Pitt School Of Medicine Launches COVID-19 Therapy Testing Site – CBS Pittsburgh

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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) Major news for COVID-19 patients fighting the virus.

On Wednesday, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine said that it is operating one of the 25 nationwide sites that will test therapies aimed at treating early-stage COVID-19 cases.

This trial is part of the National Institutes of Health ACTIV initiative.

Pitt School of Medicine says it aims to develop a treatment that can prevent people with COVID-19 from progressing, which will later require them to go to the hospital.

They say the first drug being studied in the trial is an antibody treatment made by pharmaceutical company Lilly. Researchers say Lillys antibody was shown to help people with COVID-19.

According to the university, phase 2 of the trial is already underway. 110 participants will be recruited nationwide to receive an antibody. Theyll be compared to 110 participants who will receive a placebo. If the medication produces positive results, without significant safety concerns, it will advance to phase 3.

Researchers are looking for people to participate in the study. For more information to see if you qualify, click here.

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Pitt School Of Medicine Launches COVID-19 Therapy Testing Site - CBS Pittsburgh

Diversity Week kicks off with Racism in Medicine and Detroit Summit on Oct. 5. – The South End

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The Wayne State University School of Medicine community will examine issues of racism, discrimination and health inequities during Diversity Week, beginning with the Racism in Medicine and Detroit Summit on Oct. 5.

Planned and hosted by members of the schools Learning Communities, the Black Medical Association, and the Institutional Justice and Inclusion External Senate Committee, organizers said they designed the summit and the weeks events to be beneficial for all students with all areas of expertise.

Those organizers include members of the schools Racism in Medicine and Detroit Summit and Diversity Week Task Force, Sara Saymuah, Capricia Bell, Suma Alzouhayli, Manvir Sandhu, Ashleigh Peoples and Ntami Echeng.

While the topics of racism, discrimination and institutional injustices are complex and can be uncomfortable to discuss, the task force members said, these issues and topics influence our patient population and the way we practice medicine. The emphasis on social determinants of health and the influence of racism and discrimination in medicine is a growing topic. Coming from Detroit, a center for urban excellence, comes with a greater expectation of experience with these topics in real time.

The Oct. 5 summit, which begins at 6 p.m.,will introduce the history of racism in the Detroit community, medical education and in medical practice.

Year 1 and Year 2 students can receive a maximum of four clinic service-learning hours by taking part in the weeks events. The Oct. 5 summit will count for two hours for Year 2 students only. To be eligible, students must complete pre- and post-event surveys.

All events are free and are scheduled to take place via Zoom from 6 to 8 p.m. Register for each event separately at the associated links below.

The weeks agenda and topics include:

Oct. 5: Racism in Medicine and Detroit Summit. Medicine can be learned anywhere. Learning how structural racism influences the Detroit community and medical education will provide context for the urban excellence training at the WSU School of Medicine and the unique skills needed to care for an underserved population. Featuring Rhonda Dailey, M.D.; Carmen McIntyre Leon, M.D.; Ijeoma Nnodim Opara, M.D.; and Lewis Graham. You can submit questions for the panelists here.

Oct. 6: Racism as a Form of Trauma,6 to 7:30 p.m., featuring Carmen McIntyre Leon, M.D., followed by a dialogue circle facilitated by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. If you can begin to understand how racism in all forms has negative effects on individual and community health you can begin to understand how to combat this for yourself and for the people and patients you care for. The impact of racism is complex, but learning how to define and categorize responses to various forms of racism will help you piece together how you can make positive impacts moving forward. This event is co-sponsored by the Latino Medical Student Association.

Oct. 7: Our Identities and Intersectionality, 6 to 7 p.m., featuring Arash Javanbakht, M.D.How does your identity benefit or hinder your performance in certain spaces? Do you feel confident in some but shy in others? Why is that? What factors are at play? Attend to learn more about the importance of understanding your identity. Co-sponsored by the Islamic Medical Student Association and the National Arab American Medical Association NextGen. This will be followed by Smores and Wards, Medical Education and Discrimination, 7 to 8 p.m. What really happens on rotations? The sharing of stories can provide benefit in learning but also in building a supportive community around injustices experienced by your fellow medical students. What would you do if you encountered this? What will/would you do if you see this done to a fellow classmate?

Oct. 8: Healthcare and Vulnerable Communities, 6 to 7 p.m., featuring Ijeoma Nnodim Opara, M.D. Racism embedded in the structure of our society and institutions deters many from beginning to understand how we got here and why. However, the future of medicine and the future of our communities that we entered this profession to care for depends on it. By attending this session you will learn about the structural influences of health disparities and more importantly how to combat them. Co-sponsored by the American Medical Womens Association and the Cass Clinic. Followed by COVID-19: Racism and Health Inequity Zoom-talk, 7 to 8 p.m. Youve probably learned about the health disparities that the COVID pandemic blatantly exacerbated. But did you get a chance to talk about what this means for the Detroit community, current or future health advocacy efforts, or for you as a future physician? Join the discussion, learn the opinions of other students and share your insight. There is a need for transparency and collaboration amongst students, faculty and practicing physicians, and this could be where it starts.

Oct. 9: Allyship for Our Peers and Patients, 6 to 7 p.m., featuring Kevin Wang, M.D. Regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation - there is a place for you in social justice advocacy in the medical field. Everyone is welcome, and more importantly everyone is needed. This event can help you understand what it means to be an ally and how to use your powers effectively. Co-sponsored by LGBT+ People in Medicine. Followed by How to Be a Better Ally, 7 to 8 p.m., featuring Latonya Riddle-Jones, M.D.; Diane Levine, M.D.; Elizabeth Secord, M.D.; the Corktown Health Centers Patrick Yankee; the Callen-Lorde Community Health Centers Andrew Goodman, M.D.; and Henry Fords Ruth Ellis Center. Now that youve learned about racism, identity, advocacy and allyship, this is your opportunity to put them all together. By attending this panel you will hear how experts have pieced together these complex concepts and how they use them to make a positive impact. The discussion will be guided based on personal experiences and episode 10 from the podcast The Happiness Lab: How to Be a Better Ally.

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Diversity Week kicks off with Racism in Medicine and Detroit Summit on Oct. 5. - The South End

Editas Medicine to Participate in Upcoming Investor Conference – GlobeNewswire

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Editas Medicine, Inc. (Nasdaq: EDIT), a leading genome editing company, today announced that management will participate in the following upcoming investor conference:

Chardan Virtual 4th Annual Genetic Medicines ConferenceFireside ChatDate: Monday, October 5, 2020Time: 10:30 a.m. ET

The event will be webcast live and may be accessed on the Editas Medicine website in the Investors and Media section. Archived recordings will be available for approximately 30 days following the event.

About Editas MedicineAs a leading genome editing company, Editas Medicine is focused on translating the power and potential of the CRISPR/Cas9 and CRISPR/Cas12a (also known as Cpf1) genome editing systems into a robust pipeline of treatments for people living with serious diseases around the world. Editas Medicine aims to discover, develop, manufacture, and commercialize transformative, durable, precision genomic medicines for a broad class of diseases. For the latest information and scientific presentations, please visit http://www.editasmedicine.com.

Investor ContactMark Mullikin(617) 401-9083mark.mullikin@editasmed.com

Media ContactCristi Barnett(617) 401-0113cristi.barnett@editasmed.com

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Editas Medicine to Participate in Upcoming Investor Conference - GlobeNewswire

Purdue Veterinary Medicine Receives 2020 Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award – Purdue Veterinary News

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Friday, October 2, 2020

The Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine is being honored today as a recipient of the 2020 Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education. Presented annually, the national Health Professions HEED Award recognizes U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. Insight Into Diversity magazine made the announcement today (Friday, October 2). As an award recipient, the college will be featured, along with 45 other recipients, in the December 2020 issue of the magazine.

Dean Willie Reed said the award is a great reflection of the colleges deep and abiding commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This award makes an important statement about the way in which our college doesnt just talk about diversity and inclusion, but lives it, Dean Reed said. The Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine is playing a leadership role nationally with model initiatives that advance diversity and inclusion in veterinary medicine.We are working diligently to make measurable progress as a college and as a profession in being truly welcoming and supportive of everyone and this award documents that fact.

This is the second year Purdue Veterinary Medicine has been named as a Health Professions HEED Award recipient. PVM continues to raise the bar in diversity, equity, and inclusion through its innovative programming and leadership, said Dr. Latonia Craig, the colleges assistant dean for inclusive excellence. We are so thrilled for PVM to receive this award. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion lie at the heart of PVMs mission. We have a supportive college community that makes every effort to ensure we bring our core values to life daily. This work is not easy, but we do it because thats just who we are, Dr. Craig explained. You can have diversity without inclusion, but at PVM, we strive to create an environment that welcomes and includes each student, faculty, and staff member. We hope that our efforts will inspire others to engage in this work in the best way they know how.

INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine selected Purdue Veterinary Medicine for the award because of its multiple diversity and inclusion initiatives. In February, the college launched its five-year diversity strategic plan, which continues to receive praise for its thoroughness and commitment to inclusive excellence. PVMs role in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in veterinary medicine is long-standing. Award-winning programs such as Vet Up!, led by Dr. Craig, and This is How We Role, led by Dr. Sandra San Miguel, associate dean for engagement, each received INSIGHT Into Diversity magazines Inspiring Programs in STEM Award in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Other programs include PVMs new and popular virtual Learning Cafs, a monthly series of 50-minute critical conversations surrounding diverse topics chosen by the PVM community.

The HEED Award process consists of a comprehensive and rigorous application that includes questions relating to the recruitment and retention of students and employees and best practices for both, continued leadership support for diversity, and other aspects of campus diversity and inclusion, said Lenore Pearlstein, publisher of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. We take a detailed approach to reviewing each application in deciding who will be named a HEED Award recipient. Our standards are high, and we look for institutions where diversity and inclusion are woven into the work being done every day across their campus.

The other recipients of the 2020 Health Professions HEED Award include three other veterinary schools:

Click here for more information about the 2020 Health Professions HEED Award.

Writer(s): Kevin Doerr | pvmnews@purdue.edu

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Purdue Veterinary Medicine Receives 2020 Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award - Purdue Veterinary News

Michigan Medicine participates in first nationwide network to study rare forms of diabetes – University of Michigan Health System News

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Michigan Medicine is participating in a nationwide study funded by the National Institutes of Health that will seek to discover the cause of several unusual forms of diabetes. For years, doctors and researchers have been stymied by cases of diabetes that differ from known types. Through research efforts at Michigan Medicine and 19 other U.S. research institutions, the study aims to discover new forms of diabetes, understand what makes them different, and identify their causes.

The Rare and Atypical Diabetes Network, or RADIANT, plans to screen about 2,000 people with unknown or atypical forms of diabetes that do not fit the common features of type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

A person with atypical diabetes may be diagnosed and treated for type 1 or type 2 diabetes, but not have a history or signs consistent with their diagnosis. For example, they may be diagnosed and treated for type 2 diabetes but may not have any of the typical risk factors for this diagnosis, such as being overweight, having a family history of diabetes, or being diagnosed as an adult. Alternately, a person with atypical diabetes may respond differently than expected to the standard diabetes treatments.

Were excited to contribute to the RADIANT study through our deep commitment to understand and better treat rare and unusual forms of diabetes, says Elif Oral, M.D., an endocrinologist at Michigan Medicine. Michigan Medicinehas pioneered this field throughthe work of Dr. Stefan Fajan by defining Maturity-Onset Diabetes of the Young and we carried the torch in our current division through the work of Dr. Peter Arvans lab and our clinical translational studies in lipodystrophy.

RADIANT researchers will build a comprehensive resource of genetic, clinical, and descriptive data on previously unidentified forms of diabetes for the scientific and healthcare communities.

The studys researchers will collect detailed health information using questionnaires, physical exams, genetic sequencing, blood samples, and other tests. People found to have unknown forms of diabetes may receive additional testing. Some participant family members may also be invited to take part in the study.

We are thrilled that Dr. Orals team at the University of Michigan Elizabeth Weiser Caswell Diabetes Institute has been chosen for this important study, says Martin G. Myers, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., director of the Institute. In addition to helping to understand the causes of diabetes, Dr. Orals work has the potential to identify new and better treatments for patients in the RADIANT study and for others with diabetes.

USF is the studys coordinating center, and the lead centers include Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the University of Chicago. The Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Baylor serve as the genomic sequencing centers for the project. University of Florida, Gainesville, provides the studys laboratory services. Other participating centers are:

Support for the study is provided through NIDDK grants U54DK118638 and U54DK118612.

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Michigan Medicine participates in first nationwide network to study rare forms of diabetes - University of Michigan Health System News

After the Match: The Emergency Medicine Fellowship Glut : Emergency Medicine News – LWW Journals

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Figure:

fellowships

When emergency medicine was still the new kid on the block in the 1990s, fellowship opportunities for graduates were few and far between, and the only options were EMS, pediatric emergency medicine, and toxicology. This made each graduate's choice a little easier in many ways. You could take a clinical job and make as much money as you could ($100 per hour was good money then), or you could take an academic position that paid considerably less (around $120,000 a year).

Funny what a few decades will do. Literally hundreds of fellowship positions are available to EM graduates these days with many optionsacademics, research, sports medicine, critical care, simulation medicine, global health, population health, palliative care, telemedicine, and clinical ultrasound. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education 2020 match results demonstrate that a substantial percentage of the three most popular EM fellowship programs went unfilled. (See table.)

These data come from the 2020 National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) report for fellowships, and this sample of fellowships in emergency medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine, and surgery shows that almost half of the available positions for the three most common EM fellowships did not fill. Clinical ultrasound trailed all of them by filling only 45 percent of programs. On the bright side, this created a buyer's market for pending EM grads, and 92 percent of the applicants to these fellowships matched.

Perhaps even more interesting were the number of new clinical ultrasound and EMS positions available this year22 for clinical ultrasound, even though fewer than half of those positions filled in 2019. EMS was the same: Seventy-six percent of the available positions filled in 2019, and 10 positions were added in 2020, but the match rate fell to 62 percent. At least toxicology moved in the right direction by decreasing from 54 to 51 available positions in 2020, and the percentage of positions that filled went from 67 to 76 percent.

All of this is ironic given the popularity of emergency medicine residency training. Matching into an EM program is relatively competitive compared with other specialties that require three years of post-graduate training. Emergency medicine filled nearly all of its positions for the past 20 years, and 2020 was no different.

I have not mentioned pediatric emergency medicine as a common fellowship for EM graduates because the majority of these positions fill with graduates of pediatrics residencies. Some unpublished reports claim they outnumber EM grads by as many as 20 to 1. (ALiEM. Feb. 20, 2015; https://bit.ly/3aKjbrO.)

Pediatric EM programs are balancing the positions to applicantsall 191 positions matched in 2019, and 99 percent filled in 2020, with only two new positions added. Looking at matches since 2016, 98 percent of pediatric emergency medicine positions filled, but only 77 percent of applicants matched.

What should we make of all of this? First, look at the sample of fellowships in the table for internal medicine and surgery. These fellowships have been around for decades. They have few unfilled programs, and at least 97 percent of the programs filled (except for thoracic surgery at 90 percent). The 2020 NRMP fellowship report lists 66 different types of fellowship training, and 47 of these (71%) filled at least 75 percent of the available positions. Thirty-four (52%) filled at least 85 percent.

To be sure, money drives a lot of these findings. Cardiology and gastroenterology fellowships generate considerably higher incomes compared with the income from just residency training in internal medicine. By contrast, EM fellowships typically do not provide higher levels of income compared with EM residency training alone. This discourages potential EM fellowship applicants from giving up one or two years of high compensation with no future financial reward.

The other interesting finding in the sample of non-EM programs in the table is that 63 to 77 percent of applicants matched. The exception is pediatric surgery, with only 55 percent of applicants matching.

It is evident that emergency medicine puts little thought into when and what to offer as additional post-graduate training through a fellowship. Academic centers are still creating programs in specialties with saturated markets and little chance of routinely filling. This wastes the efforts of academic faculty to perform meaningful work. The amount of time to build and maintain a post-graduate program is considerable. Yet once a fellowship graduate moves to another academic center, he begins work on developing a new program.

This has been particularly true with clinical ultrasound. At the turn of the millennium, there was only one program; now there are 129. That's an average of more than six new programs every year for 20 years. There are only 11 fellowship specialties listed in the NRMP report with more programs. None comes anywhere close to having as many unfilled positions as clinical ultrasound.

The academic centers for emergency medicine need to think strategically about building fellowship programs in tune with demand. There is an expanding number of niche interests in our specialty, and opportunities are available to exploit the low supply of experts in these areas. The current supply and demand for many EM fellowships can produce a dangerous situation in which program directors searching for someone to fill their program select an unqualified applicant. This could create problems in the emergency department when caring for complex patients with residents.

It may be a better time than ever for pending EM graduates to consider fellowship training. It's easy to embrace the idea of making as much money as you can. The explosion of new EM residency programs combined with a skyrocketing number of advanced practice providers, however, means having a niche skill may be the difference between getting and holding on to a great job versus having your hours cut or being forced out.

Dr. Cookis the program director of the emergency medicine residency at Prisma Health in Columbia, SC. He is also the founder of 3rd Rock Ultrasound (http://emergencyultrasound.com). Friend him atwww.facebook.com/3rdRockUltrasound, follow him on Twitter@3rdRockUS, and read his past columns athttp://bit.ly/EMN-Match.

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Laughter is the best medicine: Donald’s immunity to humour – The Big Smoke Australia

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Multiple sources have all said the same thing: Donald Trump has no sense of humour. Which is fitting, considering his Presidency was motivated by a punchline.

Clive James claimed that if you didnt have a sense of humour you couldnt be trusted with anything not even to post a letter. His friend, the writer Martin Amis, thought it was closely allied to common sense; in fact, he called humour, common sense dancing. What does this say about the current lay of the land here in America where we are suffering through some of the least funny days in living memory? Nothing good. Poor Clives barely in his grave and already hes being asked to start spinning.

If there is a common revelation in the current avalanche of tell-all Trump books it is this: the president has no sense of humour. He rarely laughs at a joke. He rarely tells a joke. Its impossible to imagine him, head thrown back, tearful and helpless in the face of a funny story or a well-executed gibe. Any humour he does possess is only deployed to make nasty fun of someone. To a book, they all mention this singular lack in the Commander-in-Chief; and here we all thought it was empathy.

Theres a good case to be made that, except for the famously sober-sided George Washington, Americas best presidents have been the funny ones. Lincoln was so fond of a funny story that his Cabinet feared he wasnt serious enough to handle the Civil War. As Jesus used parables so Lincoln used jokes (and this way, way before Freud). FDR loved laughing so much he could barely keep a straight face even through the most serious of speeches. JFK was the first to turn the presidential press briefings into a near stand up routine; everyone looked forward to them. Reagan seemed to always be in on some private joke. How else could a man grin that much? And, Obama can be reasonably held to account for the current president by hilariously taking the piss out of Trump during the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. In the middle of that event, with the room convulsed, some even stuffing napkins into their mouths, there sat Trump, immobile, scowling, un-amused, a real stiff and a bad sport. Trump himself says that thats when he decided to run. He wanted to wipe the smile off everyones face; hed teach this black man and this laughing room of press and politicians whats what.

This origin story is a good one to keep in mind when many of Trumps apologists cover for his more extravagant and flagrant howlers by claiming, he was just joking. Really? Ingest bleach as a cure for the coronavirus? Ha, ha, ha cant you take a joke? The virus will just go away, like a miracle? The presidents just pulling your leg; ha ha ha. It is literally the last exit ramp taken by his enablers when confronted with obvious head slappers. The message is: Trumps got this great sense of humour, its just so subtle and deep none of you boneheads can get it.

So, lets do what should never be done on pain of having to spend a nice quiet, social evening with, say, Josef Stalin. Lets consider what practical gain is to be gotten by a sense of humour and why it might be a good trait to have in a leader. For the most part, to recognise and enjoy humour is to be able to run along at least two tracks of meaning at the same time. The shock of a laugh is when one of those meanings breaks into a context you didnt expect. The lowest form, a pun say, is worth a groan because you recognize the original now seen in a different way. The highest form (debatable) is irony, where this double nature is, funnily enough, the whole point.

Thus, a good sense of humour in a leader is an indication that he/she has a nimble, layered mind capable of holding multiple levels of meaning; capable of seeing from many, sometimes conflicting perspectives; can project the present into different contexts, different futures. For the complex issues of governing its nice to know that the one at the top can do more than dance following the numbers on the floor.

Now that we know that drink bleach, lock her up, Id like to punch him in the face Russia, if youre listening are not punch lines this election becomes more and more like being in a comedy club on bomb night. Its embarrassing, uncomfortable, a bit angering and starts you wondering what Stalins up to hes gotta be worth a few laughs.

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The Science of Life: The Concepts of Ayurvedic Medicine Amid COVID19 – ChicagoNow

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BY SANDRA GUY

If youre rusty on your history of natural medicine, its time for a primer and this one just might be a remedy for our continued coronavirus vigilance.

The topic is Ayurveda, one of the oldest healing sciences it originated in India more than 5,000 years ago that translates into The Science of Life in Sanskrit.

Ayurveda posits that everyone comprises three kinds of energy. They go by the Sanskrit terms vata, pitta and kapha.

Vata governs movement, but can be as subtle as breathing, blinking, the heart pulsing and cell membranes regulating materials transport. In terms of balance and imbalance, vata can promote creativity and flexibility or fear and anxiety.

Pitta controls digestion, nutrition, metabolism and body temperature. Its optimal energies boost understanding and intelligence, while its out-of-sync version is said to arouse anger and jealousy.

Kapha provides the glue that holds cells together and provides the energy for bones, muscles and tendons. Its high road expresses as love, calmness and forgiveness, while its evil twin leads to envy, greed and attachment.

These three energies are known as doshas.

Each energy is believed to be positively impacted by three tropical fruits that make up the compound Triphala. The three fruits native to India are believed to promote the health of the doshas.

Though Triphalas effects are scientifically unproven on people, its adherents boost its antioxidant properties. Ayruvedic practitioners tout it for oral health, to boost the immune system and to treat tiredness and upset stomach.

Triphala is available as a pill, a powder, a supplement and a liquid extract.

Experts advise talking to a doctor before taking Triphala.

If you get the go-ahead, Tiphala could well join your nighttime or daytime rituals for staying calm, balanced and creative just when you need it most.

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View from the North 40: It really is the best medicine – The Havre Daily News

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Human expression is different from other more biological responses like sweating when were nervous, which is a primal response of the fight or flight kind.

Probably the most common shared experience with the fight or flight response is public speaking the thing that a majority of people fear more than actual death.

What I learned in five years of teaching public speaking and a lifetime of hating it is that the thinking/feeling part of your brain says, No. No. No, no, no! Not a speech! so the primal part of your brain responds, by immediately pumping adrenaline into your body to help you run away, far, far away from the lectern. Or, I guess, fight your way through the crowd to kick open the door so you can run far, far away.

You need fast-twitch muscle action to speed your getaway, or make your assault faster than your opponents. You need more oxygen to feed this work. You need sweat to cool you down from the exertion. Your loud and or piercingly high voice is suited to calling your comrades to your side. The queasy stomach? Adrenalin says a heavy stomach slows you down, so dump the food and divert the stomachs blood supply to more important organs like your heart and lungs.

Weirdly, a small percentage of people will just shut down in face of threats, real or imagined. I had read about it: people speaking in front of an audience whose voices get lower and slower, their movement sluggish. They yawn. Yawn, like theyre falling asleep or something. Who does that?

Being in the sweat-shower and facial tick majority, I thought this was a bunch of hogwash, but then I saw it happen in real life. I think of this response to adrenaline as the play-dead defense. It doesnt get you out of public speaking class any more than getting the yips does, but, undeniably, sometimes it can save your life out in the wild.

Saving your life, nothing is more primal than that, but human expression, thats a little bit loftier stuff.

Language, of course, is not universal. Some gestures cross cultures, but not all of them. We raise a middle finger, someone else raises their fist and slaps their bicep, and another person crosses their fingers but it doesnt mean good luck, at all.

Some physical expressions are universal, though. Through facial expressions we can understand a small set of emotions, generally broken into happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, disgust and fear. By the way, this does help explain the core set of emojis.

Lots of research looks into the universal nature of body postures, such as raising your arms over your head in response to a victory or success, but dropping your shoulders and head down is defeat.

Vocalizations had mixed success. Voice tones are generally understood, but cultural and language barriers can confuse the message. For example, if a person who speaks a melodic language like French hears yelling in a harsher sounding language like Kurdish, it sounds angry even if the yeller is happy because their team won the play-offs.

Interestingly, none of the research I read this week called crying a universally understood expression. Crying occurs for too many different reasons: sorrow, fear, anger, even happiness. Apparently without the visual backup of the persons body or facial language, listeners couldnt consistently speculate on why a person was crying.

The single universally understood vocalization? Laughter.

Laughter is so well understood around the world and our bodies reaction to laughing and even hearing laughter a release of happy little endorphin hormones into the body is so universal, laughter almost qualifies as a primal instinct. A life-saving response, if you will.

To celebrate laughter and its life-saving properties in this stressful time, I will tell you my favorite knock-knock joke. You know how this joke exchange goes: Knock, knock. Whos there? etc., so you have to imagine me saying my part.

For my favorite knock-knock joke to work, you have to start it.

Whos there? Yeah, riddle me that one. Im always disappointed when I have to explain a joke, except with this one. Makes me laugh every time, so Ill walk you through it at [emailprotected] or http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .

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View from the North 40: It really is the best medicine - The Havre Daily News

In The News – Page 30 – ScoopDuck

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The Swedish Bumblebee

There is this odd story about bumblebees and flying. You know, these oval, buzzing, funny-looking insects that we often find hovering around our gardens in summer. The story, as I heard it, is that the bumblebee defies the laws of aerodynamics: it shouldn't be capable of flying with those tiny wings and that monster of a body (for an insect, anyway). Allegedly, it doesn't generate enough lifting power for its chubby body to take flight. (Just to make sure: this is false and the bumblebee's flight is perfectly consistent with the laws of aerodynamics).Yet, the bumblebee is flying. Clearly, these annoying little insects defy gravity every single day, suggesting commonsensically that there wasn't much point in supposing that they couldn't. In any case, the bumblebees of the world didn't care much for the musings of mice and men; they kept buzzing around, blissfully ignorant of their apparently supernatural powers. In the world's eyes, Sweden holds a similar position. Its economy always did much better than we'd except at a first-pass analysis. With the corona pandemic, we now have another episode of the Swedish Bumblebee story. Economically, Sweden shouldn't be as successful as it is. According to most economic thinking, a large government sector, the world's highest marginal tax rates, strong unions, and a generous welfare state should result in an economy with lots of slack and a society of slackers. Yet, it prevails: in GDP-per-capita terms it does at least as well as its European peers, markedly outperforms the allegedly free market-loving Britain and trails the United States only by about 1415% on aggregate levels. While its unemployment rate usually hovers a few percentage points above the British or American one, Sweden routinely scores well on quality-of-life rankings and it has long had the highest labor participation rate in the European Union. On top of that, Stockholm's tech start-up scene rivals the global metropolises of the world.There is no shortage of explanations to account for Sweden's odd economic behavior. Those on the left have usually invoked feedback loops from a large social safety net, redistributive taxes, societal trust, or universal health care. Others point to early widespread literacy, universal schooling, a strong work ethic, and strong cohesive communities. Right-wing explanations often rely on shared identities, values, and sometimes even ethnic homogeneity. Free-marketeers of one variety or another have usually said that it's because at heart Sweden is a hyper-capitalist economy how else could it afford to pay for such an outrageously large and generous state apparatus?None of these explanations are ironclad; if they were, we wouldn't have an argument over them. Virtually every Western country has high-quality universal health care; literacy has been near-universal for generations; and Sweden doesn't score that well in rankings of economic freedom.While international academics and policy wonks debate what's fueling Sweden's success and what portion of Swedish society could effectively translate into their countries the Swedish bumblebee hovers along, unperturbed by stories about its success. Blissfully ignorant of the many ideological attempts to prove its inability of flying, it flies all the same. With the pandemic, we've now received another data point for the Swedish bumblebee saga. Naturally, this one also comes ready-made to fit one's prior ideological beliefs. For those who say that lockdown is the answer to every problem, Sweden's relatively more open approach should have led to mass casualties, topping the charts of per-capita deaths. It doesn't. Its admittedly dismal outcome is surpassed by the heaviest of lockdowners: U.S., U.K., Spain etc. If you believe that lockdowns work to prevent the spread of the disease and deaths, Sweden is performing annoyingly well and should be a sobering wake-up call. It hasn't done too much in the way of closing society: it didn't close borders, schools, bars, shopping malls or almost anything else, but it still has fewer per-capita deaths than many countries that threw everything and the kitchen sink against the virus. For those who say that lockdowns are pointless power moves and symbolic expressions of societal self-harm, Sweden is the grand hero in terms of keeping society open. Then again, many, many more have lost their lives there than in the fortress-style lockdowns of Australia and New Zealand, South Korea and Iceland not to mention the neighboring countries of Norway, Finland or Denmark whose death rates are one-tenth to one-fifth of Sweden's. That's awkward if you, myself included, think that politicians of the world have reacted too harshly for too long.While the partisan stories line up and the spin doctors have sharpened their Sweden story, Sweden itself has ignored their musings just like the calm, humble bumblebee it is. Wide-eyed, most Swedes have watched remarkably inaccurate international coverage of its pandemic policy then shrugged it off, returned to their home offices, washed their hands with sanitizers and kept their distance while out and about. Throughout the pandemic Sweden has followed its own decentralized public health governance and its politicians have mostly stepped out of the way, dealing with the pandemic calmly and prudently. Despite an avalanche of foreign criticism of its pandemic response, it has held its ground, mostly immune to foreign rumblings, denunciations, and indignant judgments. The bumblebee keeps flying, unflustered by all the attention. Outliers be outliersIn any scientific venture, outliers attract attention. They're either intentionally ignored, waved away as something peculiar, or ruthlessly attacked for misbehaving. Of course, outliers point out that something is fundamentally wrong with our basic model. On economic well-being, it's clear that a country with an invasively large government sector and extraordinarily high taxes can still perform well. In the corona debates, the simplified story that lockdowns prevent spread and open societies kill people should be relegated to the dustbin of impressive theories at odds with reality. Admiring the Scandinavian land of IKEA, Volvo, ABBA, Spotify, and Klarna, everyone can fuel their priors; confirmation bias for all! All the while the bumblebee bumbles along, uninterested in your imagined reasons for why it flies.

Do not ever say that the desire to do good by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. Ayn Rand

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Trump’s America Remains Stuck in the Shadow of Reagan – Boston Review

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Only a few decades old, the corporate autocracy the former president unleashed on the United States is not natural law. It had to be created, and it can also be undone.

Reaganland: Americas Right Turn 19761980Rick PerlsteinSimon and Schuster, $40 (cloth)

From a humanitarian perspective, the Trump administrations handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a disaster. But in the eyes of U.S. corporate leaders in a handful of the countrys wealthiest companies, Trumps COVID-19 policy has been quite successful. The stock market has mostly recovered since the crash in March, and Jeff Bezos has made more than $70 billion.

Trumps most enduring deformation of U.S. political life will derive from his slavish devotion to unchecked corporate power and consolidating influencein the hands of a few billionaires.

In Washington it has long seemed that the well-being of corporations takes priority over the well-being of citizensbut there has never been such obvious proof. During a recent round of debates on further stimulus provisions, Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell made it clear that his primary concern is not relief packages for devastated communities, but a liability shieldthat is, a provision that insulates corporations from COVID-related lawsuits.

When Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2016, he and his pundits declared it a victory for the white working class. But the main beneficiaries of the past four years have been business executives and billionaires. Trumps presidency, whether it spans four years or longer, will be remembered for its open war on democracy, its overt racism and xenophobia, and the frequency with which the president voiced open disregard for human life (as when he recently said that the pandemic-related deaths in blue states dont count).

But in the end, Trumps most enduring deformation of U.S. political life may derive from his slavish devotion to unchecked corporate power and his work in further consolidating power in the hands of a few billionaires. As Christian Lorentzen recently wrote in Bookforum, the Republican Party under Trump should primarily be understood as an electoral entity that reliably obtains tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation for big business, increased budgets for the military, and little of anything else for anyone else.

How did the United States end up here? How did a country that prides itself on the opposing concentration of poweron extensive checks and balancesend up generating a corporate autocracy so complete that it is nearly impossible to imagine its end? Any attempt to understand and dismantle this current regime must begin with an appreciation of how it evolved in the first place. On this front, historian Rick Perlsteins new book, Reaganland: Americas Right Turn 19761980 (2020), provides invaluable context, alongside a timely reminder that this political development is still quite new.

Though Reagan's ascent to power bears countless parallels to our time, it also explains how corporate power came to be enshrined in Washington.

Reaganland depicts the rise of Ronald Reagan in the late 1970s. It is the final volume of Perlsteins four-book series on the modern history of U.S. conservatism (beginning with Before the Storm in 2001), which follows the movement from Barry Goldwaters rise in the early 1960s through Reagans election in 1980. The period of Reagans ascent bears countless parallels to our time: a politics that coalesces around a B-list celebrity, the deployment of racist dog whistles, the mobilization and consolidation of the Christian right, and the rise of radical conservatism. But most striking is the books depiction of how corporate power came to be enshrined in Washington. Perlsteins is not the first book to deal with the convergence of corporate interests and Republican Party orthodoxy; other notables include Kim Phillips-Feins Invisible Hands (2009) and Jane Mayers more recent Dark Money (2016). Yet Reaganland significantly contributes to our understanding of U.S. plutocracy by focusing on the moment in the late 1970s when corporate lobbyists became an overwhelming political force.

Today we take for granted that corporations practically run Washington, meaning that any ambitious legislation must pass through countless corporate lobbyists before Senators dare vote. But in the mid-1970s, as Reagan was emerging as a national star of conservatism, corporate power in Washington was weak and disorganized. This would all change in just a few years.

The rise of corporate power in U.S. politics owes neither to some intrinsic flaw in the United States nor to the unstoppable forces of the global economy. Reaganland, echoing Perlsteins previous books, instead explains that tireless political activism and organization determined the triumph of radical conservative ideas in economic policy. The conservative movements new institutions owed to the Republican Partys increased responsiveness to organized corporate lobbying, and a new breed of activist business executives armed with the tomes of Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek. Describing these executives, whom Perlstein dubs boardroom Jacobins (in an ironic reference to the French anti-royalist revolutionaries), he writes:

According to the theories of Karl Marx, revolutions happen when a group of people in a similar position in the economic structure become a class for itself: when they become conscious of their collective grievances, stop fighting one another, and organize to fight their common oppressor instead. That was what was happening in America [in the mid-1970s]. Only the class in question wasnt the proletariat. It was the corporate executives.

And this was a great reversal from the previous decade. During the 1960s, with the rise of consumer advocacy groups and activists such as Ralph Nader, a newly energized left had successfully challenged corporate disregard for issues such as pollution and car safety. Following 1968the portion of Americans who said business tries to strike a fair balance between profits and the interest of the public fell from 70 percent to 18 percent by 1973. By the early 1970s, corporate leaders expressed a feeling of exclusion from political power in the United States. We dont have a business community, just a fragmented bunch of self-interested people, one business executive complained in 1975.

This sense that an emerging left had victimized big business led corporate interests to consolidate, as they found a common enemy to mobilize against. This fight against the left energized a new breed of corporate activists and lobbyists, who began to meet informally around Washingtons K Street and in hotels in downtown D.C. (the Carlton Group, a famous network of lobbyists, literally met in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton hotel). Perlstein depicts colorful, largely unknown pioneers of the early years of corporate lobbying, such as Charls Walker. Walker, who Perlstein describes as a sort of Vladimir Lenin of the new class-for-itself style of corporate lobbying, would shape the 1978 corporate tax reform often seen as a precursor to Reaganomics.

Walker founded the American Council for Capital Formation and lobbied to make the three martini lunch tax deductible. An early Reagan supporter, he also shaped the Reagan campaigns economic agenda by convincing him that he could simultaneously promise massive tax cuts and huge increases in military spending. Walker lobbied Congress to support the 1978 tax reform by selling it as beneficial for the middle class, despite the fact that 80 percent of the benefits went to just 10 percent of the biggest corporations. This has since become the model for Washingtons tax reform debates.

Conservative business activists convinced the American public that tax rates for corporations and capital gains were the most pressing economic issues of the 1970s.

Activists like Walker, and the organizations they formed (such as Business Roundtable and National Federation of Independent Business), executed one of the most remarkable political shifts in modern history. In just a few years, they convinced the American public that tax rates for corporations and capital gainswhich were then paid by only a sliver of the wealthiest Americanswere the most pressing issues of the era. Indeed, this was the fruit of a successful propaganda campaign from the nations boardroom Jacobins, Perlstein writes.

And Reagan did not only ride this wave of corporate activism into the White House, he was also one of its most successful activists. Reagan was uniquely skilled at transforming the rhetoric of corporate lobbyists and economists into a language that resonated with the middle-class, selling the hooey of trickle-down economics as beneficial to the general public. This was perhaps his greatest contribution to the emerging networks of boardroom Jacobins of the late 1970s. Reagan triumphantly declared that massive tax cuts would pump through the economy, generating growth, new jobs, and thus new sources of revenue for the government, while dismissing those who questioned how tax cuts could generate more revenue as old-fashioned economists stuck in static analysis. The so-called Great Communicator was able to impart conservative economists messages with a folksy populism, describing consumer advocates such as Naderand any Democrats who dared call for increased regulationas elitist bureaucrats who believed Americans were too dumb to buy a box of corn flakes without being cheated.

Reagans rise as a national conservative star occurred in tandem with the strengthening of the corporate lobbying infrastructure. K Street, Perlstein writes, was finally getting its act together. And U.S. politics would never be the same: After a decade of pummeling by liberals, the denizens of Americas better boardrooms, who had once comported themselves with such ideological gentility, began behaving like the legendary Jacobins of the French Revolution. They declared war without compromise.

The political success of Reaganism transformed both the Republican Party and their Democratic counterpart. Writer Anand Giridharadas recently said that in the decades following Reagans election, the left absorbed the rights hatred of government and its devotion to corporate power almost like a secondhand smoke.

Corporate executives and billionaires wield enormous cultural power, shaping public opinion with their massive reach in the news media.

To be sure, corporate executives and billionaires do not wield more votes than citizens. In fact, they represent only a tiny fraction of the voting population. But their cultural power is enormous; they are the ultimate influencers, shaping public opinion with their massive reach in the news media. When Bernie Sanders led the polls in the Democratic primary earlier this year, the heads of financial institutions and large corporations provided the media with an endless succession of panicked statements. Lloyd Blankfeinformer CEO of Goldman Sachs, longtime Democratic Party donor, and old friend of the Clintonstold the Financial Times that he would probably vote for Trump in November if Sanders were the Democratic nominee. When COVID-19 deaths rose globally this spring, Leon Cooperman, chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors who boasts a net worth of $3.2 billion, told CNBC, I look at Bernie Sanders as a bigger threat than the coronavirus.

Even with the economic centrist Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, the slightest departure from neoliberal economic orthodoxy leads to an immediate slap on the wrist, with billionaires and executives swarming TV to complain that increasing the capital gains tax from 20 to 22 percent will be the end of the United States as we know it. Cable news hosts never seem to tire of providing Kleenex for the crocodile tears of billionaires. And it is not just CNBC and Fox Business Channel, but the Sunday morning political showsincluding Fareed Zakaria GPS (CNN), Meet the Press (NBC), and Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallacethat regularly invite billionaires on air for no reason other than their wealth.

And perhaps this is the deepest legacy of Reaganism. The pollster David Shor recently explained to New York magazine that the power of billionaire activists, or the boardroom Jacobins, is not just the power of their fat pocketbooks; rather, they possess cultural power:

Why do so many moderate Democrats vote for center-right policies that dont even poll well? . . . [T]he thing is, while that median voter doesnt want to deregulate banks, that voter doesnt want a senator who is bad for business. . . . I think thats a very straightforward, almost Marxist view of power: Rich people have disproportionate cultural influence. So business does pull the party right. But it does so more through the mechanism of using its cultural power to influence public opinion, not through donations to campaigns.

The corporate autocracy is not natural law; it was established by a small cohort of political activists. This means that it will not last forever.

Rick Perlsteins Reaganland reminds us that the victories of Reaganism were not just political, but cultural. Reaganism entrenched the belief among middle-class Americans that any opposition to capital gains tax cuts and corporate deregulation was inherently unpatriotic. But Perlsteins book also reminds us that this state of affairs is not natural law; it was established by a small cohort of radical, political activists. This also means that it will not last forever.

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Trump's America Remains Stuck in the Shadow of Reagan - Boston Review

The Tories are divided between libertarians and authoritarians. Who will win? – TheArticle

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On the battleground of Covid-19, a struggle is under way for the soul of the Conservative Party. It is being fought out between Tory loyalists who back Boris Johnsons approach to the pandemic and small-state Conservatives. The latter compare the arbitrary, even autocratic approach implied by the Governments latest anti-coronavirus measures to Big Brother in George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four. The question is: who will win?

It would be simplistic to characterise this clash of ideology as one of authoritarians and libertarians. Neither the Prime Minister nor the rest of the Cabinet would, in normal times, be seen as advocates of big government, let alone a quasi-dictatorship. As for the rebels, who are said to number up to 80 MPs, they are not yet a coherent, organised lobby group, comparable to the Thatcherites and Wets, or the various factions on the European Union.

And yet such labels are useful. The Tory authoritarians, if we may call them that, believe that in a public health emergency of this magnitude, the end justifies practically any means. So they greet with equanimity such draconian restrictions on individual liberty as the ban on singing and dancing in pubs, or 4,000 fines for reckless refusal to self-isolate. The authoritarians are also relaxed about bypassing normal parliamentary scrutiny, on the grounds that there simply isnt time for the endless procedural skirmishing that has dragged out the Brexit process. Their justification for toeing the party line is that the sooner the country submits to a strict prophylactic regime, the sooner the pandemic will be over and that this is what the public wants and expects from the Government anyway.

The libertarian rebels are dismayed and angry about what they see as a betrayal of everything they went into politics to do. Their de facto spokesman is Steve Baker, for many years a thorn in the side of David Cameron and Theresa May as a leading light of the European Research Group (ERG).

Baker is a fascinating figure, not least because he is a rare beast in the Tory menagerie: a principled libertarian who is not ashamed to stand by his convictions even when they are unpopular. A stubborn, self-made Cornishman with an RAF background, Baker belongs to the international libertarian movement. He helped found the Cobden Institute to propagate the gospel of 19th-century classical liberalism and Austrian thinkers such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek.

Such doctrines are much more influential in the United States. There libertarian ideas are popularised by the novels of Ayn Rand, promoted by philanthropists, think tanks and other institutions, such as George Mason University, but rooted in the American Revolution. Here in the UK, libertarians have never controlled the commanding heights of the economy in the way that Alan Greenspan chaired the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006.

Yet under Margaret Thatcher the currents of classical liberal and libertarian thought coursed through the veins of the British body politic, including limited government, privatisation, free market economics and low taxation. Unlike most Tory MPs, Steve Baker is a trained engineer; yet he has a profound aversion to social engineering of any kind. Libertarian hostility to the EU is not based on nationalism indeed, they tend to favour the free movement of people but on the regulatory mania of the European model. Libertarians are usually sticklers for parliamentary procedure, because only constant vigilance can ensure democratic accountability of national or supranational authorities. Hence the ERGs erstwhile hero Jacob Rees-Mogg, now Leader of the House of Commons, is under pressure to allow MPs proper consultation and debate before yet more draconian rules are imposed.

Indeed, Boris Johnson himself is seen on the small-state wing of the party as a hostage to Big Brother. Comparing the Prime Minister to King Thoden in Tolkiens Lord of the Rings, Baker issued an appeal to liberate the old Boris: The king is under the spell of his advisers. And he has to be woken up from that spell.

When he was a columnist for Charles Moores Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson backed libertarian campaigns for the decriminalisation of cannabis and the privatisation of the BBC. It is true that he has elevated his former Editor to the Lords and hopes to appoint him as chairman of the BBC. In that capacity, no doubt, Lord Moore of Etchingham would infuriate all the right people and might even hasten the inevitable demise of the licence fee.

But now that Boris Johnson is firmly ensconced in Downing Street, he cannot afford to risk the wrath of the British people, which has yet to be persuaded that there is any alternative to local lockdowns and other restrictions on social activity. It is not the spell of his political and civil service advisers that compels him to take ever more authoritarian measures, so much as the fear of losing touch with public opinion.

The bumbling mannerisms and flashes of brilliance that made Boris a star in peacetime have not deserted him, but they are out of place in time of war the war against coronavirus. He seems to many, not least in his own party, to have temporarily lost his touch. Yet there is nobody to replace him. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, is more popular because it is his job to dispense largesse, but if there were any substantial policy difference between No. 10 and No. 11 Downing Street, we would know about it by now.

As long as the Government remains united behind the authoritarian approach, the Tory libertarians have nowhere to go. The anti-lockdown movement has a legitimate place in the public debate, but it is powerless to prevent the curfew, surveillance and social isolation juggernaut from crashing through. The pandemic has yet to subside. Until it does, the sad words of King Thoden will echo through Englands green but not so pleasant land: The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.

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The Tories are divided between libertarians and authoritarians. Who will win? - TheArticle

Evolution on the smallest of scales smooths out the patchwork patterns of where plants and animals live – The Conversation US

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The Douglas fir is a tall iconic pine tree in Western North America forming a forest that winds unbroken from the Western spine of British Columbia all the way to the Mexican cordillera. The environmental conditions of Canada and Mexico are obviously very different, but even on much smaller scales say, the top of a mountain compared with a valley below it the rainfall, temperature, soil nutrients and dozens of other factors can vary quite a bit. The Douglas fir grows well in so many of these places that it turns a dramatically varied landscape into one smooth, continuous forest complete with all the species it supports.

I am an ecologist and used to think that the Douglas fir was simply a hardy tree, rarely hemmed in by environmental conditions or other species. But recent research done by my colleagues and me suggests that environmental conditions are not all that determines where plants and animals live in a landscape and the patchwork patterns of those distributions. These spatial patterns are also influenced by evolution.

Over time, species often adapt to local conditions, and these adaptations alter how and where they can live. For example, Douglas fir trees might adapt through evolution to thrive on both a dry mountainside and in a wet valley nearby. But my colleagues and I have taken this idea a step further to explore not just how organisms adapt, but how the process of adaptation itself can have profound effects on the patterns of where organisms live in a landscape.

Without adaptation, you might find a mixed patchwork of where species live a species of insect lives in the valley, but not on the mountains. When Douglas firs adapt to and grow on a dry mountain as well as in the wet valley, they create one continuous forest habitat where two very different landscapes used to exist. The birds, the insects, the deer, the flowers and all the other organisms that live in the forest can also now occupy both the valley and the mountaintop. Adaptation by the Douglas fir created a smoother distribution of species.

Adaptation, it seems, plays a larger role in determining ecological patterns than scientists previously thought.

In 1999, when I was a beginning graduate student in Connecticut, I wanted to understand how a predator called the marbled salamander affected the survival of the smaller yellow-spotted salamander in small temporary ponds. Much like the famous wolves in Yellowstone National Park, the marbled salamander is a keystone predator, and just a few individuals in a pond can determine which other species live there.

I spent months watching these ponds, but however much I tried, the patterns I saw just werent making sense. In one pond, the yellow-spotted salamanders survived alongside the marbled predator. But in the next pond over, under nearly identical conditions, the spotted salamanders were quickly reduced to predator poop. I couldnt find an environmental explanation for this.

To figure out what was driving this unevenness of high and low survival, I collected salamander eggs from ponds where the small salamanders survived alongside the predator, as well as eggs from ponds without predators. I then raised these yellow-spotted salamanders in buckets and looked for differences between them.

I found one surprising difference. The salamanders from ponds with the predatory marbled salamander adapted to the predator by becoming gluttonous eat and get big so you dont get eaten yourself.

In these little New England ponds, local adaptation had created spotted salamander populations with very different behaviors to allow them to survive predation from the marbled salamander. But before I could find out more, I finished my doctorate and found myself driving far away from these salamanders to a new job in California.

Over the next few years, other ecologists were beginning to recognize that evolution could happen very quickly. In one classic experiment, scientists put algae and a microscopic grazer into a tank together. At first, there were cycles of boom and bust, but after only a few weeks, the algae evolved defenses that prevented them from being eaten and stopped the large swings in population numbers.

This was intriguing. My experience with the salamanders had taught me that evolution could happen not just quickly, but also differently in two nearby and otherwise similar ponds. If evolution affected population patterns in time, maybe it could also affect species distribution patterns in space.

I returned to my salamanders after getting a job at the University of Connecticut. This time, I wasnt interested just in how salamanders adapted to their ecosystem, but how their adaptations altered the ecosystem itself. I again raised salamanders from high- and low-predation ponds under the same conditions. But this time, I tracked what happened to other species in the artificial ecosystems I had created.

The predatory marbled salamanders eat small crustaceans. But the yellowspotted salamanders adapted to the predators by eating more of these small crustaceans too. Adaptation by the yellow-spotted salamanders resulted in far fewer crustaceans in the ponds. My experiment showed that this adaptation amplified differences in the numbers of crustaceans between ponds with and without the marbled predator. In this case, adaptation made two ponds more different than they would have been otherwise.

When I compared my experiments with what was happening in the natural ponds, I realized that I had discovered what was driving the perplexing patterns Id seen years before. Local adaptation, not just the environment or other species, was amplifying the differences in these ponds.

I began to wonder: If this effect was happening with salamanders, could local adaptation also amplify or dampen spatial ecological patterns in other species? Was this a widespread effect?

Answering this question would require evidence from creatures all around the world. I recruited a bunch of biologist friends to help me sort through thousands of past studies on everything from bacteria to birds and look for evidence that local adaptation was changing the spatial patterns of these species.

Our team gathered information from 500 studies over the past 100 years. We found that, as with my salamanders, adaptation sometimes makes existing differences between places even greater than expected without evolution.

Adaptation can also create patterns where none existed previously. Widespread plants like goldenrods and aspens often evolve chemical defenses that change which insects can eat them. Adaptation creates new patchwork patterns of insect abundances and diversity across fields and forests where none would exist otherwise.

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However, we found that in 85% of cases, adaptation dampened existing ecological spatial patterns. Organisms ranging from the modest apple maggot fly to the grand Douglas fir adapted in ways that reduced the variability of the landscapes in which they lived. Adaptation on small spatial scales smoothed out the patchwork of forests and meadows, populating both hilltops and valleys with the same trees, birds, insects and other organisms. Thanks to adaptation, the world in general is more homogeneous than it would otherwise be.

So next time you find yourself counting down the hours for your car to reach its destination, notice the natural patterns scrolling by your window. Many of these patterns reflect the hidden hand of evolution, which has ironed out the wrinkles and left the world a smoother place.

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Evolution on the smallest of scales smooths out the patchwork patterns of where plants and animals live - The Conversation US

How River Capture Affects the Evolution of Aquatic Organisms – Eos

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The evolution of organisms and of their environments is inherently linked. Although the understanding that the gene pool is dynamic has shaped much of our understanding of modern biology, its easy to forget that environments are also in flux.

Research has shown that geologically active areas of the planet, especially those with rugged topography, may generate more species diversity. Stokes and Perron investigate the consequences of changes in topography for aquatic organisms and their habitats.

Drainage basins and river paths are constantly changing because of myriad natural phenomena, including tectonic activity, erosion, damming, and glacier retreat. These processes sometimes lead to abrupt alterations of river paths known as river captures. In the new study, the authors create and combine two modelsone that describes macroevolutionary processes of speciation, extinction, and dispersal, and another that simulates river basin changes over timeto investigate how river capture influences the evolution of aquatic organisms.

The results indicate that river capture leads to transient increases in species richness: When the path of a river changes, organisms in the captured regions are introduced into new drainage basins and may become genetically isolated from populations with which they previously could have bred. Over time, these separated populations may diverge sufficiently to become new species.

The authors model also shows that both speciation and extinction events are more likely in river basins undergoing reorganization but that the speciation rate often outpaces the extinction rate, leading to higher diversification overall. When river capture events are frequent and organisms typically disperse and speciate slowly, biodiversity increases. Conversely, in cases where a drainage divide is changing but river capture rates are low, biodiversity drops. (Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JF005652, 2020)

David Shultz, Science Writer

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How River Capture Affects the Evolution of Aquatic Organisms - Eos

Evolution Credit Partners Raises $565 Million in Committed Capital for Inaugural Private Credit Fund; Evolution’s Alternative Credit Platform Reaches…

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BOSTON and NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Evolution Credit Partners Management ("Evolution" or the "Firm"), an alternative credit firm with over $1.6 billion in assets under management, today announced the final close of its inaugural middle-market direct lending fund, Evolution Credit Partners I, L.P. ("ECP I" or the "Fund"). The Fund has approximately $565 million of investable capital, including leverage. Evolution received commitments from a prominent group of domestic and foreign limited partners including insurance companies, endowments and foundations, banks, family offices and high net worth individuals. Since the Firm's spin out from Harvard Management Company in April 2018, ECP I has invested approximately $500 million across 25 private-equity backed portfolio companies.

In addition to the close of ECP I, in December 2019, Evolution's contingent credit strategy fund, Evolution Credit Partners Finance I, L.P., had its final close raising $1.1 billion in equity commitments from a concentrated group of limited partners.

About Evolution Credit PartnersEvolution Credit Partners, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, manages approximately $1.6 billion across a range of synergistic credit strategies. Evolution's credit platform provides bespoke financing solutions across the credit spectrum. For more information, please visit evolutioncreditpartners.com or contact [emailprotected].

This press release contains certain statements that may include "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are "forward-looking statements." The forward-looking statements are based on Evolution's beliefs, assumptions and expectations of future performance, taking into account all information currently available to Evolution, and can change as a result of many possible events or factors, not all of which are known to Evolution or are within its control.

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https://www.evolutioncreditpartners.com/

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Evolution Credit Partners Raises $565 Million in Committed Capital for Inaugural Private Credit Fund; Evolution's Alternative Credit Platform Reaches...

Microsoft’s Law Firm Diversity Program 2020 awards and the next evolution of the program – Microsoft on the Issues – Microsoft

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Since 2008, Microsofts Law Firm Diversity Program (LFDP) has been a vehicle for the company to partner with our strategic partner law firms to advance diversity in the legal profession. We report annually on the programs results, spotlight top performances among our law firm participants and provide insight into how we will evolve the program in the next year to drive continued progress.

This year, we are pleased to share that we continue to see diversity gains by our program participants and to announce that Perkins Coie and Latham & Watkins have earned special recognition for their diversity achievements and contributions to our program.

Were also announcing that in this fiscal year, we will expand the program bonus pool and the number of law firms that can participate to drive more and faster progress with a greater focus on African American, Black, Hispanic and Latinx representation in leadership.

Continued progress in 2020

The LFDP is an incentive-based program that rewards participating firms for increasing diversity within the firms, with a specific focus on:

This last fiscal year, participating firms were eligible to earn a full bonus of up to 2 percent of their annual fees by meeting diversity targets in each of these areas. For purposes of the program, we define increases in diversity as greater inclusion of women, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and veterans.

For the 12th consecutive year, diversity has increased within the teams working on Microsoft matters from participant firms. This years gains contributed to nearly a 30 pecentage point overall increase in the percentage of hours worked by diverse attorneys on our matters since the program launched. Since we added a focus on diversity in firm leadership to the program in 2015, diverse representation among management committees has increased by 12 percentage points, and diverse partner composition has grown from 33% to over 38%.

This growth represents commitment, innovation and partnership across our partner firms participating in the program. Given the health and economic crises caused by COVID-19 this year, we are especially grateful to our partner firms for their steadfast focus on creating a more diverse and inclusive industry and legal system during this time. Though we celebrate the gains we have made within the program, we have much more work to do as individual organizations and a profession, and it is as important as ever that we do not lose focus.

Our 2020 Law Firm Diversity Program award recipients

This year, as last year, we have two special awards within the program:

We are pleased to share that Perkins Coie is this years Top Performer, and for the second year in a row, Latham & Watkins is our LFDP Most Innovative firm.

Top Performing Law Firm Perkins Coie

In the last five years, Perkins Coie has achieved impressive progress against LFDP program goals, growing diverse attorney hours on Microsoft matters by 12.3 percentage points (from 56.7% to 69%), and a 10.3 point increase in overall diverse partner representation at the firm (from 33.6% to 43.9%). Perkins Coie has also made great progress in diverse representation on its management committee, with over 64% of their committee members identifying as women, minorities, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities and veterans. Perkins Coies proactive approach earned the firm recognition on Fortunes list of Best Workplaces for Diversity last year and has positioned the firm as a leader for diversity in the profession. We celebrate Perkins Coies efforts and congratulate their earning of this years award.

Most Innovative Law Firm Latham & Watkins

The LFDP Most Innovative award was created last year to incentivize real, meaningful and sustained progress through innovation as a core principle for the LFDP. For the second consecutive year, Latham & Watkins has been recognized by a vote of its peer participants as the LFDP Most Innovative firm. This year, the firm won over its peers with two new initiatives intended to create a culture of allyship at the firm and reward firm timekeepers for investing their time in diversity and inclusion efforts.

Encouraging allyship

Latham & Watkins created an allyship campaign that aims to provide practical stepson how to be an ally,highlight examples ofallyshipat thefirmandfacilitatesafe space opportunities for everyone to engage in meaningful dialogue about diversity and inclusion, and allyship. The firm anticipates the campaigns launch in the coming year.

Earning credit for diversity and inclusion activities

Latham & Watkins launched a program starting this year where associates and counsel can earn up to a certainnumberof bonus-eligible hours working on activities. In this way, Latham & Watkins understands that providing this credit is an incentive that underscores not only the importance of diversity and inclusion contributions, but also helps increase engagement, both of which are key toward making headway in this space.

We believe that innovative ideas and approaches are necessary to move our profession forward. We also believe that when it comes to diversity and inclusion, sharing ideas will help us all to accelerate our progress. We celebrate Latham & Watkinss commitment to innovation and sharing, so that others can learn from their efforts.

Expanding the Law Firm Diversity Program to drive greater progress

While we are grateful for all the progress in the last year and in the last 12 years, we cant lose sight of the fact that there is much progress to still be made. Indeed, the data on this is quite sobering. Numerous reports from the last year find that we are far from the diverse and inclusive profession that we need to be.

For example, though Asian American, African American and Black, Latinx and Hispanic, and Native American people comprise between 35% and 40% of the U.S. population, Law360 reports in its 2019 snapshot that only 10% of partners at the firms it surveyed identified with these communities.

The data also reflects that the pace of change for some demographics has been too slow, particularly in leadership and for African American, Black, Hispanic and Latinx people. The National Association for Law Placement reports that representation of Black or African American partners rose only a quarter of one percentage point in the 10 years between 2009 and 2019, from 1.7% to 1.9%. Similarly, in the same period, representation for Latinx partners grew less than one percentage point, from 1.6% to 2.5%. At this rate of change, reaching proportional representation for these communities will take more than 50 years. We must make faster progress, and that progress must be inclusive of all diverse communities.

With this context in mind, Microsoft is taking three steps to evolve the LFDP this year:

Additionally, this year we worked with our law firm partners in the United Kingdom to pilot a version of the LFDP in that region and they recently announced the law firm winners of their pilot year.

With this latest evolution of the program, we increase our commitment to diversity and inclusion by strengthening our partnership with our law firms to make continued progress together over the next year.

Sources and where to learn more about the journey toward increasing diversity in the legal profession:

The legal profession must not let COVID-19 weaken our commitment to diversity

Left Out and Left Behind on the experiences of women of color in the profession published by the ABA Commission on Women

NALP 2019 Report on Diversity in U.S. Law Firms

2019 Law360 Diversity Snapshot

Tags: diversity, Law, Law Firm Diversity Program, LFDP

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The Evolution of Cybersecurity Threats During COVID-19 and What You Can Do About It – uschamber.com

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Throughout history, criminals have exploited national emergencies for financial or illicit gain. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, the risk for cyber-enabled fraud exploded in unparalleled scale and scope. Today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and FICO released a Special Report on Cybersecure Remote Working During COVID-19, spotlighting the evolution of cybersecurity threats during the coronavirus pandemic and providing expert insight as to how businesses can enhance their cybersecurity.

COVID-19 has changed many aspects of our livesworking from home, virtual meetings, and digital commerce are becoming our new normaland theres no reason to think that all of this will revert to the old normal once the pandemic wanes. Cybercriminals have taken advantage of this new normal and have been exploiting cyber vulnerabilities among businesses.

How and Where Cybercriminals Are Targeting Businesses

Ed Cabrera, chief cybersecurity officer at Trend Micro, says in the new report that cybercriminal groups know that humans are often the weakest link in cybersecurity defense, and now they have a highly emotional issue ready to exploit.

COVID is international, it definitely provides another opportunity for these groups to scale their social engineering [psychological manipulation] attacks, Cabrera says. Weve definitely seen an uptick.

Cabrera adds that his company has seen evidence of an increase in a wide range of cyberattacks linked to the pandemic. According to Trend Micro, in the first quarter of this year there were nearly one million spam messages sent, 48,000 hits on malicious URLs, and 737 pieces of malware detectedall tailored with content relevant to COVID-19. Often, these attacks prey on peoples emotions or simply their desire to learn about the pandemic.

"They exploit our trust. The trust we have in the applications we use, the emails that we get, Cabrera says. What theyve done is play on the fear and frustration that everybody feels from having been locked down. They are sending phishing emails using topics like rising COVID hotspots in their area [or] increased death rates. Or any information that relates to school openings or COVID testing results.

This is especially true in phishing (fraudulent email or website scams) attacks, which take advantage of short attention spans and seek to build trust quickly with the recipient.

Certainly, the usage of COVID-19 as a lure for phishing operations has become more prevalent. Thats to be expected when you have something that has universal, global interest, says Luke McNamara, principal analyst at FireEye Mandiant Intelligence. It can be used for campaigns and intrusion targeting around the globe. Many of the campaigns and groups that weve been tracking for some time have now started to roll that into their operations.

The prevalence of videoconferencing in a time of working from home is also something in which malicious attackers are interested. If nothing else, it gives them the opportunity to eavesdrop on confidential communications and gather intelligence.

Another challenge of working from home is changing from centralized, corporate networks to more distributed, home networks.

With the move from a centralized workplace to a distributed one across a variety of home offices, COVID-19 brought new network security challenges to global IT teams, said Doug Clare, vice president, fraud, compliance and security solutions at FICO. As workforces around the world continue to operate remotely with data being exchanged digitally whether by virtual meetings or e-commerce, cybersecurity needs to remain top-of-mind for organizations.

Steps Businesses Can Take to Secure Their Virtual Working Environments

The good news is there are several steps businesses and employees can take to enhance their cybersecurity, especially now as the COVID-19 pandemic altered the work patterns of millions of Americans virtually overnight.

Here are six recommendations included in the report that every business can use:

Americans have enough to worry about with economic uncertainty, health concerns, job losses, and so forth, and we want to ensure business owners have the right tools to increase the security of their virtual working environments, said Christopher D. Roberti, senior vice president for cyber, intelligence, and supply chain security policy at the U.S. Chamber. This Special Report provides recommendations and expert opinions that will help that process.

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The Evolution of Cybersecurity Threats During COVID-19 and What You Can Do About It - uschamber.com

A New Direction – Mezzo-Soprano Marina Poplavskaya on the Evolution & Relaunching of Her Career – OperaWire

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(Credit: Jenkins Mitch)

A few months back, it was erroneously reported by several publications (including this one) that soprano Marina Poplavskaya had officially retired from her career.

That was far from the case.

While the Russian mezzo-soprano has not been quite as active as she was at the beginning of the 2010s, she is far from finished as a singer.

I had to find the path for my voice because it had changed, Poplavskaya told OperaWire in a recent interview, clarifying the direction her career had taken since her last Met Opera appearance back in 2014.

The soprano became a household name in the mid-2000s and early 2010s, performing at virtually every major opera house on a weekly basis.

As Poplavskaya describes it, those days were full of non-stop movement from one place to another fueled by a desire to take on every opportunity that came her way.

One really true thing is that I had to always jump in for someone, she stated, emphasizing how some of her greatest moments came in relief of other singers (such as her Royal Opera House debut in 2007 in Don Giovanni in relief of an ailing Anna Netrebko). I was literally jumping into all of these productions because I loved performing. Thats the answer. I loved performing. I didnt dream of what my path would be like children often do. I just performed. I always perform.

Poplavskaya was always performing, as early as five-years-old when she begged her mother to get a violin. By age 10, she was a part of the childrens chorus of the Bolshoi Theatre and she never looked back.

As she matured, the burgeoning soprano worked with several teachers, finally finding some stability with Peter Tarassov. But he noted that Poplavskayas voice was a unique one.

My teacher said that I had a very difficult and strange voice. It had the colors and stretches. But he told me I had to work really hard, Poplavskaya revealed. He didnt know if I was a high mezzo like Stignani or soprano.

Then Poplavskaya fell in love with Maria Callas and realized that she would do what it took to develop her voice to fit the soprano repertory.

I fell in love with Maria Callas. I was willing to sacrifice everything to be a soprano at that point. That was my dream at 19.

As Poplavskaya put it, she just went for it from that point forward.

Between 2001-04, she was performing at the major theaters in Russia, including the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre, and the Bolshoi Theatre where she debuted in 2003.

Then came her big international break in 2005, when she was invited to audition for the Royal Opera Houses Young Artists Programme.

At first I thought, Young Artist? I am singing in Bolshoi. Why would I go? Poplavskaya revealed she wondered this upon receiving the invitation.

She ultimately went despite not speaking a word of English. When she got the letter officially inviting her to become a member of the program, she had to ask a friend to translate it for her.

The ensuing years would feature her greatest successes with the soprano performing everywhereNew York, Vienna, London, Munich, Berlin, Los Angeles, Australia, Hamburg, and Salzburg, among many other cities and countries.

I just went for it. Its like you take off the breaks and you just launch yourself. The agent calls you, makes an offer, or lets you know of an opportunity. Before he finished the phrase, I would be ready with When do I go?

On one such occasion, she got an invitation from Daniel Barenboim to sing the Verdi Requiem.

I was super new. Very fresh. I learned Verdis Requiem in two weeks. This was crazy for sure. I am not Angela Meade who was born with that kind of Verdi soprano. I am not Renata ScottoI adored everything she sang. Or Katia Ricciarelli. All the big singers in this piece. I had to teach myself at that point, she noted. If you are invited by Daniel Barenboim to sing Verdis Requiem, you jump in.

She added that before boarding the plane for that engagement, she was asked if she might also jump in for a performance of Beethovens Ninth Symphony.

Who cares if you never sang it? I learned it on the plane which lasted 13 hours, Poplavskaya remarked. In between my travels, I studied like a mad person.

If I tell you my schedule during those years and how much I did and how much I sang, now I look back and ask how I did it all.

Other major career developments for the soprano during that time included her collaboration with famed Italian conductor Riccardo Muti.

She first worked with the demanding maestro on a production of Otello in Salzburg, sandwiched between two productions of Don Carlo.

He is clear and specific. He is forward. He reads you and explains to you what is going on in orchestra and how it combines with the vocal line, Poplavskaya noted, adding that she doesnt buy into the reputation that Muti has as a tyrant. He is not a tyrant. He is a very demanding person. He sees the musical structure so clearly. He has worked so hard for that all of his life. He asks that you reciprocate this intensity in everything you do.

In fact, she noted that the conductor is very generous and giving to the singer. He doesnt care what you have to do to produce the best version, but makes sure that the orchestra gives you its best. He is always working with you to get that best version.

She also noted that he was a major guide in terms of vocal technique, adding that she questioned why he never became a singer himself.

When I returned to do the second Don Carlo run, my colleagues immediately told me I was a different singer. They said I was fearless. I said, I just came back from working with Muti. Im not afraid of dying.

Poplavskaya noted that her rapport with Muti was but an extension of her constant desire to learn from all of her colleagues, even those with whom she shared the stage.

Throughout the conversation, she emphasized that when she watched another singer perform, she not only listens to what comes out of their mouth but how it is produced.

When I did Faust with Jonas [Kaufmann] at the Met and Ren [Pape], I was always studying their sounds. I had never heard Pape before in real life until I worked with him in another production. For me, there was this immense vocal culture.

When someone sings, I feel it inside my throat. How that person is singing and speaking. I am driven by the sound. By the physiology of the sound, Poplavskaya added. Thats how I work. So every new role, I learn in this way by listening to others. Someone might say that I sang a role like Gabriella Tucci. But the truth is it might be a hybrid of Tucci, Scotto, and Caball. Thats how I built up my repertory.

She noted that when she learned Traviata ahead of her role debut in 2009 in Los Angeles, she studied the 1982 recording by Muti and Renata Scotto.

I did a surgical analysis of what she did. It was such a challenging role, especially the first act with the very high tessitura, Poplavskaya noted before adding that when she went to Amsterdam to do the opera, she was attuned to a different recording altogether to inform her interpretation.

When we did it in Amsterdam, my ears were tuned on the Licia Albanese and Toscanini version with the original score. And also the Callas recording at La Scala. Thats how I schooled myself.

All the way up until 2014, Poplavskaya was one of the major stars of the opera world. In addition to being a mainstay on the major stages in Europe, she was one of the Met Operas lead sopranos, having debuted three new productions with the company between 2010 and 2013; she was set to take over an opening night production of Le Nozze di Figaro in 2014.

And then it all changed.

In 2014, I got married and decided to settle. I got pregnant and had a daughter, Poplavskaya noted.

But that wasnt all. Her strange voice was changing as well.

My voice had enough with the soprano repertoire, she revealed, noting that in subsequent years of study, she simply could not find the same level of comfort in the extended higher range as she had at her peak a few years earlier. It was super painful, especially when I had to start canceling engagements. For some singers, it is just three months of recovery after pregnancy and some never stop singing. But for me, it was a complete change.

She was afraid of having experienced some damage to her vocal cords, but tests from doctors showed no evidence of that.

She eventually took a break from singing and took on a diverse array of differing interests. She became a licensed and certified interior design specialist and Real Estate specialist, working at Citi Habitats.

But then, in an effort to spend more time at home with her daughter and family, she moved on to pursue teaching. She received a certification in Voice Teaching and Performing Arts and also became a Special Needs Education specialist with a badge in psychological studies.

But she never had the intention of ending her career as a singer. Throughout this time, she kept seeking out help from different vocal teachers, eventually finding the support of Catherine Green, who has also worked with such artists as Ermonela Jaho, Massimo Giordano, and Atalla Ayan.

When I started singing with her, she told me that there was a lot to work on, Poplavskaya narrated. The soprano wasnt coming. I kept telling her. My passaggio feels strange. She also felt the same.

So Green took a chance and asked Poplavskaya to start working on some mezzo-soprano repertory.

They started with Rossinis La Donna del Lago and subsequently Donizettis La Favorite.

Suddenly my voice was singing. And we had no trouble, she enthused.

Since 2018, shes been rebuilding her repertory with a focus on bel canto operas as well as Marina Mnishek in Boris Godunov and Olga in Eugene Onegin (she was an acclaimed Tatiana in 2014).

She did a couple of concerts in late 2019 and recently teamed up with colleagues around the world to record some Brahms songs.

As the world slowly reopens after the COVID-19 crisis, Poplavskaya stated a desire to relaunch her career.

I am ready to do auditions. I dont mind doing auditions at all, she noted. I will travel and sing and go where they call me. If they want me, I am ready. If not, I understand.

But she also noted that, unlike the start of her career where she was ready to jump at any opportunity, she is going to take things slower this time, noting that she wants to make sure she can still be there for her daughter.

She is my life, Poplavskaya emphasized, adding that her daughter, who is now five, has initiated her own musical journey.

At three-years-old, I asked her what she wanted from Santa Claus and she said she wanted to play violin, Poplavskaya enthused. And that she does. She practices for one hour a day. She saved me in a sense. I was running around singing. But thats not life. Its a part of me. But its not life.

Now I have a husband who I absolutely adore and a little daughter who is everything to me. I am very happy.

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A New Direction - Mezzo-Soprano Marina Poplavskaya on the Evolution & Relaunching of Her Career - OperaWire

The Evolution of the Office – Patch.com

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This post is sponsored and contributed by a Patch Community Partner. The views expressed in this post are the author's own, and the information presented has not been verified by Patch.

Many of us can recall a time where the office was the 9-5, brick and mortar facility where everything was done. For some, it was not long ago, like the 90's.For others, it is a place they have never ventured into or a place they have never seen thanks to technology and change. Combine this with a modern-day pandemic, traditional offices and what they facilitated for many are merely a memory. For others, they are lands and times only told of in stories and on remade versions for television shows.

What does that mean for the typical building and what was "typical office", well simply put; they are being modernized. Not modernized in a way that includes digital whiteboards or the latest in video or virtual meetings, those are common day staples. What is meant in the term is how the traditional office is utilized?

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A large majority of office work is work that can or needs to be done by an individual person, whether it is data entry, sales, coding, designing, processing, bookkeeping or online support of a system. These tasks can be done, in most cases, in any place at any time. They no longer require the employee to trek miles from home, via car, bus or train. They no longer must be done during the hours of 9 to 5 or do not require the supervisor to lurk over the employee's shoulder or in an office only feet away.

Technology has given us wings in ways never imaginable. We can communicate virtually, via phone or video, screen sharing is becoming more common place for training or system troubleshooting. Even what was commonly used for generations, actually hands-on training is too a thing of the past. It makes people wonder what the need for a traditional office is.

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All of this is creating an evolution of the office, a refit for a different albeit, a better use of the space. Let us be clear, offices will evolve, offices will not go extinct.

So how will offices be used? What will they be used for? People have different ideas and differing opinions, mostly based on the specific business they are in and importantly that company's management style, philosophy and security needs. Most see offices evolving into a touchdown location, a place to gather and to collaborate.

Having a place to go, a place for coworkers to get together to discuss, debate and collaborate is a necessity no matter the business. We are humans and interactions with others are a key ingredient that many need to maintain a balance in their lives. So, what does the office look like? Is it an office full of lounge chairs, maybe a sofa or two, of course some meeting rooms with all the modern-day technology necessities? Perhaps, it is a set of private offices where people go to focus on the task at hand. Maybe it is a team sized room, complete with tables and chairs, a place for them to bond as teammates and accomplish the task of the day?

What is more than likely will be is "D.) All the Above". It will be a place where employees can come and go, have the freedom to get comfortable, to get in the zone and to be a success. But how can a company, large or small accomplish this within a reasonable expense?

Welcome to the Flexible Workspace, the Future of Workspace, welcome to Venture X. Here at Venture X, we combine all the needs for variable sized and styled spaces all under one roof, without leases, without long term commitments. Fully furnished, and plug-and-play ready 24x7 for business, ready for when you want or need to work. No matter the size of the business, small or large, Venture X can make the evolution of the office a hassle-free experience.

To learn more about Venture X, visit us at http://www.venturex.com or call 508-375-3636 to schedule a tour of the facility.

This is a sponsored post contributed by a Patch Community Partner, a local sponsor. To learn more, click here.

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LENS – The Evolution In Out-Of-Home Analytics – Scoop.co.nz

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Monday, 5 October 2020, 11:14 amPress Release: LENS Outdoor

New Zealand-based LENS Outdoor (LENS)launched today with plans to revolutionise audiencemeasurement in the Out-Of-Home Advertising sector both hereand abroad with the launch of the most sophisticatedplatform in the industry.

In a move to drive a newindustry standard, the platform - to be known as LENS willinitially be rolled out by LUMO DigitalOutdoor, with discussions currently underway withseveral Australian and UK-based mediaoperators.

The industry as a whole is waking up tothe fact that historical ways of audience measurement forout-of-home is simply not up to scratch, lacking both theaccuracy and transparency that advertisers are nowdemanding. Its great to have several foundation partnersonboarding LENS and were excited to develop the productalongside our clients. Robin Arnold, LENS ChiefTechnology Officer.

LENS partnered with softwaredeveloper Latch Digital to build the audience measurementplatform, with the aim of delivering world leadingtransparency and accuracy. As digital out-of-home (DOOH)rebounds from the impact of the pandemic and with theintroduction of programmatic trading, LENS comes at theperfect time, allowing for strategic decisions based onreal-time data.

The LENS platform willencompass four key components that inform itsoutputs:

When asked what separates LENS fromother Outdoor providers systems in this space, DavidRoper from Latch Digital commented, LENS presented us abrief to design and develop a client-focused audiencemeasurement platform that delivers real-time transparencyand accountability specifically for roadside DOOH mediaoperators. The priority was on accuracy and relevancy to thedynamic nature of DOOH.

The Covid-19 pandemicexposed a significant weakness in the various datasets thatare used in the OOH sector. Without the ability to collectand report on current audience metrics, the other platformsrely upon modelled data that is outdated, inaccurate, lackstransparency and site specificity.

This dilemma wasresolved by LENS partnering with AXIS and Vaxtor to installa site-based Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)camera network across LUMOs digital billboard portfolio.This site-based camera infrastructure delivers millions ofdatapoints each day which offers the highest degree ofaccuracy and reliability of any roadside OOH measurementsystem in the world.

Agencies and advertisers willaccess an intuitive dashboard which will provide them withweekly, daily and hourly data insights which are live.Primarily used for post-campaign reports and media proposalvalidation, a DOOH media planning feature is underdevelopment and will be introduced soon.

LENS isexcited to have LUMO as their foundation client who are nowactively introducing the platform to theircustomers.

If you are interested in learning more,contact hello@lensoutdoor.nz

LENS leverages theinnovative Kiwi spirit by looking beyond the status quo andanswering the needs of its core client base.

Createdamidst the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, LENS wasdeveloped in New Zealand to specifically account for thedynamic volume, patterns and trends of Digital Out-Of-Home(DOOH) audiences. Its unique use of data and technologyoffers real-time insight, accuracy and transparency, unlikeany currently available in the OOH sector anywhere in theworld.

LENS Outdoor is the inaugural platform thatuses multiple site-based high-resolution cameras,specialised number plate recognition software and anintuitive dashboard to deliver truthful insights of DOOHaudiences as they travel past digital billboards, every hourof everyday.

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LENS - The Evolution In Out-Of-Home Analytics - Scoop.co.nz