unable to intercept the pass, leaving Mensah alone to cover both Beric, who is running onto the long through ball, and Mihailovic running back post. Afful is scrambling to recover on the young attacker but is outpaced.

Beric, unpressured, catches up to the ball in the Columbus goal box and immediately has three options before making his first to a quick shot on goal, a cross toward Mihailovic or carry the ball closer to the goal.

Mensah has put himself into the best position he can while knowing that Mihailovic is running free toward the goal. In this no mans land, Mensah will attempt to get in front of a cross or provide further pressure should Beric decide to take an additional touch on the ball.

Beric reaches the ball and hits a first touch cross toward Mihailovic.

On first glance, it appeared that Mihailovic might have been offside, but from the side angle you can see that he is just a few steps behind Mensah as the ball is crossed toward the back post.

Mensah slides toward the ball but is just unable to get a touch as the ball slides past the captain toward the back post.

Afful is unable to catch up to Mihailovic who will have an uncontested chance on the ball.

Eloy Room shifts toward Mihailovic who hits a first-touch shot toward the goal.

Room is unable to get in front of the ball as it travels past him . . .

. . . into the back of the net.

Findings:

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Anatomy of a Goal: Mihailovic gives Fire an early lead vs. the Crew - Massive Report

Greys Anatomy Season 17- all you need to know about the Plot and Release Date is here! – 90Xtra

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About Greys Anatomy Season 17

There are rumors afloat that the popular television drama Greys Anatomy will be coming back for the seventeenth time. The news comes as a blessing to the strong fanbase of Greys Anatomy, which has only expanded throughout the sixteen seasons of the show.

The last season that aired on television had to be cut short by four episodes as the pandemic hindered their filming. Therefore, the sixteenth season did not get a proper closure, leaving all the more room for the show to be renewed.

The American drama revolves around Dr. Meredith Grey, a medical intern at Seattle Grace Hospital, turned chief general surgeon at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. The show chronicles the ups and downs of medical professionals working with her in the hospital.

Ellen Pompeo plays Grey. The cast also consists of Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers T R Knight, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens Jr, Isaiah Washington, and Patrick Dempsey. The sixteenth season started with an ensemble cast of fourteen actors along with the original four main characters- Meredith, Alex Karev, Miranda Beiley, and Richard Webber.

Currently being produced by ABC studios, it is the longest-running primetime scripted show on television. The show creators had planned to deliver a promising finale for the sixteenth season, which would be a cross-over episode with Station 19. It would have involved a bomb explosion threat and the death of one of the major characters. With the pandemic restrictions, the storyline had to be changed and the season ended abruptly, leaving the fans asking for more of the show.

The top-rated medical drama is all set to come back for the seventeenth season. The filming of the show was supposed to start in the first or second week of September, according to the showrunner Krista Vernoff. Reportedly, the show will merge fiction with real life as it will start with the doctors dealing with a global pandemic, months after its onset. A specific release date is yet to be confirmed by the creators.

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Greys Anatomy Season 17- all you need to know about the Plot and Release Date is here! - 90Xtra

Anatomical characterization of the inguinal lymph nodes using microcomputed tomography to inform radical inguinal lymph node dissections in penile…

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Radical inguinal lymph node dissections (rILND) for penile cancer risk significant postoperative lymphocele and lymphedema. However, reducing the risk of lymphatic complications is limited by our understanding of lymphatic anatomy. Therefore, this study aims to elucidate the lymphatic anatomy within the current surgical borders of a rILND.

To visualize the position of the lymph nodes, tissue packets excised from the inguinal region of five fresh, male cadavers were imaged using microcomputed tomography (CT). To standardize the position, rotation and size between specimens, each lymph node packet was aligned using a Generalized Procrustes analysis.

There was a median of 13.5 lymph nodes (range=8-18) per packet, with the majority (99%) clustered within a 6cm radius of the saphenofemoral junction; a region 39%-41% smaller than current surgical borders. No difference existed between the number of nodes between sides, or distribution around the saphenofemoral junction.

This study provides the first 3D, in situ, standardized characterization of lymph node anatomy in the inguinal region using CT. By using knowledge of the normal lymphatic anatomy, this study can help inform the reduction in borders of rILND to limit disruption and ensure a complete lymphadenectomy.

Journal of surgical oncology. 2020 Sep 10 [Epub ahead of print]

Kait Marshall, Shiva M Nair, Katherine E Willmore, Tyler S Beveridge, Nicholas E Power

Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London, Ontorio, Canada., Department of Surgery, Urology Division, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London, Ontorio, Canada.

PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32914446

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Anatomical characterization of the inguinal lymph nodes using microcomputed tomography to inform radical inguinal lymph node dissections in penile...

Career anatomy: The resum of Wall Streets first woman CEO, Jane Fraser – Boss Betty

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Wall Streets big bank big-wigs will soon have a new executive among them and, unlike the rest of them, she is, well, a she. (Yes, that is lamentably still very remarkable in 2020.) Citigroups Jane Fraser, who has been with the bank for 16 years, will be promoted to CEO in February following the retirement of Michael Corbat.

Fraser will be the first woman to lead a major U.S. bank and will be joining an ultra-rarified rank of executives that includes JPMorgan Chases Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs David Solomon, Wells Fargos Charles Scharf and Bank of Americas Brian Moynihan, among others. She will be the only female CEO among the 10 largest U.S. banks. Sachs Solomon welcomed her to the club, posting his congratulations on LinkedIn and calling her a pioneer. Bank of Americas Cathy Bessant, who was rumored to be in the running for the CEO spot at Wells Fargo last year (the post went to Scharf), tweeted that Frasers appointment was Great news for the company and for women everywhere!

Fraser, who was born in Scotland, currently serves as Citis president and CEO of Global Consumer Banking.

So, how did this glass-ceiling smasher get to the very highest echelon of finance? We figured that for all of us aspiring ceiling-breakers it would be helpful to trace the path of her career, so we took a stab at recreating Frasers resum using her LinkedIn profile, additional research and perhaps a wee bit of creative license (with the design, never the facts, and no, we wont be giving up our day jobs for resume design any time soon).

Whats not noted among her staggering accomplishments is the constant challenge of being a working mom: Being a mother of young children and having a career is the toughest thing I have ever had to do, she said in an internal interview at McKinsey, according to Axios.

Alright, without further ado, Boss Bettys re-creation of the resum of Wall Streets first female big bank CEO, Jane Fraser:

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Career anatomy: The resum of Wall Streets first woman CEO, Jane Fraser - Boss Betty

Anatomy of an outbreak: Why Collierville High halted in-person classes 2 weeks after reopening – Commercial Appeal

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Two weeks into the new school year, Collierville had to suspend in-person classes at its high school, a problemeducation leaders across the country spent summer months planning to mitigate or avoid.

It's now one of a handful of schools in the state that opened for in-person classesand then closed due to COVID-19.

Collierville activated its contingency plan for two weeks, meaning in-person classes are set to resume on Monday. The district made the decision after the Shelby County Health Department identified a cluster of cases at the school.

"We're really taking itone day at a time with this," Mario Hogue, spokesperson for the district, said in a recent interview.

Looking out on one of the green spaces the school has provied for students.(Photo: Renier Otto / For CommercialAppeal.com)

Despite all the planning and protocols, COVID-19 can still find its way into school buildings. And, in the case of Collierville High School, two cases became five, 300 potential exposures were identified and the school decided to close its doors.Since then, it's reported20 new cases among students and staff.

A look at how the health department and school district responded to the case shows the relationship between the two, and reveals more about what families and educators can expect when cases are identifiedamong a school'sstudents and staff.

A few weeks before Collierville students returned to school for the fall, the districtaltered its plan to correspond with the health department's guidance for six feet of social distancing in the classroom. To do so meant reducing the number of students in the buildingto accommodate that recommendation the district had based its plan off of the threefeet distance recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and landing with a hybrid schedule.

Revamped: In updated Collierville Schools reopening model, classroom learning only 2 days weekly

Beforeschool returned, parents across the district protested the change, and the high schoolhad already reported four cases of COVID-19, according to news reports.With the hybrid schedule, more students than expected 36% of the district's 9,000 would be full-time virtual learners, clearing the way for elementary schoolers to attend fivedays each week, said Gary Lilly, the district's superintendent.

Main hall in the new Collierville High.(Photo: Renier Otto / For CommercialAppeal.com)

To his knowledge, no one missed the first day due to having COVID-19 or being a close contact for a case, Lilly said at the time.

Almost every aspect of school had to be retooled for the new year, but at the time, the back-to-school excitement was still there, as it would be for any other school year. On the first day of school, Lilly said he was prepared to make the changes necessary for safety and for delivering education.

"The first week of school is always an exciting time. There areusually things you have to work out and establish for students and staff so that everyone gets into a routine," Lilly said at the time. "Certainly there are far more things that have to get worked out this year than usualbecause there's a whole different set of protocols and procedures."

First day: In Germantown and Collierville schools, first-day jitters and social distancing

Students watch as guests enter their third grade classroom with Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn during a visit to Forest Hill Elementary School on Wednesday, Sept 2, 2020.(Photo: Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal)

Beginning the new year came with thelaunch of a community COVID-19data committee, designed with data and public health arms to review school- and community-specific trends.

Collierville also began the year as one of two of the county's seven public districts with a plan in place to communicate all cases of COVID-19 at a school to all families, not just people potentially exposed. Themove was supported by guidance from Le Bonheur's Children Hospital.

Data sharing: Will Memphis-area schools alert all families of COVID-19 cases? It depends on the school

It took just over a week before two cases were reported among the high school's football team. The districtcanceled its next two footballgames upon announcement of thecases.

Contact sports, like football, are allowed by the state but have been discouraged by local health officials and medical experts.

Canceled: Collierville cancels two football games due to COVID-19 cases

Are sports safe?Le Bonheur's chief pediatrician says it's not safe to resume contact sports in Memphis yet

A student adjusts his face mask as the first and second graders line up, socially distance in the hallway at Millington Elementary School on the first day of class Monday, August 10, 2020.(Photo: Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal)

The way Hogue described it, the school was advisedby the health department to conduct preliminary contact tracing, alerting anystudents and staff who might have been exposed to the virus.

He said it works like this: When a case is found, the school will determine and notify, as per the latest health directive, people who were potentially exposed to the case. That's based on the six feet of social distancing, masking and a timeframe oftwo days before the person who had the virus began displaying symptoms. The health department then comes in to conductits official contact tracing, issuing isolation orders for anyone who has tested positive and quarantine orders for any close contacts.

How it works: New health directive outlines rules for COVID-19 notification at Memphis-area schools

Kaylee Jones (from right), 9, and her siblings Eric Harris, 12, and Khila Harris, 15, work on their laptops during the first day of school Monday, Aug. 31, 2020, from their home in Memphis.(Photo: Max Gersh / The Commercial Appeal)

The health department has said it is the only group with authority to issue those orders and complete case investigations, but says it"relies heavily" on the schools to assist the department in its tracing endeavorsby notifying them of people who may have been close contacts for a reported case. Dr. Alisa Haushalter, the department's director, has said it is a"misperception of the public and perhaps even some others within schools" that schools conduct their own contact tracing.

By the end of the second week of school, Aug. 28, Collierville High School had a reported fivecases and had reached "cluster" status, according to the Shelby County Health Department.

"Once we were considered a cluster, the contact tracing protocols expanded greatly," Hogue, the spokesperson, said in a recent interview.

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To qualify as a cluster, first, there have to be two cases associated with the school, David Sweat, epidemiologist at the Shelby County HealthDepartment,wrote in an email responding to an inquiry byThe Commercial Appeal. Those cases are either known to be connected to one another or have no known links to other COVID-19 cases.

Sweat also defined the instances when two cases would not constitute a cluster.

"If there are two cases in a facility but each of them are linked to known cases otherwise and they are also not linked to each other in any identifiable way, we would not consider that a facility cluster," Sweat wrote.

Once the department identifieda cluster of cases at the school, its criteria for potential exposures expanded greatly, Hogue said, which caught the district somewhat by surprise. New instructions meant that the district had to assume that a student with COVID-19 could have exposed anyone in the classrooms, study halls or lunch breaks, he said.

"So their (SCHD) new recommendations had no dependency on the six feet of social distancing or the mask. This was a whole new guideline. This guideline replaced the social distancing guidelines," Hogue said.

In an email to the school district on the Friday Collier
ville announced it would go remote, Sweat recapped a conversation between the district and the health department, including himself and Dr. Bruce Randolph, the health officer. The two advised that the following people should also be considered potential contacts:

Levi Fagens, from left, Mohammed Awwad, Lily Foyle and Jocelyn Buchannan watch a video Monday, Aug. 17, 2020, in Beth Alsbrooks coding class at Houston High School in Germantown.(Photo: Max Gersh / The Commercial Appeal)

"Classmates and teachers who shared airspace in an enclosed classroom with a confirmed case. Due to repetition of exposure and duration of time in a classroom, and also in recognition that air stagnates and there can be repeated exposures in a classroom, it would be difficult to specify which students in a classroom are not exposed," Sweat wrote.

Sweat then made clear that he was not advising the school to close.

"Shelby County Health Department is not requiring the school to be closed. If the individuals at risk can be quarantined the remainder of the students and staff can work and attend school. If the school system judges that the school cannot operate safely and chooses to close, that is the prerogative of Collierville Schools to decide," Sweat wrote.

Applying those guidelines, the school categorized300-plusindividuals as potentially exposed to COVID-19. Since the health department began its investigation, the number of close contacts instructed to quarantine has been lower, Hogue said.

Ultimately, the school building did close, and the district activated its learning contingency plan. Instead of students in the building on the hybrid schedule, everyone would belearning remotelyfor the next two weeks, returning Sept. 14.

Going virtual: Collierville High School suspends in-person learning after reporting 5 cases of COVID-19

Because the health department is providing one-on-one guidance, Hogue said,he's been communicating to families and staff that there is no "carbon copy" response to having cases in a school building.

"That's what we need to get communicated across ... I always get the question, 'If this happens again, are you going to have to do the same thing?'" Hogue said. "And I can't say 'yes' and I can't say 'no' because, unfortunately, they don't know. Until we get to that scenario, then they will provide directives. And I know that's not helpful, because it's definitely not helpful for us, but that's where we're at."

Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn waves at students as they walk the halls during a visit to Forest Hill Elementary School on Wednesday, Sept 2, 2020.(Photo: Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal)

Since moving to virtual learning due to the cluster, the high schoolhas reported 20more cases of COVID-19 among students and staff, Hogue said Tuesday. The new cases bring the total case tally at the high school to 25 since the school year began Aug. 17.

Based on state data, the school has the most associated cases of any public school in Shelby County. There are 33 total cases of COVID-19 across the Collierville district.

State releasesdata: Tennessee posts dashboard of school COVID-19 data; see Shelby County numbers

Early investigations are reiterating that schools can only control what happens inside their classrooms but will be affected by the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community, as well as the community's compliance with safety protocols. And athletics, approached in different ways across the countyby level and sport, are being re-evaluated; at least two of the high school's cases have been associated with the school's football team.

As for the other 23, it is so far unclear whether the virus was contracted inside or outside the high school building, Hogue said.

Either way, the school still plans to resume its hybrid model Monday, meaning that half of the high school students who opted for that plan will be in the building at any given time. On Fridays, everyone learnsremotely.

Because of the hybrid plan, Hogue said, the transition to remote learning was "seamless." Teachers are still teaching and students were used to virtual instruction three days each week.

Hogue said he is grateful for the patience and support of families, but issued a plea for compliance with COVID-19 outside of school.

"We are really asking our families to be mindful of the social distancing guidelines after school hours," Hogue said. "Because we really cannot say for certain, did they contract COVID-19 during operating hours or out-of-school hours? So we're constantly reminding our families, please be mindful of social distancing after school operating hours, because it's hard for the district to say, 'Yeah they for sure contracted the virus at school,' because we don't know that. We don't know what happens after school hours."

Laura Testino covers education and children's issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her on Twitter: @LDTestino

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Anatomy of an outbreak: Why Collierville High halted in-person classes 2 weeks after reopening - Commercial Appeal

Anatomy of a joyless Leftist – Must Read Alaska

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By DAN FAGAN

Those who view America as a vile racist and oppressive nation are not interested in hearing otherwise. Challenge them. Go ahead and try. Youll see what I mean.

They demand you see it their way. If you dont? You become the problem. You become racist and oppressor.

Its an arrogant posture. Agree or youre evil. But thats how the cultural Marxists roll. Theyre opinion tyrants. And if they gain power, they become more than opinion tyrants, they become full-blown tyrants.

Kimberly Wallers an opinion tyrant. She works in the nonprofit sector and is currently director of Sultana, the Foraker Groups fiscal sponsorship program. According to Wallers LinkedIn page, shes also the CEO of an organization, Womens Power League of Alaska.

She posted a 1,752 worded open angry letter to me on her Facebook page on Wednesday. Waller didnt like my recent Must Read Alaska column: Saying America is systemically racist is a destructive lie.

My column challenged the take of most speakers at the March on Anchorage Labor Day rally at Townsquare. One after another made the case that Alaska is a deeply racist state. I disagree.

Your claim that racism fundamentally doesnt exist in our state is an area in which I simply must enlighten you, wrote Waller.

The most common denominator among social justice warriors is the confidence they hold in their beliefs. They own the truth. If youre lucky, theyll enlighten you. But dont ask questions or challenge their ideas in any way. Just listen, accept their truth. Otherwise, youre a racist.

Yourpiece was so over the top that I had to take the time out of my night to share a few truths with you. Yes, truth! I know you are one who believes in the concept, wrote Waller.

I do believe in truth and its my contention the truth is America is not the deeply racist country Waller and her fellow social justice warriors claim it is.

You attacked the speakers, who in your words complained repeatedly about Americas embedded systematic and structural racism. Sharing = complaining for you? wrote Waller.

She then goes onto complain about the widespread racism in Alaska.

Racism lives on running trails, on playgrounds, in schools, in downtown Anchorage, in the MatSu, online, in our damn private driveways, on the job right here in the beautiful state I call home, wrote Waller.

Waller also challenged my belief the only way to reach true equality where all have the same is to redistribute wealth, take away freedom, reward bad decisions and punish good ones.

You show your true face, writing equality for allis impossible without stripping us of our freedoms. Who is us? Are you speaking in code? You should know, we (aka other) can read code, wrote Waller.

And there it is. The accusation you knew was coming. Challenging Marxist wealth redistribution is a racist act in and of itself. But its undeniable different decisions produce different results leading to inequality. Good decisions good consequences. Bad decisions bad consequences.

Are you saying only wealthy (do you really want to say white??) people make good choices and have rightly acquired their fortune through all of their good choices? wrote Waller.

And theres the racist under every bush prism in full display that typically drives social justice warriors like Waller.

Waller received glowing reviews from her followers praising her for having the courage to write such a thing. The bubble Waller lives in was secure as she enjoyed accolades from her like-minded Leftists.

But then I shared her open letter Facebook post on my page with the caption: Thoughts.. Some took issue with Waller. Social justice warriors dont cope well with resistance.

Dan youre soliciting thoughts in regard to this? Do you have your own thoughts, formulated on your own? posted Waller.

As the day rolled on Waller grew increasingly impatient with my lack of response to her open letter.

Dan Fagan youre a coward hiding behind your computer, from a land far far away, sending random folks from your page to mine to post hate / conspiracies. You need backup? Do you need a lifeline? Arent you a writer, a journalist? You have your First Amendment rights but your words dont come without a consequence. How does someone like You, residing in New Orleans, as Im told, come to have a platform where youre marginalizing the very feelings experiences of ALASKANS?! How do you feel its in any way conducive to the art of your craft (using craft loosely) to report so negatively and with such ease on an event in which you were not present, and target the peaceful people who were there but leave out the fact that those same people were subject to intimidation for gatherings peacefully. WITH THEIR CHILDREN. Is this world were supposed to just swallow and accept. How can you justify? You cannot! And neither can your employer. Youre sharing news which is inaccurate, hurtful and wildly biased about a place you dont even live. Do you have children? Do you care? Enjoy your paycheck hope its worth it, wrote Waller.

Such is the life of an enlightened, joyless, angry leftist, full of rage, indignation, judgment, and utter contempt for anyone willing to challenge their view that America is a deeply racist nation.

The woke mob will settle for nothing less than silence, compliance, and obedience. Its why theyre winning. People are afraid to stand up to them, challenge their rhetoric.

Its time to stop being intimidated.

Dan Fagan hosts the number one rated morning drive radio show, weekdays between 5:30 to 8 am on Newsradio 650 KENI. He splits his time between Anchorage and New Orleans.

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Katherine Heigl admits Grey’s Anatomy exit ‘could have been done with more grace’ – Metro.co.uk

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Katherine has some regrets about how she left Greys Anatomy (Picture: Getty/NBC)

Katherine Heigl has spoken out about her Greys Anatomy exit and admitted that she could have handled it with more grace.

The actress played Izzie Stevens on the long-running medical drama, but left after six years in 2010 due to issues behind-the-scenes.

Her character ducked out halfway through season six never to return, and Katherine was later labelled difficult and unprofessional as a result of the fallout.

But after a decade away from the show, Katherine has had time to reflect and admits that while shes ultimately glad she quit, she could have handled the situation better.

Speaking to People magazine, she said: I dont actually regret leaving Greys Anatomy.

I did the right thing for me and for my family but I do regret the heightened drama I was feeling at that time.

Something else that experience taught me is that no matter how big an opportunity or how rewarding something is, there will be moments of struggle, she added.

There will be difficulties and disappointment and miscommunications, but you must learn how to manage those with grace instead of fear.

The upset behind-the-scenes started when Katherine famously removed her own name from the 2008 Emmys ballot for her performance on the show, stating she hadnt been given the material to warrant the nomination.

Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the show, later said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey: On some level it stung and on some level I was not surprised. When people show you who they are, believe them.

In 2014, Rhimes took another swipe while promoting new series Scandal, and told Hollywood Reporter: There are no Heigls in this situation, adding that there was a no a**hole policy on set.

Thankfully they now all seem to have buried the hatchet, and in 2019, Greys gave an update on Izzie, revealing she was living on a horse farm in Kansas.

While she never appeared on screen, her love interest Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) left the Seattle hospital in order to win her back, after discovering she had secretly mothered his twins.

Katherine is now leading the cast of new Netflix series, Firefly Lane, alongside Scrubs star Sarah Chalke.

Greys Anatomy is available on Amazon Prime Video in the UK.

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If youve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page wed love to hear from you.

MORE : Will there be a second season of Firefly Lane? Netflix dramas cliffhanger ending explained

MORE : Katherine Heigl weighs in on Alex and Izzies Greys Anatomy reunion: Isnt that an a**hole move?

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Katherine Heigl admits Grey's Anatomy exit 'could have been done with more grace' - Metro.co.uk

Kate Walsh speaks about returning to Greys Anatomy, says Im always open to it – Republic TV

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Kate Walsh has expressed her thoughts on returning to Grey Anatomy. The actor spoke to US Weekly and said that she is open to the idea. Kate Walsh played the role of Dr Addison Montgomery in the medical drama. Fans loved her role and the way she brought the character to life in the series.Hence the question for her return had been one of the questions among the fans of the show. Addressing the show and her return, Kate Walsh said that shewould love to return to the show.

Also Read |Katherine Heigl Talks About People Calling Her 'difficult', Says It Is Really Annoying

Also Read |On Patrick Dempsey's Birthday, Take Up This Trivia Quiz About The 'Grey's Anatomy' Star

She told the above-mentioned news portal that currently she is in western Australia and therefore it would be a big trip for her to return to the show if they begin filming. She thus jovially quipped saying that it would be a big trip for her hence she would have to see if she can go through with it. However, the actor added that she is always open to it and that she is right there if the show needs her back. She continued to say that she knows she is quite far away from Los Angeles physically, however she wouldn't mind if her character returns through a call-in or a zoom call.

Also Read |When Will 'Grey's Anatomy' Return In 2021? Date For Series' Comeback Revealed

Thus the actor jovially added a few pointers on how the makers could bring her back to the show. Kate Walsh played the role of Dr Addison from 2005 to 2012. She called the journey an epic piece of her life. She said that it was such an incredible run when she was on the show and she is aware that it changed so many lives. She affirmed that Grey's Anatomy as a show certainly changed her life for good as well. Speaking about Grey's Anatomy in general, Kate Walsh said that she was thrilled to be a part of the show for a long time. The character played by Kate got immensely popular to the point that the makers had a spin-off show named Private Practice, where the actor reprised her role between 2007 to 2013.

Also Read |'Grey's Anatomy' Season 17 Confirmed: Will Katherine Heigl Return To The Show?

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.

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Kate Walsh speaks about returning to Greys Anatomy, says Im always open to it - Republic TV

‘Anatomy Of Time’: Hamburg Review | Reviews | Screen – Screen International

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Dir/scr: Jakrawal Nilthamrong. Thailand/France/Netherlands/Singapore. 2021. 118 mins.

The past haunts and shapes the present in the enigmatic, meditative and thought-provokingAnatomy Of Time. Inkeeping with his previous feature Vanishing Point (2015), director JakrawalNilthamrong has taken inspiration from elements of his family history. Here, he appears to be trying to comprehend and honour the nature of the love that bound his parents to each other, as well as reflecting on bigger issues in Thailand. Slow-moving and mournful, it is as mysterious and intriguing as any film by his fellow countryman Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and should attract festival support.

Nilthamrong presents us with pieces of time and leaves space for the viewer to contemplate and speculate

Anatomy Of Time opens as Maem (Thaveeratana Leelanuja) checks that her elderly husband The General (Sorabodee Changsiri) has breathed his last. She cleans the body and then takes an open razor to slit the skin and remove what looks like an old bullet. That is the cue to return to their earliest meetings when the young Maem (Prapamonton Eiamchan) was torn between two men and, in retrospect, between the two paths her life might take. Rickshaw driver Don (Paopoom Chiwarak) is a gentle, sensitive figure and quite the contrast to the cocky confidence of the handsome General (played as a young man by Wanlop Rungkumjad),who swaggers around in dark sunglasses and woos her with expensive gifts.

There is a strong visual contrast between the two periods of Maems life. The early romance unfolds mostly outdoors in leafy forest glades, quiet flowing rivers, sunlight and space. The smooth glide of the camerawork adds to the sense of tranquility. The final days with The General are in a gloomy room dominated by a bed and the paraphenalia of sickness and decline.Nilthamrong filmed in his mothers home, and there is an authentic feel of a lifetime in the clutter of photos, medals and dust-covered memories.

We never learn the full extent of the disgraced Generals actions. He was a soldier who did what he thought was required for the future of the country. We do see how he is perceived by others, from the care assistant who wishes him an agony of suffering to the cafe owner who refuses to serve him and brands him a fascist. His part in Thailands history is a memory that few choose to visit. When Maem or the elderly General venture into a town of street markets and neon-lit nightclubs, they have the look of ghosts.

We do know that Maem has remained by him, devoted until death, with echoes of Michael Hanekes Amour. There is a tenderness in all her ministratons as she cuts his nails, trims his hair and applies drops to his sticky eyes. Flashbacks suggest that this was a relationship she entered into with eyes wide open. She knows that Don has been savagely beaten: He had a run-in with the wrong people. She asks her father, Do we reap what we sow? Their philosophical conversations about heaven and hell reflect both the character and the directors Buddhist beliefs. Her fathers work as a clockmaker and clock repairer underlines the sense of time passing; clocks provide a gentle whir of ticks and chimes throughout.

Nilthamrong presents us with pieces of time and leaves space for the viewer to contemplate and speculate. Maem sees a beautiful, flowering tree growing precariously on the side of a mountain and wonders how such a thing can thrive in seemingly impossible conditions. Perhaps it is her future with The General that she has in mind. We are left to consider if their relationship has been a love story, a private hell for her or an act of atonement that has lasted a lifetime.

Production companies: Diversion, Damned Films, Sluizer Film Productions, MGO Films, Mit Out Sound Films

International sales: Diversion, films@diversion-th.com

Producers: Mai Meksawan, Yohann Cornu, Anouk Sluizer, Panuksmi Hardjowirogo, Chatchai Chaiyon

Cinematography: Phuttiphong Aroonpheng

Editing: Lee Chatametikool, Katharina Wartena

Production design: Sarawut Karwnamyen

Music: Pakorn Musikaboonlert, Pachara Chirativat

Main cast: Thaveeratana Leelanuja, Prapamonton Eiamchan, Sorabodee Changsiri, Wanlop Rungkumjad

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‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Season 17 Adds ‘Will & Grace’ and ‘The Following’ Actress – PopCulture.com

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Grey's Anatomy Season 17 will feature a new character at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. Mackenzie Marsh was cast in a new recurring role in the long-running ABC medical drama. The series returns on Thursday, Nov. 12 on ABC at 9 p.m. ET, following the season premiere of Station 19. Both shows will touch on the coronavirus pandemic in the crossover premiere.

Marsh will play Val Ashton, an intelligent and fun-loving character who works in publishing and is extremely lonely, reports Deadline. Marsh recently starred on Charmed, Will & Grace, American Housewife, and The Following. She also starred in the movies Just Before I Go and Pee-wee's Big Holiday. According to Marsh's IMDb page, she will star in at least the first two episodes of Grey's Anatomy Season 17, "All Tomorrow's Parties" and "The Center Won't Hold."

The casting news came a few days after star Ellen Pompeo told Variety she might be preparing to end her legendary run as Dr. Meredith Grey on the show. Pompeo said it "could very well be" her last year since Season 17 is the last year of her contract. When it comes to the show itself though, Pompeo said she is not certain how long it could run. The series is already the longest-running American primetime medical drama ever and is still among the top-rated shows in the 18-49 demographic.

"We dont we dont know when the show is really ending yet. But the truth is, this year could be it. And so everything is really important to me that the show is good, and that all the characters storylines are good. Even though its not my place necessarily to fight for other peoples characters, I care very much about the integrity of the show, and the stories that we tell, and the quality," Pompeo told Variety. She later said she is "constantly" calling executive producers Krista Vernoff, Debbie Allen and Shonda Rhimes about the direction of her character.

Vernoff, who serves as showrunner, previously told Variety last month she was concerned about how Grey's should handle the pandemic. She thought people might not want to see a fictional show about it, but her writers convinced her otherwise. Co-executive producer Lynne E. Litt said the pandemic was the "biggest medical story of our lifetimes" and pitched an idea. Naser Alazari, a doctor who spent the show's hiatus working in a clinic, also told Vernoff it was important for the most popular medical drama in the world to handle the crisis. "'This is the biggest medical story of our lifetime, and it is changing medicine permanently. And we have to tell this story,'" Alazari told her, Vernoff recalled.

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'Grey's Anatomy' Season 17 Adds 'Will & Grace' and 'The Following' Actress - PopCulture.com

Anatomy of a Bust: How 49ers miscommunication led to an easy Bills touchdown – Touchdown Wire

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With 9:50 left in the Bills Monday night game over the 49ers, and Buffalo already up 27-17, quarterback Josh Allen threw a 28-yard touchdown pass to rookie receiver Gabriel Davis in which several San Francisco defensive backs appeared to be very confused. It was a bad play for the 49ers in what turned out to be a 34-24 win for Buffalo.

Pre-snap, you can see cornerback Richard Sherman communicating with safety Dontae Johnson. What might Sherman have been saying? Sherman was probably imploring Johnson to make an alert call to run the coverage to the actions of slot receiver Cole Beasley. Beasley ran a quick five-yard in-cut, while Davis ran up the boundary. In a basic Cover-1 or Cover-3 call, you probably have Sherman on Davis to the boundary, but based on Beasleys actions, that was never the call. Sherman expected to take Beasley inside, while somebody playing safety (perhaps Dontae Johnson) was supposed to cross and take Davis to the outside. Its a coverage called Palms, and it was an unfortunate bust for Robert Salehs defense. Safety Tarvarius Moore was also in the deep third to that side, so yikes.

We were in Palms coverage, Sherman explained after the game. Two into the flat. I adjusted, but we had a few busts on the play. Its unfortunate. The motion put us in a look we hadnt seen before. Its just one of those plays just a miscommunication down the line, and you cant have those plays in games like this.

The look the 49ers hadnt seen before may have been Beasley going in motion from left to right, which could have confused the coverage rules. Shermans alert call should have taken the coverage to that side from zone to Palms.

For those who dont know, Palms coverage can also be called 2-Trap or 2-Read or Soft-2, based on which playbook its in. When I watched tape with Sherman in 2015, he explained how the Seahawks used Palms coverage against Dez Bryant and the Cowboys on this play in which Sherman was playing outside until Bryant took the quick screen behind the line of scrimmage. At that point, Sherman was supposed to crash down on Bryant, which he did, for a three-yard loss. It appeared as if there was a coverage void over Bryant in the slot with Sherman outside, but thats exactly how it was supposed to look.

Its like they call it Soft 2, Sherman told me back then. You have two receivers to your side. If 2 [the slot receiver] goes to the flat five yards or less, the cornerback takes him. If 2 goes vertical past five yards, the corner has man coverage on 1 [the outside receiver]. Since he went bubble [ran a bubble screen], thats five yards or less, and you shoot your gun. Im on 2 until he gets past this point, and then Im on 1. Which sounds easy until I still had to take a gamble on that play, because if I go underneath and I miss, [Bryants] got at least 2030 yards. Then, [safety] Earl [Thomas] will have to chase him downitd be a footrace between him and Dez. If I take that and [Bryant] blocks me, hes up the seam.

So, if Bryant had gone up the seam, the safety would have been responsible for him, and Sherman would have stayed on the outside receiver. The defining point is the slot vertical (if its there) after five yards. Holding the safety back might give a bust disguise look pre-snap. Of course, it helps if your safety is Earl Thomas in his prime.

As this X&O Labs article shows, the responsibility for the alert call into Palms could come from the playside safety in certain instances. We dont know exactly how the miscommunication started in this case, but we sure know how it ended with one of the easiest touchdowns Josh Allen will ever experience.

And if you really want to get into the weeds, heres our friend Cody Alexander on Palms. The 49ers might want to check it out.

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Anatomy of a Bust: How 49ers miscommunication led to an easy Bills touchdown - Touchdown Wire

Overview of Anatomy and Physiology | Boundless Anatomy and …

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Defining Anatomy

Human anatomy is the study of the structure of the human body.

Define the two major subtypes of anatomy

Anatomy describes the structure and location of the different components of an organism to provide a framework for understanding. Human anatomy studies the way that every part of a human, from molecules to bones, interacts to form a functional whole.

Rembrants The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp: Human anatomy is the study of the structure of the human body, from the microscopic to the macroscopic.

There are two major types of anatomy. Gross (macroscopic) anatomy is the study of anatomical structures that can be seen by the naked eye, such as the external and internal bodily organs. Microscopic anatomy is the study of tiny anatomical structures such as tissues and cells.

Gross anatomy can be further subdivided into three different fields:

Regional anatomy is widely used in modern teaching because it is easier to apply to a clinical setting than systemic anatomy. The major anatomy textbook, Grays Anatomy, has recently been reorganized from a systems format to a regional format to reflect this preference. Surface anatomy is also widely used to gauge the position and structure of deeper organs, tissues, and systems.

Within microscopic anatomy, two topics of study are of great importance:

The human body has many layers of organization. Biological systems consist of organs that consist of tissues, and tissue in turn is made up of cells and connective tissue. Microscopic anatomy allows one to focus on these tissues and cells.

The history of anatomy has been an evolving understanding of organs and structures in the body. Beginning in Ancient Greece and developing through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, methods of studying anatomy have advanced dramatically. This field has moved from examination of animals and cadavers through invasive dissection to the technologically complex techniques developed in the 20th century, such as non-invasive imaging and radiology.

Generally, medical and biology students learn about the human bodyfrom anatomical models, skeletons, textbooks, diagrams, photographs, lectures, and tutorials. Medical and dental students also learn through the dissection and inspection of cadavers. A thorough working knowledge of anatomy is required for all medical professionals, especially surgeons and doctors working in diagnostic specialties such as radiology.

Physiology is the study of how the components of the body function, and biochemistry is the study of the chemistry of living structures. Together with anatomy, these are the three primary disciplines within the field of human biology. Anatomy provides information about structure, location, and organization of different parts of the body that is needed to truly understand physiology. Together, anatomy and physiology explain the structure and function of the different components of the human body to describe what it is and how it works.

Human physiology is the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical processes that support the bodys function.

Describe physiology in the context of living systems

The bodys ability to digest and absorb nutrients from food.

Physiology is the science of the normal function of living systems. Physiology studies the processes and mechanisms that allow an organism to survive, grow, and develop. Physiological processes are the ways in which organ systems, organs, tissues, cells, and biomolecules work together to accomplish the complex goal of sustaining life.

Physiological mechanisms are the smaller physical and chemical events that make up a larger physiological process. Human physiology studies the functions of humans, their organs and cells, and how all of these functions combine to make life, growth, and development possible.

Leonardo da Vincis The Vitruvian Man: Vitruvian Man: A drawing created by Leonardo da Vinci. The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry described[4] by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise De Architectura.

Homeostatis is the maintenance of the bodys overall inner resistance to change. This resistance stabilizes the body by regulating the internal environment, even as the external environment changes. A stable internal environment is needed for normal physiological function and survival of a living system.

Maintaining a stable internal environment requires constant monitoring, mostly by the brain and nervous system. The brain, more specifically the hypothalamus, receives information from the body and responds appropriately through the release of chemical messengers such as neurotransmitters, catecholamines, and hormones. These chemical messengers signal individual organs to change their functions in order to maintain homeostasis for the whole body.

For instance, if blood oxygen levels are too low, the brain signals the muscles controlling the lungs to breathe faster to increase oxygen intake. The brain also signals the heart to beat faster so other organs and tissues receive the oxygen they need. When oxygen levels return to normal, the brain signals the lungs and heart to return to their normal rates of function, a process called feedback.

Traditionally, the academic discipline of physiology views the body as a collection of interacting systems, each with its own combination of functions and purposes. Each system contributes to the homeostasis of other systems and of the entire organism. No system works inisolation, and the well-being of the person depends upon the well-being of the interactions between body systems. The traditional divisions by system are somewhat arbitrary. Many organs participate in more than one system (such as the heart and kidney), and systems might be organized by function, by embryological origin, or by other categorizations.

For instance, the neuroendocrine system is the complex interactions of the neurological and endocrinological systems. Together, the neuroendocrine system regulates many physiological processes, including those that maintain homeostasis. Furthermore, many aspects of physiology are not easily categorized by traditional definitions of organ systems because they are composed of interactions between organs in multiple organ systems.

The study of how physiology is altered in disease is pathophysiology. Pathophysiology focuses on how physiological processes fail to maintain normal function, resulting in the manifestation of disease symptoms.

Human anatomy deals with how all parts of the human body interact to form a functional whole. The study of anatomy is separate from the study of physiology, although the two are often taught together. While anatomy studies the structureof the parts of an organism, physiology is concerned with the way those parts function together. For example, an anatomist may study the types of tissues found in different parts of the heart, while a physiologist may study how the heart regulates blood flow to supply oxygen to other organs in the body. While anatomy and physiology study different aspects of human biology, together they provide a more complete picture of what the human body is and how it works.

The human heart and lungs: Anatomy and physiology are complimentary disciplines as the structure of body systems often influences system function.

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Nutritionist sparks backlash from doctors after bizarre female anatomy claim – New Zealand Herald

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Lifestyle

29 Oct, 2020 11:32 PM3 minutes to read

The post claimed that the bump at the bottom of your stomach is your uterus. Photo / Instagram

A nutritionist who made a bizarre claim about the female anatomy has been shut down by doctors.

Colleen Christensen, who posts under the Instagram handle No Food Rules, shared a "mind-blowing" statement with her 156,000 followers on October 22.

It read: "That bump at the bottom of your stomach is your uterus."

The US dietitian wrote about how she was "so frustrated" she couldn't get a flat stomach.

"Like what was that bump and why wouldn't it go in," she said alongside a snap of herself holding her tummy with excitement.

It wasn't until a girlfriend pointed out on social media "that bump is organs".

"So, that bump? It SHOULD be there and it isn't wrong," she wrote.

"A girlfriend posted this in the SociEATy recently and I realised that there is SO many people who don't realise this!

"Our stomachs? They shouldn't necessarily be flat! That's your uterus (and fat and other organs obvi like intentioned, stomach, etc, let's not get too into anatomy here. Simply saying our tummies and pelvis house V important things) down there!"

"Welp, the answer is part of that bumps is organs."

However, people bombarded her post to tell her she was wrong, including medical experts.

"Fat is 100 per cent normal, but saying the bump is your uterus just simply isn't medically accurate," UK doctor Joshua Wolrich responded.

"I don't think it's getting 'too into anatomy' to point out that this simply isn't true," another follower demanded.

"Your uterus sits below the pubic bone until about 12 weeks' gestation, so the uterus itself does not make a bump unless you are pregnant.

"But there ARE other organs there and also fat that is intended to protect those organs so the bump is still absolutely normal," the follower continued.

A woman who said she was a gynaecologist, wrote: "Unless your uterus is enlarged somehow fibroids, post-partum, etc this isn't true," while a midwife told Colleen it was "belly fat".

The US nutritionists' post also attracted the likes of British comedian Sofie Hagen, who shared the post on Twitter, with a sarcastic caption.

"Hey, not to brag, but apparently I've got a pretty huuuuuuge uterus. You may now no longer call me fat. I am #UterusGifted," she said.

One woman replied: "It's definitely not her uterus. The bladder sits on top of your uterus, so it's just a load of wee she's holding in!"

Colleen, who referred to her friend's uterus claim as "mind-blowing" is yet to respond to the feedback.

Some, however, believed the claims writing: "Wait what. This explains SOOO much. It doesn't matter how many crunches, etc I do, it's always there. Well, now I know why!"

"The womb tilts slightly forwards too which increases the bump. Great post," another agreed.

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Nutritionist sparks backlash from doctors after bizarre female anatomy claim - New Zealand Herald

The anatomy of sports fans and politics The Review – University of Delaware Review

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Konner Metz takes a look at the ever more prominent conversation on sports and politics.

Sam Ford/THEREVIEWIn a country that focuses heavily on politics, where do sports fans lie on the political spectrum?

BY KONNER METZSenior Sports Reporter

Where do sports fans lie on the political spectrum? Will sports fans of certain leagues come out in droves to vote for either Donald Trump or Joe Biden in the 2020 general election?

These questions come during a year in which sports and politics seem to be linked more than usual. Between the current election, athletes standing up for social justice, and leagues creating initiatives for increased voter participation, that relationship has been augmented.

But could sports or athletes alienate a portion of their fans by involving political and social messages? That question leads to understanding where fans of certain sports lean on the political spectrum.

In 2017, FiveThirtyEight looked at the search interest of seven sports and the Trump vote share in markets (cities and towns) across the United States. This comparison was then used to indicate which of the sports lean Democratic and which lean Republican.

For instance, the NBA is considered more popular in Democratic markets because markets that were more likely to search NBA news had a relatively low share of votes for Trump in the 2016 election. Meanwhile, markets with higher trends for college football searches saw higher vote shares for Trump . Thus, college football is considered more popular in Republican markets.

Six of the seven sports looked at by FiveThirtyEight showed a significant lean to either side of the political spectrum. However, the NFL showed no significant skew; search interest for the league was essentially the same in all markets, no matter if the market had a 20% or an 80% Trump vote share.

This middle ground in its fan base could be an explanation for the NFLs hesitancy to be heavily involved in political or social issues. Other sports, like the NBA and MLB, are perhaps offered more flexibility in political and social statements.

This past summer, commissioner Adam Silver did not hesitate at all in making the NBA an avenue for social justice awareness. Players were permitted to put messages of social justice on their jerseys, and Black Lives Matter was written on all courts in support of the movement for racial justice.

The NBA, along with the MLB, underwent a boycott of games following the shooting of Jacob Blake on Aug. 23 in Kenosha, Wisconsin . Silver said that he wholeheartedly support[ed] the leagues players shining a light on important issues of social justice.

Over the course of the summer, though, the NBA has experienced a decline in ratings a trend that has led President Trump to publicly call out and criticize the league. But with a rearranged schedule, the ongoing effects of the pandemic and declines in sports ratings across America, not all the blame for lost viewership can be put on the increased involvement of social and political messages.

In fact, a large portion of fans remain likely to still watch sports that include political messaging from athletes. Schuyler Reed, an avid NBA, NFL and soccer fan, and a registered Democrat in New Jersey, does not mind athletes voicing their opinions.

I believe that athletes have the platform and the following where they should be able to stand for issues that they believe in, Reed said. The way leagues, such as the NBA, have helped [athletes get their message across] has been very supportive.

Other fans look at sports as an escape from political and social hostility in the country. Dorothy McKain, a lifelong MLB fan, leans on the side of keeping politics out of sports, despite being a registered Democrat in Delaware and planning to vote for Joe Biden.

She said she watches sports to get away and that the two should be separate. On Trumps public criticism of the NBA, she said he came across as having poor judgement and looking unprofessional.

Andrew Surowiec, a Michigan voter who leans center right politically, looks at sports the same way in terms of an escape from national news. He has been supportive of the NHL striking a balance.

I feel like the NHL has done a good job at condemning hate and racism and everything in between but keeping the politics out of the sport, Surowiec said. Politics dont belong in sports, so anyone that criticizes it is in the right.

While the NHL has seen less political and social involvement as a whole, and from its players, ratings have still dropped. Increased competition from other leagues and a lack of scheduling normalcy are two possible factors independent of social messaging.

During such an unprecedented time, the Marist Poll conducted a polling of sports fans to see how certain factors would increase their viewing habits. Athletes speaking out on political issues saw the second highest percentage of making sports fans less likely to watch live sports.

Still, nearly half of respondents noted that athletes speaking out would cause no difference to their viewing, and a substantial 21% would be more likely to watch given athletes voicing their political opinions.

The above table supports the idea that politicizing of sport is not the leading factor in ratings decline seen across the board during 2020. Even so, are the four major professional sports alienating a portion of fans by refusing to eliminate political and social issues from live broadcasts?

The answer to that question remains somewhat unclear, as declining ratings have many possible explanations. What is known is that the four major sports leagues will run the risk of angering and driving away fans on both sides of the spectrum, no matter how they handle the evolving social and political climate.

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The anatomy of sports fans and politics The Review - University of Delaware Review

Six degrees of separation: From starry-eyed start to messy finish, the anatomy of Tata-Mistry divorce – Economic Times

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For two of India's premier business groups, September 22 marked the beginning of a bitter end to an association that had begun 70 years ago.

After four years of rough litigations, Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group on September 22nd said it would be exiting Tata Sons as minority shareholder. This is likely to bring the curtains down on the decades-long partnership between the two Parsi business families that had soured since the ousting of Cyrus Mistry in 2016.

The time between Mistry's entry and exit was marred with rifts, charges and legal battles, turning Ratan Tata's legacy-building decision of handing the reins to an outsider (a non-Tata) into an eventual courtroom nightmare for both the parties involved. Heres a summarised timeline of how the Tata-Mistry relationship came to this pass, from a starry-eyed start to a disgruntled finish.Chairman-in-lawIn 2011, many were left witless when a 43-year old Cyrus Mistry who at the time was primarily known for heading SP Group was announced as Ratan Tatas successor and the sixth chairman of one of the nations largest businesses.

It was well known that SP Group and Tata Groups relationship existed outside of business too. During the long-drawn search for Tata's successor, there were expectations of Tatas half-brother Noel Tata who is married to Aloo Mistry, daughter of Pallonji Mistry taking the reins, doing the rounds till before the day of the announcement.

Cyrus Mistry had joined the Tata board in 2006 after taking his fathers vacated seat, and during his time there had impressed Ratan Tata with his "quality of work, astute observations and humility". Many business insiders recounted the resemblance that Mistry had with Tata, pointing at similar temperaments and hobbies.

Paradise lostThe Tata Group had pushed hard for the youth to pave the way forward in leading positions during hiring and promotions in those years. "Be your own man" is what Tata advised the fledgling chairman while passing the baton. And that Mistry did.

The ultimate blow which immediately preceded the unceremonious ouster and which many see as a direct factor behind Tata's ire was Mistrys June 2016 clearance for Tata Powers $1.4 billion acquisition of Welspuns solar farms without seeking the approval of Tata or other key shareholders.

"Tata Power is a cash guzzler but generates very little profit. Yet, when its embarking on its biggest buyout, a principal shareholder is kept in the dark. Thats unprecedented in Bombay House (Tata Group headquarters)," said an old-time group insider.

But for some, Mistry was somewhat inept for the role from the very start. They perceived him as precocious and wayward to the group's core values. There was a clear disconnect between how Mistry and Tata operated with regard to the old cadres ethos and vision. Some even complained that letters questioning future plans sent to Mistry only got lukewarm responses, adding to a growing schism between the Tata Sons chairman and Tata Trusts.

Mistrys decision to dispose of some Indian Hotels overseas properties, bundled with the move to shut UK steel operations, did not sit well with the latter. Tata Trusts believed that Mistry did not take shareholders and the groups global ecosystem into account. "Tata was unhappy with the decision to shut down or sell the groups steel business in Europe," said a person close to Tata. "He wanted the group to turn around the loss-making business rather than sell it."

Other areas of discontent included legal battles with NTT Docomo, the collapse in negotiations with Vodafone, and the sacking of Indian Hotels MD Raymond Bickson. In a few cases, things got so out of hand that Tata himself would have to get involved to mediate. Furthermore, some began questioning the Chairmans eye for talent. "The people he hired are not inspirational leaders, just individuals," said a former Tata Motors executive.

Coup d'tatAlthough Mistry's ouster came as a bombshell announcement, for insiders the decision was a long time coming.

According to sources, Mistry was not consulted regarding the appointments and was even offered an opportunity to resign beforehand, which he refused. The growing frustrations within the Tata Group were sure to end in confrontation, said Tata group insiders.

A day before the infamous Tata Sons board meet, a message was conveyed to Mistry from Tata Trusts Chairman Ratan Tata regarding what might be discussed in the meeting. On October 24th 2016, Tata Sons board announced the ousting of Mistry as Chairman, and Ratan Tata was named interim Chairman of the group. By February next year, Mistry was removed from the boards of all Tata Group firms.

Hell hath no fury, like a Chairman scornedAfter the ousting, Mistry accused the boards trustees of 'shadow control', alleging legacy issues in the group. Tata, on the other hand, justified the decision citing performance issues.

The days that followed saw accusations and counter-accusations intensify. Mistry denied the allegation outright that the board had not been consulted regarding Welspun Power acquisition.

Regardless, in early 2017, N Chandrashekaran at the time TCS chairman was named Tata Sons Chairman.

In December 2016, two Mistry family-backed investment firms Cyrus Investments and Sterling Investments moved the NCLT Mumbai alleging mismanagement and oppression of minority stakeholders by Tata Sons, further challenging Mistrys removal by the company's board. At this point, Tata Sons served Mistry a legal notice alleging breach of confidentiality.

The Mistry family filed a contempt plea alleging that Cyrus removal was in violation of the courts order under which the involved parties were not to initiate any actions against one another while the matter was under consideration. This ignited a back-and-forth court brawl spanning three years or so.

In March 2017, NCLT set the plea aside over maintainability issues, as the two investment firms didnt meet the criterion of 10 per cent ownership in Tata Sons under the Companies Act. The Mistry family owns 18.4 per cent in the company, but the holding is below 3 per cent when excluding preferential shares. NLCT also rejected the firms plea seeking waiver.

Objection!After a joust with NCLT that didn't go in their favour, the Mistry-backed firms moved the NCLAT, challenging NCLTs order and the rejection of their waiver plea. During this period, a proposal to turn Tata Sons into a private company was passed by its shareholders in August 2017. NCLAT allowed pleas by the two firms seeking waiver, but dismissed Mistry's other petition on maintainability.

In July 2018, NCLT Mumbai also dismissed the pleas challenging Mistrys removal and allegations of misconduct on Ratan Tata, saying it found no merit in these allegations on Tata group firms. Unfazed, the two firms approached the NCLAT against this order too.

A month later, Mistry approached the NCLAT in his personal capacity. NCLAT finally admitted the petition, and decided to hear it along with the main petitions filed by the two Mistry-backed firms. In May of 2019, the NCLAT reserved its order after completing the hearing and in December 2019, Mistry was restored as executive chairman of Tata Sons.

However, the NCLAT suspended implementation for four months to give time for the Tatas to file an appeal. And so they did, challenging NCLATs order in the Supreme Court, which stayed the order. Mistry claimed he did not seek to return as Tata Sons Chairman, but rather was protecting the Mistry familys rights as a minority shareholder.

In July this year, Tata Sons said in a filing that financial performance and the companys brand diminished under Mistrys leadership. Mistry-backed firms pointed at Tata Sons turning into a private company amid the NCLAT hearing in their affidavit to the SC, which Cyrus had earlier claimed was gone under nefarious circumstances.

New normal"The current situation has forced the Mistry family to sit back and reflect on the past, present and possible future for all stakeh
olders. The past oppressive actions, and the latest vindictive move by Tata Sons that impact the livelihoods of the wider SP Group community leads to the inexplicable conclusion that the mutual co-existence of both groups at Tata Sons would be infeasible," the SP Group said in a statement on September 22.

The SP Group has now made public its plan to sell its Tata stakes in order to raise capital. Tata Sons will now need to buy out the 18.37 per cent stake, which is valued at around $20 billion, bringing a possible end to the court battles and the 70-year long corporate partnership.

See the original post here:
Six degrees of separation: From starry-eyed start to messy finish, the anatomy of Tata-Mistry divorce - Economic Times

Early development of the Neanderthal ribcage reveals a different body shape at birth compared to modern humans – Science Advances

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Abstract

Ontogenetic studies provide clues for understanding important paleobiological aspects of extinct species. When compared to that of modern humans, the adult Neanderthal thorax was shorter, deeper, and wider. This is related to the wide Neanderthal body and is consistent with their hypothetical large requirements for energy and oxygen. Whether these differences were already established at birth or appeared later during development is unknown. To delve into this question, we use virtual reconstruction tools and geometric morphometrics to recover the 3D morphology of the ribcages of four Neanderthal individuals from birth to around 3 years old: Mezmaiskaya 1, Le Moustier 2, Dederiyeh 1, and Roc de Marsal. Our results indicate that the comparatively deep and short ribcage of the Neanderthals was already present at birth, as were other skeletal species-specific traits. This morphology possibly represents the plesiomorphic condition shared with Homo erectus, and it is likely linked to large energetic requirements.

Prenatal and early postnatal growth and development are crucial to understanding the adult size and shape of the different anatomical regions because of the large number and high rate of size and shape changes occurring in the human body during those phases (15). Also, from an evolutionary point of view, prenatal and early postnatal ontogeny are decisive because evolution happens via phylogenetic modification of the ontogenetic processes that occur mostly in those phases (3, 6, 7).

Adult morphologies can vary because of interspecific differences in the shape of an anatomical element at the moment of birth that are caused by differences in the prenatal ontogenetic trajectories or because of differences in the shape of an anatomical element that arise after birth that are caused by differences in the postnatal ontogenetic trajectories, either concerning their orientations, lengths, or a combination of both (1). Roughly speaking, if morphological differences are found at birth and the postnatal ontogenetic pattern is equal in the two species, their ontogenetic trajectories will be parallel. Conversely, if they have a similar morphology at birth but show differences in the postnatal ontogenetic pattern, their ontogenetic trajectories will be divergent (13). This distinction is important because parallel postnatal ontogenetic trajectories between two closely related species could point to a consistency of genetic regulation of that anatomical element (1). In addition, the fact that a morphological feature is already present at birth will suggest that it is a relevant taxonomical characteristic not caused by developmental plasticity.

Despite genetic similarities that allowed for admixture (8), there is a well-established consensus that Neanderthals showed significant morphological differences when compared to modern humans (MHs) in the cranium and postcranium (9, 10). Some of these differences are plesiomorphic inherited traits from their Early or Middle Pleistocene ancestors, while others are present exclusively in Neanderthals (autapomorphies) (11, 12). Neanderthals were highly encephalized (4, 13, 14) and heavy-bodied hominins (15, 16) requiring large amounts of energy (1719). It has been proposed that to fulfill these energetic demands, the Neanderthal thorax had a large estimated total lung capacity (19) and a different thoracic shape that included a shorter, slightly deeper, and mediolaterally larger chest with more horizontally oriented ribs and a more invaginated thoracic spine, compared to MH (1926).

The very specific Neanderthal traits found throughout the skeleton (i.e., those different in size and shape from MH) are the result of differences present at birth and/or differences in the postnatal ontogenetic pattern, which may vary in different skeletal regions. However, despite being the best-known extinct human species, there are only a few studies on the Neanderthal postnatal ontogeny due to the paucity of well-preserved subadult fossil remains, especially of the postcranium. Nonetheless, despite the limited record, some patterns have been proposed, providing evolutionary insights. For example, MH and Neanderthal femoral length followed similar growth patterns with no differences at birth (27). Other anatomical traits (e.g., general cranium shape, clavicle length, and femoral and tibial robusticity) seemed to be different at birth between the two species and followed parallel ontogenetic trajectories, resulting in different adult shapes (2, 27, 28). Last, in the case of the mandible (2, 29) and the brain (4, 13, 14), Neanderthals and MH had not only different shapes at birth but also divergent growth patterns. However, there are still many anatomical regions that are relatively well known in the Neanderthal adult record for which there are few ontogenetic studies, which is the case of the thorax (24, 25). Methodological improvements in virtual reconstruction and statistical missing data estimation have improved the knowledge of the adult Neanderthal thorax (26). However, ribs and vertebrae from perinates and infants are smaller and more fragile, which represents a major challenge during the study of the early postnatal ontogeny of the Neanderthal thorax. So far, only basic descriptions and inventories of fossil ribs and vertebrae have been available (30, 31), and artistic license was used when ribcage reconstructions of subadults were made (4).

Apart from this very basic knowledge, the little information we have about this issue comes from (i) descriptive anatomy of the prenatal (32) and early postnatal ontogeny of MH (33, 34) and (ii) late postnatal ontogeny of the Neanderthal first ribs (20). Research on prenatal ontogeny of the MH ribcage has found that all thoracic dimensions (anteroposterior, craniocaudal, and mediolateral) are modified during the fetal period to result in the newborn ribcage (32). All these dimensions develop differently in the different rib levels: For example, all levels have roughly the same anteroposterior relative length in early fetuses, whereas the upper and central ribs of late fetuses are much deeper, relatively, than the lower levels (32). This is consistent with research on later postnatal ontogeny of the human ribcage, which has found that, after birth, the upper and lower thorax have a differential development that gives rise to the adult ribcage of MH, which is relatively expanded in the cranial part and narrow in the caudal part (33, 34). This differential development, controlled by Hox gene expression (35), is crucial because it indicates that slight modifications during development at different rib levels would cause different ribcage morphologies. This could have evolutionary implications for understanding the adult thorax not only in our own species but also in other hominins such as Neanderthals. In addition, the only study that tackled the postnatal ontogeny of the thoracic skeleton in this species was carried out by Bastir et al. (20). They found divergent ontogenetic trajectories in the first ribs of MH and Neanderthals, the latter showing less curved first ribs in the youngest specimen (La Ferrassie 6) and along the entire postnatal ontogeny when compared to MH. However, we do not know to what extent this could be extrapolated to the entire thorax.

In this study, we used virtual and statistical methods to reconstruct the ribcage of four young Neanderthal specimens (Table 1), identifying potential differences with MH in thorax morphology affecting the evolution of body shape and influencing respiration. Specifically, we reconstructed the ribcages of perinatal individuals of Mezmaiskaya 1 [M1; 7 to 14 days (4)] and Le Moustier 2 [LM2; <120 days (36)] and infant individuals from Dederiyeh 1 [D1; 1.41 years (37)] and Roc de Marsal (RdM; 2.54 years (31)]. We also provided the first three-dimensional (3D) morphological assessment of the early postnatal ontogeny of the MH ribcage during the decisive first 3 years of postnatal life to serve as a comparative baseline. Because of the differences in this ana tomical region in adults, we tested whether Neanderthal thorax morphology was already different from that of MH at birth.

Final reconstructions of the four Neanderthal ribcages are shown in Fig. 1 and text S1.

Bones that are preserved in the original specimen are shown in red, whereas mirror images are shown in blue and statistical estimations in gray (only for D1 specimen).

The ribcage of MH shows a rapid growth during the first ca. 100 days of life, which changes to a slower growth rate afterward (Fig. 2). For Neanderthals, we measured the centroid size (CS; see Materials and Methods) directly from the thorax reconstruction in D1 and using the costal size and thorax CS correlation (double-checked in the latter 3D reconstruction) in the rest of the individuals (Table 1 and text S1). When plotted with respect to their estimated age (or age ranges), the perinatal M1 individual fits well within MH size variation; the infant D1 is within this variation but above the MH regression line. For the two other Neanderthals, their current age-at-death ranges are wide but consistent with growth patterns observed for M1 and D1. The growth trajectory based on the mean Neanderthal age-at-death estimates roughly overlaps with that of MH during the first ca. 100 days but then diverges, with the Neanderthals growth being slightly faster. This overall pattern, using CS as a proxy for thoracic size, is also present on the tubercle-ventral chord (TVC) of individual ribs (text S2), a classic measurement for evaluating costal size (22, 25).

For the latter, we plotted minimum (triangles), average (squares), and maximum (circles) ages proposed in the literature. The growth trajectories of MH and Neanderthals are displayed in blue and red color, respectively, and Neanderthal trajectories representing minimum and maximum ages are displayed as dotted lines. Note that individuals with very similar CS are overlapped, e.g., the case of Ind27 and Ind29.

When compared to MH of the same CS (as a proxy of volume), the four Neanderthal reconstructions showed metric differences that were consistent in all of them regardless of their age at death (text S3). All the Neanderthals had a craniocaudally shorter thoracic spine and a deeper thorax anterior-posteriorly when compared to MH of equivalent CS. However, the thorax width of the Neanderthals exceeded that of MH only in the oldest individuals (D1 and RdM), but not in the youngest ones (M1 and LM2; Table 2 and text S3).

Thorax width was quantified at the level of rib 7, thorax depth is at the level of T5 from the spinous process to the distal end of rib 5 (average of both sides), and anterior spine length is quantified as the distance between the anterior-superiormost point of T1 body and the anterior-inferiormost point of the T12 body. Standardized values of MHs were calculated on the basis of linear regression of classic measurements on full thorax CS (text S4). Smaller Neanderthal values are labeled with the symbol *, whereas larger values are labeled by the symbol #.

During early postnatal ontogeny, MH changes from a ribcage that is relatively narrow in the cranial part and extremely wide in the caudal part toward a ribcage that is volumetrically expanded in the cranial part and still wide in the caudal part (text S4). Perinatal Neanderthals (M1 and LM2) also have an upper ribcage that is relatively narrower than in older specimens (D1 and RdM), who have a more globular ribcage with similar widths at the upper and lower thorax (Fig. 1). In addition, the exploration of the 3D warps associated with standardized CS in Neanderthals and MH shows consistent interspecific morphological differences throughout the postnatal ontogeny studied here (Fig. 3). The Neanderthal thoracic spine is relatively shorter, and from the third rib onward, the ribcage of the Neanderthals is relatively deeper than in MH. In the most complete individual (D1), it is also possible to observe that its spine is more invaginated within the thorax than in MH (text S5). In this individual, the mid-lower ribs are relatively longer than the uppermost and lowermost ones, when compared to MH of the same CS.

To better visualize the morphological differences between species, we warped a complete MH infant thorax 3D model into the coordinates of the fossil specimens using EVAN Toolbox software. Human standardizations were calculated using a multivariate regression of shape on the size of the 29 individuals from the comparative human sample. Perinatal Neanderthals (M1 and LM2) have an upper ribcage that is relatively narrower than in older specimens (D1 and RdM), who have a more globular ribcage, with similar widths at the upper and lower thorax (Fig. 1). Besides, the Neanderthal thoracic spine is relatively shorter, and from the third rib onward, the ribcage of the Neanderthals is relatively deeper than in MH. In the most complete individual (D1), it is possible to observe that this spine is more invaginated into the thorax than in MH. In this individual, it is also possible to assess that, when compared to MH of the same CS, the mid-lower ribs are relatively larger than the uppermost and lowermost ones. Regarding the orientation of the ribs in the sagittal plane, different declination can be observed at different rib levels, with the upper Neanderthal ribs (from 1st to 6th) more declined than in MH and the lower ribs (from 10th to 12th) more horizontally oriented. Rib torsion also contributes to interspecific differences because Neanderthal central ribs (from 6th to 8th) of early individuals have a stronger torsion (understood as spiraling) than in MH.

Regarding the orientation of the ribs in the sagittal plane, a different declination can be observed at different rib levels, with the upper Neanderthal ribs (from 1st to 6th) being more declined than in MH and the lower ribs (from 10th to 12th) more horizontally oriented. Rib torsion also contributes to interspecific differences because Neanderthal central ribs (from 6th to 8th) of early individuals have a stronger torsion (understood as spiraling along the rib axis) than in MH. Last, other minor differences can also be observed in Fig. 3. For example, both the upper (from 1st to 5th) and very lower (from 10th to 12th) regions of the Neanderthal ribcage are slightly wider than in MH, and their first ribs are less curved than in MH (see details in text S5).

When the morphological ontogenetic variation between species is explored in a Procrustes form space (size + shape; see Materials and Methods) principal components analysis (PCA; Fig. 4), we observe that the PC1 versus PC2 projection (96.57% of the variance of the sample) captures ontogenetic variation along the first PC and interspecific variation along the second PC. During postnatal ontogeny (from the PC1 negative values to the positive ones), the pear-shaped ribcage of newborns changes into a more globular ribcage in infancy. The main changes, which occur in the upper ribcage, are likely related to changes in the rib orientation at the costovertebral joint and the ossification at the distal end of the ribs. The morphological variation between humans and Neanderthals (observed along PC2 and independent of ontogenetic state) shows that the latter present more caudally oriented ribs and spines that are shorter and more invaginated within the thorax than in MH. Last, the relative maximum depth is found in the central-upper thorax in MH, whereas in Neanderthals it is found in the central-lower thorax.

PC1 represents mainly ontogeny, whereas PC2 represents interspecific variation.

This clear ontogenetic and interspecific distribution along PC1 and PC2 allows us to evaluate a hypothetical ontogenetic linear regression for each species, which is almost parallel between humans and Neanderthals during early postnatal ontogeny. The slope of the Neanderthal linear regression (a = 0.008) is clearly within the confidence interval (CI) for their regression slope (a = 0.031; CI, 0.065 to 0.032). This implies that although Neanderthals and MH are different at birth, the morphological trend is similar i
n both species during early ontogeny, with each species undergoing a volumetric expansion of the ribcage and a lower thorax still relatively wider than the upper one but to a much lesser degree than in adults.

Most authors agree that prenatal ontogeny and the first years of postnatal ontogeny are key to understanding species-specific features of hominin anatomy that we find in adults because of the prominent growth and development during those phases (1, 35, 29). Our results allow us to explore this issue in the Neanderthal ribcage, shed light on their body shape evolution and bioenergetics, and have implications for understanding the evolution of the thorax in MH.

Previous research on Neanderthal adult thorax size found that the upper Neanderthal ribs were similar (25) or even smaller than in MH (20, 24), whereas the central-lower ribs were significantly larger (22, 24, 25). While the Neanderthal costal skeleton as a whole was large, relative to the humeral length (25), the general volume (using CS as a proxy) was similar to MH due to both the shorter thoracic spine and the morphology resulting from the articulation of the costal skeleton with the spine (24, 26).

In general terms, and when compared to MH, our study shows that Neanderthals had similar general thorax sizes around birth but reached slightly larger thorax sizes in infancy (D1 and RdM), suggesting a higher thorax growth rate during the first few years of postnatal life. This would be consistent with the notion of a more rapid life history for Neanderthals based on evidence of dental histology (3840) and also dental development in individual D1, thought to be a 2-year-old because of the development of their incisors (41) despite the estimated histological age at death of ca. 1 year and 5 to 7 months (37). On one hand, we can hypothesize that because the overall adult Neanderthal ribcage was similar to that in MHs, if this rapid growth rate was not limited only to the early postnatal ontogeny and occurred later, the adult size in Neanderthal thoraces would have been reached earlier than in MH. On the other hand, other researchers have proposed that juvenile Neanderthals had a slower fusion of some elements of the thoracic spine compared to MH (27), which could suggest a slowdown of the thoracic growth or a dissociation of the ribcage size increase and the fusion of some spinal elements in Neanderthals. Dissociations of dental development, somatic growth, and life history variables are not infrequent (42), and a more comprehensive approach would include the study of the dental development along with the development of other anatomical elements such as the ribcage or the brain from the same individuals.

In our study, we built a growth trajectory based on the studied individuals (Fig. 2) using an accurate age-at-death estimate for M1 and D1 individuals and a relatively large range for LM2 and RdM. For these individuals, we have used the mean value of the upper and lower limits of the age range. In the case of RdM, the value used (1186 days; i.e., 3.24 years) was similar to the estimated histological age of Engis [3 years (39)], which shows a similar pattern of development to RdM (43). In addition, on the basis of the MH growth trajectory (Fig. 2), we consider it likely that LM2 was less than 75 days old. Other researchers found that for some skeletal values such as humeral length or femoral length, this specimen had slightly lower values than M1 (44), so a slightly younger age for LM2 could be attributed compared to M1.

Once the M1, LM2, D1, and RdM ribcages were reconstructed, the form space PCA assessment still yielded an almost parallel growth trajectory. This is consistent with the parallel growth trajectories from other Neanderthal anatomical traits, such as the general cranium shape, clavicle length, or the femoral and tibial robusticity, features that present interspecific differences already at birth (2, 27, 45).

Our size results based on linear measurements of the ribcage show that shorter and deeper thoraces in Neanderthals are very constant throughout the early postnatal ontogeny, but absolute thorax width changes early in postnatal ontogeny. This is based on the perinatal M1 and LM2 individuals, whose ribcages are absolutely narrower than those of their MH counterparts of the same CS (M1 < MH by 0.5%, LM2 < MH by 0.3%), and on infant D1 and RdM individuals, whose ribcages are absolutely wider than those of their MH counterparts (D1 > MH by 0.5% and RdM > MH by 1.3%). The most complete individual, D1, provides us with two additional features also observed in Neanderthal adults: the relatively longer mid-thoracic ribs compared to the uppermost and lowermost ribs and the presence of a more invaginated spine within the thorax than in MH. The latter feature is also suggested by the more dorsally oriented transverse processes of the lowermost thoracic vertebrae of RdM.

Apart from the traditional measurements, the size based on CS confirms that perinatal Neanderthals already exhibited significant differences in thorax morphology when compared to MH (Figs. 1 to 4). Not only the best-preserved Neanderthal (D1) but also the rest of the individuals that were estimated using an MH reference had several features that are species-specific and distinguish them from MH: the relatively shorter thoracic spine, the deeper thorax, and the (slightly) wider ribcage, features that are also observed in adults (21, 24, 26). The relatively short thoracic spine, which is related to relatively shorter vertebral bodies, was already noticed in the D1 individual (45), and despite the limited adult Neanderthal fossil record, it has been proposed as a specific feature of the adult thoracic vertebrae (21) or the thoracic spine as a whole (26). Our results are also consistent with previous research on body form of LM2, M1 (44), and D1 (45) that hypothesized that perinatal Neanderthals already had a wide body, with a long pubis and robust long bones. Last, this is in concert with the results from the Neanderthal La Ferrassie 6, where the authors hypothesized that the elongation of the Neanderthal pubis was a feature expressed early in ontogeny (46). These features, present at birth and constant in early postnatal ontogeny, would make the trunks of very young Neanderthals volumetrically larger compared to MH, which would underline the presence of different body shapes in Neanderthals throughout their entire ontogeny (1517).

Our results support that, for the very early postnatal ontogeny (0 to 3 years), Neanderthal and MH thoraces followed an almost parallel ontogenetic trajectory, which is in agreement with research on the skull and clavicle (2, 4, 5, 27, 47). However, when looking at other anatomical regions, previous authors suggested divergent trajectories for anatomical traits such as the shape of the brain and mandible (1, 13, 14).

In our specific case, it could be argued that Neanderthals and MH followed parallel or just slightly divergent (not statistically significant) trajectories because we used an MH reference for the Neanderthal growth simulations. The inclusion of older subadult Neanderthal individuals [e.g., El Sidrn J1 (27) and Teshik-Tash 1 (48)] will complement our current understanding of their postnatal thorax growth. For the moment, our ontogenetic interpretations should be restricted to these very early stages. It is possible to find stronger morphological differences in later postnatal ontogeny of the thorax because it is a structure influenced by body composition and energy requirements, which are strongly modified during adolescence, at least in MH (49).

Together, the current evidence indicates that most of the skeletal differences between the Neanderthal and MH thorax are already largely established at birth, the Neanderthal thorax being deeper and shorter than that of MH and showing a strongly invaginated spine at a young age. This is consistent with research on the Neanderthal postcranium of M1 and LM2 that found that, with some exceptions (e.g., radius/humerus proportions), the skeletal differences between Neanderth
als and MH were largely established by the time of birth. The fact that the characteristic differences between Neanderthal and MH thoracic morphologies are already present at birth indicates species-specific differences in the prenatal developmental trajectories and their genetic underpinnings. This early determination of shape might fit with paleogenetic studies proposing a selective sweep of RUNX2, a genetic fixation of genes somehow related to ribcage morphology (8).

Note that the thoracic differences between adult Neanderthals and MH were already noted by some 20th century anthropologists, who referred to adult Neanderthals as barrel-chested. However, this is confusing because the ribcages of Homo erectus from Nariokotome and the MH ribcage have also been called barrel-shaped [see references in the work by Franciscus and Churchill (22)]. Thus, while the term barrel-shaped may be useful for differentiating the thoracic bauplan of the late members of the genus Homo from that of great apes [traditionally described as having funnel-shaped ribcages (50)], it is limited when differentiating between taxa such as MH, H. erectus/ergaster, or Neanderthals. We consider the ribcage of the latter two species to be characterized by a short and deep barrel shape, whereas the MH thorax is characterized by a tall and flattened barrel shape (46), consistent with their respective somatotypes (15).

In addition, the fact that morphological differences in the ribcage are already present at birth confirms that these are relevant taxonomical characteristics that are not caused by developmental plasticity. This is consistent with the idea that the Neanderthal body plan is likely plesiomorphic in the genus Homo, inherited at least from their Middle Pleistocene ancestors from Sima de Los Huesos (11, 12, 51) if not already from H. erectus (46). Stocky bodies (high body mass index, combined with nonmodern body proportions) have been proposed for some Early Pleistocene hominins, based on the information from the Gona pelvis (52) and supported by recent estimations of Kenia National Museum-West Turkana (KNM-WT) 15,000 body size (53). Previous researchers also noticed in Neanderthal ribs and vertebrae some plesiomorphic features likely inherited from H. erectus, such as the rounder cross section, the lack of torsion of the lower ribs (22, 54, 55), and the more dorsal orientation of the transverse processes (21, 55). A recent reconstruction of the Nariokotome ribcage shows that thoracic features such as the deep and short thorax of Neanderthals are already found in H. erectus/ergaster (55). This evidence supports the hypothesis that the Neanderthal thorax, linked to a massive body, is (at least partially) inherited from their Early Pleistocene ancestors (text S6). As a consequence, the MH thorax, narrow and shallow with twisted ribs and narrow rib cross sections (12, 22, 54), would be derived within the Homo clade (text S6), suggesting that the Neanderthal ribcage morphology is a phylogenetically informative feature and not caused by developmental plasticity.

Last, the ontogenetic evidence presented here lends further support to the hypothesis that Neanderthals had high metabolic demands: Their distinctive thoracic morphology was already present at birth, and thoracic growth was faster than in MHs (10, 17, 19). Large piriform aperture/nasal bones in the RdM, LM2, D1, and D2 individuals have been observed (14, 31, 41, 56), which would be in concert with a high airflow into the respiratory system through a more projecting face in Neanderthal perinates compared to MH (14) and the hypothetical functional integration between the cranial and postcranial respiratory system (57). In addition, the morphological differences in the Neanderthal thorax found at birth, paralleling their adult state, would show a body shape characterized by shorter, deeper, and (slightly) wider trunks compared to MH of the same size. This would be consistent with previous authors on Neanderthal postcranial anatomy that proposed that perinatal individuals such as M1, LM2, or La Ferrassie 6 would be characterized by a very large ilium relative to femur length, similar to what is observed in adults (4446).

Background information regarding the Neanderthals studied here can be found in the corresponding literature (31, 36, 58, 59). Data acquisition of original thoracic material from the Neanderthals D1 and M1 was performed with helical computed tomography (CT; beam collimation, 1 mm; pitch, 1; slice reconstruction increment, 0.3 to 0.5 mm). The LM2 specimen was scanned at the Muse National de Prhistoire in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil using the portable industrial CT scanner (BIR ACTIS 225/300) of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig (MPI-EVA), with an isotropic voxel resolution of 70 m. The RdM Neanderthal axial skeleton was scanned with an Artec Spider 3D scanner (www.artec3d.com/). The comparative human sample comprises 29 forensic individuals whose ages comprised from birth to 3 years old that were scanned at the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the University of Zurich (text S7). All individuals were scanned in the supine position for postmortem virtual autopsy. Individuals with obvious pathologies affecting skeletal thoracic form were excluded. Because individuals were cadavers, any uncertainty caused by kinematic status while scanning was automatically ruled out. Before analysis, all CT data were anonymized to comply with the Helsinki declaration, and the approval to use these preexisting CT scans for our research was obtained from the Ethical Committee of the Canton of Zurich (BASEC-Nr. Req-2019-00987).

Ribcages were segmented through a semi-automatic protocol for Digital Imaging and Communication On Medicine (DICOM) images using the 3D Slicer software (www.slicer.org/) and subsequently reconstructed as 3D models. These 3D models were imported into Viewbox4 software (www.dhal.com) for (semi-) landmarking using existing protocols (60). Thoracic morphology was quantified through 20 homologous 3D landmarks and semilandmarks on ribs 1 to 10 and 19 3D landmarks and semilandmarks on ribs 11 and 12. Four landmarks were measured on each thoracic vertebra, and two on the sternal manubrium. The thoracic morphology was described by 524 landmarks and sliding semilandmarks (60). Semilandmarks were slid along their corresponding curves concerning the fixed landmarks to minimize bending energy from each individual to the consensus of the sample (61). Missing data in both the MH and the Neanderthals were estimated following a thin-plate spline approach (62). In the reference Neanderthal for the developmental simulations, D1, only 17% of landmarks or semilandmarks were missing, and they were estimated using MH as a reference. Once the whole set of coordinates was obtained, the landmarks were submitted to the Procrustes superimposition and analyzed following standard procedures for size and shape analysis (61). The size was studied through the CS, calculated as the square root of the sum of squared distances of all the landmarks from their centroid (61).

The TVC was used to address differences in linear measurements at different levels of the ribcage. Specifically, we studied the TVC of the 1st, 8th, and 10th ribs of the sample, because those levels were the best represented in the Neanderthal sample. Also, because the 8th and 10th levels are used for full thorax CS estimations of M1, LM2, and RdM, it is important to know whether we are under- or overestimating those sizes using costal size versus full thorax size correlations. These differences were assessed using a biplot of the log-transformed distributions of TVC versus age with the 95% confidence ellipse and the convex hull distribution for MH. In the case of the M1, LM2, and RdM Neanderthals, we plotted their estimated range of maximum and minimum age from the literature (4, 36, 37, 43). Virtual reconstruction of the thoracic elements and ribcage of the D1 subadult ribcage was done in the first place because it was the best-preserved individual of the four Neanderthals studied here. The recons
truction was done through virtual (e.g., mirror image) and statistical methods (text S1), previously validated and published (26, 63). Once the ribcage of this individual was reconstructed, we carried out forward/backward developmental simulations (64) using D1 as a reference for reconstructing the other three ribcages (LM2, M1, and RdM), based on the ontogenetic trajectory of our comparative sample of 29 recent humans from birth to 3 years (text S7).

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Acknowledgments: We acknowledge C. Cretin and P. Jacquement for providing access to the RdM individual and providing technical assistance, respectively. We also acknowledge P. Bayle for providing technical assistance with the CT scans of the LM2 axial skeleton and M. Thali (director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the University of Zurich) for approving access to the CT scan data. Last, we acknowledge the contribution of three anonymous reviewers and the editor that improved previous versions of this manuscript. Funding: This work was funded by the IdEx University of Bordeaux Investments for the Future program (ANR-10-IDEX-03-02); projects CGL2012-37279 and CGL2015-63648P (Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness), CGL2015-65387-C3-2-P (MINECO/FEDER), and PGC2018-093925-B-C33 (FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacin-Agencia Estatal de Investigacin); and Research Group IT1044-16 from the Eusko Jaurlaritza-Gobierno Vasco and Group PPG17/05 from the Universidad del Pas Vasco-Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. The Juan de la Cierva Formacin program (FJCI-2017-32157), from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, funds D.G.-M. A.G.-O. is funded by a Ramn y Cajal fellowship (RYC-2017-22558). Author contributions: Conception and design of the experiments: D.G.-M., M.B., C.P.E.Z., and M.P.d.L.; acquisition of data: D.G.-M., B.M., L.G., V.D., T.A., O.K., H.I., D.G., C.P.E.Z., and M.P.d.L.; data analysis/interpretation: D.G.-M., M.B., C.P.E.Z., M.P.d.L., A.G.-O., and Y.H.; drafting of the manuscript: D.G.-M. with the help of A.G.-O.; critical revision of the article: D.G.-M., B.M., A.G.-O., L.G., V.D., T.A., O.K., H.I., D.G., C.P.E.Z., M.P.d.L., and Y.H. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the authors.

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Early development of the Neanderthal ribcage reveals a different body shape at birth compared to modern humans - Science Advances