Daily Archives: July 13, 2017

Virtual graveyards: Algorithms of death and the cost of immortality – The Conversation CA

Posted: July 13, 2017 at 7:09 am

Gifts left behind for the deceased are translated into tokens in an online setting.

For those who have lost their loved ones, social media platforms can allow for RIP memorials, and for recreating memorable visual and audio collections that keep those who have passed away alive in our imaginations.

In fact, digital immortality/virtual immortality that escapes the constraints of time and space is a hot commodity. From mobile apps that allow people to create digital avatars that can look and sound like your deceased best friend to those that allow you to relive shared memories through photographs, video clips and favourite tunes, your beloved remains present in your life. You can tell the digital avatar of your mother, who passed away before getting a chance to watch your children grow up, about the play your son is in or your daughter making the honour roll.

For the past six months, I have been examining the importance of virtual graveyards with a group of graduate students. We are looking at the significance of these virtual sites for marginalized identities in Canada. Virtual graveyards and cyber-memorial sites have become increasingly commonplace on the web.

This kind of technology can help people through the grieving process and help with the healing after a great loss. Indeed, neuroscientists have argued in favour of such technologies, suggesting that social networking sites like Facebook can help with the grieving process.

Yes, these are graveyards in cyberspace and they function much like the cemeteries in real life, with one exception you can go there at any time and from any place.

Thinking about Canada hundreds of years from now, what would such sites reveal about the everyday contributions of the countrys inhabitants? What stories of the nation could these sites tell us? As repositories that memorialize stories of common people leading common lives, virtual graveyards are potentially invaluable to historians and others seeking to understand the past.

What adds to their value is that they are accessible. For marginalized communities, printed obituaries may be inaccessible, structured as they are by criteria that demand remarkable personalities performing extraordinary feats or making singular contributions to the country; or, alternatively, notorious individuals whose deaths need to be publicized so as to appease our sense of a restored and balanced social order. Online memorials allow for a memorialization of the deceased in a public way, generating a sense of community.

These sites represent a shift in traditional rituals around death. Therapists are now recognizing that mourning does not end after one month or a year, but is rather ongoing, reflecting our continued attachment to friends and family after they have passed. Cyber-memorials and virtual graveyards assist with the healing process by providing space for ongoing grief.

In contrast to printed obituaries, which tend to be more descriptive rather than emotional, these virtual graveyards offer people a means to commemorate their loved ones in a less restricted way. We can write about our fathers unpublished poetry or our sisters generosity and more importantly, how much we love and miss them. We can celebrate their everyday lives and role in our communities.

Following the tradition of leaving tokens at a grave, these sites allow users to place virtual flowers or light candles for the deceased. One can upload pictures, video clips, songs, or a poem. By allowing mourners to interact with others who knew the deceased, or who are also grieving, these sites also provide the potential for building community support during the grieving process providing some relief from the pain of loss.

But these sites come at a price. It may be the invasion of privacy in the vein of Facebook using personal photographs posted by users for its sponsored stories content. The emotional cost could also be the constant reminder of loss, or confronting visual memories that are assembled in such a way as to focus primarily on positive and loving memories instead of addressing the pain and suffering one experiences while grieving. Add to this, the issue of ephemerality: sites are notorious for their temporary nature, here today and gone tomorrow. Your memorial could vanish within minutes.

The economic costs are also factors to be considered. Most virtual graveyards charge at least $50 a year and sometimes more. There are few Canadian sites that offer such services for free, and if they do, they are often tied to other economic costs related to death rituals, such as funeral costs.

On the plus side, though, these sites are accessible to those who are literate in the ways of the Internet.

Should the sites survive, theyll offer an archival treasure trove for those looking to see how ordinary people lived their lives and contributed to society. They could be a window into how marginalized groups lived, loved and struggled.

In that vein, virtual graveyards afford us an opportunity to reject a past based on erasure and ignorance. In Canadas future, they could become invaluable national assets that should be supported, but only if they are freely available to their users and regulated in the best interests of all people.

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Virtual graveyards: Algorithms of death and the cost of immortality - The Conversation CA

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Vitamin B7 monitoring device for food and clinical samples analyses – Phys.Org

Posted: at 7:08 am

July 13, 2017 Development of an electrochemical immunosensor for direct detection of vitamin B7 in real samples. Credit: Dr. Khor Sook Mei

Direct detection of vitamin B7 in real sample is possible using the developed immunosensor without the need of sample pre-treatment. The immunosensor not only leads to shorter analysis time but also is a user-friendly approach to the end user.

Vitamin B7, also known as biotin, is one of the essential nutrients in human body. It is important for cell growth, body metabolism, healthy skin, hair and nail strengthening as well as for blood sugar balancing. Besides that, adequate vitamin B7 consumption is very important for normal fetal development, as marginal deficiency of vitamin B7 during pregnancy may lead to fetal malformation. Symptoms of vitamin B7 deficiency include scaly dermatitis, conjunctivitis, hair loss, loss of appetite, hallucination, depression and developmental delay. Hence, adequate intake of vitamin B7 is necessary. The daily intake of vitamin B7 for infants (0-5 months), children, adults (> 18-year-old) and pregnant women were recommended to be 5 g, ~20 g, 30 g and 30 g, respectively. Natural sources for vitamin B7 include raw egg yolk, nuts, liver, cauliflower and cereal. Vitamin B7 is also available as supplements in effervescent tablets or capsules. Therefore, monitoring of the content of vitamin B7 in human body (especially pregnant women) and quantification of vitamin B7 in foods and supplement products are important.

Detection of vitamin B7 using the developed immunosensor is based on the specific interactions between vitamin B7 and its antibodies on the immunosensor interface, leading to the change in electrochemical property of the immunosensor interface. The change in electrochemical property of immunosensor interface is varying with the concentration of vitamin B7 in tested actual sample. Due to the anti-fouling capability resulted from the zwitterionic property of the modified immunosensor interface, the unwanted interferences (especially from non-specific proteins adsorption) in real sample can be prevented from accessing the immunosensor interface by a water hydration layer, thus the generated detection signal will be accurate (neither false positive nor false negative reading was observed). In addition, results obtained for the stability, selectivity, reproducibility, and intra-day/inter-day precision of the electrochemical immunosensor were proven to be as good as compared to other reported studies.

Furthermore, quantification of the concentration of vitamin B7 in real samples such as infant formulas, supplements and human serum using the developed immunosensor was validated by standard HPLC method with a photodiode array detector. Unlike using HPLC technique, only simple dilution step is needed for the vitamin B7 detection in real sample using the developed immunosensor, thereby it is much simpler to be used and able to produce a sensitive and specific detection signal in about 15 minutes. To conclude, the newly developed electrochemical immunosensor is reliable, stable, reproducible, precise and reliable for the quantification of vitamin B7 in real samples.

Explore further: Fast detection of Dengue virus with new diagnostic

More information: Mai Mai Khoo et al. Impedimetric biotinImmunosensor with excellent analytical performance for real sample analysis, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.jelechem.2017.05.048

Provided by: University of Malaya

Fast detection for Dengue virus is possible based on an innovative label free immunosensor. The novel immunosensor with antibody-nanoparticle hybrid design offers high selectivity and sensitivity for Dengue virus NS1 biomarker ...

Those with a genetic intolerance to lactose may suffer from a vitamin D deficiency. That's according to a recent study conducted at the University of Toronto and published in the Journal of Nutrition.

(HealthDay)For patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and vitamin D deficiency, vitamin D supplementation has no impact on insulin sensitivity or secretion, according to a study published online May 3 in Diabetes Care.

A new study, led by Prof. Jaesung Jang at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea, has developed a new sensor for early detection of heart attack in humans.

(HealthDay)Vitamin D deficiency is associated with dry eye and impaired tear function, according to a study published in the January issue of the International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases.

Vitamin D deficiency may increase the risk of chronic headache, according to a new study from the University of Eastern Finland. The findings were published in Scientific Reports.

When it comes to efficiency, sometimes it helps to look to Mother Nature for advice - even in technology as advanced as printable, flexible electronics.

Charged surfaces submerged in an electrolyte solution can sometimes become oppositely charged. This nonintuitive phenomenon, known as charge inversion, happens when excess counter ions adsorb, or adhere, to the surface. It ...

A Rice University laboratory that specializes in synthesizing reagents and intermediate molecules for the design and manufacture of drugs and other fine chemicals has delivered on a promise to generalize the synthesis of ...

A team of scientists has used microwaves to unravel the exact structure of a tiny molecular motor. The nano-machine consists of just a single molecule, made up of 27 carbon and 20 hydrogen atoms (C27H20). Like a macroscopic ...

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have published new research illuminating how energy is transferred in molecules - something that could influence new molecular technologies for the future.

Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University have created the first general-purpose method for using machine learning to predict the properties of new metals, ceramics and other crystalline ...

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Health effects of probiotics: Where do we stand? – CNN

Posted: at 7:08 am

These live microorganisms are akin to the valuable microorganisms already residing in our bodies, a vast ecosystem of microbial species, including bacteria and yeast.

Now that products containing probiotics are sold as yogurt, drinks and dietary supplements, there seems to be some confusion around how to define probiotics and how beneficial they really are.

"It's taken a while for the scientific community to actually form a consensus of what we mean when we say probiotics, because people might mean different things," said Lynne McFarland, an associate professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle.

"The most recent recommendation and consensus is that they have to be alive. They can be a bacteria or a yeast. They have to be used in an adequate dose, and they have to have some proven beneficial health effect," McFarland said of probiotics.

"Probiotics have been around for a long time," she said. "It took a while for science to catch up with what's going on."

How has our understanding of probiotics changed over time? Here's a look at probiotics' steady rise in popularity, from Europe to America, and where health experts now stand on their benefits.

As farmers settled into communities, they developed the habit of storing more of their food. "With anything that you store, microbes are just going to start growing in it," Shanahan said. This sometimes resulted in the fermentation of foods.

For instance, in Asia, sushi was originally a fermented food, Shanahan said.

In other words, the bacteria in the rice helped store the fish.

"They have the hieroglyphics of the pharaoh being served something in a bowl, and people who have translated those have gone, 'OK, this is sort of a fermented milk product,' " McFarland said.

As agriculture expanded, so did our relationship with probiotics.

It's believed that the word kefir derives from the Turkish word keyif, meaning "pleasure" or "feeling good" after its ingestion. The beneficial health properties of kefir and other dairy products were a part of folklore until the idea of probiotics arose.

"He's the first one who published a book looking at Bulgarians and saying, 'Gosh, they live longer,' and it wasn't due to their diet. It wasn't due to the yogurt that they consumed but actually the bacteria that was used to ferment the yogurt," McFarland said. "That clever Russian. ... He's the one who kind of went, 'You know, bacteria aren't all bad.' "

However, the concept of probiotics quietly drifted to the background of medical focus until it re-emerged in the mid-1950s in Europe.

"They were always more popular in Scandinavia and Europe," McFarland said.

In the United States, however, there was less attention on probiotics and more attention on antibiotics.

"Antibiotics were seen as only beneficial. In the '70s, actually, doctors would just treat people with anything with a shot, like they didn't have any clue about resistance or any clue about side effects," Shanahan said.

"I started doing this research back in the 1990s, and it was very infrequent that somebody in the US would know what we were talking about when we would talk about probiotics," McFarland said.

"It really wasn't until 1994, when the dietary health and supplement law was enacted, that allowed these kinds of products to be sold over the counter," she said. "Suddenly ... people became very aware of what it is. It's truly amazing how quickly the popularity of this spread."

"What changed is that before that law became enacted, probiotics were considered an investigational drug. So it was going through the FDA process, and we had to go through ... very long and expensive drug pathway development through the FDA," McFarland said.

"Then, when the dietary supplement law got enacted ... it opened a floodgate of quote-unquote probiotic products that weren't really probiotic, and the quality of the products were not as regulated as they should have been, having not gone through the ordinary FDA process," she said. "I think that's still the situation today."

"There's now probiotics that come in chocolate; probiotics come in cheese; there's bread. Little sprinkles you can put on ice cream," she said.

Next, scientists started to research how probiotics may benefit your health, specifically your gut.

For the paper, 18 randomized controlled trials on the effectiveness of probiotics as an irritable bowel syndrome treatment were analyzed. The trials, published between 1950 and 2008, involved 1,650 patients total.

"This systematic review indicates that probiotics have a therapeutic benefit in improving IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) symptoms," the researchers wrote. "Future studies need to establish which species, strain and dose of probiotics are most efficacious in IBS."

Additionally, "there's been a big thing on 'this is a women's probiotic' or 'this is a men's probiotic.' There has been a big thing on gender probiotics," McFarland said of one emerging trend.

However, she added that there is no difference between a male or female microbiome, and therefore, there should be no difference in how a probiotic would benefit a man or a woman -- that is, outside of vaginal health.

"The only difference is that there are some probiotic strains that are good for vaginitis, so if they're trying to say 'restores vaginal health,' then that might be OK as a woman's product," McFarland said.

All in all, McFarland said, probiotics may be beneficial if taken to prevent travel-associated diarrhea or to prevent side effects of antibiotics. For any other purposes, however, she recommended consulting with your doctor or checking scientific literature for guidance.

"What we're finding is that a person has their own profile of their microbiome. If that's disrupted, and even if you take probiotics, after you stop taking probiotics, it goes back to what your profile was before," McFarland said.

"So, it's like it remembers who's invited to the party, and it only invites those people," she said. "I think it's still an exciting field for research because, the more we appreciate how much bacteria do for us, the more we appreciate what happens when it gets disrupted."

Shanahan recommends going old-school.

"From my perspective, the more logical thing to do is to eat foods that are good for us and that bacteria can utilize as well," Shanahan said.

"I get foods rich in prebiotics and ready-to-eat fermented foods. I'll eat yogurt or kimchi, and for prebiotics to feed the probiotics, I make sure I always get some kind of fiber-y thing, whether it's nuts or vegetables or beans," she said. "But the probiotic-rich foods, which are the fermented and cultured foods, are more likely to be beneficial than supplements."

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Health effects of probiotics: Where do we stand? - CNN

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Revere launches with $2M in funding to sell workout drinks made from plants – TechCrunch

Posted: at 7:08 am

Dietary supplements arent regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which means the industry is rife with dubious claims. Revere, a new startup that sells monthly subscriptions of its workout and energy drink powders, wants to cut through the buzz with straightforward mixes of plant-based ingredients, such as pea protein and sweet potato powder. The company announced today that it has raised $2 million in seed funding from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, with participation from Sterling VC and Brand Foundry Ventures.

CEO Matthew Scott and CMO Alex Blodgett founded Revere because they say that even though almost everyone knows you need to eat nutritious foods to stay healthy, there is a lot of confusion about what to eat and how it ties into exercise plans.

Scott says the companys advisory board helps make sure all decisions about its products are based on empirical data. It currently includes Jenn Sachek and Abbie Smith Ryan, who hold PhDs in nutrition science and exercise physiology, respectively, and fitness trainer Mike Barwis, whose clients include the New York Mets.

Reveres drink mixes are vegan and also free from gluten, nut and soy products. The ingredients it uses include tart cherry, which can help reduce muscle soreness, green tea for energy and sweet potato powder to curb appetites.

We are not claiming to have created a new super-pill with mythical powers, rather were making it simpler and easier for people to adopt the basic principles of whole-food nutrition that decades of research and intuition have proven to be true, Scott told TechCrunch. For instance, sweet potatoes are a nutrient-dense source of complex carbohydrates, which are essential for endurance and energy during exercise.

Reveres site says it offers natural nutrition for supernatural powers, but natural means different things to different people, which can be confusing for consumers.

Scott says that for Revere, natural means that with the exception of a few basic minerals and vitamins, all of the core ingredients once existed in nature. To sign up for Reveres subscription, which includes mixes for pre- and post-workout drinks, users first fill out questions about their age, body type, activity level and workout routines to personalize their boxes. The company plans to use a lot of its new capital on customer support and outreach, which Scott says is critical for a direct-to-consumer e-commerce brand.

We know that today people expect a relationship from digital-first brands and we plan to fully deliver on those expectations, he says.

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Revere launches with $2M in funding to sell workout drinks made from plants - TechCrunch

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BeautyMe Beauty Supplements Promise Better Skin While On Your Period – Allure Magazine

Posted: at 7:08 am

Browsing the beauty supplement aisle can make a girl feel as if shes tumbled down a Carrollian rabbit hole, and landed in some trippy dreamland where one pill actually can make you dewier, and one powder, impossibly plump. Struggling with stagnant hair, or brittle nails? There are whimsically packaged remedies for those woes, as well. And, friends, we are eating. Them. Up. According to the 2016 Consumer Survey on Dietary Supplements from the Council for Responsible Nutrition, 70 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds in the United States takes some kind of dietary supplement on the regular. And as Business of Fashion recently reported, nearly one fifth of supplement users in the U.S. swallow their daily dose specifically to benefit their skin, hair, and nails.

Have we all gone mad? Quite the contrary: Todays hottest beauty elixirs are worlds apart from Alices enigmatic edibles, boasting rigorous clinical studies and winning the approval of the countrys most esteemed dermatologists. One of the latest potions to pique our curiosity, BeautyMe , was actually created by New York City facial plastic surgeon, Michelle Yagoda, whos been researching the complexion-boosting power of ingestible peptides and lipids for over 20 years, and has published two double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized studies in the Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences on a separate supplement called BeautyScoop, which she debuted back in 2008.

Here are the best IPAs from New England – Boston Herald

Posted: at 7:07 am

Boisterous, hop-filled India pale ales have fueled the American craft beer movement and turned it into a global phenomenon. Wherever you go around the world these days youll find upstart breweries pouring American-style IPA, which itself is a radical reinvention of the original, more genteel British IPAs of past centuries.

New England is a hot bed of the style, one of the first regions of the country to embrace IPA and now with its own signature version. New England IPA is intentionally hazy and dry-hopped with nouveau varieties that display tropical and citrus flavors.

There are thousands of IPAs to choose from across New England. But heres our pick of the regions 11 best, featuring a broad range of styles under the IPA umbrella.

11. Melt Away Session IPA (Newburyport Brewing, Newburyport) A rare session IPA that tastes like the real deal. Loaded with trendy Citra and Amarillo hops, it packs plenty of flavor in an easy-drinking package. A perfect summertime IPA.

10. The Juice (Peak Organic Brewing, Portland, Maine) Marketed as a pale ale, The Juice displays all the hallmarks of contemporary American IPA, with 5.8 percent alcohol, 61 IBUs and a deliciously juicy citrus character. Oh, and its flavored with hops grown by small organic farmers across New England.

9. Burn the Ships Smoked IPA (Able Ebenezer Brewing, Merrimack, N.H.) One of the most interesting IPAs in the region, Burn the Ships is brewed with cherrywood-smoked malts, imparting a delicious complexity on top of its distinct IPA hop profile.

8. Keeper New Age IPA (Castle Island Brewing, Norwood) A tasty and crushable IPA that departs from the hazy New England style, but still displays plenty of hop aroma and flavor. One of my everyday go-to IPAs.

7. Santilli (Night Shift Brewing, Everett) I knew the industry had reached an inflection point when I saw Night Shifts taproom packed with blue-collar Bruins fans in Terry OReilly jerseys paying top dollar for trendy suds before a game just down the road at TD Garden. Santilli is the best of Night Shifts IPAs and IPA knockoffs.

6. Sip of Sunshine (Lawsons Finest Liquids, Warren, Vt.) A tropical hop cult classic that, true to its name, pours bright and sunny.

5. Congress Street IPA (Trillium Brewing, Boston, Canton) Intoxicatingly tasty Congress Street IPA, and its more muscular double dry-hopped big brother, each loaded with Galaxy hops, are two big reasons behind the Trillium movement thats swept up Greater Boston beer lovers.

4. Julius (Tree House Brewing, Monson) The top-rated American IPA anywhere in the nation, according to BeerAdvocate.com, which based its ranking on more than 3,500 reviews. Julius is packed with tropical fruit flavors and its made the tiny, remote town of Monson a must-see destination for craft beer aficionados.

3. Steal This Can (Lord Hobo Brewing Co., Woburn) Big flavors, consistent with the contemporary hop fueled zeitgeist. But Steal This Can is breezier and easier drinking than many of the trendiest IPAs, including Lord Hobos own flagship Boom Sauce. Hell, its so lip-smacking delicious, it should be called Crush This Can.

2. Heady Topper (The Alchemist, Waterbury, Vt.) The beer. The myth. The legend. This hauntingly rich, iconic IPA with its distinctive dank marijuana aroma was largely responsible for launching the cult brewery phenomenon here in New England. A friend of mine once scored a $90 case of Heady Topper, but only after lucking into a lottery ticket that allowed him the privilege of buying the beer at a Vermont general store. He was offered $1,000 for the precious stash as he walked out the door. He turned it down. Thats good beer!

1. Harpoon IPA (Harpoon Brewery, Boston, Windsor, Vt.) Nouveau beer geeks will howl at the fact that this crystalline, clean-drinking, distinguished legacy brand tops the list of best New England IPAs here in the era of juicy, unfiltered, overzealous hop bombs.

The reality, though, is that Harpoon IPA is a ground-breaking beer in a league of its own. It reshaped the 7-year-old brewery brand when it debuted in 1993 and, in the process, inspired Americas IPA obsession. Harpoon IPA was the nations first beer packaged and distributed as IPA, at a time when beers labeled as such were found only on premise at brewpubs. Harpoon IPA is still the top-selling IPA in New England.

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Here are the best IPAs from New England - Boston Herald

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Give Andy Serkis An Oscar Nomination Already – Daily Beast

Posted: at 7:07 am

Forty-five minutes late, and surrounded by minderswho are frantically negotiating their vehicle through Manhattan rush hour traffic to its next destinationAndy Serkis is in the throes of a press tour thats just taken him to the couch of Stephen Colberts The Late Show, where he tantalized the Tolkien fanboy with his readings of President Donald Trumps early-morning rage-tweets in the voice of Gollum, and the following day will see him teach correspondent Sara Haines some dance moves on the set of Good Morning America. He is, at 53, more in demand than ever before, having just wrapped Black Panther and Star Wars: The Last Jedi whilst putting the finishing touches on his ambitious directorial debut, The Jungle Book. And he is such an unrelenting force of nature that, when he recently told The Guardian he has sex four, five times a day, the internet actually believed him (for the record, he was just taking the piss).

Serkis is busy promoting War for the Planet of the Apes, the dramatic conclusion to this centurys most underrated blockbuster film franchiseone thats seen him embody the character of Caesar, an ape imbued with human-like intelligence, from infancy to old age. It is a stunning achievement, even eclipsing his iconic motion capture turn as the aforementioned fiend in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and one that deserves serious awards consideration.

In director Matt Reeves War, Caesar and his clan of apes have been locked in a seemingly never-ending battle with the humans in the two years since the events of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. When Caesar learns that a battalion of reinforcements is coming to help the humans eliminate the apes once and for all, he plans to lead his fellow simians on a journey across the desert to start a new civilization. But his plans are dashed when a war-hungry Colonel (Woody Harrelson, excellent) murders Caesars wife and eldest son, sending him off on a mission of revenge.

The Daily Beast spoke to Serkis about his triumphant turn as Caesar and the evolution of motion capture.

In War for the Planet of the Apes we are treated to a more hardened, battle-tested Caesar.

He is a leader during a time of war thats trying to ensure the survival of his species, but hes still holding on to the hope that he can find a peaceful solution to the conflictuntil the events that happen in the beginning of the movie that spiral him off on a journey of revenge and hatred. And were it not for the people around him, his soul would be lost forever. For me, it was a very personal journey, actually, because Caesar has become more human-like, so his emotional responses are much more aligned to me. I wanted to put myself in the position of Caesar and draw from that. Going from this empathetic leader to this character who is literally torn apart was a huge challenge.

Caesar has ascended to Biblical status in War. There are scenes of him leading his apes across the land like Moses, as well as ones of him tortured and tied to a cross.

We fully intended him to be, for this sake of the journey, the making of the legend of Caesar. If an ape civilization were to be created, you could point to this figure as the seminal figure who brought about their coming into being. Matt Reeves always intended to have the scope and scale of a 1950s Biblical epiccombined with a war movie. And he modeled it after films like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments.

Youve shepherded this character from infancy to adulthood. What was the biggest obstacle in War when it comes to embodying this ever-evolving character?

It was about bringing him as close to evolving to humanity as possible without overstepping the mark. That was the big challenge. From his speech to connecting to his emotions, it was always walking on a tightrope. And for me, as an actor, it was holding the audiences hand and saying, See the world through Caesars eyes, and Ill be your guide. But we couldnt cross over the line to where he was too human and therefore unbelievable. Matt Reeves and I worked tirelessly on the way Caesar communicates and expresses, and I think the scenes with the Colonel were some of the biggest challenges. Its such a fascinating meeting, coming face to face with the man responsible for the death of his loved ones, and yet finding a fascination in himand therefore an understanding. Once he begins to unfold the story of his personal loss, and his personal sacrifice, it meant that Caesar could not let go entirely of his hatred for him, but begin to understand him.

The humans are of course the villains here, and fear of the other seems to be a running theme in these Apes films, which are awash with social commentary.

Its in their DNA and always was, from the original onwards. Obviously they were dealing more contextually with the Civil Rights Movement in the earlier movies, but theyve always connected to the zeitgeist. When this film was written, which was two and a half years ago, it was way before current political events were beginning to unfold. But like all good sci-fi, it plugs into the ether and is prophetic in that way. The atmosphere was ripe for talking about a world that was careening towards the demise of empathy, where were disabled from feeling or sensing equality with other cultures, people, species, the planet. Its very much a push to the far-right, fundamentalist, Darwinian survival of the fittest mentality that we find ourselves in. Thats what Matt wanted to get at.

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In War for the Planet of the Apes, Woody Harrelsons villainous Colonel attempts to erect a giant wall to protect his soldiers from an oncoming attack, and forces enslaved apes to build it.

The film is not topical in the Saturday Night Live sense. The wall thats talked about in the movie, we were not aware that Trump was going to come up with that. But its just in the etherthat sense of putting up a barrier between us and them. If you watched this film in ten years, you wouldnt think it was about Trump or Syria. Hopefully, it would be about whats going on at the time.

Has motion capture acting made you more in tune with your body? And has it made you a better actor?

I think I was always a physical actor. As you probably know, actors have different ways of finding a root into a character, and for me, physicalityand linking physicality to psychologyhas always been important. When a character carries their pain, do they have tension in their shoulders? If theres anger, where does that come from? Is it from the heart? Is it from the head? When performance capture came along, it fit like a glove for me. That said, what performance capture does is it allows you to play the character very internally, too. Its not just physical activity, but how you place your energy. When youre working with this technology, you are both puppeteer and marionette at the same time, so you become very attuned to the subtleties. In the rehearsal periods, you can see on a monitorthats almost like a magic mirrorthat the suit with the dots on it drives a real-time image of the character, so you can very subtly understand what your shifts in posture and movements can do to a character. And thats how you learn to drive the puppet, if you like. You become acutely aware of the physicality in that sense.

How would you compare the experience of playing Caesar to, say, Gollum? And how has motion capture evolved in those 17 years?

This is a combination of things. The cameras are now placed 360-degrees around the set and have all become more robust, allowing us to shoot in real locationsout in the wild, in snow, etc. But the essence of performance capture acting hasnt changed that much over the last 17 years. Rise was a very domestic film that mostly took place in the home or a laboratory, and with Dawn and now War weve gone much further afieldinto the woods, into the wild. Since Gollum, weve worked with Weta closely for 17 years, so they now how my face worksevery muscle twitch, every expression, every flicker of my eyelids. Those have been scanned and analyzed time and again, and theres a team of artists who have grown to know how to interpret the performance that we shoot on the day. The rendering is so extraordinary.

Have you spoken with members of The Academy and noticed a sea change when it comes to the perception of motion capture? Because its about time these performances start getting some awards recognition.

Ive always maintained that acting is acting, and there is no difference between putting on a costume and makeup and playing the role or just playing the role and having a digital mask placed on something you do afterwards. If you go back to the original films, they wore prosthetic makeup and that was the way of doing it then. This is the 21st century version of that. But the acting is the same. Ive always maintained that there shouldnt be any special category or a different way of approaching it. The visual effects awarding bodies will award the great work that the visual effects companies do, and I think the acting branches need to really get behind understanding what performance capture is, which is acting. It is changing. As more A-list actors play performance capture roles, the perception is changing, but I think its important to be fully understood for what it is. That has changed a lot, but it has a ways to go still.

Your character Ulysses Klaue featured quite prominently in the first Black Panther trailer. How would you define Klaues role in the film, and what would you say sets Black Panther apart from the rest of the films in the MCU?

Its a great character. I think its gonna be an extraordinary film. I dont want to discuss it much, since its such a long ways out. As you can tell from the trailer, it has huge vision. Ryan Coogler is one of the coolest directors, and the performances I was witnessing around me were absolutely extraordinary.

Are we likely to see more of Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi than we did in The Force Awakens?

You are likely to see more of Snoke, yes.

And in addition to all these projects, you also are putting the finishing touches on your directorial debut, Jungle Book.

Jungle Book is coming along really well. Thats going to be coming out next year, and it is, as we always intended, a darker version of the storya PG-13 that is much closer to the tone of Rudyard Kiplings book. Its been a crazy year.

Serkis father is an Iraqi-born gynecologist of Armenian descent. He was primarily raised in the U.K. by his mother while his father worked abroad in various parts of the Middle East.

In an old profile, you said that you were much drawn to the karmic possibilities of energy transference. How does that apply to actingembodying these different characters?

I seem to gravitate towards roles and projects that center on the notion of being an outsider. That really comes from my roots: my father being born and brought up in the Middle East and my mother from England, and me having a childhood that was partially in the Middle East and partially in England. I suppose Im drawn to projects and characters that have something about the outsider in them. But I do believe in putting out good energy, and then hopefully receiving good energy. I hold that as a central belief.

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Give Andy Serkis An Oscar Nomination Already - Daily Beast

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Minnesota designers fueling feminist T-shirt craze – Reading Eagle

Posted: at 7:07 am

MINNEAPOLIS - The messages are strong and sometimes funny. One is feisty, another is in French. But always, they're wearable.

"Matriarch"

"She persisted"

"Anarchy is female"

"Solidarite feminine"

"Feminism: Back by popular demand"

The feminist T-shirt is having a moment. Fueled by people who want to express their support for women's rights at marches - but also at work, out for dinner, on Instagram - the shirts are growing in popularity and power. Sure, luxury brand Dior is selling a $700 feminist tee, but the trend is rooted in a $30 unisex shirt from the Los Angeles shop Otherwild. "The Future Is Female," the shirt declares.

Minnesota artists and designers are creating some of the more popular designs, using the T-shirts to raise money for nonprofits focused on women's health and equality. They're also gathering around the messages, hosting printing workshops and discussions.

"I think this activism zeitgeist just overlapped with a renewed interest in graphic tees as a medium for artists and designers," said Minneapolis designer Maddy Nye. "Of course it's only a T-shirt, but it's contributing to a larger paradigm shift in awareness and action."

Protest art and imagery hangs from the walls of Nye's sunny home studio. For her "Matriarch" shirt, Nye used a bulbous typeface that "had its heyday during the environmental and women's movements in the 1970s," she said, "but I like to use it in a contemporary context."

So with just one word, the design asks questions about what's changed since then - and what hasn't. Some people have bought Nye's tees for their mothers, women who fought earlier battles.

Angie Toner is not shy about being a feminist. But working in the beauty industry a few years back, she had conversation after conversation with women who eschewed that label. It got her thinking about the backlash against the word, the movement. Then she came across a photograph of a woman holding a sign: "Feminism: Back by popular demand."

"I need a sign like that," she decided, if only to hang on her wall.

Toner asked local sign painter Phil Vandervaart to draw the design.

"The drawing was so great," she said, "that I was like, you know what? I'd like to move this around."

So she printed it onto T-shirts and bags at Gee Teez, a screen printing shop in south Minneapolis, and put them on Etsy in 2015: "A Grassroots Feminist Fashion Action," she calls it. Orders poured in. Since then, Toner has tried to quit the project a few times, to move on to new things.

"But I've kept it going because anytime I try to let it fade out, someone will reach out," she said.

The day after President Donald Trump was elected, Toner gave the shirts away on the street. Orders again filled her inbox.

Politics and protests are inspiring big retailers to print "Feminist" on cheap totes and plastic jewelry. But it's also fueling local artists and small companies' longer-standing projects. My Sister, a Minneapolis-based company that uses "sweatshop-free" clothing to help fight sex trafficking, has been around for two years, raising $93,000 over that time.

Beyond the money, the messages themselves tackle gender inequality, one of trafficking's "root causes," said Mandy Multerer, the company's co-founder and CEO. "Stop Traffick" is the benefit corporation's best seller, she said, but in recent months, a tank is trending.

"It's my body," the shirt reads on one side, outlining the shape of a breast. "It's my choice."

"I think women feel strong when they wear it," Multerer said.

The image came to Crystal Quinn one night as she was falling asleep.

The Minneapolis-based artist had been reading "The Dispossessed," a 1974 science-fiction novel by Ursula Le Guin, turning over one of its ideas in her head: Because our culture is a patriarchy, run by men, then the opposition, inherently, must be female.

That night, the idea merged with a classic protest sign: the abortion-rights slogan "Keep Abortion Legal," in bold typeface, within a circle.

"I just put those two together in a very natural way," Quinn said.

She got out of bed and started drawing. The result: "Anarchy is female," in '70s script, pushing up against the black circle containing it.

"Putting it on T-shirts was the first thought I had," said Quinn, partly because she appreciates how, like those sold at concerts, they reference a specific moment.

The design has since landed on mugs, buttons and, as women marched after the election, protest signs. In January, Quinn co-hosted a workshop for protesters to print the image.

"When I came up with the design, it had nothing to do with politics, at all, or Hillary Clinton," said Quinn, a multidisciplinary artist who has designed and made shoes, pompoms and posters.

But she has loved seeing how and where it's popped up - the conversations it has started. "People have used it in so many different ways," she said, "and it's all correct."

While some sketched their designs long before last year's election, others were spurred by it: A peach T-shirt for sale at Mille, a stunning south Minneapolis boutique with a national online following, grew out of a postelection conversation between owner Michelle LeBlanc and designer Nye.

"After the election, we were kind of devastated," LeBlanc said. "What can we do to be more active? What can we do to give back more?"

Half the proceeds from the "Solidarite feminine" shirt, which translates to "women solidarity," goes to Planned Parenthood. Already, the shop has donated $2,000 to the health care nonprofit. Money from a second T-shirt - which quotes Michelle Obama's "Go high" in bubbly typeface - goes to DonorsChoose, a nonprofit that allows donors to pick projects in public schools.

"Sometimes the kids write thank-you notes," said LeBlanc, whose shop focuses on female designers.

Whenever the women at the shop are feeling down, they pull them out, she said. "Oh, let's read through our letters."

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Minnesota designers fueling feminist T-shirt craze - Reading Eagle

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NDP contenders unite around climate – Niagarathisweek.com

Posted: at 7:07 am

Niagarathisweek.com

NDP contenders unite around climate
Niagarathisweek.com
Prior to the debate, Weird called on candidates to explain how they would help make carbon pricing work for Saskatchewan's resource-based economy. The next NDP leadership debates is slated for August in Victoria and Montreal as well as in Vancouver in ...

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NDP contenders unite around climate - Niagarathisweek.com

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Unilever set to raise investments in Nigeria – The Nation Newspaper

Posted: at 7:06 am

As part of its commitment to invest in Nigeria, Unilever West Africas Vice President, Supply Chain, Siddharth Ramaswamy, has reiterated the companys commitment to the growth of the Nigerian economy through plans to increase its investment portfolio to enhance local manufacturing.

Ramaswamy spoke during a tour by the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, to the manufacturing giant.

According to Ramaswamy, the company, which has been in Nigeria for almost 100 years, will continue to invest in the country, despite the economic challenges.

Nigeria is strategic to our business operations. This is why we remain committed to the countrys socio-economic development. We currently operate two manufacturing hubs in Nigeria, and we are already taking actions to increase our local manufacturing capacity.

There are ongoing investments, which will not only provide additional employment opportunities for Nigerians, but will deliver further economic value through the development of a sustainable supply chain structure consisting of local manufacturers, he said.

Dr.Onu commended Unilever for its long history in Nigeria, and reaffirmed the governments commitment to support Unilever.

According to him, the government is working hard to improve the nations economy from resource-based to knowledge-based and will partner organisations, such as Unilever, through synergy with research institutions under the ministry.

He said such visits create avenue to see how the government can assist organisations as Unilever to overcome challenges by providing the environment to grow its business through incentives and suitable legal framework.

We want companies to use more of local raw materials in production processes. Because when this happens, new jobs will be created, and our GDP will grow, thereby reducing poverty. This can only happen if we work with you and other responsible companies, he said.

Onu encouraged Unilever to show more interest in local research to improve its production process.

He urged Unilever to work closely with FIIRO and other research institutions under the ministry.

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Unilever set to raise investments in Nigeria - The Nation Newspaper

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Daily Archives: July 13, 2017

Virtual graveyards: Algorithms of death and the cost of immortality – The Conversation CA

Vitamin B7 monitoring device for food and clinical samples analyses – Phys.Org

Health effects of probiotics: Where do we stand? – CNN

Revere launches with $2M in funding to sell workout drinks made from plants – TechCrunch

BeautyMe Beauty Supplements Promise Better Skin While On Your Period – Allure Magazine

Here are the best IPAs from New England – Boston Herald

Give Andy Serkis An Oscar Nomination Already – Daily Beast

Minnesota designers fueling feminist T-shirt craze – Reading Eagle

NDP contenders unite around climate – Niagarathisweek.com

Unilever set to raise investments in Nigeria – The Nation Newspaper

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