Category Archives: Evolution

As a pitcher, Arkansas baseball legend Kevin Kopps is as precise as they come. For the Razorbacks, he threw for a program-record ERA of .90 in 2021 and struck out 131 batters, the third-most in Hogs history.

Kopps built toward that amazing season with a workout routine and structure that went beyond the scope of what most college athletes are willing to do. Regularity and routine, however, have been far from the norm in this next stage of Kopps life.

In a recent exclusive interview, Kevin Kopps told me about his embrace of chaos in his new life, as well as a host of other topics including his thoughts on whether a statue should be built to him in Fayetteville. We also discussed the relievers time in the minors and what he must do to reach the majors as well as discussing what he misses about playing for the Hogs.

Ive been doing well, Kevin Kopps said. It was an easy adjustment, in my opinion. Arkansas was run similar to the Padres. So, it wasnt too bad.

Kopps is working his way up the ladder in the San Diego Padres system. However, It is a familiar situation for him.

It reminds me when youre in high school you got to work your way back up the totem pole to make the varsity team, Kopps said. And its not really glorious until you make the varsity team.

Kopps is coming off of one of the most historic seasons in collegiate baseball. He boasted a 12-1 record with 11 saves. Kopps had that record-shattering 0.90 ERA and 0.76 WHIP with 131 strikeouts in 89.2 innings.

That amazing season earned Kopps a spot in the third round of the 2021 MLB draft, 99th overall.

Moving from collegiate baseball to the professional ranks has not slowed him down.

Even knowing that its going to be good and knowing that God has a plan for me and trusting in that and still having the year I did, (the Draft is) still really stressful for some reason, Kopps said. And I wasnt even doing anything. My agents were taking care of all of it. But it is still stressful. But once we got that call, we just celebrated. My family and I. My parents teared up and it was a good day after that.

Kopps started out in the Rookie League, allowing one run in 4.2 innings and striking out 10 batters. He moved up to High A in Fort Wayne. He pitched eight shutout innings over eight appearances and struck out another 10 hitters. He pitched two innings in Double A San Antonio before the season ended, not allowing a hit.

Overall, Kopps has pitched 14.2 innings in professional baseball, striking out 22 opponents and allowing one run on five hits and six walks. He has a 0.61 ERA and 0.75 WHIP as a professional pitcher.Kopps was one of only two of the Padres draft picks to make at High Single-A this season.

Combined with what he did with the Razorbacks, Kopps has put some video game numbers:

Kopps managed the transition from SEC baseball to minor league baseball well. He already had an idea about how hard the minor leagues would be.

It was kind of similar to what I was expecting, Kopps said. I had heard that SEC baseball falls somewhere in between High A and AA and thats what I got.

Kopps is still dominating on the mound, despite different circumstances. He does miss some things from his Arkansas baseball days, however.

I miss how passionate all the fans are, Kopps said. I dont think you really get that back until you start making your way to the big leagues. So I would say thats probably what I miss most about it.

Still, Kopps for the most part is enjoying the new scenery as he gets to live in different parts of the nation.

I think what Ive enjoyed the most is just learning more about the game, Kopps said. I think every level I get to, I feel like Ive learned pretty much everything I can learn about the game.

But theres always new things. And it always blows my mind that theres more to learn. Because just being in the game for 20 years, you think you know Like I was just saying, you think you know everything and then theres a bunch of different aspects that are brought in and going to those levels taught me different things.

Changing cities does not seem to phase Kopps. Hes had fun and dominated in every city hes played for.

I think its fun. I think thats why I like the league, Kopps said. The unknown or maybe the chaos or the lack of structure. I just like it. I dont know why. Ive always liked to live like that. And I think it helps. Coming out of the bullpen and in the profession Im in.

Kopps says he likes to live in such a lack of structure and its why he likes coming out of the bullpen. The chaos started the day he was drafted.

The day after (the Draft), or a day or two after (the Draft), I got another call and they were like okay, youre going (here, and) your flights in a day. Youre coming here. And thats all they told me. And I didnt know how much to pack. I didnt know what I needed. I didnt know anything. Just like, all right, youre getting on the flight here. Youre heading up here. And I think that was the most exciting part. Just kick starting the adventure.

Although many things have changed for Kevin Kopps, his mindset has stayed the same.

I didnt really change (my mentality) at all, said the 24-year-old Kopps. I have to focus just on winning the game and just what I need do need to do to win. Thats what I stuck to this year and its worked for me. If I start focusing on other things like, before I go out focusing on hitting, I dont know, I want to go three up three down, then I start to actually lose my focus thinking about that. So I just focus on winning.

Arkansas is a top program, so naturally the system is run similarly to pro farm system. So is the coaching.

Its really not super different, Kopps said. Just at Arkansas, I really only hung out with the pitching coaches and stuff like that. We were more separated and thats how its here. And the coaching style Coach [Matt] Hobbs coaching style is, I would say very similar.

He wants you to learn yourself and ask him questions rather than him always going up to you. And thats what they do with pro ball. Theyll give you help and feedback, but I think they want you to be more interested in yourself, learn yourself. Because I think thats how you get to the big leagues, is not needing someone to hold your hand all the time. But they do. Its more like you go up to them and ask them questions and theyll help you, correct you.

I really think thats the best way to learn in any situation, is figuring out on your own and just having guidance. Because if someones always telling you the answer and you dont really learn it. You just follow instructions.

Despite the success, Kopps is still finding ways to improve. Hes been working on his sinker in order to progress towards the major leagues.

I think I started cutting it a little bit, Kopps said. So Ive been just working on getting on top of it again.

He is aware of where he needs to improve going forward. Thats part of why he was able to improve so much in his college career.

I expect that if I dont get my fastball going itll be much harder for me to keep those guys off of it, Kopps said. Because as hitters The difference between college and these guys, is I think college guys try to adjust to the pitcher. Whereas I dont think the AA hitters do so much adjusting. Because their swings are so good. So, I think it would be hard to just throw a slider all the time. So I think that might be a challenge to learn.

Kevin Kopps is a prime example of why young athletes should never give up. He was not a highly recruited player coming out of high school and he was not a standout pitcher in college for his first few years. Heading into the 2021 season, he even doubted whether the Arkansas baseball coaches wanted him back at all.

He was a high IQ player who worked hard at his craft and now hes rapidly approaching the major leagues. He is an example for young players to follow and his message to the younger generation represents that.

Just that any foundation of everything is built on your relationship with God, Kopps said. So thats the most important and thats what I focused on a lot this year. And just to remember that baseballs a wild card sport. And thats why theres so many rounds in the draft. And it just takes one good year for someone to figure it out.

I think theres multiple stories about guys that one year just clicks for them. And if you decide to give up one year, the next year could have been your year. And I was almost to that point last year. So, just to keep with it.

Kopps has earned numerous awards this year and is going to be a major leaguer sooner than later, but he remains as down to earth as ever. He wants everyone to remember him as Kevin the person, not the baseball player.

I guess I stay humble, because I just feel like Kevin. Ive never really felt any different with whatever I win, Kopps said. And I guess I just want people to like me for being Kevin, not just the Golden Spikes winner. So, I dont know. I think thats why I stay humble. Its really cool to me and its fun. But I just like being Kevin.

Toward the end of last season, the Razorbacks publicity team even pushed for a statue of Kopps in front of Baum-Walker Stadium.

I think its fun and good, Kopps said. I think theres a couple other guys that are deserving of a statue if Im going to get one. But I think its fun. I saw that Van Horn got one and hes well deserving of that. Im really glad that he got memorialized in that way.

Kevin Kopps will soon be a Major League Baseball player and may very well have a statue outside of Baum-Walker stadium, but he remains humble and appreciative. His message to Arkansas baseball fans is one of gratitude.

Just a thank you to all of them for just always being there and always supporting the games. They were fans before I was Kevin Kopps this year. Even when I was bad, they were still Kevin Kopps fans. I have a lot of really good memories of people coming up to me before I was who I was.

So I just appreciate that.

Listen to my entire interview with Kevin Kopps here:

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Chaos Theory: Kevin Kopps' Unexpected Evolution in the Pros - Best of Arkansas Sports

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It's been an incredible week for shiba inu, the meme coin that rallied 150% and overtook dogecoin, another earlier cryptocurrency with a cute puppy mascot as well.

But while both coins started as jokes, they are now among the top 10 largest digital assets by market valuation, according to CoinMarketCap. And that may be a sign of what's to come as cryptocurrencies continue to grow.

"They're part of the evolution of digital finance in their own unique way," Chris Kline, co-founder of Bitcoin IRA, told Insider.

He acknowledged that some coins may not withstand the test of time and wonders how many meme coins the industry can sustain.

But regardless of which specific ones survive, Kline is confident meme tokens, in general, are here to stay.

"That's my big thing is that they obviously are part of the crypto revolution. They're here. They're a piece of this concept," he said.

The examples of shiba inu and dogecoin illustrate key features of meme coins.

Shiba inu was founded in August 2020 with the goal of moving away from "rigid social structures and traditional mindsets." Dogecoin was founded in December 2013 in the hopes of becoming the "fun and friendly internet currency."

What these meme coins have in common, among other things, is the community behind them, Kline said. And many crypto investors can be put into two categories.

First, there are those who want to take down traditional financial establishments. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated the widening disparity of the country's rich and poor. A decade earlier, the Occupy Wall Street movement emerged to protest against economic inequality.

Kline draws a throughline between the two events. "Crypto actually came to being right around that," he said, referring to bitcoin's creation in October 2008.

The second crypto-investor category is those who want to see money evolve. These investors bemoan the intricate labyrinth of instructions and restrictions banks put them through in contrast to the quick, anonymous, and cheap transactions available 24/7 that cryptos are known for, Kline said.

He isn't surprised at the resistance from regulators and traditionalists. Every disruption has been met with opposition, but at the end of the day "crypto is consensus-driven," he added.

For now, however, Kline said investors should expect more volatility.

"The market is still in a very speculative stage at this point," he told Insider. "It's going to come down to adoption and utility."

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Shiba inu and other meme tokens are part of finance's evolution, expert says - Markets Insider

Its close on 60 years since, as an eager recruit to the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), I joined in a march from Aldermaston to Londons Trafalgar Square.

I found myself in a Scottish contingent and happily borrowed their accent in a swinging protest chorus of Och, och, get oot o Holy Loch, for we dinnae want Polaris! That was the Scottish navy base for British submarines armed with US-built Polaris ballistic nuclear missiles.

Today, Wikipedia tells me, four of the UKs Vanguard submarines, each with up to 16 Trident nuclear ballistic missiles, are stationed in the Clyde, 40km west of Glasgow. So much for all our marching. So much, probably, for all the appeals by protesters this weekend at the strongly defended fringes of Cop26.

What were we in CND afraid of? Just the death of western civilisation, I suppose. But todays protesters hoist placards about a need to save the planet and protect the future of the human race.

As an aged 88-year-old atheist, I have no fancies of an afterlife. And while Im allowed some fellow feeling with the Cop26 protesters, years of acquaintance with evolutionary biology may have shaped a cooler view of humanitys place in the natural world and the planets ability to shrug us off when its done with us.

Stephen Jay Gould had much to do with such engagement. This brilliant American scientist, who died in 2002, once knelt in thick dust on top of glass cabinets in the Natural History Museum to measure the antler span of giant Irish deer. He went on, as Harvards leading palaeontologist and a prolific and popular writer, to radicalise ideas on the origins and influence of human life on Earth.

In Goulds theory of punctuated equilibrium, it was the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs by a meteoric impact that paved the road for evolution of mammals, including humans. Our arrival as an accident of nature is presented in his fascinating book Wonderful Life, downloadable for free online.

That were a remarkably able freak of evolution is greatly due to the size of our brains. In his book Sapiens, a primer on human history, Israels Yuval Noah Harari charts the extraordinary growth in brain size from the several earlier versions of humans to our modern average of 1,200 to 1,400 cubic centimetres.

Why that happened, we dont know. But our leap to the top of Earths food chain as the planets dominant predator seems to have been sudden too sudden, as Harari fears, to have relinquished our fears and anxieties as earlier underdogs of the savannah. This has left us seemingly confident, but, he suggests, doubly cruel and dangerous and perhaps also unable to trust each other in addressing a planetary crisis.

Our giant brains could, on the other hand, fit the final world scenario from Britains James Lovelock, still eagerly attentive at 101.

As originator of Gaia, the revolutionary concept of Earth as a living, self-regulating organism, Lovelock sees humanity as a freakish one-off, alone in the universe. But in his latest book, Novacene, he greeted with a shout of joy the creation of computer-generated artificial intelligence that can think and act 10,000 times faster than mere mammals.

While Lovelock acknowledges our planet as old and frail, its life increasingly threatened by global warming and random asteroids, he thinks that humans will eventually engage with this hyperintelligence, becoming cyborgs in a partnership to defend a living Earth.

As this new life improves and replicates itself, he argues, the natural selection of Darwin will be replaced by much faster, intentional, cyborg-driven selection. We must recognise, he concludes, that the evolution of cyborgs may soon pass from our hands.

This chilling, elitist view of the human future is not one likely to appeal to the young protesters in Glasgow. Nor might the reminder, from Gould and many others, that the planet is well able to survive an ultimate interlude of human desecration. This might leave its biodiversity reduced to bacteria, insects and mites, but on geological scales, our planet will take good care of itself and let time clear the impact of human malfeasance.

The cooler evolutionary view of homo sapiens as a species with big brains and backache does offer some perspective to an aged specimen like me. But such resignation is not the business of the young. With many and urgent meantimes in their future, they will fight against the procrastinating pseudo-cyborgs at Cop26 or the risk of succession by beetles and mites.

See the article here:

Another Life: We're a remarkably able freak of evolution due to the size of our brains - The Irish Times

Photo: C. S. Lewis, via Asar Studios/Alamy (Celestial Images).

Editors note: To mark the release on November 3 of the new C. S. Lewis biopic,The Most Reluctant Convert,we are running a series of articles exploring C. S. Lewiss views on science, mind, and more.

SPECIAL LIMITED-TIME OFFER:Get a FREE chapter exploring C.S. Lewiss views of intelligent design from the bookThe Magicians Twin

Was C. S. Lewis a theistic evolutionist? He certainly wasopento the possible common descent of humans from lower animals, although he also expressed some reservations (see the full Chapter 6 of my bookThe Magicians Twinfor more details).

But I would argue that regardless of Lewiss views on common descent, it would be misleading to classify himself as a theistic evolutionist as that term is commonly understood today.

Theistic evolution can mean many things, including a form of guided evolution, but many contemporary proponents of theistic evolution are more accurately described as theistic Darwinists. That is, they do not merely advocate a guided form of common descent, but they are attempting to combine evolution as an undirected Darwinian process with Christian theism. Although they believe in God, they strenuously want to avoid stating that God actually guided biological development.

For example, AnglicanJohn Polkinghornewrote that an evolutionary universe is theologically understood as a creation allowed to make itself. Former Vatican astronomerGeorge Coyneclaimed that because evolution is unguided not even God could know with certainty that human life would come to be.

And Christian biologistKenneth Millerof Brown University, author of the popular bookFinding Darwins God (which is used in many Christian colleges), insists that evolution is an undirected process, flatly denying that God guided the evolutionary process to achieve any particular result including the development of us. Indeed, Miller insists that mankinds appearance on this planet was not preordained, that we are here as an afterthought, a minor detail, a happenstance in a history that might just as well have left us out.

In short, many modern theistic evolutionists want to retain a belief in a Creator without actually affirming the guidance of that Creator in the history of life. In their view, the Creator delegated the development of life to a self-contained mindless process from which mind and morals emerged over time. Modern theistic evolutions attempt to strike a third way between materialism and intelligent design with a kind of emergent evolution has all the logical coherence of a circular square, or theistic atheism.

Lewis was familiar with attempts in his own day to imbue blind evolution with some sort of purposiveness while still denying the operation of a guiding intelligence, and he was not persuaded. This was where he ultimately broke with Henri Bergson, a French natural philosopher and Nobel Prize-winner whose anti-Darwinian writings had heavily influenced Lewis.

Bergson, in addition to critiquing natural selection, offered his own alternative to Darwinism, a muddled proposal for a vital force that somehow impels the evolutionary process toward integrated complexity without the need for an overarching designer. Lewis never attacked Bergsons critique of Darwinian natural selection, but after he became a Christian he repeatedly attacked Bergsons non-intelligent alternative. He did the same with George Bernard Shaw, who extolled a similar view to Bergson of emergent evolution, the view that although evolution is not actually guided by an overarching intelligent purpose, purposeful structures that transcend blind matter somehow emerge from the process.

In a section ofMere Christianitythat is too little read, Lewis dissects this supposed third way between outright materialism and a history of life guided by design:

People who hold this view say that the small variations by which life on this planet evolved from the lowest forms to Man were not due to chance but to the striving or purposiveness of a Life-Force. When people say this we must ask them whether by Life-Force they mean something with a mind or not. If they do, then a mind bringing life into existence and leading it to perfection is really a God, and their view is thus identical with the Religious. If they do not, then what is the sense in saying that something without a mindstrives or has purposes? This seems to me fatal to their view.

In his novelPerelandra, Lewis satirizes the incoherence of the emergent evolution view, which he assigns to the villain of the story, Professor E. R. Weston, a scientist run mad. Lewis gives Weston a speech of non-sequiturs and mumbo-jumbo where he solemnly appeals to the unconsciously purposive dynamism and [t]he majestic spectacle of this blind, inarticulate purposiveness thrusting its way ever upward in an endless unity of differentiated achievements toward an ever-increasing complexity of organization, towards spontaneity and spirituality. Weston ultimately identifies this blind and unconscious purposiveness with what he calls the religious view of life and even with the Holy Spirit.

The hero of the story, Dr. Elwin Ransom, is not impressed. I dont know much about what people call the religious view of life, he replies. You see, Im a Christian. And what we mean by the Holy Ghost is not a blind, inarticulate purposiveness.

Near the end of his life, Lewis read prominent theistic evolutionist Pierre Teilhard de Chardins posthumously published bookThe Phenomenon of Man, which proposed yet another kind of emergent evolution. Lewis filled his copy of the book with critical annotations such as Yes, he is quite ignorant, a radically bad book, and Ever heard of death or pain? (The last comment responded to de Chardins statement that Something threatens us, something is more than ever lacking, but without our being able to say exactly what.)In his letters to others, Lewis called de Chardins book both commonplace and horrifying,and he derided de Chardins position as pantheistic-biolatrous waffleand evolution run mad.

Lewiss rejection of emergent evolution exposes why his way of thinking is ultimately so friendly to intelligent design. Lewis knew that ultimately there is no third way, no half-way house, no magical hybrid: Biological development is either the result of an unintelligent material process or a process guided by a mind, aka intelligent design.

One cant split the difference. One has to choose. That being the case, Lewis thought that a mind-driven process is a far more plausible option than a mindless one.

This essay was adapted from Darwin in the Dock, Chapter 6 ofThe Magicians Twin, edited by John West. For reference notes and sources, please consult the book version.

See the rest here:

CS Lewis and Theistic Evolution - Discovery Institute

Image credit: Neanderthal-Museum, Mettmann, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

The latest Science Uprising video covers human evolution, and features geologist Casey Luskin and biologist Jonathan Wells:

For more on a specific issue touched on in the episode, check out a classicID the Futurepodcast with Dr. Luskin. He tackles a neo-Darwinian assertion that theistic evolutionists Francis Collins and Karl Giberson make inThe Language of Science and Faith. Giberson and Collins capitalize on the popular notion of Neanderthals as pre-human, cavemen-like beasts in order to bolster their claims for common ancestry. But what sort of common ancestry? And do experts even agree that Neanderthals were drastically different from Homo sapiens? Luskin explores the connection between Neanderthals and humans and points to the growing evidence that Neanderthals interbred with our species, buried their dead, employed technology, had a brain size equal to or even slightly larger than that of Homo sapiens, and were essentially just another race of humans. Some have attempted to use Neanderthals to help bridge the enormous gulf between humans and ape-like predecessors, but its increasingly clear that that dog wont hunt. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

See more here:

De-Humanizing Neanderthals: A Darwinist Dog that Won't Hunt - Discovery Institute

Photo credit: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Picture the size of a dragonflys head, including its eyes and brain. For such tiny assets, one would think its capabilities would be severely limited. But powered flight? Targeting and chasing and intercepting a fast-darting prey? Never underestimate the ability of biological design to pack these feats and more into a tiny space. The secret lies in the engineering. Engineers routinely work with optimizing performance within constraints.

In PNAS, Sara Nicholson (Flinders University, Australia) and Karin Nordstrm (Uppsala University, Sweden) took a look at how dragonflies and other targeting insects achieve Facilitation of neural responses to targets moving against optic flow. Optic flow is just what it sounds like: optical information that flows past you when you are moving. Gamers know all about simulated optic flow. They try to stay focused on their objective when information and noise is moving around them. Think jump to light speed in Star Wars movies, or dodging rocks as Han Solo tries to negotiate an asteroid belt to get to a planet without getting hit. Optic flow is a major issue for flying insects, and dragonflies come well equipped to deal with it and use it.

Nicholson and Nordstrm consider how insects succeed at targeting prey. Consider the noisy environment involved. Get into a dragonflys head, like an X-wing gunner, and visualize all the clutter in the heat of battle: enemy craft on the left and right, coming in from a distance, and pieces of debris passing above and below you. Rapid correction of pitch, yaw, and roll is required for your seat and for the craft, but this only adds to the visual confusion. Insects face an even greater challenge, because their fields of view are highly textured, and their prey is small compared to the background. The prey, moreover, is constantly darting in unpredictable directions. Efficient target detection is a computationally challenging task, they say, which becomes even more difficult when done against visual clutter.

Dragonflies (order Odonata) and hoverflies (order Diptera) are among insect flyers equipped with special neurons for targeting with optic flow.

The ability of insects to successfully pursue targets in clutter is thus remarkable and suggests a high level of optimization, making the underlying neural mechanisms interesting to study. Indeed, insects that pursue targets, including predatory dragonflies and robberflies, as well as territorial hoverflies, have higher-order neurons in the optic lobes and the descending nerve cord that are sharply tuned to the motion of small, dark targets. Target-tuned neurons often have receptive fields in the part of the compound eye that has the best optics. Target selective descending neurons (TSDNs) project to the thoracic ganglia where wing and head movements are controlled, and electrically stimulating dragonfly TSDNs leads to wing movements. Taken together, this suggests that TSDNs subserve target pursuit. However, how TSDNs respond to targets moving against translational and rotational optic flow is unknown.

One strategy for staying on course is to keep ones forward vision on the prey, to lock on to the target like fighter pilots do. (This is called gaze stabilization.) Another strategy is to watch for anything that moves against background. Those are helpful for initial targeting from a stationary position, but things quickly get complicated when taking flight.

However, as soon as the pursuer moves, its own movement creates self-generated widefield motion across the retina, often referred to as optic flow or background motion. In addition to self-generated optic flow, when a pursuer is subjected to involuntary deviations away from their intended flight path, for example by a gust of wind, this also generates optic flow. Quickly correcting such unplanned course deviations is essential for successfully navigating through the world.

When everything is moving hunter, target, and background what then? If the hunter rotates, everything in the field of vision rotates with the same angular velocity (rotational movement). If the hunter turns, by contrast, more distant objects move more slowly (translational movement). Surprisingly, many flying insects show behavioral segregation between rotational and translational movements, they say. How this may influence target detection is currently not known. Into the lab they went.

The authors put a hoverfly into a flight simulator, where they could control what kind of motion it perceived with programmed moving dots. Using electrodes, they watched the response of its TSDNs.

We found that orthogonal optic flow attenuated the TSDN target response but to a lesser degree than syn-directional optic flow. This suggests that the vector divergence between the target and the optic flow is important. Most strikingly, we found that counterdirectional optic flow increased the TSDN response to target motion, if the target moved horizontally. We found that projecting optic flow to only a small frontal portion of the eye was sufficient to elicit both TSDN attenuation and facilitation. As descending neurons control behavioral output, the response attenuation and facilitation could play a role in modulating optomotor, or gaze stabilizing corrective turns, as needed during target pursuit.

The first experiments showed that the neurons responded most strongly to counteracting optic flow: i.e., when the target was moving opposite the background optic flow. They narrowed it down further and found that frontal optic flow was required and sufficient to trigger TSDN response. In summary, our results show that a small spatial window of optic flow in either the dorsal or ventral visual field is enough to strongly attenuate (Fig. 3B) or facilitate (Fig. 3C) the TSDN response to target motion. That appears to be a clever strategy for making the most of a limited set of neurons.

This suggests that the level of vector divergence between the target and the optic flow influences the TSDN responses, so that maximum attenuation is generated at minimum vector divergence, whereas maximum facilitation is generated at maximum divergence.

Further experiments with pitch, yaw, and roll seemed to support this elegant, simple strategy. Since there are other neurons participating, though, the true picture is more complex. Further experiments altering the density of dots added some complications. Upstream small target motion detectors (STMDs) also inform the TSDNs, but in different amounts depending on the type of motion. Vector divergence from optic flow, therefore, was not enough to explain all the responses. Some neurons may inhibit other neurons in some motions but facilitate them in other motions. Further work will be required to disambiguate all the factors in play.

Nevertheless, our findings make behavioral sense. Prior to initiating target pursuit, male Eristalis hoverflies predict the flight course required to successfully intercept the target, based predominantly on the targets angular velocity. To successfully execute an interception flight, the hoverfly turns in the direction that the target is moving. In doing so, the hoverfly creates self-generated optic flow counterdirectional to the targets motion. In this case, the TSDNs would be facilitated, which could be beneficial. Importantly, the facilitation would take place across a range of dot densities, suggesting that even relatively sparse background textures would affect the TSDN response.

When the TSDNs are quiet, the insect can assume it is still on target with the prey. Only when contrary optic flow is perceived does the TSDN signal that a course correction is required. How head movements and wing movements factor into these rapid decisions remains to be discovered. The authors did not speculate about how these organs, neurons, and responses might have evolved.

A cover story of the IEEE Spectrum shows a magnified dragonfly head. Thats where all this processing goes on. The story, Fast, Efficient Neural Networks Copy Dragonfly Brains, tells how An insect-inspired AI could make missile-defense systems more nimble. The author, Frances Chance, works at Sandia Labs on dragonflies. Like Nicholson and Nordstrm., she does flight simulations but in simplified software models instead of making actual measurements on the insects neurons. Was a reference to evolution really necessary or helpful in her opening paragraph?

In each of our brains, 86 billion neurons work in parallel, processing inputs from senses and memories to produce the many feats of human cognition. The brains of other creatures are less broadly capable, but those animals often exhibit innate aptitudes for particular tasks, abilities honed by millions of years of evolution.

Her article contains some amazing facts: those ants in your pantry have 250,000 neurons, while dragonflies have close to a million. Dragonflies intercept and capture 95 percent of the prey they pursue. Their eyes are faster than ours, operating at the equivalent of 200 frames per second. Without access to GPS, a compass, or gyroscope (as far as we know), a dragonfly successfully intercepts hundreds of mosquitos per day.

What intrigues Chance is how these insects do so much with so little. The AI products that make news come at a huge processing cost. These small animals rival our best capabilities in some aptitudes, and they do it by balancing simplicity with sophistication. Her model results appear oversimplified. Maybe that is due to her assumption of evolution:

It is possible that biological dragonflies have evolved additional tools to help with the calculations needed for this prediction. For example, dragonflies have specialized sensors that measure body rotations during flight as well as head rotations relative to the body if these sensors are fast enough, the dragonfly could calculate the effect of its movements on the preys image directly from the sensor outputs or use one method to cross-check the other. I did not consider this possibility in my simulation.

The simulated dragonfly does not quite achieve the success rate of the biological dragonfly, but it also does not have all the advantages (for example, impressive flying speed) for which dragonflies are known.

Frances Chance is mesmerized by the navigational achievements of insects, and glows with imagined possibilities for biomimicry. She knows she needs to check her simulation against real world dragonflies. ID advocates should encourage her to do so, because often the sophistication of biological engineering that implies designing intelligence is seen in the details.

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Dragonflies Make the Most of a Tiny Brain - Discovery Institute

Researchers have announced the naming of a newly discovered species of human ancestor, Homo bodoensis.

The species lived in Africa about 500,000 years ago, during the Middle Pleistocene age, and was the direct ancestor of modern humans, according to scientists. The name bodoensis derives from a skull found in Bodo Dar in the Awash River valley of Ethiopia.

Scientists said that the epoch is significant because it was when anatomically contemporary humans, Homo sapiens, appeared in Africa and the Neanderthals, known as Homo neanderthalensis, in Europe.

However, some paleoanthropologists have described this period as the muddle in the middle because human evolution during this age is poorly understood.

Dr Mirjana Roksandic, of the University of Winnipeg in Canada and the studys lead author, said: Talking about human evolution during this time period became impossible due to the lack of proper terminology that acknowledges human geographic variation.

Under the new classification, Homo bodoensis will describe the majority of Middle Pleistocene humans from Africa and some from south-east Europe, while many from the latter continent will be reclassified as Neanderthals.

Christopher Bae, from the department of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and one of the co-authors of the study, said the introduction of Homo bodoensis is aimed at cutting the Gordian knot and allowing us to communicate clearly about this important period in human evolution.

Roksandic concluded: Naming a new species is a big deal, as the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature allows name changes only under very strictly defined rules.

We are confident that this one will stick around for a long time, a new taxon name will live only if other researchers use it.

The findings are published in Evolutionary Anthropology Issues News and Reviews.

In August, the Guardian reported that archaeologists unearthed ancient DNA in the remains of a woman who died 7,200 years ago in Indonesia, a discovery that challenged what was previously known about the migration of early humans.

The remains, belonging to a teenager nicknamed Bess, were discovered in the Leang Panninge cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Initial excavations were undertaken in 2015.

The discovery, published in the journal Nature, is believed to be the first time ancient human DNA has been discovered in Wallacea, the vast chain of islands and atolls in the ocean between mainland Asia and Australia.

The DNA was extracted from the petrous part of Besss temporal bone, which houses the inner ear. Researchers said the intact DNA was a rare find.

This article was amended on 29 October 2021 to replace the main illustration.

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Human species who lived 500,000 years ago named as Homo bodoensis - The Guardian

Smartwatches are an integral part of wearable technology. They are becoming increasingly popular among consumers who want to improve their activity strategy. Watches have been around for centuries to not only tell the time but also to show fashion trends. Over the years, eyes have evolved in unique ways that have made them stand out as an innovation. The ability to tell time is vital. This is a sign of how closely watches and people work together to develop a cohesive community. It would be pretty different to describe watches than previous models. A regular watch tells you the time, but smartwatches are geared toward technology. You can access them all via blue tooth and voice command.

The dominant impact of electronics and computers on people is numerous. This is where they come in. The new watches are a great addition to your daily life as an activity tracker and multi-purpose device. They have a mobile operating system and a visual display that you can attach to your arm. Check some watches here. They can run mobile apps like mini computers and relay digital information via a smart device. A smartwatch can be more valuable than clothing if it is worn when it is needed. It measures 1.5 inches in size and has a high-resolution pixel. This makes it easy to read the text and bright images, which will satisfy your needs.

Although the rate of smartwatch adoption is relatively low, it is steadily growing as manufacturers invent to make them more than just a way for users to receive notifications from their smartphones. Technology companies primarily manufactured them, but now traditional watchmakers are beginning to make their designs. You can divide them into four categories: alerts, security, health, and alerts. Each has its main functional capabilities. The micro control unit is used to coordinate and control the functions of the sensors, including the CPU, blue tooth, and vibrator. It also controls the GPS, gyroscope, and graphics. The smart health watchs core is made up of sensors and means for input data. This allows the devices attributes, such as the ability to combine functions, to be combined.

It is a popular item that researchers agree with. However, the trend is still in development. This watch has a solid meaning to make the owner feel comfortable and interact based on their desires. They are reasonably priced, and there is more competition among manufacturers to lower the price and improve the technological capabilities of the watches. The latest models are fashionable, sporty, and luxurious. A new generation of technology is being discussed, where a smartwatch could be a smartphone within itself. Consider the personal value they can bring to your life, not just in terms of price but also reliability and a new futuristic concepts.

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Evolution Technology of Watches - South Florida Caribbean News

Do you remember when the idea of KITT, the chatty Knight Rider car, still blew you away? Or when Blade Runner Eric Decker verbally commanded his computer to enhance photos of a crime scene? The idea of being understood by a computer seemed futuristic enough, let alone one that could answer your questions and understand your commands.

About the Author

Graeme John Cole is a contributor for Rev, creator of the world's most accurate automatic speech recognition engine, Rev.ai.

Today, we all carry KITT in our pockets. We sigh when KITT answers the phone at the bank. The personality isnt quite there yet but computers can recognize the words we say near-perfectly.

Michael Knight, the Knight Rider hero who partnered with his intelligent car to fight crime, was skeptical at the thought KITT might understand his questions in 1982. But the development of speech recognition technology had been underway since the 1950s. Here's a closer look at how that technology has evolved over the years. And how our ways of using speech recognition and speech-to-text capabilities have evolved alongside the tech.

The power of automated speech recognition (ASR) means that its development has always been associated with big names.

Bell Laboratories led the way with AUDREY in 1952. The AUDREY system recognized spoken numbers with 97-99% accuracy in carefully controlled conditions. However, according to James Flanagan, a scientist and former Bell Labs electrical engineer, AUDREY sat on "a six-foot-high relay rack, consumed substantial power, and exhibited the myriad maintenance problems associated with complex vacuum-tube circuitry." AUDREY was too expensive and inconvenient even for specialist use cases.

IBM followed in 1962 with the Shoebox, which recognized numbers and simple math terms. Meanwhile, Japanese labs were developing vowel and phoneme recognizers and the first speech segmenter. It's one thing for a computer to understand a small range of numbers (i.e., 0-9), but Kyoto University's breakthrough was to 'segment' a line of speech so the tech could go to work on a range of spoken sounds.

In the 1970s, The Department of Defense (DARPA) funded the Speech Understanding Research (SUR) program. The fruits of this research included the HARPY Speech Recognition System from Carnegie Mellon. HARPY recognized sentences from a vocabulary of 1,011 words, giving the system the power of the average three-year-old. Like a three-year-old, speech recognition was now charming and had potential but you wouldnt want it in the office.

HARPY was among the first to make use of Hidden Markov Models (HMM). This probabilistic method drove the development of ASR in the 1980s. Indeed, in the 1980s, the first viable use cases for speech-to-text tools emerged with IBM's experimental transcription system, Tangora. Properly trained, Tangora could recognize and type 20,000 words in English. However, the system was still too unwieldy for commercial use.

We thought it was wrong to ask a machine to emulate people, recalls IBMs speech recognition innovator Fred Jelinek. After all, if a machine has to move, it does it with wheelsnot by walking. Rather than exhaustively studying how people listen to and understand speech, we wanted to find the natural way for the machine to do it.

Statistical analysis was now driving the evolution of ASR technology. In 1990, Dragon Dictate launched as the first commercial speech recognition software. It cost $9,000 roughly $18,890 in 2021 accounting for inflation. Until the launch of Dragon Naturally Speaking in 1997, users still needed to pause between every word.

In 1992, AT&T introduced Bell Labs Voice Recognition Call Processing (VRCP) service. VRCP now handles around 1.2 billion voice transactions each year.

But most of the work on speech recognition in the 1990s took place under the hood. Personal computing and the ubiquitous network created new angles for innovation. Such was the opportunity spotted by Mike Cohen, who joined Google to launch the company's speech tech efforts in 2004. Google Voice Search (2007) delivered voice recognition tech to the masses. But it also recycled the speech data of millions of networked users as training material for machine learning. And it had Google's processing clout to drive the quality forwards.

Apple (Siri) and Microsoft (Cortana) followed just to stay in the game. In the early 2010s, the emergence of deep learning, Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), and Long short-term memory (LSTM), led to a hyperspace jump in the capabilities of ASR tech. This forward momentum was also largely driven by emergence and increased availability of low-cost computing and massive algorithmic advances.

Building on decades of evolution and in response to rising user expectations speech recognition technology has made further leaps over the past half-decade. Solutions to optimize varying audio fidelity and demanding hardware requirements are easing speech recognition into everyday use via voice search and the Internet of Things.

For example, smart speakers use hot-word detection to deliver an immediate result using embedded software. Meanwhile, the remainder of the sentence is sent to the cloud for processing. Googles VoiceFilter-Lite optimizes an individuals speech at the device end of the transaction. This enables consumers to train their device with their voice. Training reduces the source-to-distortion ratio (SDR), enhancing the usability of voice-activated assistive apps.

Word error rate (WER - the percentage of incorrect words that appear during a speech-to-text process) is improving vastly. Academics suggest that by the end of the 2020s, 99% of transcription work will be automatic. Humans will step in only for quality control and corrections.

ASR capability is improving in symbiosis with the developments of the networked age. Here's a look at three compelling use cases for automated speech recognition.

The podcasting industry will bust through the $1 billion barrier in 2021. Listenership is soaring and the words keep coming.

Podcast platforms are seeking out ASR providers with high accuracy and per-word timestamps to help make it easier for people to create podcasts and maximize the value of their content. Providers like Descript convert podcasts into text that can be quickly edited.

Plus, per-word timestamps save time, empowering the editor to mold the finished podcast like clay. These transcripts also make content more accessible to all audiences, as well as help creators improve their shows searchability and discoverability via SEO.

More and more meetings take place online these days. And even those that dont are often recorded. Minute-taking is expensive and time-consuming. But meeting notes are an invaluable tool for attendees to get a recap or check a detail. Streaming ASR delivers speech-to-text in real-time. This means easy captioning or live transcription for meetings and seminars.

Processes such as legal depositions, hiring, and more are going virtual. ASR can help make this video content more accessible and engaging. But more importantly, end-to-end (E2E) machine learning (ML) models are further improving speaker diarization the record of who is present and who said what.

In high-stakes situations, trust in the tools is essential. A reliable speech-to-text engine with an ultra-low WER removes the element of doubt and reduces the time required to produce end documents and make decisions.

Do you think Knight Industries ever appraised the transcript of KITT and Michael's conversations to improve efficiency? Maybe not. But, turbo-charged by the recent move to working from home, more and more of our discussions are taking place online or over the phone. Highly accurate real-time natural language processing (NLP) gives us power over our words. It adds value to every interaction.

The tools are no longer exclusive to big names like IBM and DARPA. They are available for consumers, businesses, and developers to use how their imagination decides as speech recognition technology steadies to overtake the promises of science-fiction.

Interested in speech recognition? Check out our roundup of the best speech-to-text software

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The evolution of speech recognition technology - TechRadar

Much of mainstream cinema hinges on the what-if. What if love at first sight were real? What if heroes never died? What if a troubled family could find its way back together?

Most movies keep that happy ending in sight throughout. Its part of the pact that cinema makes with its audience : that the world it offers an escape into will be more pleasurable than the world that waits outside the theatre doors.

Horror turns that pact on its head. It harks back to our earliest tales, the ones etched on cave walls and in other dark places. It allows the audience to tap into some of our most primal fears (of the other, the unknown, of death, of each other and of ourselves), but in relative safety, cloaked in metaphor and cushioned by the knowledge that the worst will soon be over, and we will have survived.

Whats being called elevated horror in Hollywood today (think of films such as Parasite, US, Get Out, Hereditary and Candyman) turns that pact on its head too. There may be survivors but there is no end. The horror is inside but its also whats outside the theatre doors.

Racism, capitalism, patriarchy, killer cops.

Its us and what weve become. Stripped of metaphor, of control, of the what-if.

***

It wasnt always so. If we look at early mythology, weve always constructed fearful others, and they were often beings who had some control over our life or could create difficulty for us, says Kendall Phillips, professor of communication and rhetorical studies at Syracuse University, New York. Phillips has spent decades researching controversy and conflict in popular culture. Hes written books on the horror genre that include A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema; Controversial Cinema: The Films that Outraged America; and Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture.

Even in the earliest cave paintings, the animals are often monstrous and terrifying. The mythological gods were both awesome and terrifying. We as humans, living a kind of precarious existence in a world full of dangers, needed somehow to make sense of those dangers, so we turned them into stories. Made them a little more controllable. And we could use those stories to teach the next generation how to be respectful of the world full of danger.

Some of these bogeymen havent changed. Some have changed dramatically.

Some of the earliest horror films in Hollywood played on a fear that has remained persistent through most of recorded history: the fear of the non-conformist. The films Dracula and Frankenstein were both released in 1931. Dracula was a foreigner with a very unusual way of life , threatening to corrupt the righteous. Frankenstein was an internal threat, of our own creation, a misfit born of a combination of hubris and rampant genius, meant to hold promise for Man but turning into something that cant b controlled.

The obvious metaphors for life in the industrial age are a reason both tales originally written by Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley in 1897 and 1818 respectively have retained their sense of timelessness. Once Man began to turn cities into metropolises and the whole world into a giant factory, the threats we were posing to the pre-industrial way of life became both undeniable and unalterable.

I would say the core to the definition of horror is that it is some type of narrative or symbolic engagement, some type of media focused on the creation and examination of fears, internal and external, Phillips says. When horror films are really effective, they dont just say, heres the monster, but they really ask us to look into the eyes of the monster, and ask, why is it that this is threatening? Why am I afraid of this? And in some ways to ask us to see from the point of view of the monster, how they got to where they were.

***

Not all Hollywoods ghouls have great depth and prescience. Some just have immense staying power. There are always going to be ghosts and assorted undead creatures; people possessed by evil spirits; a killer in the woods; an evil toy; flesh-eating creatures from a nether- or other-world, all of which play on our fundamental fears of death and the beyond, regret, guilt, the unknown.

Its the monsters that morph with a changing society that make for the most interesting stories. As far back as 1945, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the movie based on Oscar Wildes 1890 story of a man whose features remain unchanged for decades but whose hideous misdeeds are reflected in a portrait, served as a metaphor for what was seen as the growing hypocrisy, vanity and self-centeredness of the insulated upper classes.

By the 1960s, new kinds of psychological and internal conflicts were being reflected on the screen, mirroring the failures of a modernising society that left the individual alone, isolated, unmoored. Horror films such as Psycho (1960), Night of the Living Dead (1968) and The Exorcist (1973) reflected fears about how society was changing, how rapidly it was changing, and about the inherent weakness of the nuclear family, says Phillips. Even when evil is at the door, the people within cant work together.

Things became more complicated as we moved into the 60s and 70s, where filmmakers were as likely to see the traditional family as a source of monstrosity. Think of Rosemarys Baby (1968), The Omen (1976), The Stepford Wives (1975).

***

Going back to scary tales teaching young people how to survive in a world full of dangers, whats another word for that? Conformity. And horror is a genre that lets you show young people what happens to those who dont listen.

Enforcement of conformity is definitely a deep part of horror, especially in the American context. Americans are much more anxious about sex than violence. So even in those earliest films, after Dracula is killed at the end, the two main romantic partners, Jonathan and Mina are together and he carries her up the stairs and the wedding bells are ringing. The audience feels, oh good, the happy family is back together, Phillips says. Were happy the same at the end of Frankenstein too as Dr Frankenstein announces that hes going to be married. And so theres very much a deep-seated root of traditional heterosexual normative marital relations as the norm. And the monster is often threatening that core norm.

Down to the slasher films of the 1980s and 90s, the first youngsters to be killed off would typically be those whod snuck off, often slightly high, to have sex. The final girl, the audience surrogate and eventual survivor, tended to be the most virginal of the lot.

***

Elevated horror, the term being used for the genre-breaching, cliche-defying horror films emerging from Hollywood in recent years, brings the audience face to face with the monsters among us and within us. But in place of comfy metaphor, these are tales lit up by anger and accusation, often devoid of hope.

In the movie US (2019), a black family is attacked by lookalikes. In Get Out (2017), a young black man visits his white girlfriends childhood home and ends up battling her family and community for his life. Both were directed by black filmmaker Jordan Peele.

In Parasite (2019), the Korean film that was the first non-English winner of the Oscar for Best Picture, the monster is every person with more than they need, and the capitalist system that lets them keep it. Squid Game, also South Korean, plays on the same theme but with arguably more savagery; here the person exists in a system so monstrous that the individual has no value, even to themselves, except in relation to what they own or can wrest from others.

I do feel we are in the middle of what I would call the third golden age of horror. The first was the 1930s, the second in the 1980s, with films that combined the work of people such as Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick. And I think this is the third for the sheer variety of films capturing audiences, being successful, engaging people in political conversations, focusing on the diversity of voices, giving importance to subjects of mental health, Phillips says.

In the 2014 film The Babadook, a single mothers grief for her dead husband becomes the monster, and the victim is her six-year-old son. In Ari Asters Hereditary (2018), the demon is patriarchy. In The Purge series, its society again. The films tell the story of a seemingly normal, crime-free America in the near-future. But its a dystopian world where the country celebrates an annual national holiday known as the Purge, a day in which all crime, including murder, becomes legal for a 12-hour period.

In the black filmmaker Nia DaCostas 2021 Candyman, it is the police, eventually once the sign that it was over and all would be well who are the monsters, perpetuating a monstrous system.

This sense of an overarching threat that exists among us, in Phillipss opinion, comes from the realisation that the systems we thought we could trust, systems that we are now inextricably locked into, are broken or are breaking down.

So if you want to be entertained this Halloween, pick the undead creatures lurching from the crypts, or the slasher in the woods. But if you want to really be scared, pick from the list above, and be prepared to come face to face with monsters it is up to you to help slay. Or is it?

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Madhusree is a feature writer who loves Kolkata, is learning to love Mumbai. She loves to travel, write and bake

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From graveyard ghosts to elevated horror: A Hollywood evolution - Hindustan Times