Category Archives: Evolution

WASHINGTON: Fossils unearthed in China are helping scientists get a better grasp on one of the marvels of evolution: the giant panda's false thumb, which helps this veggie-loving bear munch the bamboo that makes up most of its diet.

Researchers said on Thursday they discovered near the city of Zhaotong in northern Yunnan Province fossils about 6 million years old of an extinct panda called Ailurarctos that bore the oldest-known evidence of this improvised extra digit actually a greatly enlarged wrist bone called the radial sesamoid.

It closely resembled the false thumb of modern pandas, but is a bit longer and lacks the inward hook present on the end in the extant species that provides even greater ability to manipulate bamboo stalks, shoots and roots while eating.

The false thumb is an evolutionary adaptation to augment the existing five actual digits of the panda's hand. A bear's hand lacks the opposable thumb possessed by humans and various primates that enables the grasping and handling of objects using the fingers. The false thumb serves a similar function.

"It uses the false thumb as a very crude opposable thumb to grasp bamboos, sort of like our own thumbs except it is located at the wrist and is much shorter than human thumbs," said Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County paleontologist Xiaoming Wang, lead author of the research published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Ailurarctos was an evolutionary forerunner of the modern panda, smaller but with anatomical traits signaling a similar lifestyle including a bamboo diet. The modern panda's false thumb has some advantages over the earlier version.

"The hooked false thumb offers a tighter grasp of the bamboo and, at the same time, its less-protruded tip - because of the bended hook makes it easier for the panda to walk. Think of the false thumb as being stepped on every time the panda walks. And therefore, we think that is the reason that the false thumb in modern pandas has become shorter, not longer," Wang said.

The panda's tight grip on bamboo acts against the jerking action of the mouth in order to quickly break food into bite-size chunks, Wang added.

The researchers initially found an Ailurarctos arm bone in 2010, then discovered teeth and the false thumb in 2015, giving them a much better understanding of the animal. Until now, the oldest-known evidence of this thumb-like structure dated to fossils from about 102,000-49,000 years ago in the same panda species alive today.

The false thumb lets pandas hold bamboo to eat but not rotate the food as a true thumb would allow.

"One of the most important features of human beings and their primate relatives is the evolution of a thumb that can be held against other fingers for precise grasping. The panda's false thumb is far less effective than the human thumb, but it is enough to provide the giant panda with the grasping ability to eat bamboo," said paleontologist and study co-author Tao Deng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

Pandas, one of the world's eight bear species, once inhabited large swathes of Asia. They now live primarily in temperate forests in the mountains of southwestern China, with a wild population estimated under 2,000.

A panda's diet is 99% vegetarian, though they do sometimes eat small animals and carrion. Because of their inefficient digestive system, pandas consume large amounts to meet their nutritional needs - 26-84 pounds (12-38 kg) of bamboo while eating up to 14 hours a day.

The false thumb was not present in another closely related bear that lived about 9 million years ago, the researchers said.

"This is a great innovation transformation of a minor bone into an element that is useful for a particular purpose," said Harvard University paleobiologist and study co-author Lawrence Flynn.

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Marvels of evolution: Pandas and their extra false thumb - Geo News

Lake Tahoe has become one of the most sought after places in the world to not only live at, but to explore. With rich history and immersion into the wilderness, backcountry trails in the Tahoe Basin give an up-close experience with nature like none other. Imagine a world where it was impossible to reach and explore hidden gems within the basin. Glenn Hampton thought about this potential future in 1981, and decided to get to work to create a way for anyone to hike or ride the entire circumference around Lake Tahoe.

STARTED AS AN IDEA

Glen Hampton worked for the Forest Service and had a dream of a trail that circled Lake Tahoe, said the Tahoe Rim Trails Developmental Director Veronica Long. It was established back in the early eighties and construction started in the mid-eighties after they got permitting and approval. Although the trail was originally proposed to be 150 miles, the trail eventually grew larger and is now a 200 mile-long trail system.

The process took a lot longer than they thought to complete the trail. I think they were envisioning it was only going to take a few years, but it ended up taking 20 years to complete the trails, said Long. The final loop wasnt completed until 2001.

The trail, which would take a total of 10 to 12 days to hike in total, is broken up into nine major segments. The first segment begins in Tahoe City and spans to Brockway Summit, totalling 20.2 miles. The segment features beautiful views of Watson Lake, along with the Truckee River Canyon. The segments are divided where the highways cross through the trailheads. This allows hikers to trek an individual trail in a day, or spend multiple days completing the entire loop. Trails within the TRT include Brockway Summit to Mt. Rose and Tahoe Meadows, which is also 20.2 miles long, and brings explorers to the highest point on the trail at Relay Peak. From there, the next segment spans to Spooner Summit, with views of Christopher Loop and Marlette Lake View available to all.

From Spooner Summit to the Kingsbury South Connector, hikers can enjoy 19 miles of ancient fir trees and panoramic views of both the Tahoe Basin and Carson Valley. From the South Connector to Big Meadow, there is a pass under the highest peak in the Lake Tahoe Basin, while also giving campers the opportunity to visit and even camp out at Star Lake. From Big Meadow to Echo Lakes, the trail merges into the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, and for 18.3 miles, theres opportunity to enjoy alpine lakes and wildflower displays, before reaching the longest segment of the trail: Echo Lakes to Barker Pass.

The 32.5 miles of the segment passes several more alpine lakes, including Lake Aloha, before bringing hikers back to the first segment in Tahoe City. In the last segment of the trail, an abundance of wildlife can be seen, along with creeks and wildflowers that eventually lead into Page Meadows.

By providing a path around the trail, we have given people a place they can experience nature and everyone can be on the same path and use that same sacrifice to the wilderness, said Long. By consolidating people on the one trail, theyre not going out exploring everywhere and trampling everything. Theyre all on the same path.

COMMUNITY OF VOLUNTEERS

The trail was initially pitched in 1981 by Hampton before the Tahoe Rim Trail Fund was formed in 1982 and granted nonprofit status. Construction initially began in 1984 at Luther Pass.

The first trailhead was completed in 1990 at Big Meadow in California and then 17 years later, the entire loop was completed at Stateline on the north shore. The work was done by volunteers, amounting to over 200,000 hours dedicated by members of the community. Theres plenty that goes into planning for a trail including what the optimal route for the paths would be, where water is going to be traveling, erosion, as well as the type of users that will be on the trail. Long explained that although there is a small team at the top of the association to organize, volunteer work on the trail is what truly allows it to keep functioning.

We organize volunteers to build and maintain everything, said Long. Building reroutes and new trails is a very important part of what we do. But with 200 miles of trail, you have to put a lot of focus on the maintenance as well. Theres a lot of big pieces of what we do that people dont necessarily think about; just because the trail is there doesnt mean its good to go forever.

Volunteers spend countless hours on the trail, clearing brush, rebuilding drainage areas, removing logs and other obstructions in the way of the path or any rebuilding, and taking care of erosion that might have happened due to continued use of the trail.

Long noted that the work of the volunteers and the association is what allows locals and visitors alike to continue recreating safely in Tahoe.

Trails really do protect the wilderness and let people engage with it in a way that will protect the forest for years to come. People dont want to protect something that theyve never experienced, said Long. By giving people an opportunity to go out into the wilderness and fall in love with it, then hopefully they will think about that in the future and protect nature in general.

MORE VISITORS HIT THE TRAIL

Lake Tahoe has had an influx of visitors since the pandemic started in 2020. This heavily impacted the dynamic of hiking and outdoor recreation.

More people were hitting the trail who had never hiked before, said Long. We found a lot more heavy use impacts from all of those people. We realized we need to educate the public on the proper way to sustainably recreate on the trail.

A program called Taskforce Trailhead was launched in 2021 to address the concerns of sustainability. Volunteers were trained to go to trailheads on busy weekends and educate people about the Leave No Trace slogan in the basin. The volunteers are equipped with wilderness ethics which include reminding visitors to pick up their trash, carry enough water, and the prohibition of campfires in the basin.

Tahoe is booming and we are seeing millions of visitors each year. The visitors are not going away, said Long. Theyre coming more and more, and our biggest challenge is to create an infrastructure that can handle all of those people and this vision of how that can scale up. Focusing on improving the trail, maintaining quality and maintenance, and investing in infrastructure to accommodate more people will help.

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Take a hike: The continuing evolution of the Tahoe Rim Trail - Sierra Sun

By Thomas Filbin

A powerfully relevant study about an iconoclastic Black thinker and poet who was dedicated to economic reform as well as the eradication of racism.

Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik by Winston James. Columbia University Press, 426 pp., $32 (paper).

Claude McKay might be the most famous Black writer that Americans have never heard of, and that is not your fault. The reason is that he was a devout Marxist at a time when that stance was neither popular or correctly understood. Given the trauma of the First World War and then the Depression and worldwide upheavals, Marxism was seen by many as the solution, a salve for humanitys wounds because it spoke directly to the plight of the common working man and woman. Not everyone agreed with this position; for many, Marxisms call for collectivism over individuality was castigated as the enemy of all that was good and holy in American life. This splendid new biography by Winston James, a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, looks at McKays embrace of radicalism through a sympathetic lens. McKay did not become a Marxist through ideological indoctrination, but because it was how he made sense of an unjust world and the powers that kept it that way.

Festus Claudius McKay was born in Jamaica in 1889, the youngest of 11 children of Thomas and Hannah McKay, owners of a farm of a hundred acres, acquired by gift of marriage and hard labor. Workers were employed and the holdings functioned as a profitable business. James notes that these were reasonable criteria for qualifying as a capitalist farmer. Thomass father had been an enslaved African of the Asante nation, todays Ghana. The end of slavery allowed some Black peasants to become property owners. Upward mobility was not unique, but it was rare in turn-of-the-century Jamaica. Thomas was very dark-skinned, a characteristic that James identifies as a marker, at the time, of ones class as well as race. One could almost read a persons social class from the color of his or her skin, the historian explains.

The economic status of McKays family made it possible for Claude to acquire an education. Older brother Theo graduated from a teachers college and then became a headmaster. Theo was a freethinker, and he passed books on literature and politics to Claude, who described his years with his brother as a great formative period in my life a time of perfect freedom to play, read and think as I liked.

Jamaica became too small for Claude and he emigrated to America, first attending college in Kansas but eventually winding up in New York where, as a respected author, he became part of the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote poetry and novels throughout the 20s and 30s, but before that he had become increasingly radicalized as he learned of the horrific treatment of Blacks during Jim Crow. Lynching, beating, and burning of homes were common occurrences, and not only in the South. Violence was the means of preventing Blacks from attaining equality and full participation in social and economic life. McKay worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad for a time as a waiter; he started carrying a revolver for protection. His activist leanings became increasingly extreme: he moved from being a Fabian (or gradual socialist) to an outright Bolshevik after the 1917 Russian revolution. Promises of change for Blacks and workers were in the air. Marcus Garvey moved the headquarters of his Universal Negro Improvement Association to Harlem in 1913, while A. Philip Randolph, who organized the Black railroad porters into a union, left Florida for New York in 1911. The ferment of ideas, grounded in the goal of generating unified action, charged the air the reformers breathed. McKay was exhilarated by everything around him during his first years in New York.

Still, McKay was hungry for travel. He went to England, where he lived for a time, and visited Russia in 1922-23, where he was feted by the Bolsheviks, who saw racism and oppression as an essential part of the capitalism they opposed. His transformation from a submissive colonial to an anti-imperialist radical began slowly, but he became a fervent believer. He was harshly condemned at the time, but his belief that Marxs doctrines were not pipe dreams is becoming increasingly acceptable to a younger generation, which sees them as blueprints for a revolution that will upend an economic order that perpetuates inequality by exploiting the dispossessed. Thus the powerful relevance of a study dedicated to an iconoclastic Black thinker and poet who was dedicated to economic reform as well as the eradication of racism.

For many back home, this embrace of Soviet socialism marked McKay as suspect; he became branded as un-American, a hostile voice to be feared. The Red Scare of the 20s turned Americans who might otherwise be inclined to empathize with the workers of the world into suspicious patriots frightened by cartoon images of Communist revolutionaries coming to cut their throats as they slept. Americas visceral fear of socialism began then and continues to this day. Bernie Sanders is labeled a socialist by contemporary conservatives, who are anxious to stop any challenge to the neoliberal status quo. Of course, by global standards Bernie is no more than a center left European social democrat.

Socialism in most Western countries has morphed into an unstable hybrid of statism and capitalism, and the same can be said of the communist world. Russian oligarchs enabled by Putin are the new robber barons, the owners of gigantic yachts and castles. Years ago China opted for a middle way, although Xi has attempted lately to bring private actors under greater control by the state. The pragmatic as well as idealistic values of socialism have been perverted by the same forces that turned free enterprise into mega capitalism: the desire for unlimited power and the need to maintain it.

After time in France, McKay returned to America and wrote prolifically, editing a leftist newspaper. His poetry and nonfiction carried the banner of revolution, but the rise of Stalin and in 1929 the exile of Trotsky, whom McKay deeply admired, transformed him into a full-throated opponent of Russian authoritarianism. The decade leading up to McKays death in 1948 is barely covered here, but Jamess history is explicitly dedicated to the formative years of this Jamaican-American Black agitator and writer, his evolution into an apostle of Marxist socialism.

McKay was an artist whose written work covered a wide range of human feelings, not just the political. As an example of the latter, there is his 1919 poem If We Must Die, a forceful expression (drawing on resonances with WWI) of the angry desperation of Black resistance to white racism. Here are its opening lines:

If we must die let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursd lot.

The poem ends with a call to fight back, to die, if necessary, on ones feet and not on ones knees.

Yet McKay could also be more personal and unabashedly sentimental. The second stanza of his 1922 poem Spring in New Hampshire is an idyll, a daydream about the beauty of nature and our place in it:

Too wonderful the April night,

Too faintly sweet the first May flowers,

The stars too gloriously bright,

For me to spend the evening hours,

When fields are fresh and streams are leaping,

Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.

One comes away from Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik feeling that the Black writer lived a full and admirable life, politically and socially engaged, but never to the diminution of his individuality. Pure Bolshevism would have dogmatically dismissed the personal and emotional as bourgeois affectations, distractions that took energy away from the struggle against oppression. But McKay was too much of a creative spirit to be remade into something other than what he was. For him, humankind needs both the bread and the roses.

Thomas Filbin is a freelance critic whose reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Boston Sunday Globe, and Hudson Review. He lives outside of Boston.

Originally posted here:

Book Review: "Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik" -- The Evolution of a Radical Thinker - artsfuse.org

Roth Capital cut shares of Evolution Petroleum (NYSEAMERICAN:EPM Get Rating) from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, Marketbeat.com reports. They currently have $9.50 price objective on the energy companys stock.

Shares of NYSEAMERICAN:EPM opened at $4.95 on Wednesday. Evolution Petroleum has a 12-month low of $3.60 and a 12-month high of $8.17. The company has a market cap of $167.02 million, a PE ratio of -45.00 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 2.22 and a quick ratio of 2.22.

Evolution Petroleum (NYSEAMERICAN:EPM Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 10th. The energy company reported $0.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.23. The business had revenue of $25.69 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $25.09 million. Evolution Petroleum had a positive return on equity of 14.47% and a negative net margin of 8.88%. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Evolution Petroleum will post 0.72 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of EPM. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. raised its position in Evolution Petroleum by 97.0% during the first quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 3,656 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 1,800 shares in the last quarter. Copeland Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in Evolution Petroleum during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $31,000. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SA raised its position in Evolution Petroleum by 253,450.0% during the first quarter. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SA now owns 5,071 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $34,000 after purchasing an additional 5,069 shares in the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in Evolution Petroleum during the first quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Finally, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. acquired a new position in Evolution Petroleum during the first quarter valued at approximately $55,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 61.84% of the companys stock.

Evolution Petroleum Company Profile (Get Rating)

Evolution Petroleum Corporation, an oil and natural gas company, engages in the development, production, ownership, and management of oil and gas properties in the United States. The company holds interests in a CO2 enhanced oil recovery project in Louisiana's Delhi field. Its Delhi Holt-Bryant Unit covers an area of 13,636 acres located in Northeast Louisiana.

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Evolution Petroleum (NYSEAMERICAN:EPM) Lowered to Neutral at Roth Capital - Defense World

FAIRFIELD, N.J., July 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bleakley Financial Group (Bleakley), is pleased to announce that it has become an independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA). Since 2015, Bleakleyhas been affiliated with Private Advisor Group, one of the largest and fastest-growing independent wealth management firms in the country.* Private Advisor Groupwas selected as the preferred partner and RIA of choice to provide regulatory, compliance, and operational support, as Bleakley embarked on its own journey toward full independence after departing from Northwestern Mutual. During their seven-year relationship, both firms have grown significantly and worked closely toward fulfilling Bleakley's aspiration to operate its own RIA and complete their transition to their own independent business. Bleakley Financial Grouplaunched its new RIA in the Spring of 2022 and has taken a phased approach to completing their transition to full independence.

Andy Schwartz,Principal of Bleakley Financial Group remarked, "Our partnership with Private Advisor Group has been exceptional in every facet of supporting our firm and helping us reach our goals. We consider them personal friends, in addition to outstanding business partners, and will continue our relationship well into the future."

Private Advisor Group's CEO, RJ Moore, commented, "We are excited for the principals and advisors at Bleakley Financial Group. Much has been accomplished during our partnership and we look forward to continuing in supporting each other's successes and the progression of firms in our profession."

Bleakley is comprised of over 50 advisors in thirteen states and as of December 31st, 2021, services approximately $9 billion in brokerage and advisory assets.

Private Advisor Group is comprised of more than 700 financial advisors nationwide with over $30 billion in assets under management as of December 31st, 2021.

About Bleakley Financial Group

For more than 30 years, Bleakley has been providing customized financial planning and wealth management services to a diverse array of clients across the country. Bleakley prides itself on delivering personalized guidance to fit the goals and lifestyle needs of each customer. With more than three decades of experience, our state-of-the-art financial planning comes with a personal touch. Our team consists of more than 160 investment professionals, from financial advisors and research assistants to client support.

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For more information, visit http://www.bleakley.com.

About Private Advisor Group

Founded in 1997 in Morristown, NJ, Private Advisor Group is one of the nation's leading financial services firms. With over $30 billion in assets under management, the firm strives to improve financial outcomes for individual investors and inspire growth, fiduciary adherence, legacy planning and a client-centric approach for independent financial advisors' practices. Barron's has recognized Private Advisor Group as a top ten registered investment advisory firm since 2019.

*Barron's "Top 100 RIA Firms" ranking is based upon quantitative and qualitative criteria including: regulatory records, client retention reports, assets managed, revenue generated, technology spending, number of clients, size and diversity of staff, placement of a succession plan, and more. Investor experience and returns are not considered. Neither Private Advisor Group nor its financial advisors pay a fee to Barron's in exchange for the ranking.

For more information, visit http://www.privateadvisorgroup.com.

Securities offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, a registered investment advisor and separate entity from LPL Financial.

Media Inquiries:

Andy SchwartzPrincipal, Bleakley Financial GroupAndy.Schwartz@bleakley.comOffice: 973-244-4202

Kelly CoulterMarketing Director, Private Advisor GroupKelly.coulter@privateadvisorgrouop.com480-815-8695

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Bleakley Financial Group Announces the Evolution of Their Business to an Independent Registered Investment Advisor - Yahoo Finance

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CHENNAI: March 27, 2022, Hagley Oval, Christchurch. India was playing South Africa in their final league game of the Cricket World Cup a must-win encounter for them to progress to the semifinals. South Africa needed three runs to win from two balls. Mignon du Preez was on strike, batting on 51 from 61 balls. At the other end was Deepti Sharma, standing steely-eyed at the top of her mark, ready to bound in.

Mignon seemed all set in her stance, with her trademark paradoxical movements. Having struggled in the earlier games, she had enjoyed one of her better days in the tournament. She was the one who could potentially end the World Cup dream of Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami.

Meanwhile, 9.4 overs into her day, Deepti had had an excellent outing, conceding just 38 runs in her spell. Defending only seven runs in the final over, the off-spinning all-rounder had given away just four and been a part of a run-out in the first four deliveries.

There were long discussions among the Indian team after almost every ball in that over - fields adjusted, plans altered and re-altered and attempts made to calm everyone down. If there ever was a clutch moment in the game that was it.

The pressure was palpable. But Deepti remained visibly calm. Still supremely self-assured, she took a few quick steps into her run-up and went through with her action. Mignon waited for the ball, but it never came, still lodged firmly in the bowlers hand. It was the mandatory Deepti-Sharma-fake-delivery of the match one that left the batter in anticipation. It was an act that came as no surprise - something that has become her trademark when under the pump.

It comes to me pretty naturally, said Deepti when asked about it in an exclusive chat with The New Indian Express from Bengaluru. I have been doing it for several years now. Second thing, you'll also get a glimpse of what the batter is trying to do, whether it's stepping out or going on the back foot, added the off-spinner.

And she had a point. But just like any other cricketing tactic, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesnt. On that day, in the most important match of the tournament for India, it almost worked. Mignon stepped out to launch Deepti down the ground on the very next delivery but was caught at long-on by Harmanpreet Kaur Except that Deepti had overstepped.

While Mignon took South Africa home and India faced an early exit, one of the things that stood out that night was the calmness that Deepti showed under pressure. The calmness, that is, despite the no ball. She was no longer the nervous 19-year-old who tried to slog her way through the 11 runs that were required in the last two overs of the 2017 World Cup final. She was now more aware of her game, more in control of her emotions and had clearer, more precise plans whenever she took the field.

But even back in 2017, there was never any question about her potential: she became the first teenager to score 200-plus runs and take more than 10 wickets 216 runs and 12 scalps in a Womens World Cup. However, in the most important moment of the final during the chase, she panicked.

In the five years since Deeptis confidence has grown leaps and bounds. Shes gone from someone who buckled under pressure, to a player who now thrives under it a quality that showed on that day in the final moments of Indias final World Cup league match against South Africa at Christchurch.

How did she get to this point? Because confidence isn't built overnight. It comes from hours, weeks, months and years of work behind the scenes on both the technical and mental front. And for Deepti, like most top athletes, hard work is her default setting. But in recent times, her work, she says, has been driven by two key aspects - visualization and improvisation.

Till now whatever matches I have played, after a match I always go back and see how I did in the videos and what I can improve, she said. For example, it's not like if I do well, I don't go and look at it and see what I did right and then when things go a bit up and down, suddenly, I go and follow what was the issue in the batting, what was the problem.

For me, every match, irrespective of whether I did well or not, whatever innings I played, I liked to go back and watch it. Even the positives, whatever boundaries I hit or good innings I played, it has helped me a lot. When I go back, I practice based on that whether it's bowling or batting. I feel that it has helped me improve a lot.

Between July 23, 2017, and March 2020, Deepti was the fourth-best off-spinner in the world in terms of wickets (24 scalps at an average of 36.20 with a 4.15 economy) behind Sana Mir, Leigh Kasperek and Ashleigh Gardner. Among Indians, Poonam Yadav and Ekta Bisht were the two spinners to have more wickets than her in that period.

When the pandemic broke, India did not play any international cricket for over a year. When they returned, Deepti hit a bit of a roadblock in 2021, taking just five wickets in 10 innings with that average shooting up to 76.80. But it was not just her; every Indian spinner, barring Rajeshwari Gayakwad who averaged 31.12, had a bad year. No one else averaged below 40. In 2022, however, they did better and so did Deepti, taking 17 wickets in 12 innings so far.

Deepti's growth is not only evident in the numbers, but also in the fact that she has become India's go-to bowler in recent times. With India's pace attack lacking international experience apart from Jhulan Goswami ( Shikha Pandey has played only three ODIs since March 2020) the off-spinner has often been tasked with bowling in the powerplay and death overs, something she had to do in that World Cup game against South Africa as well.

Its a skill Deepti has practiced a great deal over the years, doing a lot of spot bowling to get used to bowling with the new ball. So, the funda is the same, if you know where you have to bowl and how to execute it, that's all there is. You know, the batter shouldn't get any room as with just two fielders outside, it will be easier for them. I just keep in my mind to stick to my strengths, said the 24-year-old.

Whether it's powerplay, middle overs or death, I like bowling in every situation. That's what I practice for and once you keep doing that, you get used to it. It doesn't matter if it's powerplay or slog-overs as long as you know where to bowl. Once you are confident, you can bowl in any given situation.

While Deepti has truly grown into a top-class off-spinner, with the bat, her journey has been quite a contrast. She made her India debut as a backup opener in some style, smashing a 188 the highest individual ODI score by an Indian against Ireland as a teenager. As years went by, she has batted in all positions between 1-9 and has often been used as a floater, largely in the lower middle order. Deepti has batted 68 times so far but has got an extended run of sorts (more than 10 times) only in two positions - No 3 and 6.

Just like any other batter, the southpaw has had her share of challenges, struggling to keep pace with the demands of a new position 1804 runs at an average of 35.37 while striking at 64.63. But shes hardly shied away from those battles, trying to contribute to the best of her abilities, adjusting her methods along the way. And similar to her bowling, visualisation and improvisation seems key to her preparation in adapting to different roles in the batting order.

So, what happens with my role is that (it is) based on which position I get to bat, I always try to do my best for the team. Whatever role I get, it doesn't matter. It's all about making sure I contribute to the team's cause. See, when you open the batting, you'll have some time to settle in, and powerplay makes it a bit easy with just two fielders outside the circle. You will have the opportunity to score the maximum runs possible. In middle overs, you'll have to play according to the scoreboard, read the match situation and react accordingly.

I always try to stay positive. Whatever match is there, every match I look at it the same way, whether it's domestic or international. The focus remains the same. Mentally, if you think about it, it's still the same. Just the bowlers, their pace and standards differ a little bit. But yes, my mindset will remain the same. If you keep it the same, it helps is what I believe.

After all these years, Deeptis keenness to stay positive throughout the challenges and heartbreaks and her ability to keep things simple on and off the field is what has helped her grow in confidence, not just as a player but also as a person. And when any player shows that kind of level-headedness and maturity in their cricket, they always get noticed.

It happened to Deepti as well when she was named vice-captain to Mithali in the last couple of ODIs against New Zealand earlier this year. When the former Indian skipper did not take part in the recently concluded Womens T20 Challenge, Deepti led Velocity to the final. It was the first time she was captaining a team, something she seemed to have enjoyed doing as well.

It was a great experience. I was confident because when you get to do it in a match on a big stage like the T20 Challenge, it is a sign of positivity, she said, before adding, you could say it comes with an extra responsibility to do your best for the team, whatever the team or any player needs, you make sure that you give them the opportunity to do what they want. Whether it's a bowler or a batter, whatever demands are there for the team, I always back the players.

Our team had a lot of youngsters as well, playing for the first time in the T20 Challenge. I told them, 'whoever gets an opportunity in the match, stick to your strengths, whether it's bowling or scoring shots, just try to do that and more importantly believe in them. It'll always help you do well.' All I gave was a little bit of motivation and they did extremely well, which benefitted the team as well. It was a different feeling to play in the final as a captain.

There is a calmness and keen understanding in the way she speaks - a stark contrast to the hesitant teenager who took her initial steps in international cricket. Between two World Cup heartbreaks, Deepti has evolved from a nervous young talent to a utility cricketer who has constantly upskilled herself, is well aware of her strengths and limitations and can hold her nerve in clutch situations. And as she keeps repeating through the chat, visualisation and improvisation are at the centre of it all.

But there is one more underlying theme to her evolution. Its the fact that she doesnt say no to anything thats asked of her and tries to fulfil it to the best of her abilities. She is a trier who never gives up. And its a quality that no one can take away from her.

See original here:

The evolution of Deepti Sharma between two World Cup heartbreaks - The New Indian Express

If you look different to your close relatives, you may have felt separate from your family. As a child, during particularly stormy fall outs you might have even hoped it was a sign that you were adopted.

As our new research shows, appearances can be deceptive when it comes to family. New DNA technology is shaking up the family trees of many plants and animals.

The primates, to which humans belong, were once thought to be close relatives of bats because of some similarities in our skeletons and brains. However, DNA data now places us in a group that includes rodents (rats and mice) and rabbits. Astonishingly, bats turn out to be more closely related to cows, horses, and even rhinoceroses than they are to us.

Scientists in Darwin's time and through most of the 20th century could only work out the branches of the evolutionary tree of life by looking at the structure and appearance of animals and plants. Life forms were grouped according to similarities thought to have evolved together.

About three decades ago, scientists started using DNA data to build "molecular trees". Many of the first trees based on DNA data were at odds with the classical ones.

Sloths and anteaters, armadillos, pangolins (scaly anteaters), and aardvarks were once thought to belong together in a group called edentates ("no teeth"), since they share aspects of their anatomy.

Molecular trees showed that these traits evolved independently in different branches of the mammal tree. It turns out that aardvarks are more closely related to elephants while pangolins are more closely related to cats and dogs.

There is another important line of evidence that was familiar to Darwin and his contemporaries. Darwin noted that animals and plants that appeared to share the closest common ancestry were often found close together geographically. The location of species is another strong indicator they are related: species that live near each other are more likely to share a family tree.

For the first time, our recent paper cross-referenced location, DNA data, and appearance for a range of animals and plants. We looked at evolutionary trees based on appearance or on molecules for 48 groups of animals and plants, including bats, dogs, monkeys, lizards, and pine trees.

Evolutionary trees based on DNA data were two-thirds more likely to match with the location of the species compared with traditional evolution maps. In other words, previous trees showed several species were related based on appearance.

Our research showed they were far less likely to live near each other compared to species linked by DNA data.

It may appear that evolution endlessly invents new solutions, almost without limits. But it has fewer tricks up its sleeve than you might think.

Animals can look amazingly alike because they have evolved to do a similar job or live in a similar way. Birds, bats and the extinct pterosaurs have, or had, bony wings for flying, but their ancestors all had front legs for walking on the ground instead.

(Oyston et al., Communication Biology, 2022)

Above:The color wheels and key indicate where members of each order are found geographically. The molecular tree has these colors grouped together better than the morphological tree, indicating closer agreement of the molecules to biogeography.

Similar wing shapes and muscles evolved in different groups because the physics of generating thrust and lift in air are always the same. It is much the same with eyes, which may have evolved 40 times in animals, and with only a few basic "designs".

Our eyes are similar to squid's eyes, with a crystalline lens, iris, retina, and visual pigments. Squid are more closely related to snails, slugs, and clams than us. But many of their mollusk relatives have only the simplest of eyes.

Moles evolved as blind, burrowing creatures at least four times, on different continents, on different branches of the mammal tree. The Australian marsupial pouched moles (more closely related to kangaroos), African golden moles (more closely related to aardvarks), African mole rats (rodents), and the Eurasian and North American talpid moles (beloved of gardeners, and more closely related to hedgehogs than these other "moles") all evolved down a similar path.

Until the advent of cheap and efficient gene sequencing technology in the 21st century, appearance was usually all evolutionary biologists had to go on.

While Darwin (1859) showed that all life on Earth is related in a single evolutionary tree, he did little to map out its branches. The anatomist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was one of the first people to draw evolutionary trees that tried to show how major groups of life forms are related.

(Ernest Haeckel)

Haeckel's drawings made brilliant observations of living things that influenced art and design in the 19th and 20th centuries. His family trees were based almost entirely on how those organisms looked and developed as embryos.Many of his ideas about evolutionary relationships were held until recently.

As it becomes easier and cheaper to obtain and analyze large volumes of molecular data, there will be many more surprises in store.

Matthew Wills, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read more from the original source:

New DNA Technology Is Shaking Up The Branches of The Evolutionary Tree - ScienceAlert

An international team of 114 scientists has performed the most comprehensive study of aging and longevity to date with data collected in the wild from 107 populations of 77 species of reptiles and amphibians worldwide.

MSU Professor Anne Bronikowski

The team, led by researchers at Michigan State University, Pennsylvania State University and Northeastern Illinois University, reported its findings in the journal Science on June 23.

Among their many findings, the researchers documented for the first time that turtles, salamanders and crocodilians (an order that includes crocodiles, alligators and caimans) have particularly slow aging rates and extended lifespans for their sizes.

We are committed to studying long-lived species in the wild because nature has already done the experiment of how to age slowly, wrote MSU researchers Anne Bronikowski and Fredric Janzen.

Bronikowski is one of the leaders of the study who recently joined MSU as a professor of integrative biology in the College of Natural Science and at the W. K. Kellogg Biological Station, or KBS. Janzen is the director of KBS, as well as a professor in the College of Natural Science and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

MSU Professor Fredric Janzen

Anne sometimes calls these examples evolutions solutions to growing old, Janzen said.

They are relevant to studies of human frailty because our cellular and genomic pathways are shared across much of animal life, Bronikowski said.

If we can understand what allows some animals to age more slowly, we can better understand aging in humans as well, and we can also inform conservation strategies for reptiles and amphibians, many of which are threatened or endangered, said David Miller, a senior author of the Science paper and an associate professor of wildlife population ecology at Penn State.

In their study, the researchersapplied methods used in both ecological and evolutionary sciences to analyze variation in aging and longevity of reptiles and amphibians. These cold-blooded" or ectothermic animals offer a contrast to "warm-blooded" or endothermic mammals and birds.

One of the interesting findings was that each group has a slow or negligible aging species across all these different ectotherms, wrote Bronikowski and Janzen.

It sounds dramatic to say that they dont age at all, said Beth Reinke, the first author of the Science report and an assistant professor of biology at Northeastern Illinois University. But basically their likelihood of dying does not change with age once theyre past reproduction.

The face of a tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus), a slow-aging reptile found in New Zealand. Credit: Sarah Lamar

Negligible aging means that if an animals chance of dying in a year is 1% at age 10, if it is alive at 100 years, its chance of dying is still 1%. By contrast, in adult U.S. females, the risk of dying in a year is about 1-in-2,500 at age 20 and 1-in-24 at age 80, said Penn States Miller, citing a current U.S. Social Security Administration actuarial table. When a species exhibits negligible mortality senescence, this mortality aging just doesnt happen.

The researchers also compared their findings in ectotherms to what is known about endotherms and explored previous hypotheses related to aging.

For instance, the thermoregulatory mode hypothesis suggests that endotherms age faster than ectotherms because endotherms have higher metabolisms to help regulate their body temperatures.

People tend to think, for example, that mice age quickly because they have high metabolisms, whereas turtles age slowly because they have low metabolisms, Miller said.

The teams findings, however, reveal that ectotherms aging rates and lifespans range both well above and below the known aging rates for similar-sized endotherms. Thus, it appears that the way an animal regulates its temperature cold-blooded versus warm-blooded is not necessarily indicative of its aging rate or lifespan.

A photo of a painted turtle (Chrysemys picta), a widespread North American species of freshwater turtle. Credit: Beth A. Reinke

We didnt find support for the idea that a lower metabolic rate means ectotherms are aging slower, Miller said. That relationship was only true for turtles, which suggests that turtles are unique among ectotherms.

Then theres the protective phenotypes hypothesis, which suggests that animals with traits that confer protection such as armor, spines or shells have greater longevity. This, in turn, promotes slower aging.

The team documented that these protective traits do, indeed, enable animals to age more slowly and live much longer for their size than those without protective phenotypes.

These various protective mechanisms may reduce animals mortality rates within generations, said Reinke. Thus, theyre more likely to live longer, and that can change the selection landscape across generations for the evolution of slower aging. We found the biggest support for the protective phenotype hypothesis in turtles. Again, this demonstrates that turtles, as a group, are unique.

In fact, a tortoise named Jonathan recently made news for being the worlds oldest living land animal at 190 years old.

It could be that their altered morphology with hard shells provides protection and has contributed to the evolution of their life histories, including negligible aging or lack of demographic aging and exceptional longevity, said MSUs Bronikowski.

A female Darwins frog (Rhinoderma darwinii) in southern Chile. Credit: ONG Ranita de Darwin

Bronikowski helped seed the study with support from a grant from the National Institute on Aging, one of the National Institutes of Health, to study aging in painted turtles. Hugo Cayeula, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lyon in France, was leading a similar project on frogs and amphibians, so it made sense to collaborate, Bronikowski said.

From there, Northeastern Illinoiss Reinke reached out to more and more researchers to include more and more ectotherms (for a full list of authors and their affiliations, please see the published manuscript in Science).

The teams novel study was only possible because of the contributions of a large number of collaborators from across the world studying a wide variety of species, Reinke said.

See more here:

Revealing 'evolution's solutions' to aging | MSUToday | Michigan State University - MSUToday

The middle ear of humans evolved from fish gills, according to a study of a 438 million-year-old fossil fish brain.

Scientists discovered the fossil of the braincase of a Shuyu fish. Despite its skull only being the size of a fingernail they were able to recreate seven virtual casts of the brain.

They also unearthed the first 419 million-year-old armored galeaspid fossil completely preserved with gill filaments.

The team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found the spiracle, slits behind the eyes leading to the mouth which allows some species to breathe.

In sharks and all rays, the spiracle is responsible for the intake of water before being expelled from the gills.

The spiracle evolved into the ear of modern four-legged vertebrates eventually becoming the hearing canal used for transmitting sound to the brain via tiny inner ear bones.

This function has remained throughout the evolution to humans.

The detail derived from the two fossils is the last piece of the jigsaw proving the line from fish gills to the human ear.

The human middle ear houses three tiny, vibrating bones which are key to transporting sound vibrations into the inner ear, where they become nerve impulses that allow us to hear.

Professor Zhikun Gai from IVPP and first author of the study said: "These fossils provided the first anatomical and fossil evidence for a vertebrate spiracle originating from fish gills."

A total of seven virtual endocasts of the Shuyu braincase were reconstructed.

Almost all details of the cranial anatomy of Shuyu were revealed in its fingernail-sized skull, including five brain divisions, sensory organs, and cranial nerve and blood vessel passages.

The fossils found in China's Changxing, Zhejiang Province and Qujing, Yunnan Province were hailed as the 'missing links' from the gill to the middle ear.

Professor Min Zhu, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences added: "Many important structures of human beings can be traced back to our fish ancestors, such as our teeth, jaws, middle ears, etc.

"The main task of paleontologists is to find the important missing links in the evolutionary chain from fish to humans.

"Shuyu has been regarded as a key missing link as important as Archaeopteryx."

Professor Per Ahlberg from Uppsala University and academician of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences who collaborated on the research, said: "Our finding bridges the entire history of the spiracular slit, bringing together recent discoveries from the gill pouches of fossil jawless vertebrates, via the spiracles of the earliest jawed vertebrates, to the middle ears of the first tetrapods, which tells this extraordinary evolutionary story."

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

This story was provided to Newsweek by Zenger News.

Read the original here:

Middle Ear of Humans Evolved From Fish Gills, According to Study - Newsweek

Photo credit: Foam, via Flickr (cropped).

I am reviewing Jason Rosenhouses new book,The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism(Cambridge University Press), serially.For the full series so far, go here.

Because of the centrality of the searching protein space model to Jason Rosenhouses argument, its instructive to illustrate it with the full rigor of his track 2 (see my post from yesterday on that). Let me therefore lay out such a model in detail. Consider a 100-dimensional discrete hypercube of 100-tuples of the form (a_1,a_2, ,a_100), where thea_is are all natural numbers between 0 and 100. Consider now the following path in the hypercube starting at (0, 0, , 0) and ending at (100,100, , 100). New path elements are now defined by adding 1s to each position of any existing path element, starting at the left and moving to the right, and then starting over at the left again. Thus the entire path takes the form

0: (0, 0, , 0)

1: (1, 0, , 0)

2: (1, 1, , 0)

100: (1, 1, , 1)

101: (2, 1, , 1)

102: (2, 2, , 1)

200: (2, 2, , 2)

300: (3, 3, , 3)

1,000: (10, 10, , 10)

2.000: (20, 20, , 20)

10,000: (100, 100, , 100)

The hypercube consists of 101^100, or about 2.7 x 10^200 elements, but the path itself has only 10,001 path elements and 10,000 implicit path edges connecting the elements.

For simplicity, lets put this discrete hypercube under a uniform probability distribution (we dont have to, but its convenient for the purposes of illustration Rosenhouse mistakenly claims that intelligent design mathematics automatically defaults to uniform or equiprobability, but thats not the case, as we will see; but there are often good reasons to begin an analysis there). Given a uniform probability on the discrete hypercube, the path elements, all 10,001 of them considered together, have probability roughly 1 in 2.7 x 10^196 (10,001 divided by the total number of elements making up the hypercube). Thats very small, indeed smaller than the probability of winning 23 Powerball jackpots in a row (the probability of winning one Powerball jackpot is 1 in 292,201,338).

Each path element in the hypercube has 200 immediate neighbors. Note that in one dimension there would be two neighbors, left and right; in two dimensions there would be four neighbors, left and right as well as up and down; in three dimensions there would be six neighbors, left and right, up and down, forward and backward; etc. Note also for path elements on the boundary of the hypercube, we can simply extend the hypercube into the ambient discrete hyperspace, finding there neighbors that never actually end up getting used (alternatively, the boundaries can be treated as reflecting barriers, a device commonly used by probabilists).

Next, lets define a fitness functionFthat is zero off the path and assigns to path elements of the form (a_1,a_2, ,a_100) the suma_1 +a_2 + +a_100. The starting point (0, 0, , 0) then has minimal fitness and the end point (100, 100, , 100) then has maximal fitness. Moreover, each successive path element, as illustrated above, has higher fitness, by 1, than its immediate predecessor. If we now stay with a uniform probability, and thus sample uniformly from the adjoining 200 neighbors, then the probabilitypof getting to the next element on the path, as judged by the fitness functionF, is 1 in 200 for any given sample query, which we can think of and describe as amutational step.

The underlying probability distribution for moving between adjacent path elements is thegeometric distribution. Traversing the entire path from starting point to end point can thus be represented by a sum of independent and identically distributed (with geometric distribution) random variables. Thus, on average, it takes 200 evolutionary sample queries, or mutational steps, to move from one path element to the next, and it therefore takes on average 2,000,000 (= 200 x 10,000) evolutionary sample queries, or mutational steps, to move from the starting to the end point. Probabilists call these numberswaiting times. Thus, the waiting time for getting from one path element to the next is, on average, 200; and for getting from the starting to the end point is, on average, 2,000,000.

As it is, the geometric distribution is easy to work with and illustrates nicely Rosenhouses point about evolution not depending on brute improbability. But suppose I didnt see that I was dealing with a geometric distribution or suppose the problem was much more difficult probabilistically, allowing no closed-form solution as here. In that case, I could have written a simulation to estimate the waiting times: just evolve across the path from all zeros to all one-hundreds over and over on a computer and see what it averages to. Would it be veering from Rosenhouses track 2 to do a simulation to estimate the probabilities and waiting times? Throughout his book, he insists on an exact and explicit identification of the probability space, its geometry, and the relevant probability distributions. But thats unnecessary and excessive.

In many practical situations, we have no way of assigning exact theoretical probabilities. Instead, we must estimate them by sampling real physical systems or by running computer simulations of them. Even in poker, where all the moving parts are clearly identified, the probabilities can get so out of hand that only simulations can give us a grasp of the underlying probabilities. And whats true for poker is even more true for biology. The level of specificity Ive given in this hypercube example is way more than Rosenhouse gives in his searching protein space example. The hypercube makes explicit what he leaves implicit, namely, it distinguishes mathematically the entire search space from the evolutionary paths through it from the neighborhoods around points on the path. It thus captures a necessary feature of Darwinian evolution. But it does so at the cost of vast oversimplification, rendering the connection between Darwinian and real-world evolution tenuous at best.

Why have I just gone through this exercise with the 100-dimensional discrete hypercube, giving it the full track 2 monty? Two reasons. One, it is to rebut Rosenhouses insistence on Darwinian gradualism in the face of intelligent design (more on this later in this review series). Two, it is to show Darwinist critics like Rosenhouse that we in the intelligent design community know exactly what they are talking about when they stress that rather than brute improbability, the real issue for evolvability is the improbability of traversing evolutionary pathways subject to fitness. Ive known this for decades, as have my intelligent design colleagues Mike Behe, Steve Meyer, and Doug Axe. Rosenhouse continually suggests that my colleagues and I are probabilistically nave, failing to appreciate the nuances and subtleties of Darwinism. Were not. Ill be returning to the hypercube example because it also illustrates why Rosenhouses Darwinism is so implacably committed to sequential mutations and must disallow simultaneous mutations at all costs. But first

Next, Rosenhouse and Mathematical Proof.

Editors note: This review is cross-posted with permission of the author fromBillDembski.com.

See the original post here:

Rosenhouse and Discrete Hypercube Evolution - Discovery Institute