Category Archives: Evolution

The RTL6 proteins, shown in green, guard the mouse brain capillaries (the branch-like structures in black) against infection by clustering around the magenta-colored bacterial mimic. Credit: Tomoko Kaneko-Ishino

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Scientists in Japan have discovered that two mouse genesleft behind by a viral infection at least 120 million years agohave evolved to help defend the human brain against new infections. The genes, known as retrotransposon Gag-like 5 and 6 (Rtl5/Rtl6), are carried by almost all mammals, and are similar to genes found in retroviruses, such as HIV.

Researchers first discovered that Rtl5 and Rtl6 are switched on in the brain in cells called microglia, which act as the first responders to infection. Seeking more information, the team set up fake infections in mice brains to test how the microglia producing RTL5 or RTL6 would respond to either bacteria or viruses.

In their study published in Development, the researchers found that microglia-containing RTL6 protein responded to the bacteria-like mimic, whereas the microglia with RTL5 reacted to the simulated viral infection. In addition, when the researchers removed the Rtl6 gene, they found that the mice could not eliminate the fake bacterial infections, while the mice without Rtl5 could not clear the viral mimicsmeaning that together Rtl5 and Rtl6 protect the brain against two of the most common types of infection.

According to the researchers, these results provide the first example of viral-derived genes that have been re-purposed to protect mammalian brains.

Virus-acquired genes are essential parts of our genome, playing variousbut essentialroles in mammalian and human development, said study author Fumitoshi Ishino, professor of molecular biology at Tokyo Medical and Dental University. We think it is possible to extend this idea to primate- and human-specific acquired genes from retroviruses to help us understand human evolution.

Information provided by The Company of Biologists.

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120-Million-Year-Old Genes Have Evolved to Protect Human Brains - Laboratory Equipment

An awareness of unprotected vulnerabilities and risks is the starting point for determining the best way to align resources with cybersecurity. By conducting regular real-world attack testing, security operations can illuminate weaknesses while gaining control over risks. Cybersecurity testing is deployed to eliminate risk, improve business continuity and meet compliance requirements. At a minimum, cybersecurity testing should be conducted whenever there are new network changes or user groups, new system configurations or app releases. An organizations security risk tolerances must be aligned with a testing solution that finds, scans, exploits and reports on their specific risks.

The challenge in testing is finding any exploitable vulnerability within an organizations environment that poses real risks and that is easily prioritized for mitigation.

This risk-based approach validates and proves business risks through real-world exploitation testing. That said, lets explore the various solutions.

Using a database of known vulnerabilities or probes for common flaws, vulnerability scanners look for misconfigurations or code flaws that pose potential cybersecurity risks. They scan website elements, applications, networks and file systems and inventory each system and network device with their associated vulnerabilities.

Scanners generate thousands of vulnerabilities, all of which are included in the report because they are in the tools database of known vulnerabilities. They list common vulnerabilities and exposure (CVE) references and common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) scores. However, because there is no context within the report, the security team has no insight into how to prioritize vulnerabilities or assess the potential impact.

Cybersecurity testing should be conducted as if a real hacker was trying to infiltrate a system or network. Manual penetration testing conducts detailed reconnaissance and examination by highly skilled security professionals. They attempt to detect and exploit various weaknesses within the network and connected systems and assess the extent to which an unauthorized bad actor might gain access.

Pentesting and red teaming play an important role in identifying exposures, vulnerabilities and weaknesses in an organizations cyberdefenses. Therefore, it should be conducted by vetted service providers with qualified certifications.

Unfortunately, many organizations only test annually or on an ad hoc basis, and its not uncommon for a year to pass between tests. This is primarily due to the high costs and time required for planning, contracting, scoping, documenting use cases, testing, reporting and following up on issues found. A pentest represents a snapshot in time after an update, upgrade or system change. In fact, it can take weeks or months to receive a final report. By that time it may be stale, as new updates, misconfigurations and other vulnerabilities can enter the environment.

Rather than contracting third-party pentesting services, automated pentesting is managed by internal IT. There is no need for highly skilled security experts, as the IT admin can run the tests. Just like a human pentester, auto pentesting looks for a system to seize and install an agent or AI-driven bot. Once established, they can then pivot across the network to application programming interfaces (APIs) and front-end/back-end servers to uncover other areas susceptible to attacks.

Cybersecurity risk encompasses system vulnerabilities, internal and external threats, and asset protection. To eliminate risk, auto pentesting conducts four primary steps: The discovery of active assets; scanning and reporting on discovered assets and network infrastructure attack surfaces; exploitation using ethical hacking skills learned from human testers; and post-exploit verification using testing techniques like privilege escalation, Pass-the-Hash and others.

Every time a new attack surface is discovered, AI-powered algorithms use real-time information to generate dynamic attack strategies. As more information is gathered from targets and other attack surfaces, the platform adjusts its techniques on-the-fly to conduct iterative attacks. By finding real, exploitable risks IT and security teams gain clarity to prioritize remediation. By scoring risks, organizations can more logically identify issues and prioritize those that may have the largest impact.

Auto pentesting attack bots plug into the network, scanning, probing and analyzing that can be conducted around the clock. It becomes a virtual red team for which companies of any size can quickly and cost-effectively evaluate systems to uncover risks and vulnerabilities.

Because of the high costs associated with each manual pentest, a human pentester typically has one network entry point. Conversely, auto pentesting can run the same test multiple times from different entry points to uncover susceptible paths and monitor different impact scenarios.

For years, organizations have incorporated security testing tools like Burp Suite, Metasploit, Nmap and others, to help discover system vulnerabilities. Whether testing tools are in data centers or clouds, the functional capabilities need to be better integrated. Layering these tools only increases costs, blind spots and additional manual effort trying to cobble together a meaningful report.

Simply having more testing tools doesnt equate to a stronger security posture. In fact, they impair visibility and create coverage gaps. While manual pentesting uses multiple tools, auto pentesting hides this complexity with an embedded fabric of multiple interconnected testing capabilities.

Eliminating risks from growing exploits across expanding threat surfaces requires threat and vulnerability validation, and reports with hard evidence. These challenges dont bode well for organizations already suffering from a lack of skilled cybersecurity personnel spending much of their time generating manual reports from disparate tools.

Relying upon manual interventions to defend against highly sophisticated threats is like fighting a fast-spreading fire with a squirt gun. Without automation, organizations become hamstrung and limit their ability to scale security operations to meet new threats.

The shortage in skilled security professionals is tasking security teams with having to do more with less. Automation can reduce the testing time and effort in identifying and prioritizing attack surfaces from days or weeks to just minutes. Auto pentesting allows organizations to validate new implementations throughout the DevOps cycle and integrate into the CI/CD pipeline. Testing across the development lifecycle allows security personnel to focus on remediation, rather than manually testing each process. And because pen testing is highly accurate, security personnel will spend less time manually triaging false positives.

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The Evolution of Vulnerability Scanning and Pentesting - Security Boulevard

Ever since rap (used synonymously here with hip-hop) emerged as an art form, it's been influenced by some of the same rural living and pop culture tropes associated with country music.

Country music has never existed in a vacuum, either. Just as jazz (Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline) and classic rock (Garth Brooks, Travis Tritt) fans flavored prior changes in the genre, 21st century stars raised on rap brought elements from their formative listening years to Nashville. So, the incorporation of outside influences by Luke Bryan and other polarizing acts continues a long-held country tradition.

For a sense of the overlap between two supposed opposites, consider the following 15 country-rap songs, spanning from early hip-hop to the current digital age.

Our selections begin in the 1980s. Otherwise, examples could stretch back to the earliest recorded string bands' comedy skits or the talking blues delivery of Johnny Cash.

For this hardly safe-for-work tale of a showdown at a local honky tonk, Clarence "Blowfly" Reid adopted the talk-singing of C.W. McCall and other products of country music's CB radio craze.

The Bellamy Brothers' shot at popularizing the term country-rap comes across as sincerely laughing with, not at, rural folks beholden to the past and big city creatives with ideas that'd reshape popular culture to come.

Early rappers embraced the outlaw imagery commonly associated with country music, as heard on such crucial tracks as Kurtis Blow's "Way Out West" and this minor crossover hit that's best known now for being sampled in the 1999 Will Smith song of the same title.

"Baby Got Back" rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot parodied vocal twang with this bizarre opening track from 1988's Swass and the similar "Square Dance Rap." Both are examples of how country and rap have long allowed for good-natured (if not slightly obnoxious) humor about overlapping topics.

In a less obvious case of a rap group paying homage to country music, Public Enemy hat-tipped Glen Campbell's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" with its takedown of Arizona Governor Evan Mecham for his 1987 cancellation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Country living themes abounded in rap long before hip-hop beats signaled 21st century changes in Nashville. For example, Crucial Conflict cleverly used farm analogies in this classic about getting high.

The least likely piece of the country-rap puzzle fits for a slightly subtle yet very important reason.

"'How Do I Get There' was the first record on country radio to ever have a drum loop in it and that was something I just fought to be the case, not to be the first on country radio, but it had to be on the album," Deana Carter told Sounds Like Nashville in 2021. "And no country record had ever had a drum loop in it ever because that's how I feel my rhythm.I don't feel rhythm on the down beat like 1 and 3, I have like funky rhythm like 2 and 4, which isn't typically what country music is, but ironically ever since that record, country music has morphed over into that."

As UGK (Underground Kingz), Texans Pimp C and Bun B paved the way for Big K.R.I.T. and others unashamed of their redneck roots. In "Belts to Match" and "Let Me See It," the duo proudly refers to its "slang and twang" formula as country-rap.

Seventeen years before Billy Ray Cyrus embraced Lil Nas X, Willie Nelson spit rhymes inspired by "On the Road Again" with Lil' Black. It's way more surreal than any of Nelson's musical run-ins with Snoop Dogg.

Prior to the rise so-called "bro-country," Bubba Sparxxx bridged Southern rap and contemporary twang. For a taste of Sparxxx's contribution to hick-hop, spin this undeniably catchy banger or Colt Ford and Danny Boone collaboration "Country Folks."

Florida Georgia Linesweetened historic chart-topper "Cruise" -- and embraced early 2000s nostalgia-- by working with Nelly, a country-rap titan who'd already found success as a Tim McGraw collaborator.

As its name telegraphs, Gangstagrass blends hip-hop and bluegrass in a way that reminds us that in the grand scheme of things, both are forms of folk expression. Here, the collective joins forces with New York rap and punk outsider Kool Keith (aka Dr. Octagon).

UGK's spirit of acknowledging its rural roots while basking in big-city acclaim impacted hip-hop in the years to come. For example, trap stars from Atlanta maintain a similar perspective, which influences such rising genre-blending artists as Shaboozey.

Much has been speculated about why the same genre that cashed in on "Cruise" shunned what became an unfathomably huge streaming sensation. Beyond that vital discussion, it's worth considering what "Old Town Road" taught an entire industry about the power of trending audio-- the same social media phenomenon that brought us "Fancy Like" and other mega-hits that blur the lines between country and rap.

Positive rhymes impact the country space like never before, with Blanco Brown and other artists gaining traction by proclaiming in their own voice that it's a great day to be alive.

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The 40-Plus Year Evolution of Country-Rap in 15 Songs - Wide Open Country

Camper frames that come to mind are often in a teardrop or rectangle shape. But Aliner opts for a non-conventional A-frame, which is a practical approach if you want more interior space. Now they are set to debut their most advanced model yet, the Aliner Evolution. This one comes with high-end materials to make your outdoor adventures fun.

Designed for the whole family and made for the long haul, it measures 15 ft. long with an 18 ft. frame. It has pop-up panels on each side of the roof to create more living space. Aliner makes the most of its interior footprint with a rear sofa that folds out into a 60 x 80 queen-sized bed. The dinette benches also convert into a queen-sized mattress or dual 22 x 60 bunk beds.

Moreover, the Aliner Evolution comes equipped with modern machines to make your home away from home comfortable. It has a stove, refrigerator, a sink, and a cabinet concealed swivel cassette toilet. Storage options include one 13 x 16 and two large 13 x 36 bag doors.Best of all, it boasts a deployable 32 x 32 shower that stows away unto the floor.

Likewise, this camper can withstand harsh weather conditions and off-road use. Its interior comes with a high-strength, durable aluminum tube framework throughout. Meanwhile, commercial grade, raised coin 100% Polyvinyl flooring provides waterproof protection and excellent traction and slip resistance.

Moreover, the Aliner Evolution is off-grid ready. It comes standard with a 185-watt Sunflare Flex 60 solar panel and four stabilizer jacks to keep it steady while camping. Other handy amenities include a porch light, an electrical outlet, and a water hookup. All these modern features come in a small vehicle with a gross weight of 3, 500 pounds.

Images courtesy of Aliner

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The Aliner Evolution Camper Packs A Stow-Away Shower In Its Small Frame - Men's Gear

Around 400 million years ago, the ancestor of all four-limbed creatures took its first steps onto dry land. Fast-forward about 350 million years, and a descendant of these early landlubbers did an about-face: It waded back into the water. With time, the back-to-the-sea creatures would give rise to animals vastly different from their land-trotting kin: They became the magnificent whales, dolphins, and porpoises that glide through the oceans today.

Going back to being aquatic was a drastic move that would change the animals inside and out, in the space of about 10 million years an eyeblink in evolutionary terms. Members of this group, now called cetaceans, dropped their hind limbs for powerful flukes and lost nearly all their hair. For decades, their bizarre body plans perplexed paleontologists, who speculated they might have arisen from creatures as varied as marine reptiles, seals, marsupials like kangaroos, and even a now-extinct group of wolf-like carnivores.

The cetaceans are on the whole the most peculiar and aberrant of mammals, one scientist wrote in 1945.

Then, in the late 1990s, genetic data confirmed that whales were part of the same evolutionary line that spawned cows, pigs, and camels a branch called artiodactyla. Fossils from modern-day India and Pakistan later fleshed out that family tree, identifying the closest ancient relatives of cetaceans as small, wading deer-like creatures.

But their body plans are just the start of cetaceans weirdness. To survive in the sea, they also had to make internal modifications, altering their blood, saliva, lungs, and skin. Many of those changes arent obvious in fossils, and cetaceans arent easily studied in the lab. Instead, it was, once again, genetics that brought them to light.

With the increasing availability of cetacean genomes, geneticists can now look for the molecular changes that accompanied the back-to-water transition. While its impossible to be certain about the influence of any particular mutation, scientists suspect that many of the ones they see correspond to adaptations that allow cetaceans to dive and thrive in the deep blue sea.

Convergent evolution left whales and dolphins with fish-like features at least superficially. Ron Sanford/Corbis Documentary/Getty Images

The first cetaceans lost a lot more than legs when they went back to the water: Entire genes became nonfunctional. In the vast book of genetic letters that make up a genome, these defunct genes are among the easiest changes to detect. They stand out like garbled or fragmented sentences and no longer encode a full protein.

Such a loss could happen in two ways. Perhaps having a particular gene was somehow detrimental for cetaceans, so animals that lost it gained a survival edge. Or it could be a use it or lose it situation, says genomicist Michael Hiller of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany. If the gene had no purpose in the water, it would randomly accumulate mutations and the animals would be no worse off when it didnt function anymore.

Hiller and colleagues dove into the back-to-water transition by comparing the genomes of four cetaceans dolphin, orca, sperm whale, and minke whale with those of 55 terrestrial mammals plus a manatee, a walrus, and the Weddell seal. Some 85 genes became nonfunctional when cetaceans ancestors adapted to the sea, the team reported in Science Advances in 2019. In many cases, Hiller says, they could guess why those genes became defunct.

For example, cetaceans no longer possess a particular gene SLC4A9 involved in making saliva. That makes sense: What good is spit when your mouth is already full of water?

Cetaceans also lost four genes involved in the synthesis of and response to melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep. The ancestors of whales probably discovered pretty quickly that they couldnt surface to breathe if they shut off their brains for hours at a time. Modern cetaceans sleep one brain hemisphere at a time, with the other hemisphere staying alert. If you dont have the regular sleep as we know it anymore, then you probably do not need melatonin, says Hiller.

The long periods of time that whales must hold their breath to dive and hunt also seem to have spurred genetic changes. Diving deep, as scuba divers know, means little bubbles of nitrogen can form in the blood and seed clots something that was probably detrimental to early cetaceans. As it happens, two genes (F12 and KLKB1) that normally help kick off blood clotting are no longer functional in cetaceans, presumably lowering this risk. The rest of the clotting machinery remains intact so whales and dolphins can still seal up injuries.

Another lost gene and this one surprised Hiller encodes an enzyme that repairs damaged DNA. He thinks this change has to do with deep dives as well. When cetaceans come up for a breath, oxygen suddenly floods their bloodstreams, and as a result, so do reactive oxygen molecules that can break DNA apart. The missing enzyme DNA polymerase mu normally repairs this kind of damage, but it does so sloppily, often leaving mutations in its wake. Other enzymes are more accurate. Perhaps, Hiller thinks, mu was just too sloppy for the cetacean lifestyle, unable to handle the volume of reactive oxygen molecules produced by the constant diving and resurfacing. Dropping the inaccurate enzyme and leaving the repair job to more accurate ones that cetaceans also possess may have boosted the chances that oxygen damage was repaired correctly.

Cetaceans arent the only mammals that returned to the water, and the genetic losses in other aquatic mammals often parallel those in whales and dolphins. For example, both cetaceans and manatees have deactivated a gene called MMP12, which normally degrades the stretchy lung protein called elastin. Maybe that deactivation helped both groups of animals develop highly elastic lungs, allowing them to quickly exhale and inhale some 90 percent of their lungs volume when they surface.

Deep-diving adaptations arent all about loss, though. One conspicuous gain is in the gene that carries instructions for myoglobin, a protein that supplies oxygen to muscles. Scientists have examined myoglobin genes in diving animals from tiny water shrews all the way up to giant whales, and discovered a pattern: In many divers, the surface of the protein has a more positive charge. That would make the myoglobin molecules repel each other like two north magnets. This, researchers suspect, allows diving mammals to maintain high concentrations of myoglobin without the proteins glomming together, and thus high concentrations of muscle oxygen when they dive.

Conveergent evolution left many animals across classes with similar features despite only distant relations. Heraldo Mussolini/Stocktrek Images/Stocktrek Images/Getty Images

Early cetaceans faced another challenge when they started swimming: billions of tiny germs. Compared with air, aquatic habitats are a funky stew of viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens that try to sneak into whales bodies through their skin and lungs. Its a living environment, says Nathan Clark, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Everything facing the external environment is getting hit harder by pathogens. He thinks those sea germs spurred genetic changes affecting the skin and lungs of mammals that returned to the sea.

Clark and colleagues found these skin and lung alterations when they examined the DNA of cetaceans, sirens (manatees and dugongs), and pinnipeds (seals, walruses, and sea lions). They looked for cases where, in all the aquatic mammals, a certain gene seemed to have accumulated DNA changes more rapidly, or more slowly, than the same gene in terrestrial mammals. That pattern would tell them that a gene was under strong evolutionary pressure as the aquatic creatures adapted to the ocean.

The researchers reported in 2016 that they found hundreds of genes that showed just this pattern in members of these three different aquatic groups. Genes under such dialed-up evolutionary pressure included ones that code for proteins in the skin, and a gene encoding the liquid surfactant that coats the inside of the lungs. Its difficult to know exactly how those genetic changes altered the animals physiology for the better, but protection from germs is Clarks best guess.

Not surprisingly, then, genes of the immune system also changed when cetaceans went back underwater. In fact, thats a common evolutionary pattern, says Andrea Cabrera, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Copenhagen who coauthored a 2021 perspective on genetics and cetacean evolution in the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. Every time you change the environment, you have to adapt to the new composition of pathogens and microbes, Cabrera says. Scientists in China even discovered that the dolphin version of a particular sensor for bacteria is less efficient at responding to land-based germs than its counterpart protein from cows.

When Clark screened specifically for genes that were lost when cetaceans, sirenians, and pinnipeds went back to the water, his No. 1 hit was a gene called PON1. The function of the protein it encodes isnt entirely understood, but Clark suspects that deactivating it protected cetaceans from inflammation that would otherwise occur when they held their breaths for a long time.

Deactivating the PON1 gene was all well and good when cetaceans first slipped back into the sea. But today, a functional PON1 gene might come in handy. In mammals, it encodes the primary enzyme that can degrade toxic organophosphate pesticides. Insects lack PON1, so theyre susceptible; we humans and other land mammals are somewhat protected. If these marine mammals are missing it, if theyre hanging out near agricultural runoff and canals like manatees do, it could be a concern, Clark says.

Blubber and skin from a bottlenose dolphin. Jason Edwards 972332/51C CrRM/The Image Bank Unreleased/Getty Images

Clark and other scientists have also observed a big reduction in functional cetacean genes for smell by nearly 80 percent among toothed whales, in one study and for taste. Terrestrial mammals have hundreds of olfactory receptors that allow them to distinguish a panoply of odors, but the receptors work in the air, not water. (Theyre different from the underwater sensory systems that fish such as sharks use.)

Presumably, cetaceans werent getting any benefit from the receptors, so they lost them. This squares with changes in anatomy. Baleen whales such as humpbacks have very reduced olfactory structures, and toothed whales such as orcas have none at all. And it seems that taste isnt so useful, either, if youre swallowing dinner whole. Cetaceans no longer possess the genes to sense sour, sweet, umami or most bitter tastes.

They arent the only ones with such a bland experience of seafood. Other marine mammals, and even non-mammals, that returned to water experienced similar genetic losses. Penguins have fewer intact olfactory receptor genes than other water birds, and their taste receptor genes suggest theyve lost the ability to sense sweet, bitter and umami, leaving them with nothing but sour and salty. Takushi Kishida, an evolutionary geneticist at the Museum of Natural and Environmental History in Shizuoka, Japan, has even found that sea snakes lost several olfactory receptor genes when they wriggled back into the water.

Not only is there no way to smell in the deep, but its dark. So its no surprise that cetaceans changed some genes for vision, too. Most mammal eyes have light sensors called rods for low-light, colorless vision, plus two kinds of cones, one for green light and one for blue light. (Humans have a bonus cone for red.) As cetaceans evolved, the gene for the rod sensors morphed to be more sensitive to blue light perfect for the inky blue deep. Then there were several instances when the animals lost one or both cones. Some cetaceans, like belugas and orcas, still retain the blue cones. Others, such as sperm whales, have neither cone and, thus, fully monochromatic vision.

Scientists know they are only just beginning to plumb the genetic depths of cetacean evolution. Now, with dozens of cetacean genomes available to study, and with new analytic techniques under development, they are poised to further probe the aquatic transition, along with other exciting moments in cetacean evolutionary history. Dolphins alone offer a wealth of questions: How did they diversify into so many types? They make up nearly half of cetacean species today. How did they and other toothed whales pick up the skill of echolocation, navigating the ocean via sound? And how did dolphin brains get so large, with a brain-to-body-size ratio to rival that of great apes?

Most of the important problems, says Kishida, are still unsolved.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

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Whale evolution isnt completely understood but genes reveal part of the story - Inverse

Kevin OConnell was frustrated with himself following the Minnesota Vikings loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Several times in the lead up to the Vikings win over the Detroit Lions on Sunday he admitted feeling like he had tried to make up the teams Monday Night Football deficit on one drive rather than sticking to the plan. Against the Lions sticking more to his gameplan paid off (with some help from a defensive stop or two and a highly questionable Dan Campbell decision).

Despite trailing for the majority of the game, the 2022 Vikings offense had some shades of the 2019-2021, leaning on the run game with Dalvin Cook and Alexander Mattison and dialing up play-action passes for quarterback Kirk Cousins.

The Vikings still finished with a run-pass ratio that was slanted toward the passing game (25 runs to 41 passes) but they gained nearly five yards per carry on the ground and used play-action on 40.5% of dropbacks, a big jump over last weeks 12.0% versus Philadelphia (per PFF).

Where it deviated from the the old Kubiak run-and-bootleg offense was taking play-action shots down the field. On Sunday the Vikings threw the ball only four times in the air more than 20 yards and the lone completion was KJ Osborns game-winning touchdown. Intermediate passes were more effective with Cousins going 7-for-11 for 99 yards and one touchdown on passes that traveled between 10-19 yards and the remainder of throws went underneath.

Were just continuing to evolve and we are still just three games into our guys running this system and this offense, so theres going to be some times where weve got to try to have that learning curve happen on the fly, OConnell said on Monday.

It seems unlikely that the Vikings view the evolution of their offense as turning back the clock to what they had in Minnesota previously. The offense was built to run through superstar receiver Justin Jefferson, who has been locked down the last two weeks by the Eagles and Lions, who often played man coverage against him with their shutdown corners and extra help over the top. The evolution has to start there.

I think he had about eight or nine total snaps in the game where he didnt have some variation of a double, OConnell said.

Of course, doubles arent an excuse considering all of the leagues best receivers are given extra attention. But the explanation on Monday for why the Vikings couldnt get Jefferson open against their last two opponents was a little perplexing.

I think the most important thing for Justin is just to continue the evolution of understanding hes had a ton of success in this league Hes gonna see different variations of defenses that hes gonna have to have a plan for, were gonna have to have a plan for him that allows him to kind of move within our offense but still stay true to who we want to be, OConnell said.

Is it Jefferson who needs to better understand the attention hes going to get from defenses and how to counteract that or if the coaching staff has to better move him around to get him away from those coverages?

Against Detroit he played 71 snaps and lined up as an outside receiver on 56 of them. He was covered by former top draft pick Jeff Okudah on three quarters of his routes, per ESPN. Interestingly he lined up 34 times in the slot against Philly with largely similar results with Darius Slay in coverage.

Early on, we missed some chances to get Justin some chances that might have gotten him going a little bit and I have to do a good job preparing him and equipping him with the things he needs to help him have an impact no matter how hes being defended, OConnell said.

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Hm. Does that mean the quarterback didnt find Jefferson with early opportunities?

It might be a combination of everything at the moment. Or it might just be two games where things didnt work out and an explosion of receptions is right around the corner.

OConnell acknowledged that there were clearly times when things seemed amiss with players being on the same page.

Theres just some indecisiveness somewhere across the board of guys doing their jobs depending on the look, OConnell said. Were seeing some things that maybe some other teams have done previously, just with our personnel and how they want to defend us, things that they want to feature against us. I think just the inventory of snaps as you go throughout the seasontheres some things that youll start being able to [adjust], in real time, maybe not always need sideline discussions.

So is the evolution of the offense simply the players fully understanding the offense?

Weve got such talented players that we feel strongly about that when they feel comfortable completely, the execution will be a bit more consistent across the board and well be at our best, OConnell said.

Whatever the case, the Vikingsrank 16th in scoring, 18th in yards and 21st in percentage of drives in which they have produced points.

There is one particular small sample size trend that stands out: Cousins has a 61.1 QB rating when throwing out of the shotgun and 110.5 when under center (per Pro-Football Reference). Hes taken about an equal amount of passing snaps in both situations. It stands to reason that Cousins is asked to do more out of the shotgun as it pertains to getting players lined up, setting protections and making reads. Does that number indicate that they should lean more toward an under-center offense or that they will become more comfortable in the complete offense, rooted largely in shotgun, with time?

Were still getting there, its not where I want it to be, Cousins said of the offense after the game. There was so much that wasnt good enough.

OConnells first big challenge as a head coach will be trying to figure out how much to change and when to change it. The lines between which parts need to evolve and which parts need time is blurry at the moment and the Vikings face a New Orleans club that has given up only 6.3 yards per pass attempt so far this year and features an elite shutdown corner.

Theres a lot of things we can correct, a lot of things that jump out that we can continue our evolution as a football team, OConnell said.

What that evolution ends up being may determine whether the Vikings offense continues its ups and downs or takes off.

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How does the Vikings' offense need to evolve? - Sports Illustrated

Contrary to what the naysayers and pessimists argue, weve made huge strides toward a better world. In fact, across many of the most important indicators that define our well-being, humanity is faring much better than ever before.

Child mortality, famine and poverty are at all-time lows, life expectancy is at an all-time high, work-life balance is much better than it used to be, literacy rates have dramatically improved and the internet has played a major role in global education.

Another important measure of progress is transport. And this week, the Good News round-up is back with a historical review of the evolution of the transport industry.

The history of mobility is a story of the evolution of technology, from walking to riding and being pulled by animals, then to cable cars, steam-powered trains, electric trams, motor buses, underground systems, bullet trains, electric vehicles, self-driving electric vehicles and drones to the transport of the near future: flying ferries, supersonic planes and hyperloop trains.

The future looks clean, with cars powered by the sun; fast, with maglevs, powered by electricity, probably nuclear; green, with supersonic and carbon-free planes, and noiseless, with hyperloop pods that will one day silently whisk you from Berlin to Paris in an hour.

And remember, it can be hard to find among the headlines, some news can be Good News.

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Good News | From carts to maglevs: the dramatic evolution of transport - Euronews

The world of cricket has changed dramatically since the first T20 World Cup in 2007. Back then, it was called the World T20 and the Indian Premier League was not a thing yet.

Fifteen years ago, T20 was seen as nothing more than a distraction from the 'real' cricket of Test matches and ODIs. But a dramatic final between India and Pakistan in 2007, and the subsequent birth of the IPL, spawned a new era in the game where 20-over cricket, franchise tournaments, and multi-million dollar contracts became the staple.

The 2022 T20 World Cup will be held in Australia from October 16, less than a year after Aussies lifted the world crown in Dubai. Among the various aspects that pique the interest of fans, the kits of players always garners attention.

In the picture gallery above, we take a look at the jerseys worn by Pakistan players in each of the T20 World Cup. To view the next image, click on the arrows or swipe if on a mobile device.

Updated: September 29, 2022, 4:33 AM

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Mareanie and Toxapex, its evolution, are two Gen 7 which debuted in Pokmon Go during the Season of Light.

Released as part of the 2022 Fashion Week in Pokmon Go, alongside four new costume Pokmon, both Mareanie and Toxapex are poison and water-type Pokmon.

Below youll learn how to get Mareanie and evolve it into Toxapex in Pokmon Go.

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Mareanie first appeared in Pokmon Go during the 2022 Fashion Week event on Tuesday, 27th September.

Throughout this event, you can obtain Mareanie through a variety of means:

As the methods listed above show, the easiest way to catch Mareanie is by finding it in the wild, so keep an eye on your Pokmon radar! Remember, you can use Incense - including the Daily Adventure Incense - and Lure Modules to bring Pokmon to your location.

For battling Mareanie in three-star raids, check out our advice on Mareanies weaknesses and counters further along in this guide.

If you want to catch Mareanie via its Fashion Week field research task, its important to remember that the tasks given by PokStops change on a day-to-day basis. Due to this you may find this specific task difficult to find, especially since you can receive field research tasks from the monthly pool alongside the event-exclusive tasks.

At the time of writing, we dont know what Mareanies spawn rate will be once the Fashion Week event has ended in 2022. Theres a chance, however, that, like other recently released Pokmon, it will be hard to find.

To evolve Mareanie into Toxapex in Pokmon, you need to collect 50 Mareanie Candy.

You should be able to easily collect this required amount of candy throughout the Fashion Week event by using Pinap Berries to double your catch candy. Having a Mareanie as your buddy Pokmon will also allow you to gather some extra candy as you explore the world with Pokmon Go.

Currently live is the Fashion Week event, and along with it the debut of Mareanie and Toxapex.Recently, we've seen the arrival of Season of Light and special research quest A Cosmic Companion.Elsewhere, be sure to use Daily Adventure Incense for the chance of encountering Galarian Articuno, Galarian Zapdos and Galarian Moltres. There's also a new special research quest - A Mysterious Incense.Finally - don't forget about the new Prime Gaming rewards every fortnight.

If youd like to defeat Mareanie in three-star raids, here are its weaknesses and counters in Pokmon Go:

Below you find the CP levels for battling and attempting to catch Mareanie in Pokmon Go:

Good luck adding Toxapex to your Pokdex!

Originally posted here:

How to get Mareanie and evolution Toxapex in Pokmon Go - Eurogamer.net

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Predicting the evolution of the Lassa virus endemic area and population at risk over the next decades - Nature.com