Category Archives: Evolution

Small terrestrial planets, where we might find life outside of our solar system, are profoundly impacted by atmosphere loss. We have no idea how common atmospheric restoration is, but it is going to be important in the long-term study of potential habitable worlds.Researchers have long been curious about how atmospheres on rocky exoplanets might evolve. The evolution of our own atmosphere is one model: Earths primordial atmosphere was rich in hydrogen and helium, but our planets gravitational grip was too weak to prevent these lightest of elements from escaping into space. Researchers want to know whether the atmospheres on Earth-like exoplanets experience a similar evolution.

By analyzing spectroscopic data taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, Mark Swain and his team were able to describe one scenario for atmospheric evolution on Gliese 1132 b (GJ 1132 b), a rocky exoplanet similar in size and density to Earth. In a new study published in the Astronomical Journal, Swain and his colleagues suggest that GJ 1132 b has restored its hydrogen-rich atmosphere after having lost it early in the exoplanets history.

Small terrestrial planets, where we might find life outside of our solar system, are profoundly impacted by atmosphere loss, said Swain, a research scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. We have no idea how common atmospheric restoration is, but it is going to be important in the long-term study of potential habitable worlds.

GJ 1132 b closely orbits the red dwarf Gliese 1132, about 40 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Vela. Using Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3, Swain and his team gathered transmission spectrum data as the planet transited in front of the star four times. They checked for the presence of an atmosphere with a tool called Exoplanet Calibration Bayesian Unified Retrieval Pipeline (EXCALIBUR). To their surprise, they detected an atmosphere on GJ 1132 bone with a remarkable composition.

Atmosphere can come back, but we were not expecting to find the second atmosphere rich in hydrogen, said Raissa Estrela, a postdoctoral fellow at JPL and a contributing author on the paper. We expected a heavier atmosphere, like the nitrogen-rich one on Earth.

To explain the presence of hydrogen in the atmosphere, researchers considered the evolution of the exoplanets surface, including possible volcanic activity. Like early Earth, GJ 1132 b was likely initially covered by magma. As such planets age and cool, denser substances sink down to the core and mantle and lighter substances solidify as crust and create a rocky surface.

Swain and his team proposed that a portion of GJ 1132 bs primordial atmosphere, rather than being lost to space, was absorbed by its magmatic sea before the exoplanets interior differentiated. As the planet aged, its thin crust would have acted as a cap on the hydrogen-infused mantle below. If tidal heating prevented the mantle from crystallizing, the trapped hydrogen would escape slowly through the crust and continually resupply the emerging atmosphere.

This may be the first paper that explores an observational connection between the atmosphere of a rocky exoplanet and some of the [contributing] geologic processes, said Swain. We were able to make a statement that there is outgassing [that has been] more or less ongoing because the atmosphere is not sustainable. It requires replenishment.

I find the idea of a hydrogen-dominated atmosphere to be a really implausible story.Not everyone agrees.

I find the idea of a hydrogen-dominated atmosphere to be a really implausible story, said Raymond Pierrehumbert, Halley Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who did not contribute to the study.

Pierrehumbert pointed to a preprint article from a team of scientists led by Lorenzo V. Mugnai, a Ph.D. student in astrophysics at Sapienza University of Rome. Mugnais team examined the same data from GJ 1132 b as Swains did, but did not identify a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.

According to Pierrehumbert, the devil is in the details of how the data were analyzed. Most notably, Mugnais team used different software (Iraclis) to analyze the Hubble transit data. Later, Mugnai and his group repeated their analysis using another set of tools (Calibration of Transit Spectroscopy Using Causal Data, or CASCADe) when they saw how profoundly different their findings were.

We used two different software programs to analyze the space telescope data, said Mugnai. Both of them lead us to the same answer; its different from the one found in [Swains] work.

Another preprint article, by a team led by University of Colorado graduate student Jessica Libby-Roberts, supported Mugnais findings. That study, which also used the Iraclis pipeline, ruled out the presence of a cloud-free, hydrogen- or helium-dominated atmosphere on GJ 1132 b. The analysis did not negate an atmosphere on the planet, just one detectable by Hubble (i.e., hydrogen-rich). This group proposed a secondary atmosphere with a high metallicity (similar to Venus), an oxygen-dominated atmosphere, or perhaps no atmosphere at all.

The research groups led by Swain and Mugnai have engaged in constructive conversations to identify the reason for the differences, specifically why the EXCALIBUR, Iraclis, and CASCADe software pipelines are producing such different results.

We are very proud and happy of this collaboration, said Mugnai. Its proof of how different results can be used to learn more from each other and help the growth of [the entire] scientific community.

I think both [of our] teams are really motivated by a desire to understand whats going on, said Swain.

Every rocky exoplanet is a world of possibilities. JWST is expected to provide the first opportunity to search for signs of habitability and biosignatures in the atmospheres of potentially habitable exoplanets. We are on the brink of beginning to answer [many of] these questions.According to Pierrehumbert, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may offer a solution to this quandary. JWST will allow for the detection of atmospheres with higher molecular weights, like the nitrogen-dominated atmosphere on Earth. If GJ 1132 b lacks an atmosphere, JWSTs infrared capabilities may even allow scientists to observe the planets surface. If there are magma pools or volcanism going on, those areas will be hotter, Swain explained in a statement. That will generate more emission, and so theyll be looking potentially at the actual geologic activitywhich is exciting!

GJ 1132 b is slated for two observational passes when JWST comes online. Kevin Stevenson, a staff astronomer at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, a postdoctoral fellow there, will lead the teams.

Every rocky exoplanet is a world of possibilities, said Lustig-Yaeger. JWST is expected to provide the first opportunity to search for signs of habitability and biosignatures in the atmospheres of potentially habitable exoplanets. We are on the brink of beginning to answer [many of] these questions.

Stacy Kish (@StacyWKish), Science Writer

Excerpt from:

The Possible Evolution of an Exoplanet's Atmosphere - Eos

By Oleksandr Kostikov

Could it be that all AI (artificial intelligence) developers are wrong?

Imagine you have a radio. You use it with ease, and sometimes, you make simple repairs. But what if you want to create a new radio receiver? To do this, you would have to fully understand the design details. You would need to understand not only how the volume control and power supply work, but also where the music comes from.

Likewise, creators of artificial intelligence need to first try to understand how natural intelligence works. Otherwise, instead of a radio, they may end up with a boring and monotonous player.

Everyone thinks that the human brain is a kind of biological computing machine that works according to certain algorithms, and if so, it means that intelligence can be compiled using two simple tools: high computing power and a set of complex algorithms.

In fact, everything is not at all that simple

Neurophysiologists have thoroughly studied the reflex, a stereotypical reaction of a living organism to any external influence. The reflex is not just a scheme of functional activity. It is the basic principle of the organization of any nervous system of a biological type. By itself, it really resembles the principle of the algorithm.

But all this is true only if we are talking about a relatively simple nervous system. With human intelligence, everything is much more complicated.

What is the difference?

Reflex is the standard in neurophysiology. Its basis is the reflex arc, which can be schematically depicted as the response of motor neurons to a stimulus received from sensory neurons. As soon as a stimulus appears, the living organism acts. It is important to understand that the number of neurons participating in the reflex arc and the complexity of the motor reaction do not change the essence of the reflex in any way.

A reflex is always a clear and predetermined sequence: stimulus (neural network) reaction. With the help of a reflex, the nervous system acts according to a pre-selected pattern designed to respond to a specific situation. In other words, a reflex is a kind of stereotype or a tactic of actions within the paradigm of occurring events.

The human brain, like the brain of any other living organism, often operates according to the traditional pattern of reflex responses, except in situations where consciousness or intellect is used to make decisions.

At this moment, everything changes!

If our brain uses an intelligent (intellectual) reaction scheme to respond to an external stimulus, the first thing that becomes necessary is to form an abstract image with which we identify the surrounding reality.

Simply put, we must first understand what is going on.

This is how we interpret what we feel. The created abstract scheme and the subsequent dynamic modeling of the development of the situation form a solution in the form of a sequence of actions that the brain transmits as commands to motor neurons.

Intellect always and in any situation creates its own reality and virtually stands above the process itself invented by itself. So, the mind can identify itself and realize that it really exists. The resulting effect of this model is the ability of our brain to create images and situations that are completely divorced from objective reality and even contradict sensory information entering the brain.

Simply put, the reflex is always inside the situation and is looking for the simplest and most effective way out, and the mind (intellect), on the contrary, is always outside and itself models its vision of the problem and the ways to solve it.

It turns out that intellect (stream of consciousness) and reflex are fundamentally different reaction schemes.

This means that the human brain is a binary system consisting of two functional circuits for responding to arousal. Formally, the reflex system is a subordinate part, but in practice, reflexes are responsible for most of our nervous activity. The stream of consciousness can control only some actions. At the same time, the division of response schemes is so clear that most of the functions of the reflex system, such as controlling the work of the digestive system, cardiovascular, endocrine, and respiratory systems, remained completely inaccessible for conscious or intellectual control.

Mind and reflex are not just different functional schemes for organizing neural activitythey are, in fact, opposite models that cannot be mixed even when we force the brain to sequentially switch the reaction scheme from reflex to consciousness and back in the simplest situations.

You can check this with a simple experiment.

You need to sit near the monitor or just in front of the lamp and ask your assistant to turn on the light unexpectedly for you. In response to the flash, you need to press the button as quickly as possible, which will fix the time between the flash of light and your mechanical reaction in pressing the button. After short training repetitions, you will bring your reaction to automaticity and will be able to react at a speed of 200-220 milliseconds. This is a simple example of a reflex. Your brain uses the standard neural organization scheme for any living organism.

If after that, you try to apply your intellect and intentionally delay the keypress by a little, something amazing will happen. With all the efforts of your brain and no matter how hard you try, you cannot press a button in, say, 250 or 350 milliseconds. Even 400 and 450 (twice the interval) will remain completely inaccessible to you. The closest value you can intellectually give is at least 550 milliseconds.

The task, conditions of the external environment, and the brain remain the same. But a different functional system will cause a drop in the maximum reaction rate by almost three times. The huge, 0.3-second delay shows what it means to realize and turn on the intellect.

In fact, this time difference, which almost no researcher pays attention to, is of great importance.

The speed of movement of a nerve impulse along large fibers of the human nervous system is approximately 100120 meters per second. Therefore, during a delay of almost a third of a second, the signal will have time to travel 3040 meters.

Such a delay is a death sentence in a competitive environment. Human consciousness or intellectual schema is hopelessly lagging the reflex. From the point of view of evolution, this is an unacceptable and extremely harmful change that can in no way appear in the conditions of a real struggle for survival.

The evolutionary process involves sequential change, when new organs or functions provide an immediate competitive advantage, which increases the chance of survival and procreation. Otherwise, new traits have no chance of gaining a foothold in the population.

But we do exist and think. How did it happen?

A reflex is a simple and extremely fast way of reacting, a kind of ideal tactician. On the contrary, the mind is a slow and, in fact, a mechanism for abstract problem solving, divorced from reality, a kind of strategist.

Schematically, we can represent the mind as a rider on a horse. The horse in this example will symbolize the reflex activity of the brain. Not being able to control the movement of the horses legs, the intellect controls only the direction of movement. While the horse (reflex system), in principle, is not able to understand the motivation and purpose of the rider (intellect).

Such a binary system very clearly corresponds to the biological scheme of symbiosis when we are dealing with a binary organism. In this case, intelligence is not the result of gradual evolutionary changes, but an additional functional system that appeared suddenly and did not go through the standard process of evolutionary consolidation. The second or intellectual part of the human central nervous system behaves like a classical symbiont, which, in a limited volume, has received the ability to control the first (reflex) evolutionary formed part of the nervous system.

This has already happened in biological history.

In evolutionary theory, there are three proven cases of symbiotic interactions between two organisms, which eventually created biological constructs of a new type.

This happened when the cell nucleus, mitochondria, and chloroplasts appeared. Each time, evolution did not follow the path of gradual changes, but the method of combining ancient cells into one new biological system with completely new capabilities.

It turns out that intelligence is not at all a happy coincidence, but the result of a rather originalbut at the same time standardevolutionary technique.

This is a very important conclusion that will allow us to get an answer to the main question: how to create realistic artificial intelligence.

In a future article, I will analyze the energy and functional features of the intellectual system of our brain and try to understand the details of unification: symbiosis.

As a result, it will become clear to us how the technology will be created that can build strong AI of a completely new type.

About the author

Dr. Oleksandr Kostikov is a medical doctor by education. He previously worked in a research group dealing with molecular systems in human neocortex synapses at the Department of Physiology of the State Medical University and the Department of Physics of the Ivan Franko University in Lviv, Ukraine. He is now in Canada, where he is working on a new theoretical concept about the nature of intelligence but also allows that aims to to create a completely new unusual type of artificial intelligence.

See more here:

Symbiosis instead of evolution: A new idea about the nature of human intelligence - TechTalks

It is important to preface this piece by stating that Barbados has always been a jurisdiction of substance and high standards when it comes to facilitating Global Business. Notwithstanding this, the way in which adopted global policy has dictated the means of doing business has transformed or better worded, enhanced Barbados position as a Global Services Centre (herein GSC).

Traditionally, Barbados has been known as an offshore jurisdiction or an International Financial Center (herein IFC). It among other developed and developing jurisdictions, has competed to be the best at providing a favorable Investment climate by offering a flexible, dynamic and nimble approach to regulating business within its jurisdiction. This has effectively enabled a wide array of professionals to conceptualize advanced structuring options which maximize the profits and wealth of their clients and businesses.

However, Barbados enhanced its approach to facilitating global business by not only being an advantageous jurisdiction to hold wealth, but to also repatriate wealth from. At current, Barbados has forty plus double tax treaties (herein DTT) and other bilateral agreements which enhance the benefit of various tax structures. These agreements further strengthened not only the image of Barbados as a place to do business, but that doing business in Barbados is acceptable to contracting states of the various treaties.

Unfortunately, a number of global organizations and superpowers, most notably the European Union and the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (herein OECD), took concerned notice of the estimated two third of the worlds wealth being parked offshore within the Caribbean. As a result, Caribbean IFCs such as Barbados, quickly garnered the unfair reputation of being tax havens and thereafter in the global business community became cumbersome to associate with corporate structure strategies. This sentiment was further compounded by means of blacklisting jurisdictions, as doing business from or with parties from blacklisted jurisdictions became increasingly difficult.

The prescribed medicine has come in many forms over the years and most recently through the OECDs Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Action Plan (herein BEPS Action Plan). Here, the OECD posited that fundamental changes are actively required to prevent double non-taxation, as well as cases of no or low taxation associated with practices that artificially segregate taxable income from the activities that generate this income. This rhetoric was clearly targeted towards IFCs and in order for them to be taken off of these negative lists, they would have to expressly agree to and implement policy intended to carry out BEPS Action Plan objectives. Specifically, the removal of preferential tax regimes which were deemed to be contributors to harmful tax practices and the implementation of legislation which would force corporate entities to illustrate management and control from within Barbados which was intrinsically linked with the income generated.

Following the dismantling of all preferential regimes and tactically converging its corporation tax regime to an across the board low tax regime, the next step for Barbados was to implement an Economic Substance Regime (herein ES Regime). In brief, this regime was introduced by way of The Companies (Economic Substance) Act, 2019-43. It focuses on Barbados resident companies which conducted specific relevant activities, and it requires these entities to illustrate that the core income generating activity is being managed and controlled from within Barbados.

Arguably, this approach is not one which is revolutionary to Barbados, but rather an enhancement of the approach already practiced. For example, entities which had to illustrate tax residency to benefit from the previously mentioned DTTs and other foreign tax administrator requirements have over the years put similar measures in place to ensure that their entities for all intents and purposes were considered as resident in Barbados. The new approach however, forces Barbados into the role of GSC, as the ES Regime standards requires a variety of services to be provided to these entities to meet the necessary substance. Consequently, Barbados must be a one-stop shop for the companies that it hosts as resident companies and the jurisdiction must position itself to be able to provide a multiplicity of services to meet this demand.

In sum, Barbados has had to move away from the passive nature of being an IFC to the more active and all-encompassing position of a GSC. Fortunately as prefaced, Barbados has illustrated that it is capable of meeting global business demands and though this approach is of a foreign derivative, Barbados is fine-tuned to remain an attractive jurisdiction for the global business community.

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The Evolution of the Global Business: Barbados as a Global Services Centre - JD Supra

Citizen experience has been a focus of federal agencies since being named a cross-agency priority in 2011, when agencies were asked to develop customer service plans. It remained part of the Presidents Management Agenda in 2018. Then, as with so many other modernization initiatives, the response to the COVID-19 pandemic kicked the digitization of citizen service into an accelerated gear. Yet work on ensuring that the government by the people, for the people is being responsive to modern customer service needs is by no means complete.

As with any new administration, there are an array of new programs on the horizon. With the societal challenges we face today, we can expect an even more rapid deployment of such programs to help spur economic recovery, respond to inequality, and improve public health management. These programs will need support from agencies across the government. How can organizations begin preparing to meet not just the citizen service needs of today but also those of the future? The answer is a healthy combination of people, processes and technology.

In March 2020, the Small Business Administration needed to staff up quickly to meet the incoming demand for services as they related to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, put in place to help stabilize the economy. The SBA needed thousands of new customer service agents to meet demand. Knowing they could not hire this workforce internally, SBA sought contractor support.

The reach of this virtual, scalable team allowed demand to be met, so business owners in need could quickly connect with someone for assistance. As time went on, the volume fluctuated greatly. The team was able to handle these peaks with metrics consistent with those on slower days in terms of speed to answer, call time, and satisfaction. This was due to the flexibility afforded by a virtual model. The SBA could reach into a pool of qualified and call-ready representatives when they needed to meet high volumes, and similarly, quickly scale back when call volume slowed.

The fluidity in staffing levels was matched by the flexibility where people were sourced. The use of virtual support enables quick ramp-ups because it opens up the recruiting pool across the U.S. Organizations are not bound to recruiting within a geographic area, accessing the right talent for the job, regardless of location.

Getting the sheer number of people needed to meet contact center needs is only part of the solution: Those people then need to be trained. The key to onboarding thousands of agents quickly is having an effective learning strategy in place. Ideally, this is a mix of instructor-led and on-demand training to meet the learning needs and preferences of the agents. In the case of SBA, the short ramp-up period required rapid development of an e-learning curriculum and on-the-job reference materials from scratch that allowed agents to be call-ready within days.

This kind of online learning can also be created from existing training, taking traditional classroom curriculum and turning it into a self-paced learning environment that agents could do at any time. A self-paced curriculum should include gamification elements to keep learners motivated and processing at the pace needed to meet staffing goals. Additionally, it is critical that comprehension of the materials is measured for proficiency and reported before allowing customer interactions. After onboarding, on-demand resources also allow for ongoing learning, with agents being able to go back and refresh their knowledge at any time.

Beyond these self-driven materials, building a community among agents is also critical. Organizations should find ways to help people reach out to colleagues to answer questions, discuss current challenges, and learn from more experienced agents for ongoing learning and support. A successful virtual community cultivates engagement, allowing agents to build and nurture relationships in a remote setting.

Better citizen experience starts with a better employee experience. Whether agents are working in a brick-and- mortar center or virtually, they need to have systems that make their job easier. Organizations need to ensure they have the right tools in place to empower agents to carry out the mission. Some key technology investments include:

Improving citizen service is more than just meeting a mandate, it is what our government was designed to do serve the people. Thinking about the people, processes, and technology that need to be in place to efficiently meet this overarching mission of service to the citizen is critical in every agency. While the SBA showed that citizen service can ramp up in an emergency, maintaining continuity of operations is something that should be happening across government.

Jon Brown is vice president of client results at Liveops.

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The next evolution of citizen experience - Federal News Network

Call them what you want flying reptiles, marine reptiles, dinosaurs the prehistoric scaly beasts have always been the focus of Frontier Development's dinosaur theme park sim, as you'd hope for a game called Jurassic World Evolution. Okay, technically flying reptiles and marine reptiles aren't dinosaurs, but all breeds are being put under the spotlight in Jurassic World Evolution 2. The sequel to 2018's breakout success is putting a focus on enhancements across all areas of keeping your park residents safe, happy, and importantly, contained within their enclosures.

Speaking to game director, Rich Newbold, and executive producer, Adam Woods, they say the team has four core areas where the sequel will make significant improvements, ranging from enhanced creativity for park building, deeper management for both dinosaurs and guests, a rich narrative, and more dinosaurs (and reptiles) than ever over 75 species in total. The full game will feature four unique game modes at launch, including a campaign that will offer an original story set after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and the new Chaos Theory mode which will let you play through key events from the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films for exciting 'What If' scenarios. There will also be the Challenge and Sandbox modes returning from the original game too.

While an improved campaign is certainly a focus for Frontier, there will be consistent improvements applied across all four of those modes. Woods and Newbold walk me through a park built in Sandbox mode in the new Tiger Environment seen in the Jurassic World Evolution 2 trailers released so far, which comes complete with a dramatic mountainous backdrop and gloriously terrifying snowstorm events. The most impressive immediate impact is the changes being made to the dinosaurs themselves - aka the game's scaled stars.

The dinosaurs themselves are getting enhanced behaviors, allowing them to more closely mimic what we assume they did in the wild, including resting and preening, interacting with each other more, or having the option to hunt in a pack if that's in a species' nature. You'll be able to unlock more body color and pattern variations too, which will allow you to create more unique dinosaurs, or even make their markings tie in with the environment more.

Beyond this though, the way your dinosaurs interact with their enclosures is getting far more involved too. When you first release an incubated dinosaur from the Hammond Creation Lab (now hatched from a batch of eggs and able to be released in batches rather than singularly), they will start scoping out their environment, looking for the elements they know they need such as food, water, forest areas, or a new feature called Ground Fibre. From these initial wanderings, your dinosaurs will then start digitally carving out a dynamic territory an area of their enclosure that they'll see as their area, which will develop over time. Territories of different species within a single enclosure will overlap and complement each other, allowing you to blend together these creatures for a spectacular showcase for your guests.

For herbivores, paleobotany is a driving force for these dynamic territories, and it's a feature that's being incorporated into the base game for Jurassic World Evolution 2, following its introduction in the Claire's Sanctuary DLC. Paleobotany is really just about the nutritional elements your dinosaur needs to stay healthy, and Jurassic World Evolution 2 removes the generic herbivore feeders, and instead encourages you to plant trees and shrubs that provide the correct food substances for each of your dinosaur species whether it be Ground Fibre, Tall Fibre, Ground Nut, or something else entirely. The development team has even taken these new environment reactive terrain brushes straight from extinct plants from back in prehistoric times, reimaging them for how the terrain paint tools work in the game.

The result is that the enclosures look and feel a lot more organic, with players able to build up several smaller biomes within a single enclosure to satisfy those territorial needs. The original game could feel a little repetitive in the way you built up the forest and water areas, but now it seems like there's much more creativity in how you cater for creature happiness. That includes various scenery objects for your enclosures too, so it finally goes beyond just the terrain paints and feeders.

That customization extends to the way you improve the experience for your guests too, and not just in that you can place decorations in your park to improve how it looks. Along with requirements for essentials like food, water, restrooms, and gift shops, guests will now fall into one of four interest groups. There are those that just fall under the "standard" interests group, but there are also those looking for adventure, nature, and luxury. Different areas of your park can be tailored to satisfy those interests. For example, nature-focused guests will gravitate towards the herbivore enclosures, while those seeking adventure are going to make a beeline for your T-Rex. Now, you'll be able to choose and tailor your amenities to better complement the guests heading to different sections of your park.

Amenities in particular are a building type that can be customized both inside and out. An amenity can be configured to add interior modules, such as an aquarium, display cabinets, infotainment, skeleton displays, and more all of which have values that align with these guest interests. Externally, the modules that you add won't, sadly, be reflected, but there are ways to change the appearance and theme of your buildings. You can change the roof decorations, signage, where the entrance is, add theme decoration to the ground area, or change the paintwork. It'll be much easier to make themed areas of your park that do feel unique, again moving away from the singular designed facilities of the original game.

New attraction buildings complement the more shell-like amenities though, and offer specific building types like a fully-fledged aquarium that should add more variation to your park. It'll be interesting to be able to spend just as much time making your guests happy as you will your dinosaurs. It was definitely something that felt a little more neglected in the original game, so it's pleasing to see that the park building experience as a whole is being taken into consideration. And of course, happy guests means happy pockets, which in turn means you'll have happier dinosaurs. It's a win, win.

Management improvements don't stop there either, with Jurassic World Evolution 2 adding more tools and an additional ground team type. That'll mean you have to work a little harder to understand your residents. For the existing rangers, you can now place Ranger Posts within the enclosures and assign a ranger team to that post. This will allow you to build up a ranger patrol route, and rangers passing through will scan the dinosaurs in that area. Rather than being instantly accessible, the information on the dinos now has a fog of war effect on it, and your rangers will need to go out on a status check run to check why a dino might be unhappy. But, to actually heal your dinos or cure them of illness, you'll need to send in your new mobile vet units from the Paleo Medical Facility, which is a fresh addition for this sequel. Vets can be sent in after a problem has been flagged by the rangers, and either help out in the field, or bring the dinosaurs back to the Paleo Medical Facility for treatment.

Although you'll need to enlist the help of your rangers, what I particularly love about what I've seen so far of Jurassic World Evolution 2 is the life improvements. Information is clustered together in a much better way, meaning you're not clicking between menus to paint a terrain with more trees, and then back to your dinosaur to see if you've added enough to make them happy. It's all in one place now, so adding trees increases your dino's contentment in a single menu they're small tweaks in this bigger whole, but necessary ones. So far, this is everything the original strived to be, but with just more of everything. More dinosaurs and reptiles, more management options with deeper tools, enhanced customization, and, most importantly, more opportunities to connect with the dinosaurs themselves. If you fell in love with the first game, we're all no doubt about to lose many more hours to this dino park sim sequel when it launches sometime this year.

Jurassic World Evolution 2 is launching on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS5, and PS4. Check out more of the new games arriving in 2021 and beyond.

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Jurassic World Evolution 2 preview: Deeper management, better dinosaurs, and a whole load of customization options - Gamesradar

I happened upon Wellesley High Schools Evolutions program team finishing its electrical box painting at the intersection of Kingsbury and Linden Streets on Wednesday. They started it on Monday and were expecting to have it finished this week.

Student Ellie Ostler says the box features a frog, spotted salamander, and fairy shrimp, reflecting the inhabitants of vernal pools in Wellesley like the ones studied by Evolutions students this year. Ostler and Luke Graves came up with the design, and visual arts teacher Brian Corey from the Evolutions Program provided support throughout the process.

This is 1 of 4 new electrical box designs emerging in town this spring and summer, adding to the existing ones previously approved and completed through the program coordinated by the Wellesley Police Department and the Towns Public Art Committee.

More artists will have their shot in the fall at giving additional electrical boxes in town a new look.

A new Traffic Box Art interactive map with photos, locations, and artist information will be available later this summer, according to the town.

The rest is here:

Evolution of a Wellesley electrical box - The Swellesley Report

On BNNY, Terry Collins revisits Michael Conforto's difficult 2016 season and explains how he persevered through his struggles to become one of the Mets top players. Watch more Baseball Night in NY: https://sny.tv/shows/baseball-night-in-ny About Baseball Night in New York: On Baseball Night in New York, host Doug Williams is joined by a cast of leading New York baseball writers and other experts to discuss the latest off-season news involving the New York Mets, Yankees, and key division rivals. About SNY: SNY is an award winning, multiplatform regional sports network serving millions across the country through unparalleled coverage of all things New York sports. SNY delivers the most comprehensive access to all of the Tri-State area's professional and collegiate sports teams through nightly sports and entertainment programs. SNY.tv is the go-to digital communal home for New York sports fans to get succinct, easy-to-read updates, video highlights and features, recaps, news, opinion, rumors, insight and fan reaction on their favorite New York sports teams. Check out more from SNY at https://sny.tv Subscribe to SNY on YouTube: https://on.sny.tv/S5RYeWN Like SNY on Facebook: https://on.sny.tv/rBYAHLi Follow SNY on Twitter: https://on.sny.tv/nOn1uq1 Follow SNY on Instagram: https://on.sny.tv/lEArPVp

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The evolution of Michael Conforto from a tough 2016 season to dynamic all-around player he is today | Baseball Night in NY - Yahoo Sports

Aziz Ansari. (Photo by Cian Oba-Smith / Netflix)

In 2009, comedian Aziz Ansari closed his first stand-up special, Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, with a story about attending an R. Kelly concert. The five-minute bit folds in anecdotes about the R&B singers onstage antics and concludes with an impression that electrifies the crowd. But the part of the joke I remember most is when he talks about walking through the concert with his friend and collaborator Jason Woliner. Jason tells him, Hey Aziz, me and you are the only two white people at this concert. Aziz responds, First of all, Jason, Im not white. Second of all, youre the only white guy at this concert. We might kill you, Jason!

Its a tossed-off joke that encapsulates why I liked Ansari as a teenager in the late 2000s. It was less the fact that he was an Indian American in the spotlight and more about how he engaged with his race. In his stand-up, as well as on the low-budget sketch series Human Giant he starred in and cocreated with Woliner and fellow comedians Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer, Ansari never felt the need to aggressively spotlight the racial elephant in the room. He discussed it casually and with the confidence of an assimilated first-generation immigrant raised on American pop culture. (I remember being particularly tickled by the fact that he and I were listening to the same indie rock records at the same time.) I never read this as a premeditated elision on his part. I saw it as a tacit acknowledgement that there was no need to speak to his difference because doing so would lend credence to the false assumption that he shouldnt be there at all. His down-to-earth persona successfully rendered the cover for Intimate Moments, which features him holding a snifter of brandy in a tailored suit standing in front of an enormous taxidermied bear in a mahogany-paneled room, an ironic sight gag.

This front came to be unsustainable. Ansaris profile rose considerably with a lead role on an acclaimed network sitcom (Parks and Recreation) and a string of supporting turns in studio comedies. He began performing stand-up to large arenas where his nascent Chris Rockinspired approach to comedy craft appropriately prospered. He slowly transformed from a comic whose jokes hinged on the absurdity of someone like him hanging onto the fringes of celebrity culture into a public figure who could conceivably be friends with people like Kanye West. His image became more refined over the years, as if there were a conscious attempt to become the smooth operator on that Intimate Moments cover. This ambition culminated with his Netflix series Master of None, which stars him playing Dev, an actor in his early 30s navigating single life in New York City.

As Ansari became more ubiquitous, my interest in him turned tepid: At its best, Master of Nones first two seasons were pleasant, sometimes funny, occasionally sweet, and featured a few standout episodes. At the same time, the show often played like an elaborate Tinder profile for Ansari, an outlet for him to look cool, eat well in beautiful locales, and date beautiful women with light comedy and lighter drama to justify the indulgence. The series also became a playground for Ansaris clumsy allyship. Well-intentioned episodes like Ladies and Gentlemen, where Dev receives a crash course in male privilege and sexist microaggressions, could come off as didactic and self-congratulatory. Throughout the series, Ansari evinced a desire to please that was previously obscured, or at least offset, by other aspects of his career. Sometimes Master of None made good-faith efforts at examining race or religion, probably because they came from a personal place, but his fixation on positioning himself on the correct side of the sociopolitical zeitgeist betrayed a dramatic pledge of fealty to a presumed white, liberal audience. A charitable reading of this shift was a sincere attempt to grow through his work. In practice, however, it often felt like a performance of progressive virtue, constantly trying to hit the proper notes without ever really playing the music.

Though it would be inaccurate to suggest a clean, one-to-one relationship between the real Ansari and his character in Master of None, Ansari as well as cocreator Alan Yang clearly mined their respective autobiographies for the series. In a way, Ansari inverts the tradition of comics crafting self-deprecating alter-egos to poke fun at themselves, and the results are discomfiting: His fictional counterparts sensitivity and progressive bona fides felt overly rehearsed. To my eyes, theres a real desire to be portrayed as a cosmopolitan figure with a loftier identity than comic. This isnt an ignoble objective in and of itself, but its awkward when theres no attempt to disguise such a motivation.

Ansaris latest special, Aziz Ansari: Right Now, arrived on Netflix one year after he was accused of sexual misconduct by a woman who relayed her story of an unpleasant date with the comic to Babe.net. Visibly chastened by the experience, Ansari arrives on stage to the Velvet Undergrounds Pale Blue Eyes wearing a Metallica T-shirt and jeans instead of a suit. He sits on a stool and frequently speaks in a hushed tone. He mostly forgoes the performative braggadocio typical of his previous specials for a more conservational approach. Spike Jonze captures him in 16mm closeup in an attempt to lend him some grace. These are calculated moves on his part, an effort to rehabilitate or modulate his established persona: Its a vision of Ansari if he had remained in touch with his more modest alt-comedy roots. He literally looks more comfortable.

He delivers a solid set with some strong moments, including a fair amount of engaging crowd work that never reads like hes filling time, but the performance resides under a strange, muted cloud. At the top of the show, Ansari briefly addresses the accusation against him in broad yet sincere terms. He doesnt excuse his behavior, nor does he say anything except the bare minimum about the situation. However, more potently, he also discusses routines from his previous specials that have aged poorly, like the R. Kelly story. He pokes fun at himself (Like, all the wording I used was the worst possible wording) and acknowledges that some of his old jokes have curdled without over-excoriating himself for it, recognizing that comedy is as much about phrasing as it is a snapshot of the cultural moment when its performed.Current Issue

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At the end of the show, Ansari expresses gratitude to the crowd because he saw the world where he doesnt ever get to do this again and that, in a way, it felt like he died. However, he was glad that the old Aziz was gone, because his former self was always looking forward instead of taking stock. Ansari does himself no favors by employing this melodramatic framework, because his larger point has power: A public humiliation at the height of a cultural reckoning regarding sex and power provided him with a different perspective on his personal values and made him reexamine his professional ambition. Like in Master of None, one might wonder if this conciliatory performance was overly rehearsed as well. Nevertheless, it made me curious what, if anything, was in store for him.

Master of Nones third season recently premiered on Netflix with little fanfare or advance warning after a four-year hiatus. Titled Master of None Presents: Moments in Love, it stars Lena Waithe, who plays Devs Black queer friend Denise, previously the focus of the Emmy-award winning second season episode Thanksgiving, which chronicles the characters coming-out story. In the new season, Denise, now a successful novelist struggling to write a second book, lives in a beautiful cottage in upstate New York with her wife Alicia (Naomi Ackie). Over the course of five episodes, Ansari, who directs and cowrote the season with Waithe, follows the couples relationship as it slowly collapses after they decide to have a child together. Though Dev appears in the first episode and briefly in the third, Ansari is not a major on-screen presence in the season.

Lena Waithe and Naomi Ackie. (Courtesy of Netflix)

Ansaris general absence, the change in setting, and the shift in character focus arent the only aspects that separate Moments in Love from Master of Nones previous two seasons. Theres a marked tonal shift as well, from a light comedy-drama with a romantic core to a serious adult drama. Though the series was never a straightforward comedy, its playful attitude has been exchanged for a self-consciously mature mood. This comes through in the subject matter, which involves infidelity and miscarriage and the complications of in-vitro fertilization, but its also exhibited in Ansaris formal choices. The entire season is primarily filmed in lengthy, static single takes. He emphasizes the spaces that Denise and Alice move through and the silences that pass between them. He lingers on the good moments between them and the ugly moments that percolate over time. The primary referent appears to be Ingmar Bergmans Scenes from a Marriage, befitting the shared subject matter, but Ansari could easily be swiping from any Criterion Collection filmmaker who employs a master-shot style (Ozu, Haneke, Akerman, etc.).

As much as Master of None changes, the more it stays the same. Ansari falls into the same trap he did in the second season by appropriating filmmakers more talented than he is, which only serves to highlight the pitfalls in his work by comparison. In the second season, he liberally borrowed from the Italian film canonFellini, Antonioni, Rossellinias well as the French New Wave, presumably to capture the wide-screen cinematic feeling of traveling to a new country or falling in love. (He makes this idea extra explicit by using a wide-screen aspect ratio as well.) Its one thing to include a cheeky homage, but to superficially parrot a coterie of master filmmakers styles to provide a prestige sheen is a fools errand, a misguided pretension.

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Its even worse in the third season because it only spotlights the self-seriousness of the writing. Master-shot filmmaking asks a lot from a viewer, mainly patience and rigorous attention, which means that either the frame itself or the action within the frame must be engaging. Unfortunately, Moments in Love features little of either. Ansaris compositions are clean but dull, and while Denise and Alicia are sensitively rendered on the page, Waithe and Ackie rarely compel as a pair. More often than not, they seem like they represent the idea of a relationship rather than a lived-in one. Were supposed to be witnessing two people desperately playing house while ignoring the self-evident fissures in their relationship. Instead, Moments of Love mostly features interminable single shots of a lifeless couple.

The seasons obvious standout is its fourth episode, which follows Alicia as she goes through the highs and lows of IVF with only a sympathetic nurse to accompany her in her journey. Ackie rises to the occasion and provides a committed acting showcase, sensitively conveying Alicias courage as well as her considerable fear. The episode features many of the problems that dog the rest of the season, mainly the plodding pace, but Ackie can command the frame and draw an audience into her emotional domain. Her scenes with Waithe, which dominate more than half the season, are much less successful. Waithe coasts on laid-back swagger and hits the same emotional beats within the same narrow register while Ackie alternates between being a partner and foil for that energy. The couples fundamental unbelievability combined with Ansaris auteur posturing makes the attempts at realism moot.

Its possible to view Ansaris adjustments to the series, including decentering himself on screen, as another attempt to change with the times, an approach introduced in Aziz Ansari: Right Now. Yet this concerted effort to evolve in the public eye only raises questions about what type of evolution it is and whether its shallow or meaningful. As a younger man, I responded to Ansaris wide-eyed jester routine because he was something of an outsider. But after years of him wearing ill-fitting insiders clothing, the question remains: Is he offering a sincere personal inquiry or merely trying to keep up with fluctuating standards of goodness?

Read more from the original source:

The Unfinished Evolution of Aziz Ansari - The Nation

The period preceding the emergence of behaviorally modern humans was characterized by dramatic climatic and environmental variability it is these pressures, occurring over hundreds of thousands of years that shaped human evolution.

New research published today in theCambridge Archaeological Journalproposes a new theory of human cognitive evolution entitled Complementary Cognition which suggests that in adapting to dramatic environmental and climatic variabilities our ancestors evolved to specialize in different, but complementary, ways of thinking.

Lead author Dr. Helen Taylor, Research Associate at the University of Strathclyde and Affiliated Scholar at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, explained, This system of complementary cognition functions in a way that is similar to evolution at the genetic level but instead of underlying physical adaptation, may underlay our species immense ability to create behavioral, cultural and technological adaptations. It provides insights into the evolution of uniquely human adaptations like language suggesting that this evolved in concert with specialization in human cognition.

Credit: University of Cambridge

The theory of complementary cognition proposes that our species cooperatively adapt and evolve culturally through a system ofcollective cognitivesearch alongsidegeneticsearch which enables phenotypic adaptation (Darwins theory of evolution through natural selection can be interpreted as a search process) andcognitivesearch which enables behavioral adaptation.

Dr. Taylor continued, Each of these search systems is essentially a way of adapting using a mixture of building on and exploiting past solutions and exploring to update them; as a consequence, we see evolution in those solutions over time. This is the first study to explore the notion that individual members of our species are neurocognitively specialized in complementary cognitive search strategies.

Complementary cognition could lie at the core of explaining the exceptional level of cultural adaptation in our species and provides an explanatory framework for the emergence of language. Language can be viewed as evolving both as a means of facilitating cooperative search and as an inheritance mechanism for sharing the more complex results of complementary cognitive search. Language is viewed as an integral part of the system of complementary cognition.

The theory of complementary cognition brings together observations from disparate disciplines, showing that they can be viewed as various faces of the same underlying phenomenon.

Dr. Taylor continued, For example, a form of cognition currently viewed as a disorder, dyslexia, is shown to be a neurocognitive specialization whose nature, in turn, predicts that our species evolved in a highly variable environment. This concurs with the conclusions of many other disciplines including paleoarchaeological evidence confirming that the crucible of our species evolution was highly variable.

Nick Posford, CEO, British Dyslexia Association said, As the leading charity for dyslexia, we welcome Dr. Helen Taylors ground-breaking research on the evolution of complementary cognition. Whilst our current education and work environments are often not designed to make the most of dyslexia-associated thinking, we hope this research provides a starting point for further exploration of the economic, cultural, and social benefits the whole of society can gain from the unique abilities of people with dyslexia.

At the same time, this may also provide insights into understanding the kind of cumulative cultural evolution seen in our species. Specialization in complementary search strategies and cooperatively adapting would have vastly increased the ability of human groups to produce adaptive knowledge, enabling us to continually adapt to highly variable conditions. But in periods of greater stability and abundance when adaptive knowledge did not become obsolete at such a rate, it would have instead accumulated, and as such complementary cognition may also be a key factor in explaining cumulative cultural evolution.

Complementary cognition has enabled us to adapt to different environments, and may be at the heart of our species success, enabling us to adapt much faster and more effectively than any other highly complex organism. However, this may also be our species greatest vulnerability.

Dr. Taylor concluded, The impact of human activity on the environment is the most pressing and stark example of this. The challenge of collaborating and cooperatively adapting at scale creates many difficulties and we may have unwittingly put in place a number of cultural systems and practices, particularly in education, which are undermining our ability to adapt. These self-imposed limitations disrupt our complementary cognitive search capability and may restrict our capacity to find and act upon innovative and creative solutions.

Complementary cognition should be seen as a starting point in exploring a rich area of human evolution and as a valuable tool in helping to create an adaptive and sustainable society.Our species may owe our spectacular technological and cultural achievements to neurocognitive specialization and cooperative cognitive search, but our adaptive success so far may belie the importance of attaining an equilibrium of approaches. If this system becomes maladjusted, it can quickly lead to equally spectacular failures to adapt and to survive, it is critical that this system be explored and understood further.

Reference: The Evolution of Complementary Cognition: Humans cooperatively adapt and evolve through a system of collective cognitive search by Helen Taylor, Brice Fernandes and Sarah Wright, 16 June 2021, Cambridge Archaeological Journal.DOI: 10.1017/S0959774321000329

See more here:

Complementary Cognition: The Evolution of Collective Intelligence - SciTechDaily

So far in the Fantasy Historian series weve focused on epic performances, both from individual players and entire lineups. In this article, we studyhow the game has changed.This discussion will center around the evolution of the NFL with, as always, the resulting fantasy implications.

Data, unless otherwise specified, comes from nflfastR.

Lets start with some Kirk Goldsberry-esque cartography charts to visualize the current state of NFL aerial attacks. The coordinate data is thanks to Ethan Douglas and Sarah Mallepalle et al.(you can find the data here). Base code for the charts is from Thomas Mock.

The below visuals show the distribution of hot spots for NFL incompletions and non-TD completions in 2020. The redder the area, the more passes in that spot. The line of scrimmage is shown in blue at the zero-yard line, and all passes are relative to that location. Of course, in real life, these passes occurred at lines of scrimmage all over the field.

Note that completions did occur further than 20 yards from the line of scrimmage, there just wasnt enough density to show up on this chart (less than 5% of completions).

Lets take a look:

Overall, to complement these charts, its important to remember that teams have been getting much better at passing. Glancing at the annual passing stats from Pro Football Reference shows how basically every major statistic (Att, Cmp, Cmp %, Yds, TD, INT) has improved over the past few years.

Indeed, possibly because passing has gotten better, teams are deciding to do it more often. Pass probability (% of plays that are pass plays) has slowly but steadily increased, paced by the total number of plays per game. These two factors combined mean, simply put, more passing plays overall! All told, this data implies that pass-catching RBs are more valuable than ever.

A perhaps surprising trend is the percentage of passes out of the shotgun formation. This has risen sharply since the early 2000s, and is now sitting above 80%. Just two decades ago, the probability was flipped: there was just about a 20% chance of shotgun formation on a passing play.

The dream of every fantasy manager is to roster a bell-cow back: the type of RB that dominates his teams backfield. Of course, NFL head coaches and offensive coordinators arent playing fantasy football, and the backfield by committee is a common rushing approach.

In this set-up, teams spread out their carries and targets to multiple running backs; often, one back will specialize on first downs, another on third downs, another as a change of pace RB, etc. To put it simply, this can make fantasy football difficult. More mouths to feed means that production is more opaque and generally harder to predict (and diluted across different players).

Unfortunately, committees areon the rise! Check out this chart, as well as some discussion points, below:

Given the physical nature of the sport, one of the best ways to track the trends of football is to analyze the physical traits of the players themselves.

In this section, we visualize player height and weight, measured at the weekly level and aggregated to a season-long average, among players who scored 3 fantasy points or more (standard scoring). Lets start with height:

The moves have been more significant and aligned in weights:

Lets now consider actual fantasy scoring (Half PPR) since 1999.

I know what you and Kyle are thinking: where is all of the kicking analysis? Fear not!

Like passing, NFL teams have gotten much better at kicking. Teams have been sending it more often and from further out: 3 yards deeper on average over the past two decades. Kickers have stepped up to the plate, delivering more accurate performances and being blocked far less.

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Any other trends youd like me to investigate? See anything that looks off? Message me on Twitter.

Read more from the original source:

The Fantasy Football Historian: Evolution of the NFL - The Fantasy Footballers