Gal Gadot’s Unbelievable Style Evolution – HuffPost

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Her all-flats-all-the-time habit might be new, but that keen sense of style, it turns out, is deeply rooted albeit a bit different than we know it today.

The former Miss Universe contestant had a handle on the corset-over-clothes trend waybefore Kim Kardashian, and while these days she appears to opt for glamorous gowns and tailored suiting, she has been pulling off the teeniest of tiny dresses with ease for years.

Join us as we fangirl out over years of this superheros super style below.

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At the Miss Universe pageant.

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With Miss Italy Laia Manetti and Miss Ireland Cathriona Duignam ahead of the Miss Universe pageant.

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With Miss Norway Kathrine Sorlandahead of the Miss Universe pageant.

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AtMaxim's "Women of the Israeli Defense Forces" celebration.

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At the premiere of "Fast & Furious."

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At the premiere of"The Beautiful Life: TBL."

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At the World Premiere of "Fast & Furious 6."

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At a reception forJaguar and Playboy Magazine.

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At the "Fast & The Furious 6'" premiere.

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At Comic-Con.

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At"Jimmy Kimmel Live."

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At the "Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice" New York Premiere.

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Out in New York City.

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At "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

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At a photocall for "Batman v Superman."

RB/Bauer-Griffin via Getty Images

At "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

Fred Duval via Getty Images

At theEuropean Premiere of "Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice."

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Atthe premiere of "Keeping up with the Joneses."

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At "The Late Late Show with James Corden."

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At theU.K. Premiere of "Criminal."

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Atthe 2017 MTV Movie and TV Awards.

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At theGolden Globe Awards.

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Out in New York City.

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At the "Wonder Woman" premiere.

At a press conference for "Wonder Woman."

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At the premiere of "Wonder Woman" in Mexico.

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Gal Gadot's Unbelievable Style Evolution - HuffPost

A new fossil discovery in Morocco will rewrite the history of human evolution – Quartz

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Homo sapiens were hanging around and hunting gazelle in North Africa 100,000 years earlier than was previously believeda new discovery that will dramatically change the story of the origin of the human species.

Until now, scientists believed that the first Homo sapiensthe scientific name for the species from which humans descendcame from Ethiopia about 200,000 years ago. But fossils at Jebel Irhoud, a site in Morocco, show paleoanthropologists were mistaken about the date, location, and dispersal of our ancestors. In two studies published in the journal Nature today, researchers show that Homo sapiens are much older than was known and that their evolution was more complex and widespread than thought.

We used to think that there was a cradle of mankind 200, 000 years ago in east Africa, but our new data reveal that Homo sapiens spread across the entire African continent around 300,000 years ago, palaeoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin of Germanys Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology said in a statement.

Until now, the common wisdom was that our species emerged probably rather quickly somewhere in a Garden of Eden that was located most likely in sub-Saharan Africa, he explains. Now, he believes the Garden of Eden in Africa is probably Africaand its a big, big garden.

In other words, Long before the out-of-Africa dispersal of Homo sapiens, there was dispersal within Africa, says Hublin.

Hublin worked with Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer of the National Institute for Archaeology and Heritage in Rabat, Morocco, and an international team of researchers to date teeth, long bones, skulls, and tools of at least five individuals found at Jebel Irhoud. Using new thermoluminescent dating technology on flints found surrounding the fossils, they were able to place Homo sapiens in north Africa and determine what our ancestors ate.

The Jebel Irhoud fossils were surrounded by gazelle bones, among other animal remains, and the scientists believe that these Homo sapiens hunted the animals for meat. Their tools were made of flint, which were consistent with other Middle Stone Age implements previously found at other sites in Africa.

The site at Jebel Irhoud isnt newit was discovered in the 1960sbut this latest excavation began in 2004. New dating techniques allowed scientists to establish a consistent chronology for recently discovered fossils as well as to to re-date prior findings. The team examined a skull originally dated as 165,000 years old, and placed it further back in time by using new techniques that measured the radioactivity of the sediment in Jebel Irhoud. The fossils age, based on the latest dating methods, is consistent with the finding that Homo sapiens were in North Africa about 300,000 years ago.

Those early folks arent quite like humans of today, but the remains tell the tale of our evolution. They show that the Homo sapiens at Jebel Irhoud were close relatives.

Humans are characterized by their relatively slender faces and a globular brain case or skull, and the fossils mostly share these characteristics. In fact, the skulls of the remains are barely distinguishable from todays humans but for their archaic brain caseits more elongated than ours, less globular. Our findings suggest that modern human facial morphology was established early on in the history of our species, and that brain shape, and possibly brain function, evolved within the Homo sapiens lineage, says paleoanthropologist Philipp Gunz of the Max Planck Institute, who worked on this research.

In light of these findings, scientists have to rethink the story of human evolution, including where and how it happened, as it seems the tale told until now has been incomplete. North Africa has long been neglected in the debates surrounding the origin of our species. The spectacular discoveries from Jebel Irhoud demonstrate the tight connections of the Maghreb [region] with the rest of the African continent at the time of Homo sapiens emergence, says Ben-Ncer.

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A new fossil discovery in Morocco will rewrite the history of human evolution - Quartz

Evolution as Bingo: Darwinists Seek Better Ways to Indoctrinate – Discovery Institute

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Its shocking. Darwin died 135 years ago, with his home country largely converted to his beliefs. Why dont students embrace the teachings of their national hero? England has largelyabandoned its religiousheritage, so thats not it. Everybody knows about Darwin. Evolution should be an easy sell in the classroom.Whats the problem?

Evolution is one of the trickiest subjects to teach and not just because some people find it controversial. The ideas are subtle and the language and concepts can be confusing; how many of us have thought that survival of the fittest was an encouragement to go to the gym. Many studies have sought to discover the reasons why evolution is so difficult for students to understand and accept, but few have attempted to find ways to improve the understanding of evolution in the classroom. [Emphasis added.]

So writes Lawrence Hurst in The Conversation, along with an associate professor and an educator. At the University of Bath, a mere 100 miles from Down House, they conducted experiments on how to get children to understand evolution, using secondary school students as their lab rats.

They published their results in PLOS Biologyunder the title, Teaching genetics prior to teaching evolution improves evolution understanding but not acceptance. Sarah Chaffee responded earlier in light of Discovery Institutes education policy.

Notice, as she pointed out, the distinction between understanding and acceptance. They cant even get to the acceptance part! They just want to get students to understand it.

But is evolution so hard to understand? Its simple; people evolved from bacteria ancestors; no source of intelligent designwas involved; everything advances by a blind process of natural selection, not that different from dog breeding. Things change over time. Whats the problem? You can explain it in a few sentences. Finches change. Peppered moths change. Your children will change, even if you dont go to the gym, as long as you leave more offspring than the bodybuilder next door. Simple concepts. There must be an obstacle to understanding. Yes, its those deplorablecreationists again. The paper identifies them:

Students grasp of evolution is often poor and does not always agree with the scientific understanding. Commensurately, numerous studies report low levels of understanding among first year undergraduate students. These factors likely contribute to the poor public understanding of evolution reported by many researchers, including in the UK context. This tempts the question, what are the best methods to teach evolution?

This issue here is currently much debated, particularly at the secondary school level. This is because the theory of evolution can be a controversial issue. Strong opposition is well documented in the United States, but there is increasing concern about the impact that religious movements or strong cultural and social traditions may have on evolution education in other countries, including Northern Ireland, Poland, Turkey, and the UK. There are also concerns that creationism has been taught in UK schools and that religious-motivated groups have attempted to influence science lessons. More generally, numerous studies have focused on impediments to understanding and acceptance of evolution. While religious orientation, prior acceptance/rejection of the theory of evolution, and views of authority figures including teachers and religious leaders are commonly cited reasons, reasoning skills are also considered to be of importance.

And so they sought ways to improve teaching methods, presuming that if students only understood evolution, they would be more likely to accept it. Their hypothesis was to teach genetics as a prerequisite to teaching evolution. Our original idea was what psychologists called priming preloading with some facts to make it easier to take in other information. They continue:

It seemed intuitive to us that a good understanding of genetics should help understanding of evolution: DNA is the heritable material through which variation needed for evolution occurs. If you understand DNA, you can understand what mutations are. And if you understand what mutations are, you can understand that they can change frequency in populations and bingo, evolution can happen. In its simplest, evolution is no more than mutations changing frequency. The differences between species started out as new mutations that went from being rare within one species but then became very common.

Bingo, evolution can happen. The metaphor is very apt. You win at bingo by unguided natural processes. The winner (the fittest) may not be the smartest; just the luckiest. Its not like the chance component of Battleship, where you can infer from past successes where the Destroyer is likely to be. Bingo is a variant of the Lottery: you win by having the luckiest card by pure chance, and each card you get is a new start.

In short, the educators think that by understanding how Bingo works, students will accept the game. Are they missing something?

While this connection might seem self-evident, genetics and evolution are typically taught to 14 to 16-year-old secondary school students as separate topics with few links and in no particular order. Sometimes theres a large time span between the two. Our idea was simple: teach genetics first and look at how that affects the understanding and acceptance of evolution.

Like good lab experimenters, they divided their lab rats into an experimental group and a control group.

Using questionnaires, we conducted a study of almost 2,000 students over three years. Importantly, all that was changed in our study was the order of the teaching material exactly what was to be taught was left to the teachers. This meant our study was a realistic mimic of what would happen should any switch be made. We tested students before and after the two subjects were taught and so could examine the extent to which students improved in their understanding.

The experiment was only partially successful (according to their criteria). Yes, the more students understood microevolution by genetic mutations (the Bingo theory of evolution), the more they understood evolution. We found that students who were taught genetics before evolution performed 7percentbetter on knowledge-based questions about evolution than those who learned about evolution first, they say, proud of this strikingly large effect. But alas, it did not help the students accept evolution very much. Both before and after testing, the students with a better understanding were those with higher levels of acceptance, they said. However, these effects were not strong. So they investigated why students fail to accept evolution.

We also set up a series of focus groups to find out why the understanding and acceptance of evolution are not more strongly coupled. Evidence from these suggests that what is more important for evolution acceptance is not what is taught, but who provides the endorsement. For some students, being told that key authority figures such as parents or teachers approve of scientific evidence for evolution made a big difference to their ability to accept it.

Television documentaries were commonly given as a source of reassurance about evolution, and some students felt that these, and their presenters, were important in helping them accept evolution. Perhaps more predictable, religious leaders, and their views on evolution, were also of key importance. For students from a Catholic background, being told that the Pope approves of evolution was important in helping them to approach evolution as any other science.

The challenge, in their view, becomes one of reducing the impact of authority figures who put obstacles in the way of student acceptance of evolution. Religious leaders are making evolution a scary idea. Avoid the E-word, they say, to soften the blow:

Perhaps helping them understand that mutations can change frequency under the banner of genetics enabled students to learn with less of a clash of ideas? We suggest a simple test: dont teach students material labelled as evolution, teach it as population genetics instead and then tell them after the fact that they have just learned about evolution.

Its a bit like pinching and wiggling the arm before sticking the needle in, for a child afraid of needles. Before the child knows whats going on, the needle is in. When are you going to stick me? Johnny asks. Oh, I already did; now, that didnt hurt a bit, did it? And use less scary words: its not a needle; its a syringe. Its not Darwinism: its population genetics. The indoctrinators conclude:

Whatever the underlying cause, the data suggest a really simple, minimally disruptive and cost-free modification to teaching practice: teach genetics first. This will at least increase evolution understanding, if not acceptance. As with many emotive subjects, it takes more than teaching the facts to shift hearts as well as minds.

Heres a conundrum to end on: these educators, so concerned about student acceptance of evolution, do not accept evolution themselves! Think about it:

The astute reader recognizes that reasoning about evolution is self-refuting (listen to Nancy Pearcey on ID the Future). Lets teach that to the teachers. Bingo! Education happens.

Photo: Bingo cards, by Edwin Torres [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Evolution as Bingo: Darwinists Seek Better Ways to Indoctrinate - Discovery Institute

Robotics are helping paralyzed people walk again, but the price tag … – Chicago Tribune

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Ashley Barnes was 35 years old when doctors told her she would never walk again.

A botched spinal procedure in 2014 paralyzed her from the waist down. The Tyler, Tex., resident had been an avid runner, clocking six miles daily when not home with her then-9-year-old autistic son, whom she raised alone. Life in a wheelchair was not an option.

"I needed to be the best mom I could be," Barnes said. "I needed to be up and moving."

So she threw herself into physical therapy, convinced she would one day run again. Soon she realized that wasn't a reality.

Although she wore a brave face, "I would save my moments of crying for my room," she said.

About a year later, hope resurfaced when she learned of the ReWalk system, a battery-powered robotic exoskeleton that attaches to the legs and lower back. It contains motors at the knee and hip joints and sensors to help it adjust with each footfall. While wearing the device and holding two forearm crutches, someone with complete lower-limb paralysis can walk.

Rehabilitation centers often employ such devices in physical therapy, which is how Barnes first encountered one at the Baylor Tom Landry Center, a rehab clinic in Dallas. After seven months without being able to stand, she did. Then she took a step as she began to learn how to walk again.

In 2014, the ReWalk system became the first personal robotic exoskeleton approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The following year, the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to cover the exoskeletons for qualifying vets. Meanwhile, several companies began touting similar devices. For example, Ekso makes units used to rehabilitate people after spinal cord injury or stroke.

Health insurers, however, generally don't cover the expensive equipment.

After working with the ReWalk system at her rehab center, Barnes, who uses a wheelchair at home to get around, decided she wanted one of her own. But Tricare, her insurer, denied the request.

In a statement, Tricare said it "does not cover these devices for use on a personal basis due to concerns with their safety and efficacy. This is particularly important due to the vulnerability of paralyzed users in the event of a fall."

Two years and countless no's later, Barnes still doesn't have one because, according to Tricare, it isn't "medically necessary."

Barnes strongly disagrees.

"This is medically necessary," she said. If she had one of the devices, "I'd be able to go to the bathroom. I would be able to walk around, exercise in it. I would love to be able to stand up and cook things in my microwave or on my stove."

She paused before adding, "I would no longer have to look up at my son."

- - -

The ReWalk Personal 6.0 System costs, on average, $81,000. Ottobock's C-Brace is priced at $75,000. For the Indego Personal, which received FDA approval last year, it is $98,000.

About 28 percent of the more than 5.2 million Americans living with paralysis survive on an annual household income of less than $15,000, according to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. The basic expenses of living with paraplegia are, on average, $519,520 in the first year and $68,821 each subsequent year, according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. Furthermore, only 34.3 percent of people are employed 20 years after a paralysis-causing injury.

To date, ReWalk has sold only 118 personal devices in the United States.

Some people do get devices covered by insurance, but it can be an onerous process, as evidenced by Mark Delamere Jr. The Boston native, 19, was paralyzed in a car accident in 2013, on the third day of his freshman year of high school.

Like Barnes, he thought he would never walk again. Like Barnes, with the help of a robotic exoskeleton, he did. Unlike Barnes, though, he has an exoskeleton at home.

But for two of his teenage years, he sat in a wheelchair while his family filed claims and appealed denials.

"They don't really classify these things with the purpose of you getting better, because they think the injury is never going to change," his father, Mark Sr., said.

Eventually, though, Mark Jr. got approved by his insurance company and received the ReWalk, which he uses for at-home therapy and just to "walk around the house and the neighborhood, up and down the street." Asked to describe the feeling, he was at a loss for words.

"It's kind of crazy," he said. "It just feels kind of I don't really know. It feels so different."

- - -

But his story is rare. "People are paying out of pocket or fundraising" for exoskeletons, said Dan Kara, research director for robotics at ABI Research, a technology analysis and consultant company.

The price of the devices exceeds their value in the eyes of insurers, which "want to be able to prove they actually improve quality of life and utility," said Howard Forman, a Yale professor of diagnostic radiology and public health. "Utility" means that an exoskeleton would provide a medical benefit beyond simply helping people move around and complete daily tasks.

Virginia Tech researchers found that these devices, by getting otherwise immobilized people to move around, can help them manage spasticity a continuous contraction of muscles, which can be quite painful and improve bowel function. Barnes said when she was training with the exoskeleton, tending to her bowels took about 20 minutes each day, not the customary hour.

One major concern is how relatively untested the technology is outside the controlled environment of a rehabilitation facility. Indeed, they don't always work as planned.

Stacey Kozal, a 42-year-old Ohio resident, was paralyzed from the waist down after what she said was a devastating flare-up of lupus. For more than a year, she fought with her insurance provider, Anthem, in hopes of obtaining Ottobock C-Braces. These devices have bendable knee joints equipped with sensors that "measure the current position of the joint every .02 seconds," according to Ottobock's website. A built-in microprocessor adjusts ankle pressure while a hydraulic system moves the knee to help the user place her foot down in the right place.

Eventually, Anthem agreed to cover a C-Brace for each leg, which Kozal used to hike the Appalachian Trail, where limitations revealed themselves. The battery required constant recharging. Rain was problematic because the C-Brace isn't waterproof.

While she plans to wear her C-Braces around the house, she's now hiking the Pacific Crest Trail using old-fashioned braces that lock her legs in place. She uses her core, hips and upper body to swing her legs forward, and she keeps her balance with the aid of forearm crutches. C-Braces are heavier than traditional devices, so when their batteries died on the Appalachian Trail, they made it more difficult for her to move around.

Another major issue for insurers, though, is the price. But Forman said, "Though these technologies are incredibly expensive now, we have all kinds of evidence that eventually ... they can become affordable to anyone."

Indeed, some entrepreneurs are working on cheaper solutions. Silicon Valley start-up SuitX created a lightweight model called the Phoenix. While most exoskeletons have motors powering each joint, the Phoenix simply uses two hip motors. Even so, if approved by the FDA, the device would cost $40,000, according to SuitX.

"The rehabilitation marketplace is limited by the number of people who have these conditions," Kara said. The exoskeletons are "basically handcrafted, which is expensive. If you could up the volume, you could lower the price."

The key would be expanding the user base. One way to do that, he noted, is to sell the devices for purposes other than rehabilitation. Warehouse workers might wear them to assist with lifting heavy loads. Some companies are already testing this idea: Lowe's, for example, recently outfitted several of employees with exoskeletons as part of a pilot program.

The worldwide market for exoskeletons $97 million now is expected to grow to $1.9 billion by 2025, according to ABI Research.

Kara compared the prospects for exoskeletons to the growth of LiDAR, which uses pulsed lasers to record topographic features. For years, researchers used LiDAR to create 3-D maps of the Earth, but it was expensive. However, the rise of self-driving cars, which use the technology to navigate roadways, fostered improvements in the technology. As a result, Kara said, the price of LiDAR systems has begun to fall and is "expected to drop dramatically, from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars or less."

Waiting for exoskeleton prices to drop is tremendously frustrating, Barnes said. "We take so much for granted when we don't have physical problems," she said. "Like just being able to reach up and grab something in my laundry cabinet without having to break my neck to get it."

She isn't ready to just accept that she and others who will face these issues might never get a sense of greater normalcy.

"My biggest reason for standing up tall to them is I want to do it for all those behind me," she said. "The more it gets approved, the more it can't get denied."

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Robotics are helping paralyzed people walk again, but the price tag ... - Chicago Tribune

Shiloh Point students top robotics competition – Forsyth County News Online

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Four elementary school students recently took home the top award from the 2017 VEX Robotics World Championship after competing against more than 300 teams from around the world.

In April, the Shiloh Point Elementary School robotics team, which consists of Charu Bigamudra, Sanjana Saravanan, Eshita Ramesh and Siddhanth Lakshmisha, traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, where more than 1,400 teams at the elementary, middle and high school levels competed for the title of world champion.

Though the elementary level made up only about a fifth of the overall number of teams, Saravanan Yoganandam, one of Shiloh Points coaches, said the win was particularly special for the school.

We were only founded in May 2016, he said, and what started as a fun thing then moved to competition after competition. The kids show a lot of passion, interest and drive to learn and they [demonstrate] a total commitment to [the team].

Yoganandam said while the team initially lost several local tournaments last summer, in October, the students won their first competition, which qualified them for the state level competition, which was held in February.

There, they won the state championship, which qualified them for the most recent tournament event.

Again, it was a surprise, Yoganandam said. Its only their first year as a team, so we didnt expect them to win, but they did extremely well.

At the state [competition], they won the Elementary Excellence Award, the top award in the state.

The world championship, which was held April 20-25, was a celebration of STEM education, the year-long work of each student-led robotics team and diversity in the high-tech field of competitive robotics, Yoganandam said.

He added the championship has four categories: the VEX IQ Challenge Elementary School World Championship for those ages 8-10; the VEX IQ Challenge Middle School World Championship for those ages 11-14; VEX Robotics High School World Championship; and VEX U, which is for those ages 18 and up.

Yoganandam said he hopes the wins will encourage more students to join the team.

It was such a big honor for the kids, he said, and one thing we are very proud of is there is a lot of hard work and commitment. There are only four students but each has a very unique strength they bring to the table.

They agree to agree and agree to disagree, and thats something they learn and that most schools dont teach something they learn through [this] and really invaluable. We want more to get involved.

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Shiloh Point students top robotics competition - Forsyth County News Online

Joseph F. Engelberger – Robotics Online (press release)

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Dr. Daniela Rus

2017 Engelberger Robotics Award for Education

Dr. Daniela Rus is recognized for her leadership as a researcher, innovator and educator in the field of robotics. Her research group, the Distributed Robotics Lab, has developed modular and self-reconfiguring robots, systems of self-organizing robots, networks of robots and sensors for first-responders, mobile sensor networks, techniques for cooperative underwater robotics and new technology for desktop robotics. They have built robots that can tend a garden, bake cookies from scratch, cut a birthday cake, fly in swarms without human aid to perform surveillance functions and dance with humans. The lab has also worked on self-driving golf carts, wheel chairs, scooters, and city cars with the objective of reducing traffic fatalities and providing technologies for personal mobility for the elderly population. Companies such as iRobot and Boeing have commercialized innovations drawn from Dr. Rus' research. She is the first woman to serve as director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and its predecessors the AI Lab and the Lab for Computer Science.

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Joseph F. Engelberger - Robotics Online (press release)

Step inside Butterfly’s house in virtual reality opera night – The Guardian

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Welsh National Operas Magic Butterfly, a virtual reality installation in a shipping container will open in Cardiff in July. Photograph: Welsh National Opera

Cutting-edge visual technology is pushing its way into the hallowed halls of culture this summer. New 3D replicas of missing artworks have been installed at the home of the 18th-century writer Horace Walpole, while Welsh National Opera is going a step further, creating a virtual reality performance.

Authenticity was once key to the value of a work of art, as well being a crucial notion in the world of entertainment. Yet soon it is likely that even experts will be unsure what they are looking at.

Many of the paintings and artefacts collected by the gothic author Walpole, son of the first prime minister Robert Walpole, are being gathered for display in Strawberry Hill House, the villa he designed in Twickenham, south-west London, ahead of the 300th anniversary of his birth in September.

Some pieces, however, are either missing or judged too fragile to transport and have been replaced by 3D replicas.

Last summer a first facsimile of a double portrait of Walpoles parents was hung in the Blue Bedchamber at Strawberry Hill. The original was first displayed there in 1754 but is now in the Lewis Walpole Library in Connecticut and is too delicate to travel.

Three weeks ago, 34 other works, including a 1765 portrait of Walpoles nieces and a series of studies of Henry VIIIs courtiers, were also brought to the villa after 3D technicians at Factum Arte, based in Madrid, recreated them. The work, funded by an anonymous donor, will form part of an exhibition next year.

The value of fakery is not an alien concept at Strawberry Hill, its curators point out, as the building is a reproduction of medieval architecture and the portraits of Henrys courtiers were George Vertues copies of Hans Holbein originals.

Welsh National Operas virtual reality experiment Magic Butterfly is installed in a shipping container, and will allow visitors to step inside scenes from two operas, Mozarts The Magic Flute and Puccinis Madam Butterfly.

The experience, created with Google Daydream technology, will open in Cardiff on 14 July before touring to Birmingham, Liverpool, Llandudno and London through the year.

Virtual reality was also used at last months Cannes film festival, where the Oscar winning director Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu premiered his innovative Carne y Arena Mexican refugee experience.

The technology is also being widely adopted across marketing and business. It has been used to recruit into the armed forces by giving potential submariners an idea what it would be like to live underwater.

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Step inside Butterfly's house in virtual reality opera night - The Guardian

Imax brings virtual reality to movie theaters – CNET

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IMAX VR: Tilt Brush allows you to use an entire room to create three-dimensional drawings.

I flew over the Eiffel tower, fought off swarms of attacking mummies and made an entire room my canvas, all in the same day. Sounds impossible? Not with the new Imax Virtual Reality arcade that offers an immersive, lifelike experience, and it's coming soon to a movie theater near you (if you're in one of the initial test markets).

Imax's VR arcade combines the features of video games and roller coasters into 10 very different experiences that involve both sitting, standing and, in some cases, walking around. That's the appeal of VR, you don't just get the 360-degree, 3D vision with the headset, you also vividly hear and feel every moment, and once the game starts it really does feel like you've stepped into another world.

I've tested out other virtual-reality simulations before, and some of the hardware used here is similar to what deep-pocketed consumers can buy (such as the HTC Vive). But being able to feel the vibrations of a helicopter, the fast-paced motion of sliding down a steep hill, and the shaky sensation of falling on hard ground -- along with their accompanying sound effects -- made these simulations feel close to real life.

I mustered the courage to test out the Mummy Prodigium Strike VR option, despite popular belief that this demo (held in a small cubicle called a "pod") was the scariest one there. I'm usually the one laughing during a scary scene, but as screaming zombies, giant spiders and herds of crows started coming at me at super speed from every angle, I let out more yelps than I'd care to admit and found myself clutching my headset just to remind myself that it's only a game.

I also couldn't help but wonder how strangely funny I looked to the outside world and what my closest friends would be doing in these moments. I'd bet they'd most definitely be pulling out their phones ready to capture me in entertaining action.

That's exactly what Imax CEO Richard L. Gelfond says he had in mind with these Imax VR centers, intending to make it a social experience that can be enjoyed by people both inside and outside of the game. That's the difference, according to him, between the Imax experience and setting up an HTC Vive at home, which can play most of the same games, but costs an substantial amount to set up. In Eagle Flight Multiplayer, you can be a bird flying over Paris while your friends joke about your bizarre head and arm gestures as they wait for their turn.

What's better is that this all takes place in a movie theatre, making this a twofold entertainment experience. The Mummy VR experience and the film, in particular, were intentionally launched simultaneously, so people can watch Tom Cruise intensely battle against armies of mummies and, later, reenact an actual scene from the movie and test out his moves for themselves.

The VR arcade is currently only available in Los Angeles and New York locations, but 10 pilots are expected to launch by the end of the year in Imax movie theaters.

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Imax brings virtual reality to movie theaters - CNET

Never mind the election vote what’s up with the virtual reality? – The Guardian

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Jeremy Vine: menaced by graphics. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex Shutterstock

The winners on the night? Sky well resourced and very competent. ITV with Bradby, charm and some ace guests (especially George Osborne, who may have made the biggest career mistake of his life and grimacing as though he realised it). And Dimblebys last hurrah on the BBC, with only a few bumbles through a long, practised evening and early morning before Huw Edwards, looking almost as weary, took over the baton.

Special plaudits to Emily Maitlis, in total charge of the results board. Slightly less applause for Jeremy Vine, doing his Peter Snow memorial turn on the swings and future-extrapolation roundabouts.

Actually, its not eager Jeremy who grits any teeth here: more the surrounding oppressive edifices of virtual reality the corporation surrounds him with. Its all too much like Alien as you wait for a monstrous Farage to burst from Vines chest and start eating the studio.

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Never mind the election vote what's up with the virtual reality? - The Guardian

Virtual reality technology and empathy – Times of Malta

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A scene of a classroom from the VR and Autism project, showing the perspective of the child diagnosed with autism. The user wearing the VR headset would experience the sights and sounds of the classroom from a different perspective, highlighting the perceptions of a child with autism. Photo: Joseph Camilleri

We were all children. We think that as adults we are able to understand children because we have experienced childhood ourselves. But not many of us have experienced autism or growing up with a family who felt it safer to traverse treacherous countries and seas illegally in the hope for a better and safer future. Nor can many of us boast being able to walk in these childrens shoes while understanding and empathising with them.

The University of Maltas Department of Artificial Intelligence, in collaboration with the Department of Digital Arts, has embarked upon two projects using creative arts and virtual reality (VR) technology to develop two VR apps designed to support empathy. Both apps have been designed as experiences to empower users through authentic multisensorial experiences captured in 3D.

One of the VR experiences has been created to mimic the world surrounding a child who has been diagnosed with autism. For this project, parents, teachers and learning support assistants provided sources of information about the childs reactions and about stimuli that might disturb the child during the daily motions of life in the classroom.

The experience, which was filmed in a real school setting, makes use of sounds and 360 visuals to provide a realistic immersive setting. This immersive VR experience can then be used as part of the training of new teachers and other people who interact with such children. It can be used as a key to the development of an empathic understanding, which will help users to resonate with the learner who is in some way affected by the condition.

The same principle is applied to the second VR app aimed at addressing multicultural situations in the classroom.

The phenomenon of migration has increased drastically in this past decade. People are driven out of their homes by war and terrorism, seeking safer locations. Most often, we have heard harrowing stories of migrants arduous journey as they travel from their native country to other countries promising safety and refuge.

In this project, the virtual reality experience exposes the migration experiences and how these might come out in daily classroom life. Users are once again transported to a realistic classroom setting, where actions that might be meaningless to teachers and students trigger a series of immersive flashbacks in migrant children.

The VR experience is not only intended to highlight the plight of migrants journeys, but also to get a glimpse into the hopes and aspirations of these voyagers.

Dr Vanessa Camilleri is a lecturer with the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the Faculty of ICT, University of Malta.

Engineers are using soft robotics technology to make light, flexible gloves that allow users to feel tactile feedback when they interact with virtual reality environments. The researchers used the gloves to realistically simulate the tactile feeling of playing a virtual piano keyboard.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170530140713.htm

Researchers are using VR to teach the principles behind string theory, which posits that the universe is built not just from three spatial dimensions (up/down, side/side, forward/backward) and the single dimension of time, but at least six other dimensions. These other dimensions would be too small for humans to detect, but according to the theory, the six dimensions play a major role in controlling particles. VR is used to explain these concepts which might be otherwise too difficult to demonstrate.

https://www.wired.com/2017/06/string-theorys-weirdest-ideas-finally-make-sense-thanks-vr/

For more soundbites listen to Radio Mocha on Radju Malta 2 every Monday at 1pm and Friday at 6pm.

https://www.facebook.com/RadioMochaMalta/

Virtual reality technology creates a stereoscopic 3D image by angling the two 2D images to mimic how each of our two eyes views the world ever-so-slightly differently.

A VR set is able to track your head movement through a system called 6DoF (six degrees of freedom), which plots your head in terms of your X, Y and Z axis to measure head movements forward and backwards, side to side and shoulder to shoulder, otherwise known as pitch, yaw and roll.

Psychological Presence is central to virtual reality, whereby the brain forgets that it is in a virtual space and immerses into the perceptual illusion offered by the VR experience.

Google designed a cardboard head mount for smartphones as a low-cost VR system. Instructions to make your own cardboard head mount can be found online.

Virtual reality is used in many sectors, including in medicine for things like surgical training and drug design. Nowadays, through VR technology, it is also possible for a surgeon in one location to perform a surgery through a robot in a different location.

The first research towards VR was in 1938 when Charles Wheatstone demonstrated that the brain processes the different two-dimensional images from each eye into a single object of three dimensions.

For more trivia see:www.um.edu.mt/think

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Virtual reality technology and empathy - Times of Malta

Nick Tavares: Reds’ Scooter Gennett the latest to achieve baseball immortality – SouthCoastToday.com

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By Nick TavaresPresent Tense

Short of the World Series and pennant races, sometimes the best baseball has to offer is in the weird happenings that occur during the course of 162 games.

Its a schedule designed for the weird to float up, and this week we got just that. On Tuesday, Reds second baseman Scooter Gennet went 5-for-5 with four home runs in one game.

Scooter Gennett! How about that.

On the decent chance you didnt know who he was beyond, maybe, fantasy baseball rankings, Gennett is a 27-year-old second baseman with the Reds. Its his fifth season in the majors and first with Cincinnati, who picked him up off the Milwaukee Brewers. He can move pretty well around the diamond, and hes now in an exclusive club for the rest of his life.

There are only 17 players who have hit four home runs in a game since 1894. My second thought went to Shawn Green, who went 6-for-6 with four home runs for the Dodgers in 2002. But I had already forgotten about Carlos Delgado busting out four home runs the next year for the Blue Jays, and completely blanked on Josh Hamilton doing the same for the Rangers in 2012.

As hard and fluky a feat as it is, Hamilton, Delgado and Green at least fit the mold of players who could have pulled it off. Gennett only had three home runs in 2017 coming into his game and, while no slouch, isnt thought of as a power threat.

Gennetts grabbed his weird little piece of baseball history, and hes going to forever join the collective memories of fans who remember those guys. He might even become their go-to four homers in one game guy.

And heres where my first thought went. My go-to was and forever will be Mark Whiten, who, on the second half of a Sept. 7 double header in 1993, went 4-for-5 with four home runs and 12 RBI. And from that moment on, Whiten was a baseball god.

Its so dumb and it so explicitly dates me, but my primary memory of Whitens monster game was courtesy of Mel Allens This Week In Baseball. On the Saturday following his Tuesday night performance, Whiten took up the majority of the shows half hour that morning. It left an impact.

The idea of four home runs in a game seemed absolutely impossible. I was four when Bob Horner hit four home runs for the Braves against the Expos in 1986 and wasnt alive when Mike Schmidt did it against the Cubs. Whiten was a good player hes actually praised briefly in a newspaper clipping during the movie Bull Durham and he had a solid career. He hit 25 home runs in 1993 and 105 in his career. He finished in the top 10 in Rookie of the Year voting in 1991 split between Toronto and Cleveland, and he had a rocket of an arm in right field.

But certainly, he was not the superstar hed been elevated to in my mind. Baseball-Reference.com lists his most comparable player as Mike Davis, a 1980s outfielder who hit 91 home runs in a 10-year-career and has his own bit of lore he was standing on second base when Kurt Gibson hit his home run to win Game 1 of the 1988 World Series for the Dodgers.

Whitens reputation was in total because hed had a good year when I was 11 and, again, did something in a game I hadnt even realized could be done. I was visibliy excited when he was sent to Boston for Scott Cooper before the 1995 season, thinking that with him, Mo Vaughn and Jose Canseco, the Red Sox would have a monster of a lineup.

That didnt happen. The Red Sox would win the division, but Canseco had one home run heading into June and Whiten was gone before the July 31st trade deadline, sent to Philadelphia for Dave Hollins, who played all of five games in Boston. They both spent their short stints wearing Carlton Fisks no. 27, weirdly enough.

Its all a jumble of factoids and stolen moments. In between the All-Stars and the also-rans live a collection of guys who were able to do something that etched their names in the baseball conversation for years after their time on the diamond had ended.

Whatever happens to Gennett now until the end of his career, hes grabbed onto his little piece of baseball immortality. There are more than a few players who can only wish theyd accomplished that much.

Nick Tavares' column appears Sundays in The Standard-Times and at SouthCoastToday.com. He can be reached at nick@nicktavares.com

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Nick Tavares: Reds' Scooter Gennett the latest to achieve baseball immortality - SouthCoastToday.com

CID unearths fake ‘council of alternative medicines’ in Behala – Millennium Post

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In a major breakthrough, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has unearthed a fake "council of alternative medicines" in Behala that had been giving forged MBBS certificates against a huge sum of money.

The investigating agency raided the office situated in a rented apartment on Biren Roy Road at Behala late on Saturday night. The investigating officers found several documents including a few forged MBBS certificates and other relevant documents from the office that they have sealed after conducting the search operation.

According to a senior officer of CID, accused Tapas Biswas had taken a portion of the house on rent nine months ago to run the office of the fake council which he had named "Council of Alternative System of Medicine".

Investigation revealed that he used to issue forged certificates on behalf of the fake council using which several began to practice allopathy. The CID officers are also looking for these fake doctors.

The investigating officers further came to know that Biswas stopped coming to the office 10 days ago and on the last day of his visit, he had left with several documents. The officers found the office locked from outside when they went to conduct the raid late on Saturday night.

The officers also went to his residence on Moore Avenue in South Kolkata and found it locked from outside. His neighbours informed the officers that Biswas along with his wife and other family members went out of station 10 days ago.

Biswas also runs an institute named Institute of Health Science. There are branches of the institute at Moulali and Gariahat as well. CID officers came to know that Biswas used to give some sort of training to the people who used to approach him to get forged MBBS certificates against a certain amount of money.

Moreover, the accused's father Pradip Biswas, who died a few years ago, was known to the locals as a doctor of alternate medicine. He also used to run an institution and got arrested five years ago by policemen from Regent Park police station, sources added. Interestingly, the investigating officers came to know that his wife also claims herself to be a doctor. His brother, who also passed away, used to run a similar type of institution in Cooch Behar.

The CID officers have questioned the owner of the house at Behala where Biswas had opened his office.

According to sources, the landlord told the officers that the accused had he had been kept in the dark while the house was being taken on rent by Biswas.

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CID unearths fake 'council of alternative medicines' in Behala - Millennium Post

GARDENING: Harvest tomatoes before the birds do – Odessa American

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Floyd is a horticulturist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service. He can be reached at 498-4071 in Ector County or 686-4700 in Midland County or by email at Jeff.Floyd@ag.tamu.edu

Floyd is an Agri-Life Extension agent for Ector and Midland counties. To learn more, call the Ector County Extension office at 432-498-4072, or the Midland County Extension office at 432-686-4700, or email jeff.floyd@ag.tamu.edu.

Tomato bird damage

Posted: Sunday, June 11, 2017 3:00 am

GARDENING: Harvest tomatoes before the birds do By Jeff Floyd Odessa American

Birds are cunning. Theyre watching your tomatoes more closely than you are, waiting for the fruit to turn the perfect shade of red so they can make their move.

Many times, theyll peck at the fruit just enough to dash your dreams of a big crop. Oh, that wretched feeling of spotting a bright red tomato on the vine only to discover it has a chunk wallowed out of one side by some devious fowl.

This is an easy problem to avoid. Simply harvest your tomatoes just as they begin to turn pink. Then lay them out on a flat surface without allowing them to touch one another and keep them between seventy and seventy-five degrees until ripe. Thats it. Problem solved.

We hear a lot about vine ripened tomatoes tasting better than those harvested early. Not true. The concentration of sugars in vine-ripened tomatoes is the same as those harvested just as they begin to turn. An added advantage to harvesting often and early is that some tomato plants will be more productive and yield larger fruit.

Tomatoes depend on the right temperature and a couple of naturally produced chemicals to ripen; ethylene and lycopene. Ethylene is a gas responsible for accumulating lycopene in tomatoes. Lycopene is a pigment that gives tomatoes color. Ethylene and lycopene work hand in hand to complete the ripening process.

When temperatures remain hot (above 85) for extended periods, ethylene production slows or stops. Many gardeners become frustrated with late summer green tomatoes. Sometimes the harvest is delayed until better conditions restart the ripening process. Those rascally winged thieves are counting on you to wait. Rather than postpone your harvest for ideal conditions, turn the tables on birds by snatching your tomatoes off the vine early and allowing them to ripen indoors.

To learn more about having a successful tomato harvest this year, contact the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension office at 498-4071 or email jeff.floyd@ag.tamu.edu.

Posted in Gardening on Sunday, June 11, 2017 3:00 am. | Tags: Texas A&m Agrilife Extension Office, Jeff Floyd, Pecans, Pruning, Prune, Soft Landscape Materials, Landscape, Gardening, Gardener, Food, Integra, Repeat Applications, West Texas

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GARDENING: Harvest tomatoes before the birds do - Odessa American

Orphan Black: 3 Major Revelations From the Season 5 Premiere – TV Guide (blog)

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Orphan Black might be nearing the end of its run, but the heart pumping sci-fi drama isn't going down without a fight. Picking up right where we left off at the end of Season 4, Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany) fights for survival after a brutal battle with Rachel Duncan (Tatiana Maslany) left her bruised and broken. Meanwhile, Delphine (Evelyne Brochu) and Cosima (Tatiana Maslany) finally have that reunion we've been waiting for since last season and Felix (Jordan Gavaris) is doing everything he can to keep his family alive. With so much happening at once, we're breaking down the biggest revelations of the Season 5 opener.

1. The Revival At the end of Season 4, Cosima was captured and taken to a mysterious outdoors camp which we now know is called Revival. The self-sufficient base, located on the Island, is made up of people who were genetically chosen to live there with the hopes of improving the human race. We previously saw them in Rachel's visions back in season 3 so it shouldn't come as a surprise that she's now one of their leaders.

Members of the Revival participate in "crazy science" treatments like stem cell therapy, cryonics, caloric restrictions, immunotherapy, and cloning in order to prolong life expectancy. "When you think about it, if you wanted to genetically improve the human race, life extension is the first principle," Delphine says after referring to them the "heart of the Neolutionists." She's got a point.

2. Art's New Partner Unfortunately for Detective Art Bell (Kevin Hanchard), he's paired with a Neolutionist named Maddy who's been described as a misogynist. From the little we've seen of her, she's a bit rough around the edges and is willing to do whatever it takes (like holding a gun to Art's head in order to get Alison to talk) to accomplish her goals. Things aren't looking good now that she's got an eye on our favorite preppy clone. Threat level: major.

3. Rachel's Unexpected Alliance After killing Susan Duncan, Rachel has taken over as a mouthpiece for Revival founder P.T. Westmorland. When she confronts Cosima, who is trying to inject her uterus with Castor DNA before the others catch her, it's shocking to see Duncan help out her fellow clone rather than kill her.

Even more startling is the fact that Cosima trusts Rachel to use that giant needle on her. "You and I are going to cure us all," Rachel says after revealing that Westmorland wants Cosima to be a part of his plan. Hopefully, it won't be at Cosima's expense.

Some burning questions...

Are Helena's babies okay? I know they probably have super healing abilities but a branch through the abdomen is not a good look.

What is the Fountain? And why is the Revival so thirsty for it?

What is this feral creature roaming the woods? Given that Revival loves to experiment on people, I'm guessing the ferocious being is one of them gone wrong.

What's up with Sarah's visions? Is Kira communicating with her? Last season, we learned her daughter can feel all of the Leda clones so it's possible.

How does Aisha tie into everything? We do know that she has cancer and was brought to the Revival for experimental treatment. Delphine hinted that she's a major part of their agenda but in what capacity remains unclear.

With Cosima gambling on her health and Sarah currently held captive by Rachel, does this mean a clone will die this season? We previously contemplated the idea as it would surely bring the others closer together.

And keen observations...

Sara using a tampon as a bandage is brilliant. BRB, packing them in my emergency kit.

Alison and Donnie are hiding out in a national park in the nicest homemade tent I've ever seen. Even in nature, they're still so fancy. You already know.... (sorry)

"I almost hit you with a pan!" "Well, I almost shot you so we're even." So when are Art and Felix getting that reluctant buddy cop spin-off we didn't know we needed until now?

Orphan Black airs Saturdays at 10/9c on BBC America.

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Orphan Black: 3 Major Revelations From the Season 5 Premiere - TV Guide (blog)

Patriots WR Julian Edelman’s father would love his son to be "a Patriot for life" – Pats Pulpit

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Earlier this week, the New England Patriots and their leading wide receiver of the last four years Julian Edelman agreed to a two-year contract extension. The deal will keep the 31-year old in New England through the 2019 season and pay him a maximum of $19.5 million over the next three years.

The extension prompted ESPN Bostons Mike Reiss to reach out to Edelmans father Frank to talk about his son and the new contract. And as Reiss states in his Sunday NFL thoughts column, the conversation confirmed the impression that the younger Edelman enjoys his time in New England and playing for the Patriots.

During his talk with Reiss, Frank Edelman pointed out how the Boston loves its athletes and how the city is a perfect spot for his son: "Boston is also all about what Julian is; you just go to work and grind it out. [...] He loves Boston and everything about the Patriots. There are also a lot of off-field opportunities if you stay in Boston."

Naturally, according to the Edelmans, they would prefer if it stayed that way: "We'd love to be a Patriot for life," Frank pointed out.

Given the length of the contract extension, this could very well be the case. After all, Edelman will enter free agency two months before turning 34. At this point, it would not be that big of a surprise to see him call it quits after going from late round afterthought to earning multiple Super Bowl rings and folk hero status in New England.

Reiss and Frank Edelman also talked about contract negotiations with the Patriots and his sons work ethic so make sure to take a look at the story.

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Patriots WR Julian Edelman's father would love his son to be "a Patriot for life" - Pats Pulpit

What Utah’s Canyon Country Can Tell Us About Trump’s Monuments Review – KTOO

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A looming decision about whether to abolish or shrink the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah should provide an early signal of how the Trump administration will deal with a long list of public lands issues.

For roughly a month and a half, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has had 27 national monuments under a microscope, reviewing the protected status of these vast expanses of land (and, in some cases, water) at the prompting of an April executive order by President Trump.

The idea, according to the order, is to assure that each of these areas is appropriately designated under the 1906 Antiquities Act, a law that gives the president the authority to establish national monuments with a few caveats. Namely, they must include historic landmarks or other objects of historic or scientific interest, and they must not exceed the smallest area necessary for their upkeep.

At issue is whether the presidents who created the monuments overstepped their authority. But just as important to those who live around the sites is whether they restrict the economy and ignore local interests.

Bears Ears, established last year by President Barack Obama, is the first on Zinkes list. But a second Utah site, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, offers a more comprehensive glimpse into the controversy that eddies around many of the monuments and a revealing peek into what Zinke may ultimately recommend to the president.

So, here it is: a tour of Grand Staircase-Escalante. That is, a tour of the national monuments economic impact, the political cloud surrounding it and what we can expect once Zinkes decision comes down.

The Grand Staircase-Escalante, with its famous hoodoos, or columns, has long been at the center of a local fight over whether its federal designation hurts or helps the surrounding area. (Photo by Bob Wick/BLM)/Flickr

So, what is the benefit or harm of having a national monument in your neighborhood?

According to Headwaters Economics, a Montana-based think tank that crunched the data on jobs and the economy around 17 of the national monuments under review, the effect is anywhere from nothing to a modest net positive.

Chris Mehl, the groups policy director, says that from 2001 to 2015, overall jobs in the communities around Grand Staircase, in particular, increased by 24 percent and personal income overall grew by 32 percent.

These jobs are believed to be mostly service based, in fields that include everything from health care to hospitality, outdoor recreation and tourism.

The monument lies within two rural counties in southern Utah, home to about 12,000 residents and about a half-dozen towns across an area thats nearly 10,000 square miles in size.

Mehl says the economies of rural Western communities like the one around Grand Staircase have changed dramatically, with huge social impacts were just coming to grips with. So other, larger economic factors may be involved.

But theres no sign of an economic apocalypse here, he says.

Commissioners in rural Garfield County, Utah, have long seen it differently.

In 2015, they passed a resolution declaring a state of emergency, saying the monument had all but wiped out the natural resource-based economy in the area. They cited a remarkable 67 percent drop in enrollment at Escalante High School since the monument was designated, while other schools have suffered similar drops.

We see markers that dont indicate a healthy economy, says Matthew Anderson of the Sutherland Institute, a Utah-based free market think tank. He argues that Headwaters study doesnt tell the whole story.

President Bill Clinton, with Vice President Al Gore, signs his 1996 order designating the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. Opponents continue to note that Clinton made this move while sitting at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Doug Mills/AP

Local anger still runs deep over President Bill Clintons 1996 designation because it also effectively nixed a proposed coal mining operation. A Dutch mining firms proposal could have brought in $100 million in new tax revenue and created about 600 jobs, according to state estimates at the time.

Anderson argues the types of jobs created by a national monument designation namely in recreation and tourism tend to be low-paying and seasonal, and he says these jobs dont always sustain families the way livestock grazing does. A national monument grandfathers existing activities like grazing leases but bars new ones.

Some residents throw cold water on the idea of shaky employment.

We are awash in jobs, Blake Spalding, co-owner of a local grill, tells The Salt Lake Tribune. What we need is people to fill them.

The debate around Grand Staircase by no means ends with the balance sheet.

Ninety-three percent of Garfield County is owned and controlled by the federal government. And for some detractors, like former Escalante Mayor Jerry Taylor, the federal presence feels akin to that of an unwelcome relative.

We love our mother-in-law, he once said, according to E&E News. But sometimes we dont want her to tell us how to run our house.

Those detractors have not forgotten how the monument was established in the first place: planned largely without input from state leaders and designated by Clinton at a signing ceremony that wasnt even in Utah.

Remember, Zinke said during a visit to the state, according to The Tribune, when this monument was formed, the governor of Utah read it in the paper.

As recently as February, Utah lawmakers called on Washington to reduce the size of the monument, citing a negative impact on the prosperity, development, economy, custom, culture, heritage, educational opportunities, health, and well-being of local communities among other grievances.

Nevertheless, when Zinke visited Grand Staircase last month, he was greeted by chants of demonstrators calling for him to save our monument, the St. George Spectrum & Daily News notes.

The site flush with ancient artifacts and fossils that date back tens of millions of years has been lauded as the Shangri-La for dinosaurs. And proponents defend its value not only for recreational visitors, but also for scientists.

What we learn here matters to the entire West, Nicole Croft, executive director of Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners, tells E&E News.

The ultimate fate of the monuments is murky partly because a presidents authority under the law that established them, the 1906 Antiquities Act, may be open to dispute.

Whats unclear right now is whether the president has the authority to undo what one of his predecessors has done, says Mark Squillace, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School. The act essentially authorizes the president to proclaim, but not to modify or revoke, national monuments.

Squillace says only Congress has the clear authority to revoke a designation because Congress has authority over public property.

While some small monuments have been turned over to states, no precedent exists for the abolition of a national monument the size of Grand Staircase.

Because of that lack of clarity, one thing is fairly clear: Any order by Trump to shrink or nullify any monument will almost certainly end up in court. It is widely expected that environmentalists would immediately sue.

Squillace says the dispute could go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Even Zinke himself hinted at the uncertainty during his confirmation hearings earlier this year.

The law is untested, he said.

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What Utah's Canyon Country Can Tell Us About Trump's Monuments Review - KTOO

How diplomas based on skill acquisition, not credits earned, could … – The Hechinger Report

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Freshman Kylee Elderkin works on an assignment in English class at Nokomis High School in Newport on Friday, June 2, 2017. Elderkin says she used to routinely miss key skills and do poorly on tests. The switch to a proficiency-based education, which focuses on making sure students can demonstrate what they know, has helped students like Elderkin. Photo: Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

NEWPORT, Maine Algebra was not Kylee Elderkins favorite subject at the beginning of the school year.

I was a little behind, said Kylee, 14. I wouldnt understand.

The Nokomis Regional High School ninth grader said she used to routinely miss key skills and do poorly on tests. Struggling students like Kylee might not have made it through honors algebra in the past, said teacher Ellen Payne, who has taught high school math for 11 years. Payne said she used to lose four or five students a year from honors algebra; theyd have to drop down a level. In lower level classes, some would have to repeat the whole course.

This year Payne doesnt expect to lose Kylee or anyone else.

Thats due to a new teaching approach here called proficiency-based education, that was inspired by a 2012 state law.

The law requires that by 2021, students graduating from Maine high schools must show they have mastered specific skills to earn a high school diploma. Maine is the first state to pass such a law, though the idea of valuing skills over credits is increasingly popular around the country. Maine is the pioneer, said Chris Sturgis, co-founder of CompetencyWorks, a national organization that advocates for the approach in K-12 schools.

Kylee Elderkin, student, Nokomis Regional High School

This years nearly 13,500 eighth graders will be the first students required to meet the changed requirements, which are being phased in gradually. By 2021, schools must offer diplomas based students reaching proficiency in the four core academic subject areas: English, math, science and social studies. By 2025, four additional subject areas will be included: a second language, the arts, health and physical education.

When such a system works, its meant to offer students clarity about what they have to learn and how they are expected to demonstrate theyve learned it. Students have more flexibility to learn at their own pace and teachers get time to provide extra help for students who need it. Ideally, every diploma in Maine would signify that students had mastered the states learning standards.

But the law grants local districts lots of leeway in determining what students must do to prove their proficiency, which means the value of the new diplomas will still be largely determined by where students live. Logistical hurdles, resistance from teachers fed up with top-down reforms, confusion about exactly what the law requires, and missing information about how districts will be judged on their compliance are among the challenges that come with overhauling the states high schools.

Mary Nadeau, principal of Nokomis High School in Newport, poses for a photo in a hallway of the school on Friday, June 2, 2017. One of the reasons that Nokomis High School has sucessfully transitioned to a proficiency-based education model is the support that Nadeau has for the idea. Photo: Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

Five of the states 124 high schools are on target to hand out the new diplomas next spring, according to a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Education, while others have barely started to make the transition.

Erika Stump, a research associate at the Center for Education Policy, Applied Research and Evaluation at the University of Southern Maine, has written seven reports on proficiency-based education in the state. Asked how its going so far, Stump replied: It depends on how you define it and how you define going.

Since the mid-1990s several New England states have looked to proficiency-based education in an attempt to ensure a more equal education for all students. In fact, several Maine districts, including Gray-New Gloucester, were already working toward a proficiency-based model at the time the diploma law was passed.

Starting in 2011, several key groups and people in Maine worked to put the state ahead of the pack in terms of legal requirements for proficiency. Educate Maine, a local nonprofit with several business and technology leaders on its board of directors, spoke out early in favor of the diploma law. Former state education commissioner Stephen Bowen was a cheerleader for the idea during his tenure at the Maine Department of Education from 2011 to 2013.

Maine has really had a struggle making the transition from a natural resource-based economy to whatever this new economy is, said Bowen, who now directs innovation initiatives for the Council of Chief State School Officers, a national association for state superintendents. There was a sense that we needed to swing for the fences to make the economic transition the state needs to make.

Chris Sturgis, co-founder, CompetencyWorks

Bowen said that test scores had been flat and educators told him they felt they had squeezed all the success there was to squeeze out of the current system. It wasnt for lack of trying, Bowen said. It was a systems design problem.

Initially, there was little pushback, said Lois Kilby-Chesley, president of the Maine Education Association, the states teachers union. The way it was presented was that it was going to meet the needs of every student, and that sounds like what all of us want, Kilby-Chesley said.

As the rollout of the new system has proved challenging and confusing for many school districts though, the unions position has grown more cautious. Kilby-Chesley now worries that low-performing and special education students could be hurt.

The proficiency-based idea has also created headaches at some schools for teachers trying to monitor students individual progress. Many teachers are skeptical of yet another in what seems like a series of endless reforms from the state government. Teachers report that some parents worry that switching to a new grading system with numbers instead of letters, which is an option for schools but not a requirement of the law, could affect college admissions. And the consequences for not meeting the terms of the law, including the way districts will be judged, have not yet been published by the Maine Department of Education.

At this point, Kilby-Chesley said that the union would support legislation to repeal the current proficiency-based diploma law.

We do want all kids to be proficient, obviously, she said. But when you say, Heres the bar, and youre never going to be able to jump over it. Why would [students] bother to keep trying?

But at schools that have embraced the new system, teachers say they are finding that struggling students are seeing the biggest gains because teachers are given more time to re-teach skills and students better understand the parameters for earning a diploma.

I think its going to raise our graduation rate, said Nokomis Principal Mary Nadeau. Its going to free us from backtracking. We can just cut to the chase and say, Can you do this?

If a student can write a great essay by the end of 10th grade, she pointed out, why should it matter that he or she struggled to write essays for most of freshman year? Once the student can show proficiency in essay writing, his or her grade on that skill in a previous course can cease to be a concern.

Part of this change has been about equity, Nadeau said. Deciding to believe that all students are capable of learning all of the standards, she said, was scary.

In the classrooms at Nokomis, tests are now broken down into specific sets of skills so teachers can identify how well students understand each task. When students get less than a proficient score, they must go back and study the skill they missed. They are then given a chance to retake the relevant portions of the test until they earn a satisfactory score.

Related: Despite its high tech profile, Summit charter network makes teachers, not computers, the heart of learning

Seniors John Hachey, Lauren Brewer and Emily Taylor, left to right, discuss the dessert they created for a health class to judges Ellen Payne, left and Debbie Richardson. Health teacher Donald Thorndike, standing at far left, says that having the students explain their decision-making process and the nutritional qualities of their desserts is part of having students demonstrate what they know, one of the tenets of proficiency-based education. Photo: Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

Kylee said that process is why she now loves algebra and is on track with the rest of her class. I definitely would have struggled if I didnt have to go through the process of retaking, Kylee said. It ties to what were doing now, so if I didnt know it, I wouldnt be getting the grades I get.

It has always been true that algebra students need to master variables in order to move on to factoring, for example, but ninth graders werent always so adept at understanding that, Kylees teachers said.

A similar realization has motivated students who dont master all the skills in a given course by the end of the school year, Payne said. In part, thats because they now get to keep the credit for the skills they have learned.

While we will still have students having to repeat Algebra Ior any other classthey will at least not have wasted their year, Payne said. They will have fewer [skills] that they have to meet the next year which takes a little pressure off them.

Erika Stump, researcher, University of Southern Maine

If one of Paynes algebra students gets through just half of the skills one year, he will be signed up for the course again the following year. The difference now is that he will be able to start where he left off. He might work independently from the rest of the class, with Payne providing guidance, until he masters all the necessary skills.

The shift in thinking about how students learn best has inspired other changes at Nokomis too. A new algebra class for students who struggle the most with that subject meets daily instead of every other day to provide the needed extra time. English students can prove their understanding of concepts in more than one way, such as illustrating a poem to demonstrate a grasp of figurative language. Multiple-choice questions have virtually disappeared. Homework is checked, but not graded.

We really thought if we didnt grade it, they wouldnt do it, Payne said of the homework she and her colleagues assign. She said that fear proved unfounded.

Teachers and administrators here said they prioritized their students and families over fitting any preconceived idea of what proficiency-based education should look like. For example, they use the 1-to-4 grading scale in class to help students better understand how close they are to hitting their proficiency targets. For report cards, they convert those scores into letter grades to make it simple for parents, colleges and other post-secondary institutions to understand.

English teacher Elizabeth Vigue talks with senior Dylan Bickford as he works on an assignment in class at Nokomis High School in Newport on Friday, June 2, 2017. Vigue says that it was scary to give up teaching most of the novels on her syllabus but she says that it was worth it to watch her students grasp concepts that she knows will help them read any novel they want in the future. I think this takes courage, Vigue says of the transition to proficiency-based education. One thing you need to believe to work here is that every child can learn. Photo: Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

But despite its popularity with both teachers and students at Nokomis, this potential revolution in Maines high school experience is far from a successful finish.

On the plus side, even critics have been mostly unconcerned about costs beyond what it will take to pay educators for their extra training and planning time during the transition. To cover those costs, districts are receiving 1/9 of 1 percent of their annual state education allocation on top of their regular amount during the years of the phase-in. That could range from a few thousand dollars for smaller districts to more than $10,000 for larger districts, Stump said.

Private funding causes some to worry about outside influence. In New England, the primary private funder has been the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, which has donated to multiple projects, including Educate Maine and Great Schools Partnership, seeking to evaluate proficiency-based education and make it a reality in schools. (Nellie Mae is also one of the many funders of The Hechinger Report, the nonprofit education news publication that produced this report.)

And the practical questions for schools can seem endless: How do coaches determine athletic eligibility if every student learns different things at different times? When are teachers supposed to find time to let students re-take tests? And what about students who, due to their special education status, will never reach a universal standard for proficient?

With districts across Maine answering those questions in different ways, the new law might not result in academic improvement across the board, Stump said. If your intent is to raise student achievement, a large-scale, vaguely defined proficiency-based diploma law is not going to do that, she said.

Some schools are making unpopular changes that arent required by the law, she said. Other schools are changing the language they use to describe what they are doing without changing their practice. And still other schools have made changes only to have them reversed when leadership or other circumstances change. None of these processes have endeared teachers or students to the new rules.

Moreover, in Maine, its up to each district to decide what proficient means. So while everyone agrees that high school graduates should be able to read, Stump said, thats not a sufficient answer to what constitutes proficient reading.

Mary Nadeau, principal, Nokomis Regional High School

How much should you be able to read? Stump asked. Should you be able to read Shakespeare or should you be literate?

Some teachers worry that requiring all students to be proficient at everything is both unrealistic and unfair. Not every academic skill is essential to every person, argued Linda Morehouse, a longtime English teacher at Gray-New Gloucester High School. They can still be contributing members of society even if theyre not that great at grammar, Morehouse said. That shouldnt hold them back from a ticket to a successful career, which is our diploma.

Ideally, the additional time and support students are supposed to receive would address concerns like Morehouses, said Diana Doiron of the Maine Department of Education, who visits schools across the state to help put the new system in place.

We inherited a structure for schooling that was based on time and on philosophical beliefs that learning would be distributed across a bell curve, Doiron said. To dispense with that structure and allow all students the time they need to complete their work, she said, is really getting at the heart of what education is supposed to be.

Related: Has New Hampshire found the secret to online education that works?

Such a shift would move schools away from what educators sometimes refer to as the industrial model of education that held sway in the 19th and 20th centuries to a model geared towards the more flexible work environments of the 21st century, proponents argue.

Freshmen Sophie Platt, right, and Hayley Ogden watch as math teacher Ellen Payne works an algebra equation in class at Nokomis High School in Newport on Friday, June 2, 2017. Payne said that she used to lose four to five students from honors algebra classes every year; they would either drop down a level or re-take the course the following year. Under the proficiency-based education model this year, Payne says she doesnt expect to lose any students out of the class. Photo: Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

Its also potentially more motivating to students, said David Ruff, a former Maine teacher and the executive director of Great Schools Partnership, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on bringing proficiency-based learning strategies into New England schools. Its the difference, he said, between telling a kid, Youve got to spend the morning with me raking leaves, or Youve got to rake the backyard and when its done you can run, he said. In the second case, the backyard gets done pretty quick.

Back at Nokomis, where roughly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a few students dressed in colonial garb hurried back to class for a presentation on the Revolutionary War. Camouflage flannel shirts and hoodies were the fashion statement of choice for most of the rest of the 613 students in this rural high school.

Spurred both by the new law and by concerns that academics at Nokomis lacked cohesion, Principal Nadeau tapped her subject-area department heads to get crystal clear about what we want students to know and be able to do and then how to measure it.

Related: Blue-collar town leads Rhode Islands tech assisted learning revolution

Some teachers were initially resistant, Nadeau said, but all of the academic departments met both on their own and with administrators to develop their lists of what students in their subject area needed to know. Teachers also received additional transition help from Ruffs Great Schools Partnership thanks to a federal grant Nadeau won for the school. Now, most say they approve of the changes.

Nokomis High Schools graduation rate is on par with the state average, but its located in an economically depressed, rural area of the state with lower teacher salaries, so proponents see their success as a particularly encouraging sign.

If Nokomis can do it, anybody can do it, said Ruff, of the Great Schools Partnership.

Nokomis does boast the advantage of having a strong and trusted leader in Nadeau, a factor Stump called critical to successfully encouraging teachers to question their current practice and embrace massive changes.

English department head Elizabeth Vigue was quick to point to the biggest change her team had to make: giving up nearly every novel on their syllabus.

Having to acknowledge you didnt know what skills that novel was good for was painful, Vigue said. But shes decided that giving up classics like Charles Dickens Great Expectations has been worth it to watch her students better grasp concepts she knows will allow them to tackle any novel they want in the future.

I think this takes courage, Vigue said of making such big changes. One thing you need to believe to work here is that every child can learn.

The next story in this short series exploring Maines new graduation requirements will look at a school that has struggled to comply with the new law. The final story will examine a school thats found a different proficiency solution, one that may offer a clue to the systems future.

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about high school reform.

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How diplomas based on skill acquisition, not credits earned, could ... - The Hechinger Report

What Will Really Happen in the Age of Automation? – Futurism

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In Brief A new video from Kurzgesagt In a Nutshell explores the history of innovation and job loss, and points out why the age of automation is different from anything we've seen before.

Kurzgesagt In a Nutshell on YouTube just released a new video that explores the age of automation and how, while automation has changed society before, things are different this time. Before, as automation modified industries like agriculture, jobs were lost. However, with this job loss came job creation, as machines needed to be repaired. This actually was an overall positive movement, as the new jobs which replaced the old ones were typically better in terms of pay and working conditions.

One of the main differences between that shift and the one that we are currently in is the lack of job creation. While the internet led to the creation and development of new industries and jobs, it simply hasnt been enough to keep up with growing populations and the demand created by automation-driven job loss. Industries and jobs of the information age simply need fewer peopleto make them work.

But we are beyond that now. While the information age couldnt support the need for new jobs, the age of automation will pose even more issues and difficulties. As populations continue to grow and job creation continues on a downward trend, what will we do? The video above explores both the grim and positive possibilities that the age of automation could create. This moment in time could forever shape the future in ways that have never been seen before. We as human beings should learn as much as we can about whats happeningin order to adapt to an inevitably automated world.

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What Will Really Happen in the Age of Automation? - Futurism

A Brief Explainer on Automation and How it Will Impact Economy … – Digital Trends

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A Brief Explainer on Automation and How it Will Impact Economy ... - Digital Trends

Wavemaker’s new fund’s all about automation, data, and intelligence: Paul Santos – DEALSTREETASIA

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Left: Paul Santos, managing partner of WaveMaker. Right: Tim Draper

June 11, 2017:

Wavemaker Partners is hunting for automation, data, and intelligence startups across the region. The venture capital firm is in the process of closing its Southeast Asia-focussed $50 million fund, and is eyeing about 40 more companies, that would make its portfolio 80-strong, its managing partner Paul Santos said in an interaction.Its main focus about 80 per cent of the fund would still be business-to-business (B2B) models, while the remaining 20 per cent will go to B2C. The firm has at least 10 portfolio companies that count Indonesia as a key marketand is looking to invest more in the country, he added. Edited Excerpts.

Can you give us a brief description about your new fund?

We are early stage investors, so we will come in between seed and series A. This fund were aiming to have about 80 companies as we want to build a big portfolio.

About 80 per cent will have a B2B focus and the remaining balance, with minority invesments, is B2C. The mandate of the fund is Southeast Asia, especially Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand, which are our primary markets, as well as Malaysia and Vietnam.

How big is your ticket size?

First checks were about $100,000 500,000. Now the total exposure is between $1-1.5 million.

When you say B2B you mean which sectors?

It could be financial services, logistics, healthcare, or even SaaS. Basically anything from automation, to data, to intelligence. These are the sort of (verticals) that wed like to look at.

Automation is sensors for data. When you have automation youre creating data you never had before, and you can have data analytics when you start analyzing the data. If you have a lot of data, like multidimensional data, then artificial intelligence is something that you can apply next. So, I look at the problems, then opportunities that I want to pursue (in terms of determining sectors).

Whats the status of Wavemakers latest fund? Have you started to deploy it, and if yes, to how many startups?

We have deployed some of it already. In fact, we did our first close earlier at about half (of $50 million). We have invested in about 40 companies.

Is Tim Draper one of your LPs? What is the profile of your LPs?

Yes, and he is one of the advisors and a member of this network. Our LPs come from around the region and are ranging from family offices to funds, so very diverse.

How big is Indonesias position in this fund?

I would say around 25 per cent of the portfolio at least, if not more. Most of them (Wavemakers portfolio companies) tend to be Singapore-headquartered, but it does not mean that they only have Singapore as their markets. Many of them will touch Indonesia in a big way.

90 per cent of the businesses in the SEA are SMEs, and will always be an interesting market where startups can work by putting a layer of technology to leverage them. For us its more whats the opportunity, who are you serving, why do they love you, are you building a valuable business?

Why are you confident about Indonesia?

I grew up in the Philippines so I have a feel in emerging markets. And emerging markets all over SEA are going through the same change, like you have this young growing population, getting wealthier, adopting tech like mobile phones and cloud, which are enabling things that werent there before.That, for me, is a huge opportunity, and across the region you have that. You can actually make that leapfrog to take advantage of the latest tech, and thats very exciting. Things are changing.

You have seen startups in across emerging markets in the region. Where is Indonesia compared to others, lets say, the Philippines?

I think Indonesia is more aggressive in terms of the numbers of startups that are being built, and investors are more bullish than in the Philippines. Although, there are many problems to be solved across both markets, and entrepreneurs are coming up trying to solve them. In some ways Indonesia is more advanced, but in other ways, they are the same problems, like the population of the unbanked, limited access to information, access to capital, and so on.

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Tags: automation data Indonesia intelligence Paul Santos Wavemaker Partners

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Wavemaker's new fund's all about automation, data, and intelligence: Paul Santos - DEALSTREETASIA