Daily Archives: April 27, 2017

2020 CF/2B Hallie Wacaser Commits To FSU – FloSoftball

Posted: April 27, 2017 at 2:17 am

2020 CF/2B Hallie Wacaser Commits To FSU

When they asked me to share my story I was super excited! This journey has been such a crazy ride and I am so blessed to say that I will be a Florida State Seminole in 4 years!

Florida State was always my dream school. I remember watching games with my dad on TV and dressing up as a Florida State cheerleader for Halloween.When I was 12, I begged my parents to let me go to a Florida State softball camp, which is the #1 rated camp in the country. It was the summer of my 7th grade year, and when I stepped onto campus I was amazed. It was so pretty and the weather was amazing. The camp was GREAT and the family atmosphere Coach Alameda, Coach Snider, Coach Wilson and the players create is truly one of a kind. They welcome everyone with a smile and work with you to make you the best player you can be. One thing about me that really stood out to the FSU coaches was my bat speed and how violent my swing is. They loved my arm in the outfield and how I had speed around the bases. After the camp, Coach Snider asked me to come down to their winter camp, and from there, my FSU dream began to skyrocket.

Even though FSU was my dream school, I did make a few additional stops along the recruiting journey. During this time, I was blessed with several opportunities with top programs and got to meet amazing coaches along the way. Each school and coach was special in their own way, but deep down I knew that FSU was my home. Not only was it my dream school but I have family in the area, and I cannot forget the fact that I am a warm weather girl.

I have been playing softball since I was 5, and started playing travel ball at 9. Arkansas has some awesome softball players, and I played for a great regional organization for many years. During that time, I met my best friend Alex McManus, who is an amazing pitcher. Both Alex and I aspired to play D1 softball and she later committed to play for Notre Dame. We love to compete and we wanted to play the best competition possible, so when we were asked to join the Beverly Bandits out of Chicago, we both jumped in. I must say, it has been one of the best decisions I have made. I love the accountability and drive, and my teammates inspire me to work hard every day so I can play to the best of my potential. Since Alex and I live in Arkansas we practice together at home. The competitive spirit is alive in each practice, and we push each other to be the best we can be. I admired Alex when she committed to Notre Dame last year, and it motivated me even more to fulfill my dream. In March, I committed to Florida State and now we will get to play against each other in the ACC.

There are many coaches who have believed in me along the way, and I can't thank them enough -- From Jason Wildeman and the NWA Knockouts organization, my pitching coach Kris Munson, as well as Ramsey Harkness with the Beverly Bandits. Additionally, I take a lot of pride in my hitting and would like to give a special shout out to Coy Akins, Randi Wilson and George McManus for molding me into the offensive player I am today. But one person I can never thank enough is my dad. Being my #1 fan and friend through all the ups and downs is beyond compare. Now that I have started my high school journey, I am super excited that I have an AWESOME high school coach, Anthony Cantrell. He brings energy, knowledge, and experience coaching at a high level, leading several D1 athletes!

Overall, this journey has been a blast and I can't thank the man upstairs enough for blessing me with this opportunity! Anyway, GOOOOOOOO NOLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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2020 CF/2B Hallie Wacaser Commits To FSU - FloSoftball

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Why Investors remained confident on CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (CF), Whirlpool Corporation (WHR)? – StockNewsJournal

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StockNewsJournal

Why Investors remained confident on CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (CF), Whirlpool Corporation (WHR)?
StockNewsJournal
Investors who are keeping close eye on the stock of CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF) established that the company was able to keep return on investment at -1.41 in the trailing twelve month while Reuters data showed that industry's average stands ...

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Why Investors remained confident on CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (CF), Whirlpool Corporation (WHR)? - StockNewsJournal

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U-CF superintendent John Sanville addresses later school start times – Chester County Press

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U-CF superintendent John Sanville addresses later school start times - Chester County Press

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Bill Nye The Eugenics Guy: Maybe We Should Penalize People With "Extra Kids" – Townhall

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Katie wrote yesterday about Bill Nye's rather, um, abrupt departure from his "The Science Guy" persona from the 90s. Nye, the star of a new Netflix show called "Bill Nye Saves The World," also has some rather interesting thoughts on human population. Namely, he mused over the idea that people in the developed world should be "penalized" for having "extra kids" who will then potentially contribute to climate change.

Nye dedicated the 13th and final episode of the first season of Bill Nye Saves The World to discussing overpopulation and how the world's population has grown rapidly since he was a child. After almost gleefully endorsing family planning and contraception services, Nye and a panel of experts sat down to discuss possible solutions to the issue. After it was pointed out that in Niger people tend to have large families but relatively low carbon footprints, it was agreed that this was permissible. Then, Nye dropped this rather curious zinger: "So should we have policies that penalize people for having extra kids in the developed world?"

While one panelist said that he was slightly in favor of the idea, others took issue with the idea of telling a person how many or how few children they were allowed to have. One pointed out (likely correctly) that poorer women and/or minority women would likely be the ones penalized for this "crime."

Nye doesn't explain what he would consider to be an "extra kid." The replacement level fertility rate is 2.1 children per woman--something that most of the developed world hasn't seen in years. It's downright spooky and chilling to say that parents should be "penalized" for daring to expand their families. If anything, one would think that parents should be encouraged to have more children, lest the rest of the world end up like Japan.

It's also rather upsetting to see being a mother and housewife discussed as if it's a negative. Many women find immense joy and fulfillment in being a mom and homemaker. A woman shouldn't be derided or thought of as lesser-than if she chooses this option instead of pursuing a career. It's not a bad thing, nor should it be looked down upon--yet throughout the episode, it was only discussed in a negative light.

It's sad to see someone who was once a childhood hero of mine (let's be honest, "Bill Nye The Science Guy" days at school were always the best days), fall into this disgusting, quasi-nihilist rhetoric. Bill Nye used to be funny and informative. Now he's just cringe-worthy.

And for good measure, here's a list of "extra kids" who I'm pretty happy were born:

1. Celine Dion (youngest of 14 children)

2. Dolly Parton (fourth out of 12 children)

3. Stephen Colbert (youngest of 11 children)

4. Ben Franklin (his father's 15th child and his mother's eighth)

5. Jim Gaffigan (youngest of 6 children)

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Bill Nye The Eugenics Guy: Maybe We Should Penalize People With "Extra Kids" - Townhall

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Refusing To Believe Early Progressives Loved Eugenics Will Not … – The Federalist

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Most people close their eyes to unpleasantness in their past. Political movements do the same thing on a grander scale. Nowhere is this truer than in the willful blindness of twenty-first-century progressives to their early twentieth-century counterparts embrace of eugenics.

If you have spent any time in the conservative or pro-life movements, it is not news to you that the leading lights of progressive opinion a century ago openly embraced eugenics. Eugenics, the theory that social policies must be enacted to cull the bad genes from society, was popular among progressives across the developed world, including the United States. What constituted bad genes was, according to its proponents, a matter of scientific consensus. Today we would call it racism and classism.

After seeing the end result of such ideas in the Holocaust, progressives naturally sought to bury their connection to this genocidal concept, and succeeded in doing so, at least when they can discredit conservatives who persist in mentioning it. That problem bubbled to the surface last week when Bloombergs economist and writer Noah Smith tweeted, Apparently some people believe that eugenics was the scientific consensus 100 years ago. Sounds like a total myth to me.

That historical denialism did not go unnoticed. The editors of The New Atlantis, among others, pointed out the dangerous historical ignorance at work in that statement. Indeed, they went further than Smith and cracked a book or two to back up their points (see the thread here).

The New Atlantis is a journal about technology and society, and its writers demonstrated the horrible interaction between the two in eugenics. Citing from Edwin Blacks 2003 book, War Against the Weak, they described the scientific consensus on eugenics, with eugenicists firmly entrenched in the biology, zoology, social science, psychology and anthropology departments of the nations leading institutions of higher learning. The belief trickled down to high schools. A 1914 biology textbook, A Civic Biology, written by George William Hunter and issued by the nations largest book publisher, held that:

When people marry, there are certain things that the individual as well as the race should demand. The most important of these is freedom from germ diseases which might be handed down to the offspring. [] epilepsy and feeble-mindedness are handicaps which it is not only unfair but criminal to hand down to posterity. The science of being well born is called eugenics.

In case it is not clear what the author means, he goes on to describe what should be done about families that are not practitioners of the science of being well born.

Hundreds of families such as those described above exist to-day, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.

If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe, and are now meeting with success in this country.

Eugenics grew only more popular from there. In 1921, Science magazine published the remarks of Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and a leading proponent of eugenics. His slant on the topic was as much political as scientific, bemoaning the influx of immigrants to the United States who are unfit to share the duties and responsibilities of our well-founded government.

He called for eugenics supporters to enlighten government in the prevention of the spread and multiplication of worthless members of society, the spread of feeblemindedness, of idiocy, and of all moral and intellectual as well as physical diseases. Again, this was a prominent scientist who ran a museum in Americas largest city.

It is easy to see why a progressive would be ashamed to have this as a part of his intellectual heritage, but it is harder to understand why progressives have been permitted to sweep it under the rug so completely that even their own adherents have forgotten it. This was not a fringe theory. It was taught without controversy in colleges and high schools across the country, and a consensus of scientists attested to its validity. This was the received wisdom among social scientists, and it soon became the law of the land in many American states.

When something is a widely recognized scientific fact, any good progressive knows it must be made mandatory. Indiana passed the first eugenic sterilization law in 1907, and by the late 1920s a majority of states passed some form of sterilization law to cull the bad genes from society. The most famous of these was Virginias law allowing the sterilization of state asylum inmates without their consent. The law was challenged on equal protection and due process grounds, eventually reaching the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Buck v. Bell in 1927.

Before the appeal was heard, legal opinion followed scientific opinion in judging the law to be just and proper. In a Virginia Law Review note the year before the high court hearing, the author found no objection in the law, suggesting that even if the legitimacy of the science was uncertain, the state should be given the benefit of the doubt. Is there a grave social danger to the transmission of feeble-mindedness to posterity; and is sterilization an effective means of meeting that danger? These questions cannot at this stage of medical progress be answered be answered with any certainty. But simple doubt of the wisdom or policy of a statute is not decisive against its constitutionality.

The author also noted that the procedure could not be considered cruel and unusual punishment because it was not penal but purely eugenical and therapeutic. It was, in other words, for their own good.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmess opinion in Buck v. Bell the following year lacked any of the law review authors humility. Citing the lower court judgment on the facts of the case, Holmes wrote, Carrie Buck is the probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring, likewise afflicted, that she may be sexually sterilized without detriment to her general health and that her welfare and that of society will be promoted by her sterilization.

His reasoning in the decision mirrored progressive opinion across the country. It is betterif instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. Noting that Bucks mother was a resident of the same asylum, Holmes wrote the famous damning statement, Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

The decision made forced sterilization legal, as far as the federal government was concerned. That would be evil enough, but modern research shows that the entire case was based on lies. Author Paul Lombardos Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell lays out the shocking, but ultimately unsurprising, truth that the state had exaggerated the degeneracy of Bucks conditions to make her sterilization easier to perform with legal sanction. Bucks feeble-mindedness was based on the testimony of people who barely knew her. Having a baby out of wedlock made her promiscuous in the eyes of state officials, although the circumstances of her pregnancy would, in modern law, have been called rape.

Bucks daughter, also judged by the state to be of subpar intelligence, was eight months old when that assessment was made. Lombardo interviewed Carrie Buck shortly before her death in 1983, and found her to be of normal intelligence. She was no danger to society; what she was, was poor and fertile. The progressive state could not accept that.

The widespread certainty in the justice and necessity of eugenics among scholars and legislators in the early twentieth century is beyond dispute. Concealing that historical truth is almost a requirement for the modern version of the progressive movement, however, because of the undeniable parallels between the eugenics movement and the current pseudo-science of the Left.

Declaring a scientific consensus to have been achieved and insisting on an end to discussion might seem familiar.

Declaring a scientific consensus to have been achieved and insisting on an end to discussion might seem familiar because it is identical to the way the Left talks about man-made global warming and treatments for transgender people. The thread of eugenics, also, is uninterrupted between the progressives of then and the abortion movement of today.

Planned Parenthoods founder, Margaret Sanger, was a leading eugenicist. In 1921, she wrote that the unbalance between the birth rate of the unfit and the fit [is] admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization and that the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective. Time magazine sought to put this fact in context in a 2016 article, noting that in the 1920s and 1930s, eugenics enjoyed widespread support from mainstream doctors, scientists and the general public. Yes, yes it did.

Everything about 1910s and 20s progressives echoes in their modern intellectual descendants a century later. Absolute trust in government to do what is right. Certitude in their own scientific correctness, despite having seen settled science become unsettled with each generation. Knowing what is best for their fellow citizens, and the willingness to use force to overrule doubt and dissent. Even Hunters statement that all the Europeans are already doing it, so it must be good. But most of all, there is the repeated theme, the fervent belief that some people are not people, not really, not in any way that would make them deserve rights and liberty.

The progressive cause is helped by silence on this point, a silence so vast that even educated men like Noah Smith are ignorant of the movements past. Progressivism is relentless in its pursuit of an ideal future full of perfected humans. They can only achieve that by concealing the crimes of the past.

Kyle Sammin is a lawyer and writer from Pennsylvania. Read some of his other writing at kylesammin.com, or follow him on Twitter @KyleSammin.

A&M cloning seeks to improve human life – Texas A&M The Battalion

Posted: at 2:16 am

Fifteen years ago a group of Texas A&M researchers and their students welcomed CC into the world the first cloned cat.

CCs birth marked an important milestone in cloning, and now A&M researchers are exploring new areas of cloning, looking to improve animal and human life. A&M is working to make animals that are more productive on less land by genetically engineering animals with enhanced characteristics.

Mark Westhusin, professor of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences, said his teams research uses living bioreactors, an apparatus that supports chemical processes within a living organism.

We have genetically modified goats that produce malaria vaccine in their milk, Westhusin said. One goat is estimated to be able to produce 8 million doses of the vaccine in a lactation period, or year.

Veterinary physiology and pharmacology professor Charles Long played a key role in CCs cloning and currently researches early embryonic development and strategies to feed a growing world population.

The genetic engineering part comes about because clones are genetically identical to the donor animal, Long said. They dont have any kind of improvement over the original. So, when we start thinking about genetic engineering in terms of what we do in our lab we are trying to take what characteristics nature gives us in this breed of cattle and apply them to this breed of cattle, for example.

A more direct result of cloning research takes place in the departments embryonic development research.

[Clones] had all kinds of little things that werent unusual, but they were more common in clones than what we would see in normal births, Long said. The cloning really led to us investigating those interactions of the sperm and egg and how the embryo is altered by its environment. That all stemmed from trying to understand why clones arent always normal.

Understanding how environments affect embryos is a growing concern for the human population, according to Long, as assisted reproduction practices grow more popular among people.

Approximately 1 to 2 percent of all babies born in the United States now are born through assisted reproductive technologies, Long said. Because of the prevalence of those kinds of offspring being born it is important for us to really understand how the embryo reacts to its environment when its outside the mother.

Long hopes this research will reveal whether or not embryonic environment exposures have long term effects on diseases in offspring.

Duane Kraemer, the researcher who conducted CCs embryo transfer and now acts as CCs caretaker, said CC spends her time in the Kraemers backyard with her 11-year-old offspring. For Kraemer, research after producing CC has included developing an oral contraceptive for wild hogs.

The wild pigs do a lot of damage, Kraemer said. Being a reproductive physiologist, and wild pigs being a big problem I decided that would be something we ought to work on.

The contraceptive would be placed in feeders that only pigs can eat from to make sure no other animals get into the feed. Kraemer said the oral contraceptive his research team and other departments at Texas A&M are working on is a more humane alternative to the blood thinner recently approved by the Texas Secretary of Agriculture for killing wild pigs.

Its not a pretty sight the death that they experience with that, Kraemer said. So a lot of people are objecting to it.

Research conducted by Texas A&M has certainly changed since CC came into the world, and the researchers who worked to produce her say these changes have been an improvement.

Our research has always been driven by trying to improve the lives of animals and humans, Westhusin said.

A&M cloning seeks to improve human life - Texas A&M The Battalion

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How App Cloning Can Open Doors For Specialized Tech Startups – Huffington Post

Posted: at 2:16 am

The process of taking existing technology and re-branding it into something different is becoming increasingly popular among startups. Smart phones and tablets are now forever ingrained into our society, and during the last two decades alone, have given birth to the application industry, which is now worth $77 billion. While the process of programming and app development is becoming more accessible and cheaper than ever before, there is also more competition to contend with. While utilizing ready-made applications may seem counter-productive when starting a new business, if executed correctly, this approach can be a viable way to get a foothold in the marketplace.

Take a look at a few of today's most popular applications: Telegram is a clone of Whatsapp, Vimeo is a clone of YouTube, Alibaba is a clone of Amazon, and the list goes on... None of these couplings are doing anything different from each other, they simply have alternative branding the originals are broad while the clones (2nd tier) are niche. For example, YouTube is an all rounder, while Vimeo is geared towards filmmakers.

If you can address the branding of your clone app properly, there's no reason why you can't launch a successful 2nd tier application of your own.

Competing with the Corporate Giants

You simply cannot compete with some of the big players on a broad scale, but you can certainly compete with them on a niche scale. It's all about finding an untapped opportunity that the larger corporations aren't covering, and then filling the gap. For example, Uber may have a worldwide presence, particularly in big cities, but what if you could take the platform and set up a local Uber clone in your own town?

Services such as Appoets make this entire process extremely simple. Just look at how many clones of Tinder have popped up since it took the helm as the world's most active dating app. Applications that use the same swipe right platform are becoming a universal standard; however, there are still plenty of niche groups out there that are yet to acquire their own platform. Find one and you'll start your business half way down the sales funnel from the get-go.

App cloning is faster than outright creation, often taking just a matter of weeks (sometimes days) to launch. In addition, there are less unknowns. You simply use a template that has already located and solved any problems. Beyond changing the color scheme, logos and logistical elements (prices, terms and conditions, etc.) you'll need to do very little.

Cloning is an excellent way to get started, but it's not a shortcut to the big leagues as you will always be number two to the original. But you should never go into business with the intention of completing with the creators anyway as they are not your prime competition the other clones are. In fact, many developers regard the niche clones of their broad app as a benefit as it's a way for them to test new markets for free, and then buy-out the successes.

For example, in 1999 the Samwer Brothers from Germany created the first Ebay clone (Alando.de). Within 100 days of launching its popularity soared and it was sold to Ebay for $50 million. A similar situation occurred in Sweden with a website called Tradera, which also sold to Ebay for $50 million in 2006. In both instances it was a win-win for all involved parties: the clone developers used an existing platform to build a sustainable business model and Ebay managed to break into new territories as a dominant force without having to undertake a marketing campaign or battle the competition.

App cloning may sound simple and the process is but just like any other business, it still requires diligence and hard work. While it can certainly ease pressure in the early stages of development, it's the marketing plan that will have the biggest impact on the app's success.

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How App Cloning Can Open Doors For Specialized Tech Startups - Huffington Post

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Cloning: What are the long-lasting implications? – scallywagandvagabond

Posted: at 2:16 am

Cloning long lasting implications: What if we could recreate dinosaurs? Pictured Jurassic Park The Ride- as science permeates popular culture.

The fantasy of Jurassic Park may not be so far-fetched as it seemed when Steven Spielbergs modern masterpiece was released.

The discovery last year of the fossilised remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex which was pregnant when it died, led scientists to believe they are a step closer to cloning one of the earths most feared predators (and perhaps most sensitive lovers).

It contained one of modern cinemas iconic moments when the eye of the T-rex peered through the car window, looking for any hint of prey. The film spawned three sequels and a whole sub-industry which fed the ravenous desire of the movie-going public.

Over thirty video games have been released since the original Jurassic Park was released. The film has become firmly entrenched in pop culture and fashion with t-shirts and all manner of paraphernalia manufactured down the years.

Inevitably, theme parks got in on the act with Universal including rides of the same name at their sites, while in Japan there is a park devoted to the movies. Other parks ratcheted up the presence of dinosaur attractions but as technology becomes more prevalent, the franchise endures with apps and slots games, such as Jurassic Park hosted at Betway Casino.

Dinosaurs hold a particular fascination for most people. Children love the notion of their existence which never really dies out in adulthood. With regular excavations of fossils, there is a seemingly unending supply of news stories to keep the giant lizards firmly in our minds.

2016s revelations are the more palatable side of the cloning debate. Theres a fantasy element which seems quite detached from reality the obvious risk of cloning a creature whose primary instinct is to hunt. The film Godzilla offers a hint of the mayhem which might ensue, as did this adventurous vacation back in 2011.

Unless, of course, there is a dinosaur equivalent of Barbara Woodhouse to train the cloned dinosaurs to Sit! or get ready for Walkies!

Hello Dolly

The flippancy masks serious issues about cloning human beings. Dolly the sheep was the first step down that path while stem cell research offers an insight in the problems surrounding the science.

Dolly wasnt a resounding success. The process used 277 eggs with just one surviving through to full term. It underlines the precarious nature of cloning mammals.

Human cloning is some way off. The technology is not yet safe enough to take the science through to a conclusion.

The ethics produces powerful arguments against full cloning of humans. Even the lesser level of stem cell research has caused strident arguments.

Literature offers us damning visions of the impact of cloning on society in the future. Aldous Huxleys Brave New World disguises cloning as Bokanovskys Process. Human beings are produced in hatcheries, given a specific caste which dictates their role in society.

Its a fairly standard concept for the dystopian world of the year 2540. One of the United Nations objections to cloning is on the basis that it denies the clone the right to self-determination. Fundamentally, their future is mapped out due to the genetics of another being.

Huxleys protagonists, Marx and Watson, end up in exile from the World State Society because of their free anti-social is the phrase the author used thinking. The U.N.s objections to cloning are disregarded on the path to conformity.

Most typically in popular culture, cloning is used for nefarious ends. The Hitman franchise provides an army of barcoded assassins, with the presumption of cloning while the X-Files covered the topic in the episode entitled, Eve.

The most famous franchise of the lot, Star Wars, had two bites at the cloning cherry with Episode II Attack of the Clones, as well as the animated series, The Clone Wars. A planet of clones produced for war? I wonder what the famous Star Wars kid of yesteryear, would have to say if he too, got the cloning treatment?

Whichever way it is covered there is more than one neer-do-well involved. The innocence and scientific nobility of John Hammond in Jurassic Park is rarely matched elsewhere.

That escapism while highlighting the potential dangers of dinosaurs roaming the earth, had a powerful fantasy element. The reality of a cloned future from other minds is somewhat less appealing. Forgive me if I prefer my clones through the imaginations of others.

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Cloning: What are the long-lasting implications? - scallywagandvagabond

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Pincer-wielding 507m-year-old fossil sheds light on evolution of crabs – The Guardian

Posted: at 2:15 am

A fossilised ancient creature boasting huge pincers resembling can-openers, a hinged two-piece shell and more than 50 pairs of legs has been discovered, shedding light on the evolutionary past of a huge and diverse group of animals.

Researchers say the creature, thought to have lived about 507 million years ago during the Cambrian period, offers insights into the early body plan of mandibulates a group that encompasses creatures including millipedes, crabs and ants. The group takes its name from the presence of mouth parts known as mandibles, which the animals use to help hold or eat food.

Because it is such a big group, the question is why was it so successful, why did it manage to diversify so much?, said Cedric Aria, co-author of the study from the Nanjing Institute for Geology and Palaeontology, in China. We really lacked an insight into the characters, the traits, that really were fundamental to that diversification.

The sturdy-looking creature, adds Aria, was about 10cm long and would have been found walking on the seafloor, perhaps occasionally swimming, and probably fed on soft-bodied animals that were adept at escaping or hiding.

The prey, says Aria, would have been caught by the animal using its two large pincers. When I first started to study this animal I really thought that they looked like one of those old can openers, he said.

The prey, he adds, would then have been passed to the animals many legs under the body which have spine-like features at their base. The spines might have helped to crush the prey and the remains of that prey would have been brought back to the front where the mandibles would have cut the flesh into small pieces and so that facilitated digestion, he said. The mandibles would have been a revolutionary tool to process food.

Previously discovered fossils of similar creatures with two-part shells had lacked details around the head, including evidence of mandibles. As a result, such fossilised animals had been proposed to be early forms of a category of creatures known as true arthropods. This category includes both mandibulates and other invertebrates that have an exoskeleton and segmented body and appendages, including spiders and the extinct marine creatures called trilobites.

But the new finding, published in the journal Nature, squashes the idea. Rather than occurring at the base of the true arthropod family tree, the new discovery suggests that these creatures with two-part shells actually appeared later in the family tree and are in fact early mandibulates.

It might reflect the body plan of the ancestor of that super mega-group, said Aria of the new find, adding that the presence of legs with a segmented, spiked base in the creature was an important feature. Those segmented bases of the limbs actually explain the diversity of the limbs in mandibulates and they explain the origin of the mandibles themselves, said Aria.

Unearthed in recent years at a site near Marble Canyon in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, the newly discovered fossilised creature has been dubbed Tokummia katalepsis a nod to the Tokumm Creek that is surrounded by the Marble Canyon and the Greek word for grasping.

Graham Budd, professor of palaeobiology at Uppsala University in Sweden who was not involved in the study, cautiously welcomed the new discovery. If it is true, [this research shows] that a large number of quite important fossils from the Cambrian are actually all close relatives of the modern day crustaceans and insects, he said. This is very significant because for the first time it allows us to really understand the origins of this really important group of organisms.

The hybrid evolution of IT – Network World

Posted: at 2:15 am

Its a great time to be in information technology.

While that statement is true, not everyone clearly understands why (or perhaps has the fortitude to make it so). In the face of a massive movement to public cloudby 2020, 92 percent of worlds workloads will be in cloud, with 68 percent in public and 32 percent in privatemany in IT feel their value in the workplace eroding along with their identity.

That feeling doesnt need to be reality. Businesses are changing the way they operate and are transforming to leverage IT more strategically. IT has a real opportunity toleadthis transformation, not let the transformationhappen to them.

IT has led digital transformations before and can do it again. About 10 years ago, the video security surveillance industry underwent a digital transformation wherein video security systems transitioned from coaxial cable networks to IP-based Ethernet, from analog video on tape to digitally encoded video on disk, and from physically separate networks to consolidating into IT-run data centers. IT was the digital leader here, bringing many improvements to the way in which physical security functions. At the end of the day, the physical security guard remained and in combination with their IT partners, delivered on their charter more efficiently than before.

IT has an opportunity to drive digital transformation again, particularly as many businesses are changing the way they operate. Concerned with disrupting or being disrupted, many businesses are pivoting to become software companies.

Yes, software is eating the world. As I arrive to the SolarWinds corporate headquarters each work day, Im reminded of that fact by literal exampleAMD, a leading chip designer, has shrunk its operations to share its campus with SolarWinds, a global software company.

As businesses shift, CIOs are poised to help IT switch from a cost center to asource of differentiated value in terms of how a business might differentiate from other players in their industry.CIOs are positioned to be in a highly strategic, visible and collaborativeposition within the company.

A recent Harvard Business Review studyshows that while nearly half of lines-of-business leader respondents said they would like to learn more about digital trends from theirCIO, closeto two-fifths said their CIO does not seek to educate and empower line-of-business leaders whenit comes to all things digital. Over a third of the organizations polled said IT does not provide usefulknowledge about technologyor understand which digital knowledge is important to specific business functions. Expectations of CIOs are changing, and it behooves IT to rise to the challenge.

The white knuckles of IT needs to relax their grip and embrace internal customers as their lifeline, not shun those running shadow ITbe an accelerator, not an inhibitor. Understand thatconveniencedrives retail consumer purchasing behavior more so than price. Considering those same individuals bring their consumer behaviors (convenience =agility) to the workplace, its no wonder shadow IT is prevalent and always lurking. IT needs to develop holistic strategies in alignment with the business mission. IT organizations that are digital leaders dont just let hybridhappen to them. In fact, digital leaders are three times more likely to have a comprehensive, enterprisewide strategy for hybrid cloud, according to IBM's report "Growing Up Hybrid: Accelerating Digital Transformation."

Hybrid IT strategies may include outsourcing commodity functions. IT can be the providerandthe trusted broker by enabling lines of business with application support, cloud design, not necessarily equipment. A foremost focus on empowerment of the business missionwhether sourcing or providingis how businesses will leverage IT to renovate I&O and innovate.

In some cases, that strategy may involve factions of IT reporting into different lines of businesses (e.g., marketing and finance). Strategies of hybrid IT organizations embracing public and private cloud are evolving from infrastructure-centric thinking to application-centric thinking, recognizing that operations automation is friend, not foe.

Implementing a strategy is not without challenge. Less than a third of the ITorganizations polled in a recent SolarWindsstudy consider that they have adequate resources to manage hybrid IT environments. Fortunately, any business can excel at digital leadership andmanagement regardless of its size or budget. Strategies may consideraggressively retiring legacy technology where the application and business case allow.

Often its not technology impeding implementation of strategy, but people and process. CIOs can mitigate inhibitors from evolving into a hybrid IT organization by helping their people set aside fear, insecurity and politics. CIOs need to help individuals within their organization to understand their changing jobs, migrate to new roles, and be champions of change in their organizations while continuing to ensure security and continuity.

The digital transformation of today is a hybrid evolution of IT. The broad-sweeping influence technology has on how businesses operate continues to accelerate and leaves no industry untouched. Organizations are learning how to become software companies. Established businesses are being turned upside down and inside out, as new players have a software-centric view of the world.

Current market dynamics are fundamentally changing therelationship businesseshave withtheir ITorganization, and IT must evolve because business leaders need IT more than ever. Its an exciting future ahead anda great time to be in information technology!

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The hybrid evolution of IT - Network World

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Daily Archives: April 27, 2017

2020 CF/2B Hallie Wacaser Commits To FSU – FloSoftball

Why Investors remained confident on CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (CF), Whirlpool Corporation (WHR)? – StockNewsJournal

U-CF superintendent John Sanville addresses later school start times – Chester County Press

Bill Nye The Eugenics Guy: Maybe We Should Penalize People With "Extra Kids" – Townhall

Refusing To Believe Early Progressives Loved Eugenics Will Not … – The Federalist

A&M cloning seeks to improve human life – Texas A&M The Battalion

How App Cloning Can Open Doors For Specialized Tech Startups – Huffington Post

Cloning: What are the long-lasting implications? – scallywagandvagabond

Pincer-wielding 507m-year-old fossil sheds light on evolution of crabs – The Guardian

The hybrid evolution of IT – Network World

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