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Historic Louisiana Flooding Affects Tens of Thousands (28 photos)  

Over the weekend, a slow-moving storm pulled massive amounts of moisture inland from the Gulf of Mexico, dumping nearly two feet of water on Louisiana and neighboring states. Governor John Bel Edwards said that at least eight people have lost their lives in the disaster, now affecting 40,000 homes. National Guard troops, emergency rescue teams and local volunteers have been working to rescue as many as 20,000 people trapped by the rising waters. The flooding has begun to recede in many places today, allowing some homeowners to return and assess the damage.

 
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Faraway, So Close!: Earth-Like Planet Discovered Orbiting Proxima Centauri  
European astronomers have discovered an Earth-like planet that is orbiting Proxima Centauri, our nearest fixed star. It's possible it has water -- and, with it, life.  
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Human's Hubris Against Nature  

Image Credit: Dana Ellis Hunnes

Earlier this week, an article came out in the New York Times, entitled "against sustainability"

This article was viscerally upsetting and compelled me to write this piece in response:

In a perfect example of hubris, "Against sustainability" argues that nature, the environment, and "resources," are ours for the taking, to do with them as we please. Which, in fact, we pretty much do.

This is a highly biased, and Anthropocentric view of the world, one which does not take into consideration evolution, and our destructive ways against the world. Modern humans (Homo sapiens) more or less fully evolved in the last 100,000 years. And in this time-frame, and even more specifically, in the last 150 years, we have managed to cull large proportions of most species.

Many of the flora and fauna that exist on Earth and in our oceans today evolved hundreds of millions of years ago. For example, the shark evolved some 400 million years ago. Today, most shark species have declined by over 90% or more. Why? Because they get caught in fishing nets, or more importantly, because humans eat them in shark-fin soup; a soup that tastes like nothing.

Slaughtering elephants for their tusks, an elephant-tooth, known as "ivory" is sure not for human survival. It's for a trinket, or an ornament, often fueling terrorist or other illicit organizations.

Murdering rhinoceros for their horns, so that now there are fewer than 25,000 of them, is not for human survival. It's for an "aphrodisiac" with absolutely no proven effects. Thus, the arguments made in "against sustainability" that we preserve things simply for our consumption are base.

The background rate of extinction is about one to five species per year. However, the current rates of extinction, since humans figured out how to cull and mass execute animals, has been 1,000-10,000 times faster than those back ground rates. This is a fact.

Humans are the most destructive species on the planet. We do not use our fair share of the natural resources. Our cities utilize mass amounts of natural and fabricated resources. And our cities are growing. Nearly half of all people live in cities, and this is increasing.

We are reckless with our use of fossil fuels. We are reckless with our fishing methods, destroying ecosystems, habitat, and throwing away unintended fish species.

We are reckless with our clear-cutting of forests, fracturing animal lives. We are reckless in our dietary habits; fueling deforestation.

It is never excusable to say "Mass extinctions are only tragic if nature is viewed as something perfect that we are destroying, rather than as a state of flux in which we are participating."

Extinction is forever. Once a species is gone. It is gone for good. That is inexcusable. Particularly when we can do something to prevent it.

Biodiversity isn't just about protecting what's pretty, or admiring what we want to look at. Biodiversity, ensures a healthy planet, decreases the risk of blight, decreases the risk of disease spread, and decreases the risk of environmental collapse.

Monocultures, where one species of crop is grown, or one type of livestock is reared; there is always the risk of "failure." If a blight goes through the field, you lose your crop. If an illness or disease goes through your livestock, you could lose them all. Biodiversity and sustainability are therefore crucial for the health and safety of the planet; and the health and safety of us.

As E.O. Wilson has said, animals (and other species) do not need us to survive, but we [sure do] need them.

To defame the concept of sustainability is to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and to have a blasé and cavalier attitude toward preservation of ecosystems and species is not only negligent, but it is reckless.

Each animal and plant has a place in the web of life.

I'd like to say humans have a place in the web of life too. But mostly, it seems like human's place is in the web of death.

To contact Dana: recipe.for.survival@gmail.com
Twitter: recipe4survival
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RecipeForSurvival/
PlanetExperts: http://www.planetexperts.com/author/danahunnes/

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Physicists believe they may have found fifth force of nature  

'Boson X' related to dark matter?

A team of physicists has released tantalizing evidence claiming that there may be a fifth force of nature, according to a paper published in Physical Review Letters.…

 
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Yale-Trained Doctor Refutes Dangerous Misinformation Given by CDC's Dr. Paul Mead on Fox 5 Lyme Special  

(Illustration: Laura Waldusky)

On June 30, Fox 5 New York aired a highly-rated thirty-minute TV special about Lyme Disease called "Lyme and Reason," in which I was interviewed with my doctor, Yale-trained internist and preeminent Lyme specialist, Steven Phillips. You can watch our segment here.

Also interviewed was the CDC's Paul Mead, MD, Chief of Epidemiology and Surveillance Activity of the Bacterial Diseases Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You can watch that here.

Many patients and clinicians expressed outrage on social media regarding what they considered to be dangerous, misleading information offered by Mead, and pointed out the CDC's pattern of giving preferential treatment to outdated IDSA Lyme guidelines instead of the more scientifically-supported, patient-centered ILADS guidelines.

Interestingly, The National Guidelines Clearinghouse, a federal database that provides treatment information to health care professionals and insurance companies, has removed the IDSA Lyme treatment guidelines from its website and only lists the ILADS guidelines.

To help chronic Lyme patients who feel that the CDC has once again turned its back on them, Phillips wrote a formal rebuttal to some of Mead's statements and Fox 5 posted it on their Facebook page.

Fox invited Mead to comment further but that request remains "under review."

See Mead's statements and Phillips' responses below and watch the TV special and all of the unedited interviews here.

Please join the conversation and add your comments below. We look forward to hearing from you.

Mead: "typically people with early stages of disease get a rash..."
Phillips: I don't actually think it's accurate to say that this is typical. The initial published findings by Steere documented that 25% of patients recalled a history of rash compatible with erythema migrans (EM). Other published research has pegged the rate of prior EM in late Lyme patients at 22%. Part of the problem with some of the research that demonstrates a very high rate of EM in Lyme disease is that it's part of the CDC reporting criteria as well as being a common diagnostic criterion. So the CDC's statistics on the rates of EM in early Lyme may be inherently skewed. It may be likened to publishing a study that 95% of people in prison have committed a crime.

Mead: "well, actually 'the great imitator' is a term used to refer to syphilis which is a different disease"
Phillips: Well, actually, although syphilis was a previous illness given this nickname, Lyme disease has also carried the moniker in the medical literature. A Pubmed search of 'great imitator' and 'lyme' returned 23 results. This is because Lyme can present in so many varied ways, able to mimic a broad array of diseases.

Mead: "there are really two parts to diagnosis, there are the clinical features of the disease that is what the physician can see, a large joint, a red rash, a fever, that sort of thing, and then there is laboratory testing."
Phillips: Most of the clinical features of Lyme disease are subjective, i.e., symptoms that the physician can't see. There is robust data in the medical literature which documents that in patients diagnosed with Lyme disease based on the presence of EM or of B. burgdorferi and/or its components obtained from body tissues and/or fluids, the subjective symptoms of Lyme disease outnumber the objective signs by very significant numbers.

So to restrict clinical diagnosis to those patients who have the several objective features included in the CDC reporting criteria would mean that a great many patients would go undiagnosed.

I don't think it's justified to exclude subjective symptoms from the reporting criteria just because such symptoms can't be seen. More alarming, in my view, is that this practice reinforces a medical paradigm of not believing the patient. When do we start believing patients again?

I see lots of patients in my office who come in with the 'not-Lyme diagnosis'. When I ask the primary care physicians further about this, I'm frequently told that they don't know what the patient has, but that it's not Lyme. The exclusion of this diagnosis is most often predicated upon failure to meet CDC surveillance criteria. I find it really sad and frustrating. It's like we're speaking different languages.

Mead: "So the recommended way of diagnosing Lyme disease in the laboratory is by the use of serologic tests primarily and in general we recommend a two-step process to this where the blood is tested essentially in two steps to identify whether or not the person has evidence of infection with Borrelia burgdorferi."
"If a patient has been ill for just a few days or weeks the test may in fact be negative. However if a patient has been ill for months or years, if the test is negative, that's good evidence that their illness may be caused by something other than Borrelia burgdorferi infection."
Phillips: It's interesting to me that CDC currently recommends laboratory surveillance criteria for diagnosis since they've historically been recommending it for standardization purposes as below, which is still listed on their website:

"This surveillance case definition was developed for national reporting of Lyme disease; it is not intended to be used in clinical diagnosis."
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5623a1.htm

Further, this is Dr. Mead's testimony excerpted from the State of Connecticut Department of Public Health Public Hearing on Lyme Disease January 29th, 2004:
http://www.ct.gov/ag/lib/ag/health/0129lyme.pdf
"Let me now say a few words about clinical diagnosis. The clinical diagnosis is made for the purpose of treating an individual patient and should consider the many details associated with that patient's illness. Surveillance case definitions are created for the purpose of standardization, not patient care. They exist so that health officials can reasonably compare the number and distribution of cases over space and time. Whereas physicians appropriately err on the side of over-diagnosis, thereby assuring they don't miss a case, surveillance case definitions appropriately err on the side of specificity, thereby assuring they do not inadvertently capture illnesses due to other conditions."

"...CDC has stated repeatedly that the surveillance case definition is not a substitute for sound clinical judgment. Given other compelling evidence, a physician may choose to treat a patient with Lyme Disease when their condition does not meet the case surveillance definition."

If Dr. Mead has previously stated that surveillance case definitions are not to be used for patient care, then why is Dr. Mead now recommending the opposite? I'm not aware of any groundbreaking medical literature in the past 12 years which should have radically changed the opinion of the CDC on this matter.

To the contrary, since 2004, there have been even more published medical journal articles demonstrating Lyme disease with negative Lyme antibody tests, further raising questions about the validity of CDC surveillance criteria for diagnosis. In fact, there are now over 50 medical journal articles documenting Lyme disease despite negative antibody tests. This research spans all stages of illness, including late stage disease, at which time Dr. Mead opines that Lyme antibody testing should be positive.

Further, as additional pathogenic species of borrelia are continually being discovered, the term 'Lyme disease' is being thought of more and more in a collective sense. It is logical to conclude that the Lyme ELISA would cross-react with at least some of these species. By restricting diagnosis to CDC two-tier serologic reporting criteria, a greater truth may be missed in that diagnoses of such patients with non-Lyme borrelial infections would not be possible in the absence of species-specific testing for the new species, which is largely unavailable.

Another important question regarding diagnosis relates to the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR is a very well-established and reliable technology that has been in continuous use for more than 30 years. It replicates DNA many times over so that it can be picked up on a test. If a PCR test is positive, this means that the DNA of a microbe is present and is considered definitive proof of infection for virtually every other infectious disease known in medicine. Yet for Lyme disease, it appears to me that there may be a double standard.

I recently saw a video from the CDC in which Dr. Christina Nelson advised against using Lyme PCR to evaluate Lyme disease. She spoke of its relatively low sensitivity in vivo presumably as a motivation to avoid its use. However, if this test is positive, then active infection is confirmed, which is exactly what's needed to clarify persistent infection in Lyme disease. So it's curious that she would advise against its use, even with a less than perfect sensitivity.

It should be further noted that PCR is a very specific technology, meaning that even small differences in the targeted snippets of DNA can result in a negative test. Coupled with strain heterogeneity and highly variable gene expression in B. burgdorferi in the tick vs. the mammal, it appears that some PCR assays be may going after the wrong target. It's not clear from the video to which Lyme PCR tests Dr. Nelson is referring. Newer PCR's using multiple targets and other improved technologies may have better sensitivities.

She also expressed concern that PCR tests might be falsely positive and represent dead DNA. However published data demonstrates that injection of dead borrelial DNA into dogs did not produce positive Lyme PCR tests in as little as even a few days after inoculation. This means that dead Lyme DNA does not remain in the absence of a continual resupply by a live infection. So I'd like to know from where this concern springs? And if PCR false positivity is so problematic, then why has PCR emerged as the cornerstone for diagnosing and monitoring a multitude of infectious diseases and where are the warnings from CDC about false positive PCR for these other infectious diseases?

Mead: "It's most valuable to order the test in people who have or who are likely to have the disease. If a person is unlikely to have the disease there's a chance that if the test comes back positive that it's more likely a false positive than a true positive"
Phillips: This statement appears to have its roots in Bayes' Theorem. Bayesian methods are one of the more controversial approaches in statistics, with the inherent limitations of being a closed system of logic. For example, who is likely to have the disease?

Everything depends on the initial assumption of probability based on clinical criteria that are under dispute. We know that the objective clinical signs described by CDC surveillance criteria are restrictive in that they do not capture the majority of Lyme diagnoses, which is echoed by CDC itself below:
"...the total number of people diagnosed with Lyme disease is roughly 10 times higher than the yearly reported number"nu
http://www.cdc.gov/me.../releases/2013/p0819-lyme-disease.html

So whereas patients having the objective clinical signs described by CDC surveillance reporting criteria are likely to have Lyme disease, it appears from CDC's own statement that these represent only the minority of patients. We'd therefore be missing the majority of diagnoses if we followed a Bayesian approach.

Mead: "CDC recommends that people rely on FDA approved tests for the diagnosis of Lyme disease"
"FDA approved tests are various forms of the two tier assay that I just mentioned, the serologic antibody testing"
Phillips: FDA approval for lab testing requires clarification as there are currently no FDA approved Lyme tests. States have Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) offices which ensure that labs adhere to certain standards.

FDA test approval is required when a test kit is sold across state lines in the US and does not, per se, indicate improved accuracy compared to CLIA approval. In the absence of a lengthy FDA approval process, tests can be cleared by FDA and given similar treatment if they are demonstrated to be roughly equivalent to a former comparator test.

The first Lyme Western blot to receive FDA clearance was the MarDx Lyme Western blot. A review of the FDA's database reveals that this test was compared to the Lyme Western Blot performed by Dr. Steere's lab at Tufts. It's not clear to me if the comparator test was ever FDA approved, but it appears from my interpretation of the data that it was not. Because most doctors don't know what this actually means, they view the lack of FDA approval or FDA clearance of a test as a bad thing. Lyme antibody assays offered by even the major universities that perform research in Lyme disease are not FDA approved. Historically, these tests have not even been cleared by FDA.

Mead: "The ILADS Guidelines advance two basic ideas: The first is that there really is not any adequate scientific information about the management of Lyme disease; and the second is that in the absence of that sort of information, healthcare providers should be free to do and treat patients in whatever way they see fit. Our concerns are that misrepresents or does not give full credit to the amount of scientific evidence there is about management of Lyme disease..."
Phillips: In response to the claim regarding the first basic idea, I think that this is a highly inaccurate statement. ILADS (International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society) is a multi-specialty medical society made up of physicians and researchers. Its members are well-published in the medical literature and the society holds large, very well-attended, CME-approved medical conferences annually both in the US and abroad.

ILADS Guidelines provide an evidence-based approach to the management of Lyme disease. They are published in the peer-reviewed medical literature and are presently the only Lyme disease treatment guidelines listed on Guidelines.gov, an agency which is under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.Guidelines.gov was created by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in partnership with the American Medical Association and the American Association of Health Plans, (which is now known as America's Health Insurance Plans) in order to provide physicians, other healthcare providers, and health plans with detailed information on clinical practice guidelines and to further their use. Despite this, both CDC and insurance companies do not endorse or refer to ILADS Guidelines.

The ILADS Guidelines assess the medical literature on the topic of Lyme disease and associated infections. There are many shortcomings with the state of research in the field, but the purpose of the ILADS Guidelines is not to bemoan this fact but to improve the welfare of a suffering population who may be the most disenfranchised patients in medicine.

What is very clear is that B. burgdorferi has been isolated alive from both animals and humans despite administration of antibiotics that are deemed curative by IDSA and CDC. More alarmingly, this organism has also been isolated alive from humans after antibiotic therapies measured in many months to years, when the administered therapies are far in excess of what is declared curative by these same agencies.

Much of the medical literature in which B. burgdoferi was isolated from patients despite "appropriate" antibiotic therapy was penned by IDSA Guidelines authors. These medical journal articles were either not referenced in the IDSA Guidelines, or when they were, they did not specifically refer to the aspects that document persistent borrelial infection despite antibiotic therapy. Despite this, CDC gives preference to IDSA Guidelines and does not endorse ILADS Guidelines.

In response to the claim regarding the second basic idea, ILADS Guidelines provide a heuristic algorithm for optimal treatment of an extremely heterogeneous group of very ill patients given the best available published medical literature on the topic. Inherent to this, there must be a place for sound clinical judgment, which may be the freedom to which Dr. Mead is referring. I fear the day when individualized clinical judgment is replaced by medical guidelines of any kind. You simply can't rigidly standardize Lyme disease treatment due to strain heterogeneity, co-infections, and differences in immune system types among patients.

Mead: "...and perhaps more importantly, we are concerned about patients who are being treated with unproven therapies; with therapies that are sometimes harmful. There are case reports of patients who died as the result of long term therapies for Lyme disease when in fact there wasn't even necessarily evidence that they were infected."
Phillips: I think one thing that we can all agree upon is that we want to minimize risks to patients from treatments and maximize benefits, which is why ILADS has physician training programs.

Therapies for most serious diseases likewise have potentially serious side effects, but the risk of fatality from long-term antibiotic therapy is quite low. For example, far more fatalities have been caused by Lyme disease than by its treatment.

The risk of fatal outcomes in the treatment of inflammatory diseases with immunosuppressive agents and cancer with chemotherapy is far higher than that with antibiotic therapy, but the difference in those diseases is that they are well accepted by CDC as legitimate so that the risk is deemed worthy. I would further counter that in the rare case reports of patients who died during therapy for Lyme disease, there was indeed evidence of infection, albeit not meeting strict CDC surveillance reporting criteria in all cases.

Although it's correct that some therapies being used to treat chronic Lyme patients are of unproven efficacy, the high rates of treatment failures of even early, and most certainly late Lyme, are quite well-documented in the medical literature. It has been demonstrated in study after study without equivocation that short-term antibiotics are not effective in a great many cases. This, coupled with the documentation of microbial persistence despite such short term antibiotic therapies, makes the case for longer and better treatments. It's not uncommon in medicine for innovative therapies to be used in patients before well-designed trials document their utility. I see it all the time in other diseases.

Mead: "the reports of cases of Lyme being mistaken for other diseases are really quite rare"
Phillips: There are a great many cases in the published medical literature where Lyme disease has been mistaken for other diseases. Of course, in these cases the diagnosis of Lyme was eventually made, hence the ability to have the published reports. The natural question which follows is how many patients never get appropriately diagnosed with Lyme, never get treated, and remain in the category of 'other disease'.

In my clinical experience of treating over 20,000 patients, I see patients come in with diagnoses of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, various inflammatory disorders, cardiac symptoms, and MS on a regular basis. When I find evidence for Lyme and/or other zoonotic infection such as bartonella, the large majority of these patients markedly improve with antibiotic therapy.

Mead: "...patients who have been told they have Lyme and are then treated for Lyme, when in fact they have other things: pituitary adenomas, other types of malignancy, and some of those patients were seriously harmed by being given a diagnosis and long term therapy for Lyme disease when in fact their underlying condition went untreated."
Phillips: Medical mistakes will occur as long as the practice of medicine exists. Of that I'm certain. It's crucial for physicians in any area of medicine to pursue the correct diagnoses. But again, if we examine the published literature, there are relatively few reports of Lyme being diagnosed instead of another serious diagnosis which was missed.

Mead: "Why there seems to be so much controversy, I'm not really entirely clear."
"There is a lot of misinformation about Lyme disease, about basic facts about it that are spread a great deal on the internet."
"I fear that sometimes if people have heard something enough times, they come to really believe that it must be true."
Phillips: I very much believe that Dr. Mead is earnest in his statements. But then again, I'm conflicted because such statements appear to me to be myopic at best. How could this intelligent physician working at the highest levels of CDC not realize why there is so much controversy?

Bias blind spot in medical terminology refers to recognizing the impact of biases on the judgment of others, while failing to see the impact of biases on one's own judgment. Published studies demonstrate that bias blind spot is pervasive in humans, begins in childhood, and is greater in individuals with greater cognitive ability. Confirmation bias in medical terminology refers to the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories. Published evidence documents that confirmation bias is very common and can lead to implacable decision making.

I think that it's all too easy for intelligent individuals in large groups to fall prey to these biases.

Mead: "There have been a number of studies, including one just published recently in the New England Journal from the Netherlands, which have looked at longer courses of antibiotic therapy for these patients, and of course what they find is that when patients get that therapy that they improve. The problem is that the patients who got the placebo also improved at the same rate. So I think it's a little bit misleading to suggest that there's been no science done on this problem."
"We can't just dismiss out of hand the numerous studies that have been done."
"We certainly do recognize that there are patients who've had Lyme disease and who have been treated and who will have persistent subjective symptoms, as I mentioned fatigue, some difficulty with their sleep, and with thinking, and with muscle aches and pains.

Those patients we refer to has having 'post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome'. So we recognize that that condition exists. The fundamental question is what is the cause of that condition? Is it a persistent infection? Or is it a complication of prior infection? And what is the best treatment for it. Is it long-term antibiotics or not? On the first question, we don't know the answer. It's possible that it's either one of those. We do have data on the second question. As I mentioned, a number of placebo-controlled trials which have looked at patients with 'post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome' and given them various courses of prolonged antibiotic and the bottom line of those studies is that overall they do not seem to benefit those patients in the long run."
Phillips: The gold standard in microbiology for diagnosing an infectious disease has always been to culture the organism alive. Despite notorious difficulties in culturing B. burgdorferi, in about 30 studies this organism has been cultured alive from patients despite at least standard antibiotic therapy, and in many cases after antibiotics far in excess of what is deemed curative by IDSA and CDC.

If the pathogen that causes a disease is still present in conjunction with symptoms compatible with that infection, it would appear to me that these 'fundamental questions about the cause of long term symptoms' should have been answered a very long time ago. To add insult to injury, recent studies from Tulane, Johns Hopkins, and Northeastern University all demonstrate that we can't even kill B. burgdorferi in the test tube with the currently recommended antibiotics.

I cannot in good conscience use the term 'post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome' given the wealth of published information that this organism persists. It is, I believe, by its very definition, an illogical construct. What are the chances that a second disease of mysterious etiology but with the same symptoms as the first disease, would come and replace the first disease when there is published evidence that the pathogen which causes the first disease persists despite both short and long-term antibiotics?

There are numerous chronic bacterial infections which require long-term combination antibiotic therapies: Tuberculosis, leprosy, coxiella endcocarditis, brucellosis, Whipple's. Why should Lyme be different?

By referring to patients with persistent symptoms of Lyme disease after a short course of antibiotics as 'post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome' this may produce a de facto fait accompli, in that such patients, when desperately searching for answers on the CDC website, may feel that antibiotics can't possibly help them.

This may only delay their care further and increase the likelihood of subsequent antibiotic treatment failure. Because semantics guide patient care, I believe that the term 'post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome' is harmful.

In response to the second question, it's true that there have been a number of studies addressing the response to antibiotics vs placebo of patients with persistent symptoms after Lyme disease, but I think that it's very important to specify what that number is and what those studies showed. There have only been 3 NIH-funded randomized placebo controlled studies looking at this problem since 2001. New Lyme infections as estimated by CDC are over 329,000 cases per year, which is more than new diagnoses of invasive breast cancer and HIV combined, yet the NIH has only funded 3 studies on this topic, and two of those 3 studies have demonstrated responses to antibiotics, albeit imperfect responses, as explored in the following discussion.

The first study was by Klempner. This study evaluated antibiotic vs placebo. The study was terminated early due to the determined likelihood that a beneficial effect would not be found. When this was critically analyzed with biostatistical methods, an article was published which I believe demonstrates that Klempner's study was so poorly designed and analyzed that in order for a treatment effect to have been observed, the antibiotic treated patients would have had to improve to a level of health which was a full standard deviation better than the average health of the general population. It's a reasonable hope for antibiotics to return a patient to a somewhat normal life; it's not a reasonable hope that they would improve that patient's health status to better than average.

The second study was by Krupp. It showed a reduction in fatigue in patients treated with antibiotics and not with placebo. There was no improvement in cognitive functioning. A biostatistical analysis demonstrated that fatigue was the only outcome of the study for which it was properly designed.

The third study was by Fallon. This was, in my opinion, the best designed of the 3 trials. It demonstrated improved cognition in antibiotic treated patients and not placebo, but these patients relapsed when antibiotics were discontinued. There were also benefits to antibiotic treated patients in fatigue and body pain by subgroup analysis.

Another study was performed by Cameron, which demonstrated benefits to antibiotics and not placebo across quality of life assessments. However, this study may have had statistical issues with baseline randomization.

The PLEASE study from The Netherlands to which Dr. Mead is referring is, in my opinion, a study looking for a question to answer but failing to find one. When studies are designed, they must be designed thoughtfully to answer important questions. An important question which requires further study is whether longer and innovative antibiotic treatment regimens are superior to placebo in patients with chronic Lyme symptoms after a previous short course of antibiotics. The PLEASE study did not have a true placebo group in that all patients were treated with antibiotics. Further, the patient population was heterogeneous in that although most patients had been treated previously with antibiotics, some had not been previously treated.

The placebo aspect of this study was such that after 2 weeks of IV antibiotics, the patients then received further oral antibiotics vs placebo. There was no benefit to oral antibiotics piggybacked directly onto the IV antibiotics. Again, very little useful information, if anything, in my opinion, can be gleaned from a study using a heterogeneous patient population in which all of them received some form of antibiotic.

Mead: "We are very concerned about patients who are ill, both those patients with 'post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome as well as those patients who may have been misdiagnosed with it."
Phillips: The only way for real progress to be made is to consider a problem from all sides with, to paraphrase from Buddhism, the proverbial 'new eyes'. Abraham Lincoln famously countered confirmation bias by forming his cabinet with those that publicly disagreed with him. Why isn't the CDC doing something similar? Why isn't the IDSA?

IDSA physicians, assuming that they follow IDSA Guidelines, are not able to see the beneficial effect of following ILADS Guidelines because they don't treat in that way. However, ILADS physicians see the other side of the equation every day in the form of innumerable treatment failures after short term and limited range antibiotic treatment options.

I think it's very compelling that a study funded by CDC and published in 2015 demonstrated that the majority of US physicians polled treat Lyme disease with antibiotics for longer than 4 weeks, which is in excess of what IDSA Guidelines recommend.

If someone of a CDC/IDSA centric view were to have confirmation bias, they may interpret this data as a wake-up call to better educate physicians on the proper way to treat Lyme disease.

However, a more neutral approach might be to ask oneself if there is a reason that most physicians aren't following IDSA Guidelines. Perhaps it's because they don't work well in curing patients.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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The Axis Of Destruction And Hope  
If you want to understand the climate crisis today, you need to journey roughly along the 95th parallel, from Louisiana in the south to the the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the Dakotas.

In the Bayou State, there's great courage, as local people work to rescue their neighbors from rising waters. So far, 20,000 people have been snatched to safety from homes, offices, hospitals, schools in the wake of a three-day siege of endless rain that broke flood records on river after river. The images are astonishing, like something from Mad Max: a thousand cars trapped on an interstate as helicopters dropped food to keep people alive.

Parts of Southern Louisiana are still underwater after a weekend of historic flooding. @JudyWoodruff reports https://t.co/C6OnSTOtoa

— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) August 15, 2016

There's no doubt what's causing this: crazy rainfall like this comes when you've heated the atmosphere, allowing it to hold more water vapor. The Gulf of Mexico is at record temperatures, pumping moisture into that atmosphere. What goes up must come down, and it came down on Louisiana (though Mississippi and Missouri are getting their share too, and the Illinois State Fair got flooded, and there's tons of water coming down in a long arc all the way to New York). This flood will do a billion dollars or more in damage: it's a hurricane without a hurricane.

And there's no doubt what's heating the atmosphere: it's the carbon and methane we're pouring into the atmosphere at such a breakneck pace. That's why what's happening in North Dakota is so important. There, almost spontaneously, an uprising has begun on the very center of America's latest oil boom in the Bakken shale. In the last week 18 people and counting, including the tribal chairman, have been arrested trying to block the so-called Dakota Access Pipeline, which would carry half a million barrels a day of crude out of the Bakken to refineries in Illinois.

People protest the construction of a 1,100-mile pipeline that will carry crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. https://t.co/KTs7xMhBG9

— AJ+ (@ajplus) August 16, 2016

There are crucial local issues at stake: water quality in the region, which will be imperiled if and when the oil leaks, and the sacred sites being disturbed by the construction. But there's also the global issue: if that oil makes it to the refinery without leaking, it will be turned into gasoline and that in turn will add yet more carbon to the atmosphere. Which is to say: people on rooftops in Louisiana hoping for someone to rescue them.

So in North Dakota, as in the tarsands of Alberta, and at the proposed Cherry point coal port in Washington, and on the pipeline routes in British Columbia, indigenous people are leading the fight against the planet's destruction. It's not hyperbole to say that the most important force in the fight for the planet's survival has been the recognition of native leadership, in North America and elsewhere, in the last five years. The Keystone pipeline would never have been stopped without native organizing, nor plans for the world's largest coal mine in Australia.

The earth's oldest people are -- maybe just in the nick of time -- being recognized as its most important protectors. And they need us to stand behind them.

Tomorrow the axis of destruction and hope may run somewhere else: from fire-plagued California, say, to the environmental justice protesters fighting new gas pipelines in downtown Boston. But today, right now, if you want to help, here's a local group providing relief in Louisiana. And here's the legal fund to make sure those stalwart fighters in the Dakotas can keep standing their ground.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Decline of wild bee species in England linked to pesticide use  
Neonicotinoid pesticides used on oilseed rape farms in England have been linked with a dramatic decline in wild bee populations for the first time  
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I don't need airco...  

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For more info and stories about my pictures or any questions follow me on facebook .... www.facebook.com/mbontenbal

 
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Kilns for firing and making bricks are scattered across the...  

Kilns for firing and making bricks are scattered across the landscape in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Almost all bricks in the country are made using a 150-year-old process where soil is mixed with water, formed into bricks using wooden molds, left to dry in the sun, and then burned in these orange, traditional kilns. As the widespread use of old kilns has hampered air quality in the country, local groups and the government have been working hard to increase the use of “clean” brick kilns with more sustainable technology.

23.7675749, 90.318299

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BJLMStdDx1C/

 
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A Portrait of Jamaica's Track-and-Field Domination  

Before Usain Bolt, there was Arthur Wint, Jamaica's first gold medalist in the 400 meter race back in 1948. In this cinematic and beautifully scored short film titled LAND WE LOVE, Douglas Bernardt, Lucas Oliveira, and Filipe Zapelini take us to Jamaica for a visual exploration of its running culture. The three filmmakers make up the Brazil-based production team, Pudim.

 
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Lab-grown black hole proves Stephen Hawking's radiation claims physicist  

But 'pioneering paper' also contains some contradictory data, says prof

A physicist claims to have created a sonic black hole to observe Hawking radiation and its quantum weirdness, all within the safe confines of his laboratory.…

 
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Seeps to Swimming Pools: Water In Nevada's Desert  

“All my friends told me not to film with you. But whatever,” Hank grumbles. Hank Vogler, a Nevada sheep rancher, is in the fight of his life to protect his water rights from being snatched up by a distant city, laying waste to all he has created.

Hank has spent over 40 years here in Spring Valley, Nevada, a large tract of desert land on the central eastern side of the state. He's grown his ranch from two cows and seven sheep to a large operation with sheep herds scattered around this massive landscape. The size and influence of his ranch pales in comparison to his nemesis however, the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA), the governing body for water in Las Vegas.

In the late 1980s SNWA began researching how to get more water to the city. As the population of Las Vegas swelled, they needed to find alternative ways to procure water. One of those methods sent engineers north to the sparsely populated desert to develop new supplies of water.

Hank is one of the people sparsely populating the desert, and he needs every drop of water he has. As he told me, he doesn't have title to enough water to fill a swimming pool in Las Vegas. His livelihood depends only on small springs and seeps in the hills. SNWA carries a big check book, however, and many of his neighbors have been unable to resist the hefty purchase fee frequently being offered at double and triple the going value.

SNWA has scooped up dozens of ranches in the area, hoping to collect enough water rights to build a pipeline to Las Vegas, nearly 300 miles away. In the interim, as SNWA needs to manage the ranches around Spring Valley, Hank has found a target on his back. His outspoken opposition to the water transfer scheme has made living in his community difficult, causing poor relations with neighbors, and the knowledge that at any moment they could turn on the pipeline and suck all the water out from underneath him.

This drives Hank to do everything in his power to protect his way of life, even if it means talking to a filmmaker from Washington, D.C..

The Water Is for Fighting project documents the challenges facing our nations freshwater resources. Corey Robinson is a filmmaker and Young Explorer Grantee collecting these stories through film, still pictures and words.

Follow along with @coreyrobinson #w4f2015

“Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting.”

 
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Scorchio! Earth's surface is the hottest it has been in history  
July 2016 is the hottest month ever recorded, smashing the previous record set in July 2011 as Earth hurtles towards 1.5 °C limit  
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#london #night #light #street #wall #sunset  

Dídac Delos posted a photo:

IG: @didac.ds

 
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Walking into the sun  

Piero Cioffi posted a photo:

Ilford XP2 400 - London - 2015
Nikon FM2 - AF-D 50 1.4

 
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{london skyline}  

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Portfolio, Blog & Prints @ www.audreymeffray.com | My Instagram

 
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London  

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Le Petit Prince by Oleh Slobodeniuk  

Le Petit Prince by Oleh Slobodeniuk

my website instagram facebook

Oleh Slobodeniuk: Photos

 
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http://twitter.com/RacingXtinction/status/765566642000494593 
Here's what you need to know about this year's @CITES endangered species conference https://t.co/bFVlmZpLEE https://t.co/LhtnlWHMbz 
https://t.co/bFVlmZpLEE 

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Cognitive offloading: How the Internet is increasingly taking over human memory  
Our increasing reliance on the Internet and the ease of access to the vast resource available online is affecting our thought processes for problem solving, recall and learning. In a new article, researchers have found that 'cognitive offloading', or the tendency to rely on things like the Internet as an aide-mémoire, increases after each use.  
cogdis  

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r0B0t: Artificial Intelligence Swarms Silicon Valley on Wings and Wheels - Asharq Al-awsat English  

Asharq Al-awsat English

Artificial Intelligence Swarms Silicon Valley on Wings and Wheels Asharq Al-awsat English The new era in Silicon Valley centers on artificial intelligence and robots, a transformation that many believe will have a payoff on the scale of the personal computing industry or the commercial internet, two previous generations that spread ... and more »

 
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r0B0t: Pokemon Go Cheats Issued With Permanent Bans By Niantic  

Niantic, the developer behind Pokemon Go, is clamping down on cheating with lifetime bans for players who violate the game's terms of service.

In a statement on its website, Niantic announced users can be banned for falsifying locations, using emulators, modified or unofficial software and accessing Pokemon Go clients or backends in “an unauthorised manner”.

GPS spoofing enables players to trick the game into thinking they are in different regions, helping them to pick up rare Pokemon currently unavailable in their locality. Bots, meanwhile, let players automate portions of the game. 

As the Verge reports, players can appeal the ban using a form on Niantic's Pokemon Go website. 

Niantic said: “Our goal is to provide a fair, fun and legitimate game experience for everyone. We will continue to work with all of you to improve the quality of the gameplay, including ongoing optimization and fine tuning of our anti-cheat system.”

Hundreds of users have taken to Reddit to try to unearth Niantic's strategy, but it's not yet clear how the developer detects foul play. 

The Guardian has reported that a number of bot developers had been sent cease and desist orders.

Necrobot, a premium service for account farming, said: “Due to legal action being started against other bot creators and developers (we did not receive a letter yet) the project development will be stopped. All source files/downloads will be removed.”

The latest crackdown comes after a number of third party Pokemon mapping sites were shut down last month. 

The move coincided with the removal of the nearby tracking feature, which has since been updated, and frayed relations with the game's community.

 
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New species of extinct river dolphin discovered in Smithsonian collection  
A fossil that has been in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History since it was discovered in 1951 is today helping scientists piece together the evolutionary history of whales and dolphins, including the origins of the endangered South Asian river dolphin.  
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Luna moth's long tail could confuse bat sonar through its twist  
A detailed look at how sound waves bounce off a flying moth's body offers new clues for how its long, twisted tail might help it evade predatory bats.  
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Pierre Francois Mechain Scientist of the Day Pierre-Francois...  

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110415.html


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl_Nebula#/media/File:M97.jpg


http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110515.html


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Pierre Francois Mechain Scientist of the Day

Pierre-Francois Méchain, a French astronomer, was born Aug. 16, 1744.  

read more…

 
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r0B0t: Artificial Intelligence: The Future of Recruitment  
Despite major advances, it doesn't look like artificial intelligence will replace recruiters anytime soon

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rarely out of the news at the moment, whether it is robots threatening to put physicists out of a job as they learn to run complex experiments for themselves or Google's AI project learning to write poetry, it seems that in the future anything humans can do, robots will be able to do - if not necessarily better - at least serviceably well.

Understandably, this is expected to shake up the jobs market. It will make some roles redundant and transform others. Some commentators go as far as suggesting that recruitment consultants themselves need to be added to the endangered species list since the strength of AI's capabilities makes having a human at the helm of the recruitment process unnecessary.

At first glance, it seems like a reasonable idea. Recruiters match candidates with jobs that require certain skills - something that a computer could achieve with the right algorithms in place. Indeed, I launched a tech-based recruitment startup last year, The Work Crowd, which uses advanced algorithms to connect specialist freelance talent with businesses.

So do I think that recruiters should be brushing up their own CVs in earnest, ready for the seismic changes ahead? I'm inclined to think not.



A science as well as an art

There are many jobs where artificial intelligence could, in theory, be applied. A visit to the GP could be superseded with inputting your symptoms into a computer, which would then use data such as your age and medical history to determine the cause of your ailments before prescribing appropriate treatment. It could happen, but nobody in their right mind would ever think it was a good idea.

Why? Because no AI programme could substitute for the role of the doctor, with their abilities to understand all the things that make us human: the non-verbal signs, the meaningful omissions and the background stories that could never be accurately represented as fields in a database.

Just as there's an art to medicine, there's an art to recruitment. It's not just about matching candidates to jobs - if that was the case the consultancy sector would have died out a long time ago. It's about being able to accurately read a given situation to see what a client really needs, even if they don't see it themselves yet. It's about being able to build relationships that allow you to carefully calibrate all stages of the recruitment process to ensure the right result for all parties.

The limitations of AI

Certainly, AI will have a role to play in our industry, particularly in temporary or lower level roles where moves between jobs are more often motivated by measurable factors such as pay, working hours and location, rather than more amorphous things like status and opportunity.

Technological advancements are a great asset to recruitment, but not a replacement. There's simply no substitute for 'pressing the flesh' and applying old-fashioned human intuition, social skills, and good sense. This is something Microsoft proved when its own foray into an AI social media account led to a number of posts supporting Donald Trump, claiming that 9/11 was an inside job and confidently telling the world that "Ricky Gervais [sic] learned totalitarianism from Adolf Hitler, the inventor of atheism". We can outsource all manner of tasks to artificial intelligence, but, as Microsoft learned, it doesn't mean we should.  
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r0B0t: This Talking Robot Mouth That Mimics Human Speech Was A Mistake  
It's been five years since this monster was created, but everyone should still run from it.  
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Will Sleeping with Your Dog Make Him Aggressive?  



Have you ever worried that sleeping with your dog or sharing some cuddle time with your puppy is against all the training rules?

Are you one of the multitudes taught to believe that inviting your otherwise adoring, sweet, innocent dog or puppy onto your lap will turn him into Kujo?

Do you have a family member, convinced by some celebrity trainer, who fills you with guilt each time you pat the bed sheets or lift your baby up for a snuggle?

Do. This. Now! Call your dog or puppy over, lift him gently onto your lap (offering him a bone if he's nippy) and take three deep breaths. Now repeat after me: It's ok to be loving, it's ok to be loving, it's ok to be loving.

All the research and home practices by not only myself but all the top veterinarians and veterinary behaviorists (Drs. Jeff Werber, Nicholas Dodman, Marty Becker, Ian Dunbar) show that snuggling with an otherwise friendly dog or puppy will not cause aggression. As long as you're someone who also offers positive encouragements and routine care, then sitting or sleeping next to your dog or puppy while he rests, won't make him aggressive. You have my permission to do all that.

But yelling at your dog, strapping electronic collars, pinning or poking him, and then expecting him to curl up next to you peacefully might not end so well, though. Just saying.

Still puzzled by what causes some dogs to act out aggressively when resting on the sofa or bed? You're not alone. Aggressive behavior is not uncommon when people and dogs live under the same roof.

In today's blog, I'll offer you some quick tips to improve your dog's attitude while resting in privileged places. Our next blog will focus on leash aggression. I'm also happy to field any questions you may have regarding your dog's aggressive reactions: just add them to the comment section below.

First, let's be clear on what aggression is and what it isn't. Aggression is one way a dog may respond to extreme feelings of fear or frustration. Aggression is not a dog behaving badly.

Kids act out aggressively all the time; grown-ups too. The only startling difference between a child's emotional tornado and dogs is that a dog will show or use their teeth.

Consider what causes dogs and children fear or frustration.

What Kids and Dogs Fear
Being alone
Silence
Unfamiliar noises
Unpredictable people
Strange dogs acting up

What Frustrates Kids and Dogs
Being Locked away
Not getting their way
Unable to reach something
Being restrained

Studies show that dogs and children have nearly identical brain development. The emotional similarities are obvious, yet, while both kids and dogs can be conditioned to positively accept things they cannot change, without the effort they may not be able to cope.

So what does all this have to do with cuddling up with dogs? In short, loads.

When you allow your dog onto a bed or sofa, you're saying let's rest together. It's intimate and loving. If that's how you act with your dog throughout the day, he'll feel equally comfortable being near you.

But, and this is a big but, if you isolate your dog too much, if you're frustrated or react in ways that frighten him through the day, or if you don't, but other family members do, then the whole snuggle-with-me now invitation will confuse your dog.
Dogs who are yelled at, shocked or hit, can't distinguish when you're happy and when you're not. They fear anyone's head-on approach at all times, and even more so when they are elevated. If one family member handles your dog roughly, while you're kind, don't be too surprised if your dog doesn't want to make room on the sofa or growls at this individual when he comes to bed.

Dog training is elemental: if you use positive parenting skills, setting some rules, but otherwise treating them kindly, you'll have a companion that will love you unconditionally. If you're inconsistent or sharp, you dog's fear or frustration will rise, and he may mature into a dog who is moody and hard to read. Is this the dog's fault? No. It's poor parenting. Fortunately, dogs are forgiving; you can teach old dogs new tricks, but the first change must happen with you.

If you're feeling guilty and want to learn more, I'd be happy to teach you how to live happily with your dog. To get started on the road and to resolve any quirks that may have arisen during your snuggle time follow these five steps.

Step One- Learn how to limit the fear and frustration in your dog's life. Use the teaching methods outlined on my website, in my blogs and upcoming book Modern Dog Parenting to introduce your dog to games and exercises you'll use to associate words to actions!

Step Two- Help your dog associate a sound with getting a reward. The pros call this noise a secondary reinforcer. Shaking treats in a cup or bag, or using a clicker are excellent options. Next, pair the noise with your dog's name.
--Call his name as you make the sound
--then call to your dog just before you make the sound
-- gradually increase the time between calling your dog's name and making noise until you can do away with the noise altogether.
Continue to reward your puppy or dog when he listens with food, praise or play.

Step Three- Your dog will feel less threatened if you let him know you're coming close. No one likes to be startled or dragged from a deep sleep. It's not only startling; it's disrespectful.
Form a new habit: for the next two weeks, whenever anyone approaches your dog when he's resting on the furniture, have them call his name. Initially reward your dog with their favorite thing: a toy, treats or attention.

Step Four- To teach your dog that resting on furniture is a privilege, organize a play station for him nearby with a dog mat, toys, and a favorite chew. If your dog doesn't stay there, use a crate to teach or station lead affixed to something durable.

Step Five- Permission train your dog! Teach him to request permission to join you on the bed or couch. Use the direction "Sit" as the equivalent of saying please. Also teach your dog the word off. The funniest and fasted way to teach Off is to start with the Find it game. Once your dog learns, Find it as outlined in the video, attach the word "Off" to the end of the phrase "Find it-off" until he pairs "off" with the habit of jumping off. Now pair Off-matt-bone to teach your dog where to go when the couch or bed is off limits.

1. Say Off in a strong, happy voice
   
2. Matt in the same tone as you point to his bed
   
3. Bone as you offer your dog a positive redirection!

Of course, I cannot end this piece without a few caveats.

Housebreaking: When housetraining a new dog or puppy, crate or contain him in a small area overnight. Crates are prison cells; they're more similar to a crib. Place puppy pacifiers in their enclosure to comfort your dog as he settles in.

Aggression: If your dog's already showing aggression that's not easily resolved with the steps above, call for help. Ask your veterinarian for a recommendation to a behaviorist, or check out my association, the IAABC, for a list of qualified professionals in your area.

Holy Wars: If the biggest argument in your home is whether or not to allow your dog on the furniture, don't do it. Inconsistency is both unsettling and upsetting to dogs. Solve the holy war with a compromise. Teach your dog to rest in a pre-designated bean bag or cozy dog bed that you can snuggle into when the mood strikes.


Photo Credit: Rupert Fawcett via offtheleashcartoons.com

"I've always been a big fan of having our pets sleep in bed with us--in fact, we have 5 dogs and 6 cats, and I've often said that if they made a bed larger that a California King, I'd have more!"--Jeff Werber, DVM.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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An International Disaster: Trump Has Shown His True Side, It's Time To Act  
Donald Trump's candidacy started as a joke. Fed by the media and opportunistic politicians, he's become a threat to the US political system and even world peace. Now it's time to treat him as such.  
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Virtual Reality Can Help Stop Old People Falling Over  

Image: Anat Mirelman et al/The Lancet

Virtual reality might currently be best known for its applications in gaming and porn, but some researchers have found a more noble use for it: teaching old people not to fall over.

Researchers led by Anat Mirelman at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center found that using a combination of a treadmill and VR to train older people who were at high risk of falls was effective at keeping them on their feet. The people who had this training had 42 percent fewer falls in the six months following the training than a control group who just had treadmill training.

“Virtual reality enables us to safely train both the motor or gait aspects that are important for fall risk, while also implicitly teaching the participants to improve the cognitive functions that are important for safe ambulation,” Mirelman told me in an email. “It also has the advantage of being a game that encourages participation and compliance. Our subjects were always motivated to continue to do better, and avoid more obstacles.”

To do the study, which was funded by the European Commission and published in The Lancet, the researchers recruited around 300 people aged 60-90 who had fallen at least twice in the previous six months. About half got six weeks of training on a treadmill, while the other half got training on a treadmill with a “non-immersive” VR component—a screen in front of the treadmill showing a simulated environment with paths and obstacles, with the subject's feet included via a modified Kinect camera.

Here's a video of a participant in the VR group in the first week of training:

And here's the same participant in the last week of training:

Mirelman explained that they didn't want to use immersive VR tech such as a headset because of the risk of cyber-sickness in the older population, and because the whole point was to teach people how to walk safely in reality. “With immersive systems, specifically headsets, it is quite difficult to walk without the feedback of the real world,” she said.

While this study was done one-on-one with the participants, the researchers hope that the training could be replicated in clinical practice. “The study showed that this type of training is effective and we think it can be administered in community gyms and rehabilitation clinics,” said Mirelman.

She added that they were surprised by the adherence and motivation of the participants, which suggests that people might be willing to take it up. Call it gamification of elderly care.

 
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r0B0t: I Love Dick  

When Amazon first started making original series, it had a gimmick: The internet's very own big-box store would put the first episodes of potential series online so viewers could vote on which ones would become full-fledged series. The gambit made the obligatory tech-company gestures at transparency and disruption, but it also reflected the paucity of Amazon's initial series, a batch of pilots that, excepting Alpha House, barely looked professional. When a network is making such larkish TV, it hardly matters what goes and what doesn't. In the few years since, as Amazon has gotten more serious about making television, it has continued to put pilots online early, but viewer response is barely relevant: The network is going to greenlight what it is going to greenlight, apparently having discovered that disrupting the television business sometimes involves doing things the old way.

Earlier this summer, Amazon released pilots for two hourlong series: The Interestings (flawed, but promising; not yet picked up) and The Last Tycoon (very bad; picked up). This week, it is releasing pilots for three half-hour series: Jean-Claude Van Johnson, The Tick, and Jill Soloway's I Love Dick, the headlining act of this trio. Liberally adapted from a beloved cult novel by Chris Kraus, I Love Dick stars Kathryn Hahn as Chris, a stymied filmmaker who travels with her husband Sylvère (Griffin Dunne) to Marfa, Texas—where she, and then they, become infatuated with Dick (Kevin Bacon, smoldering), a macho intellectual and part-time cowboy who runs an institute Sylvère is attending. I Love Dick has potential, but it doesn't need it: Soloway, the creator of Transparent, is Amazon's most important creative asset. If you are a network, you give her what she wants, including another show.

Soloway told New York magazine, in a piece about the show, that she identified with Kraus' choice to use her own name and biography in her work. “I only want to write about somewhat unlikable Jewish women having really inappropriate ideas about life and sex,” Soloway said. I Love Dick delivers on those interests. The pilot reflects many of Soloway's strengths—her naturalistic skill with actors, her ability to capture bourgeois social milieus with a detail (in this case, fluorescent-yellow Birkenstocks), her dedication to exploring gender politics in ways that don't turn her shows into lectures—but it doesn't have the instantaneous hook or heart of Transparent.

I Love Dick, the novel, is epistolary. I Love Dick, the show, is framed by letters Chris has written to Dick. “Dear Dick, every letter is a love letter. It started in New York,” Hahn says in harried voiceover at the start of the show as the block text dramatically appears on an all-red screen. But turning the novel into a TV show takes it out of Kraus' character's head in a way that alters the texture and tone, losing some of the hothouse intensity of the novel. Television does a great close third-person, but it is very hard, if not impossible, for it do first-person, even when using first-person narration. (Recently, Mr. Robot has made some attempts.) With TV, you're always watching from the outside. The world that Chris and Sylvère inhabit in the show automatically feels bigger, more populated, and more concrete than their world in the novel, simply because you can see all the people in the shot that the writing might have ignored. The pilot also introduces characters who are not in the book at all. Also not in the book: Marfa. Soloway decided to set the show there after visiting her girlfriend, the poet Eileen Myles, there, and deciding it would be a good cross-cultural canvas to help broaden the novel's scope.

There are people who have a hard time watching Transparent because they find the Pfeffermans too excruciating. On Transparent, Hahn's Rabbi Raquel, the on-again, off-again love interest of Josh Pfefferman (Jay Duplass), works like aspirin: Raquel is so grounded, so sane that she lessens the pain of watching the Pfeffermans mess up their lives. In I Love Dick, Hahn, fantastic in everything she does, gets to play the headache. Her Chris has a big, blowsy personality: caustic, dramatic, and self-sabotaging. But she has that Pfefferman-esque charisma. When she spots Dick at a party—Kevin Bacon wears a white T-shirt as well as he did in Footloose—and expresses her attraction by jabbering about how remarkable it is that he goes by “Dick” and not Richard or Rick or Richie, her allure is nonetheless plain to see.

In the show's climactic scene, dinner at a restaurant, Dick asks Chris what her movie is about. “It's about a couple, or I would say the woman in the couple, she represents all women, and society's crushing expectations,” she says. “Sounds horrible. Sounds like you're crushed by someone,” Dick replies, before turning to Sylvère and asking if Chris' film is any good. The great thing about Soloway's work is that she herself is both Dick and Chris, a woman interested in society's crushing expectations of women but also talented and funny and wise enough to know you need character and plot and entertainment and complications to tell that story—that you need people, not symbols. You need a blowsy New Yorker who rolls into Marfa in a jumpsuit and neon Birkenstocks with her own unhinged plans about what to do with a lustworthy macho intellectual cowboy named Dick.

 
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IMG_0263  

Paul Burnham posted a photo:

 
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Late summer evening - Walthamstow. Pthotographed from a high rise apartment in Wood Green  

Paul Burnham posted a photo:

 
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http://twitter.com/FelixWildlife/status/765502393010229250 
@NirpSecretariat @jag_bros I also hope they are not using Endangered Animals. There are CITES & Endangered species act that protects these. 
http://ifttt.com/missing_link?1471344989 

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Swedish Pokemon teens terrorised by laser-wielding 'sex pigs'  

Gob-smacked drivers spot pair playing Pork-a-chu against municipal waterwheel

The tiny Swedish town of Insjön has been left shaken, traumatised and probably put off its breakfast after two porcine-feature exhibitionists launched a laser-enhanced sex spree on Friday.…

 
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Why High-Income Households Benefit More From Product Innovations  

A Stanford University researcher finds that products purchased mainly by poor people were increasing in price much more quickly than those purchased by the wealthy.

 
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This is your brain on sentences  

Full Text:

Researchers have for the first time, decoded and predicted the brain activity patterns of word meanings within sentences, and successfully predicted what the brain patterns would be for new sentences. The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure human brain activation.

Image credit: University of Rochester/Andrew Anderson, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

 
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SEM of soil dust  

Full Text:

This is a scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of soil dust, composed mainly of silicon-oxygen minerals. This particle was collected along a highway in Scottsdale, Arizona, as part of a research study conducted by Arizona State University researchers on the flow of air pollution in the Phoenix metro area. Dust kicked up by road traffic creates a large proportion of the particles, while others are the combustion products of gasoline or diesel fuel, sometimes in combination with dust.

Image credit: Hua Xin, Ph.D., Arizona State University

 
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Astronauts Kate Rubins and Jeff Williams Prepare For a Spacewalk  
Expedition 48 crew members Kate Rubins (left) and Jeff Williams (right) of NASA outfit spacesuits inside of the Quest airlock aboard the International Space Station. Rubins and Williams will conduct a spacewalk on Friday, Aug. 19, 2016, to install a new docking port that will enable the future arrival of U.S. commercial crew spacecraft.  
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http://twitter.com/GozoPedzi/status/765479150190784512 
CITES stands for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The meeting happens in Jozi this September @WWFSouthAfrica 
http://ifttt.com/missing_link?1471339643 

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Narcissist and Agitator: Donald Trump Is One of the Greatest Threats of Our Time  
During his campaign, Donald Trump has repeatedly flirted with violence. Crude political notions aside, he lacks the character to become president of the United States and represents a true danger to the entire world.  
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'Methuselah Stars' --Oldest Stars in the Universe Found at Milky Way Center: "Date from Before Its Birth"  
 
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Stellar shrapnel  

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

Several thousand years ago, a star some 160 000 light-years away from us exploded, scattering stellar shrapnel across the sky. The aftermath of this energetic detonation is shown here in this striking image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 .

The exploding star was a white dwarf located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our nearest neighbouring galaxies. Around 97% of stars within the Milky Way that are between a tenth and eight times the mass of the Sun are expected to end up as white dwarfs. These stars can face a number of different fates, one of which is to explode as supernovae, some of the brightest events ever observed in the Universe. If a white dwarf is part of a binary star system, it can siphon material from a close companion. After gobbling up more than it can handle — and swelling to approximately one and a half times the size of the Sun — the star becomes unstable and ignites as a Type Ia supernova.

This was the case for the supernova remnant pictured here, which is known as DEM L71. It formed when a white dwarf reached the end of its life and ripped itself apart, ejecting a superheated cloud of debris in the process. Slamming into the surrounding interstellar gas, this stellar shrapnel gradually diffused into the separate fiery filaments of material seen scattered across this skyscape.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Y. Chu

 
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Linxspiration  
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blazepress: “ NYC. ”  
blazepress: “ NYC. ”  
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A Eurasian lynx in Š  
A Eurasian lynx in Šumava National Park, Czech Republic (© Niall Benvie/Minden Pictures) 2016-08-15 [www.bing.com/search]  
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Giant sulphur (Colia  

Giant sulphur (Colias gigantea) collected in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: 04HBL003032; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=LCH032-04; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:AAA3447)

 
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Donald Byrd - A New  
Donald Byrd - A New Perspective (1964) Designed by Reid Miles  
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How Do You Stop a Plague of Loneliness?  
This filmmaker is questioning Scandinavia's socialist paradise.  
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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/16/80-of-all-android-devices-are-vulnerable-to-hackers-hijacking-their-web-traffic/  
80% of all Android devices are vulnerable to hackers hijacking their Web traffic  

A bug that was first found in version 3.6 of the Linux OS kernel (released in 2012) allows attackers to terminate a device's connections to servers and applications. It could also be exploited to spy on unencrypted traffic or inject malware into the user's data stream. The security flaw, which was noted by security firm Lookout on its blog, is worrying because it's also present in Android KitKat 4.4 and later versions. That means that 80 percent of all Android devices, or about 1.4 billion of them, are affected and vulnerable to attacks. There's good news and bad news. The…

This story continues at The Next Web  
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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/16/snapchats-110m-acquisition-of-vurb-could-remedy-its-biggest-problems/  
Snapchat's $110M acquisition of Vurb could remedy its biggest problems  

Snapchat today acquired mobile search and recommendation app Vurb for a reported $110 million. Why Snapchat was interested in a mobile search app at a all is what makes the purchase interesting. It's no secret that Snapchat is growing. After initially turning down a $3 billion acquisition bid from Facebook in 2013, Snapchat has grown to a reported 150 million daily users and a valuation north of $20 billion. It also passed Twitter this year in daily active users. But still, Snapchat has problems. The most oft-heard gripes center on a confusing interface that makes it difficult for new users to…

This story continues at The Next Web  
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African Wildlife: Darkness Falls  
Today, wildlife experts speak of an “elephant holocaust.” The regions of Africa that have suffered most from poaching are those steeped in conflict, where it is too dangerous for conservationists to work. Robert Ross's new book of photographs of the African Selous reserve brings us into a fast disappearing world and keep us there.  
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untrustyou: Mitch Epstein  

untrustyou:

Mitch Epstein

 
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http://heptagram.co/post/149001893484  
weissesrauschen: Jim McAuley  

weissesrauschen:

Jim McAuley

 
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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/16/study-current-electric-car-batteries-suitable-for-87-of-all-drivers/  
Study: Current electric car range suitable for 87% of all drivers  

If you're still worried that an electric car battery isn't enough to get you from Point A to Point B and back, stop. According to a new study by MIT, the ‘range anxiety' discussion is overblown. By analyzing driving habits across the country, MIT researcher Jessika Trancik and a team of colleagues found that currently available electronic car technology would prove suitable to replace 87 percent of the personal vehicles on the road, and up to 98 percent by 2020 — assuming current rates of battery improvement remain stable. For the study, researcher's used the Nissan Leaf, an electric vehicle with…

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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/16/eon-board-adds-an-electric-motor-capable-of-22-mph-speeds-to-any-skateboard/  
Eon Board adds an electric motor capable of 22 MPH speeds to any skateboard  

Personal movement devices like Segway's Mini Pro, hoverboards, and electric scooters are starting to gobble up an increasing amount of marketshare from those that used to walk or ride a bike to work. Eon Board is trying to join their ranks. Designed by Unlimited Engineering, the board uses a low-drag in-wheel motor and replaceable battery pack to propel a skateboard at speeds of up to 22 MPH with a range of 15 miles on a single charge. Through a system dubbed ‘regenerative braking,' the board will also be able to partially recharge itself each time you slow down. Perhaps even more…

This story continues at The Next Web  
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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/15/striking-out-on-tinder-use-more-gifs/  
Striking out on Tinder? Use more GIFs  

Humans have spent centuries trying to understand the intricacies of love. The answer, as it turns out, might be as simple as GIFs and a dating app. While you spend 20 minutes trying to craft a perfect opener, the guy who sent this GIF is about to take that girl you just matched with out for some cheap beer and free pretzels. According to Tinder, GIF messages are 30 percent more likely to receive a response than their non-GIF counterparts. The company also revealed that conversations with GIFs were two times longer than those without. Tinder's sociologist Dr. Jess Carbino told Engadget she…

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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/15-21-august-2016/new-culture-secretary-vows-tear-barriers-career-arts/  
New culture secretary vows to “tear down the barriers to a career in the arts”  

Recently appointed Culture Secretary, Karen Bradley, has promised to open up the arts to people from all backgrounds, in her first speech since being added to the cabinet when Theresa May became Prime Minister last month.

Speaking in Liverpool, Bradley emphasised that access to arts and culture “must be available to everyone, not the preserve of a privileged few”, citing a survey which found that arts engagement was nearly 82% among the wealthiest adults, but just over 65% from lower socio-economic groups.

Cultural Citizens Programme

“The Government is looking at how we can tear down the barriers to a career in the arts. A new experience that reaches someone who would not otherwise enjoy a rich cultural life changes that person's world,” Bradley said.

“That sort of experience has immeasurable value, but can also have a cumulative impact that can effect change on a local and even national scale. Culture can help regenerate villages, towns and cities.”

The Culture Secretary announced that pilots of the Cultural Citizens Programme, first announced by David Cameron in January, will be launching next month in cities including Liverpool and Blackpool and will help 600 disadvantaged children.

“It is a fantastic initiative which could give thousands of children the chance to take part in a range of cultural activities, such as free visits to local plays, behind the scenes access to museums and galleries, and exclusive trips to world class venues, so they realise that culture is just as much for them as for anyone,” said Bradley.

“Make sure no child is left out”

The Culture Secretary's speech comes after last month's parliamentary debate on the English Baccalaureate a GCSE qualification that excludes art and design which some have claimed devalues creative subjects and makes them inaccessible for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Bradley said she will be working closely with the new Education Secretary Justine Greening to “make sure that no child is left out of this country's magnificent and extraordinary cultural inheritance.”

It is also uncertain whether in light of the vote to leave the EU during the recent referendum the Government could announce further austerity measures affecting arts and culture in this year's Autumn Statement.

The post New culture secretary vows to “tear down the barriers to a career in the arts” appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/15-21-august-2016/christine-losecaat-honoured-mbe/  
Christine Losecaat honoured with MBE  

Christine Losecaat, former creative industries advisor to UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), has been appointed an Honorary Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to the creative industries in the UK.

Losecaat also founded consultancy Little Dipper and is a senior business strategy, marketing and creative specialist.

The Dutch national, who is an honorary fellow of the British Institute of Interior Design, is responsible for a number of high profile creative projects, including co-producing Peter and the Wolf. Last year, she also helped bring to life the UK's Pavilion at the World Expo in Milan.

Creative Industries International Strategy

Losecaat, who worked for UKTI until last year, has advised on the UK's Creative Industries International Strategy for over a decade. It was in this capacity that she was one of the creative drivers behind the London 2012 Olympics' British Business Embassy. The project is estimated to have contributed over £15bn to the UK economy in total.

The announcement of her MBE comes after various prominent British designers including Margaret Calvert and Johanna Basford were recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in June.

“Based in the UK for over 20 years”

“I've been based in the UK for over 20 years. It is a very special place and remains the number one global destination for bringing creative concepts to fruition with global impact,” says Losecaat.

“I am truly delighted to receive such a prestigious honour for doing what I love best bringing together talent with projects that put creative integrity at their core.”

The post Christine Losecaat honoured with MBE appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/8-14-august-2016/samuel-mensah/  
Samuel Mensah: “Black designers are never placed at the forefront”  

Every bit as bold, stylish and vibrant as his work, it is my pleasure to introduce you to the multi-talented Samuel Mensah.

What's your background?

I was born in Ghana and raised in London where I work today under the name SMBStudios focusing on brand innovation and visual storytelling. I've got experience in digital marketing, brand identity conception and design, production, visual design and art direction. I like to integrate branding and visual marketing to create overall innovative user experiences. By day I am also a designer at renowned idea agency AKQA on the brand design team.

I am also the founder and creative director of creative organization and studio, Youth Worldwide; a creative platform dedicated to discovering and supporting pioneers in creativity and showcasing emerging young creative talent from around the world.

While traveling in Ghana last summer I had an epiphany to host a youth networking forum with some of Africa's brightest entrepreneurs as part of my responsibility to another organisation of which I am a founding member, Future of Ghana. We lectured at Ghana's first creative university Ashesi, which was founded by Patrick Awuah formerly of Microsoft.

His story of overcoming the odds to build a university over almost a decade inspired me greatly and I realised even though this may not be exactly what I wanted YWW to be, the scale and magnitude of the impact it had on people's lives is something that could not escape me. Upon my return back to the UK I made it a point to team up with more young creatives, begin a small team and begin working on a few cool projects that challenged and fed their skills.

We now work with numerous creatives around the world and have them as part of our network in our aim to share, showcase and express emerging creative talent in all areas on a global stage. The format of YWW has changed and will continue to evolve until we find the most optimum way of making it happen. We want to get to know more people, more leaders that can support and join the movement. Feel free to connect with us.

How did you get started in your field of expertise?

My background lies mainly in the realm of traditional graphic design. That is what I initially fell in love when it comes to design as a whole. I've always seen graphics as the one thing that connects the entire world visually but is heavily taken for granted by most people.

I wanted to design everything and anything when I was younger and my knowledge of design itself was limited but I was determined to dedicate my life to it since I found a purpose with it. I went on to study Design for Advertising at Degree level but really made a name for myself outside the classroom in the digital arts realm.

By taking advantage of online platforms such as DeviantArt, Tumblr, Behance and more I was able to gain popularity quite quickly with my pieces which were always quite vibrant and had a vibe of motivation and inspiration to them. Those are things I take quite seriously in my work. Apart from them looking good I always aim
for my work to actually motivate the audience in some way and bring some semblance of joy in their lives.

This went very well for me and from a young age saw me get featured on quite prestigious platforms and design blogs around the world, which it was hard to take seriously at the time since it never really sunk in. Along with juggling school and interning for Gilbert & George my life 6 years ago was definitely just about design and nothing else.

Nothing much has changed really. The process of making the shift into the working world of advertising and branding with my expertise and skills was quite simple and if you told me I would be designing for Nike almost every day of my life and speaking on an OFFF Festival stage last year about my work, I wouldn't have believed you either but the universe is interesting.

The formation of YWW has also shifted my love of advertising to other creative and design processes such as industrial design, fashion, experiential design and all things tech. I find my understanding of creativity and its applications has evolved and I want to understand more about everything now. From someone who started in digital arts and branding I feel there are no boundaries to how far things can be pushed in regards to how I apply my creativity and the overall impact it can make.

What challenges did you face/overcome in getting into the industry and achieving your ambitions?

The challenges I continue to face are the ones I put before myself. I challenge myself to be the best I can be and place myself in my own lane when doing anything. However I am very aware of the real social challengers that do hold people back in the industry. The creative industries are rife with classism, sexism and other discriminatory ism's which has been slowing down and getting better in recent years but is still very far from eradicated.

I've been brought up with the mentality to work harder than everyone else to give people no reason to say no. Through this approach I have to say I have been able to evade systematic discrimination for the most part in my professional journey, but it begs the question why work so hard just to be seen as equal. I chose to see it as preparing myself to simply be the most equipped and capable.

Coming up in the industry I never studied or was even educated about one great graphic designer that was black, even though there are many out there we are never placed at the forefront. For a long time it confused and angered me. I choose to dispel this status quo forever by being that person of colour that I always wanted to see in certain positions and achieve things that were once thought of as highly improbable.

For many millennials of colour that are entering the industry, simply seeing people in powerful positions in the industry that look like them can inspire them so much and has to be championed more. They can take solace knowing that it is most definitely possible to get to the same level and even exceed that of their predecessors.

Who and/or What are your greatest inspirations and influences?

My greatest inspirations have always come from talking to people. I truly believe that conversation is the most holistic way that we as creatives can create better ideas and become better at our jobs of being visual communicators.

My personal heroes are innovators such as Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Bill Gates, Tim Brown & Elon Musk. They inspire me as being those who were able to wield their creativity in the most impactful way possible and leave a lasting effect on the world for a very long time to come. It bothers me that Steve and Bill are not classed as equally creative, when they both created things from scratch that we all use almost every day of our lives to serve specific imperative functions.

A common misconception is the word “design”, which most people think of as pretty pictures or forms. What is missing however is understanding the depth to which design goes—not only in products, but in essentially every aspect of our lives . Whether it is the design of a program, a shirt or some form of communication tool, we are living in a world that's infinitely designed. Somebody made a design decision about everything we use, and have.

What is your best piece of work or the project you are most proud of?

I always think the project I am most proud of is the one I either just did or the one I am currently executing. I say this because I believe you're only ever as good as your last and you must make that the strongest you've ever done. The project that was most formative for me was the process of creating my first ever typeface. I was 21, just completing 2nd year of my university degree and was bored in the summer, hungry to do something I'd never done before. With my background being typography and typographic studies it meant that every font I used in my designs was in essence created by someone else.

My mind shifted when I realised I could create my own and that in fact I wouldn't be satisfied until I made my own. The process in itself would not only be creatively liberating but also a personal liberation. To own something and furthermore create a resource that could benefit other creatives was inspirational. Once I knew I wanted to take on the task I was determined to make it happen even though I had no idea how to do it. I was luckily able to recollect that I had a friend in New Zealand called Daniel McQueen who was a font specialist and was able to turn my designs into a usable font.

Knowing this, the process of researching began and moving into the mentality of creating something classic. I wanted my first typeface to sit alongside the likes of Helvetica, Avant-Garde & Futura. Those were the ambitions I had for the yet untitled font. I named it Echelon. I remember creating a rollout for it on social media that was able to make its release in early september 2012 all the more impactful. It went on to do very well and be featured in many impressive places and most notably be used last year for Nike's Athlete kit for Basketball giant Kevin Durant.

My subsequent font Atelier Neue, which I released almost exactly a year later went on to do well and is my personal favorite. I saw it as a way of very much cementing myself and not being regarded as a one hit wonder. I feel it proved to many potential critics that I can churn these out. The font has also been used in many notable places; most recently for the BFI's Black Star film campaign.

What would be your dream job or project?

My dream job ideally is not to have to have a job at all. That is the best reason to explain why I formed YWW. It was an escape to what I've always wanted to do, which is simply work on super creative briefs and projects whether it's about making products or crafting films.

My dream project is a collection of many small projects culminating in a cultural shift of creative liberation and acceptance by a generation who can take it further than we ever imagined. It is most definitely a process that will not be achieved in a few years or decades but most definitely in our lifetime.

Please name some people in your field that you believe deserve credit or recognition, and why?

I feel we live in age where because of the internet and social media, everyone is able to have a platform and take advantage of the benefits. They are able to gain recognition and become creatives that are creditable.

Everyone is very visible and it's beautiful because it means collaboration has become easier than ever before. Sharing of ideas, culture, skills and creativity has never been easier.

I do aim to give credit to those that paved the way for me personally and I looked up to coming up. Pioneers like Dieter Rams, Peter Saville, Sagmeister, Milton Glaser & Tibor Kalman just to name a few.

In my field today there are amazing young talents in the YWW network that are doing incredible things. So many emerging creatives, some as young as 15 years old, that I have been exposed to, poses a unique creative approach and understanding. They say tomorrow belongs to those that can hear it coming. This truly is the most fearless generation of all time. We will find out why very soon.

What's your best piece of advice for those wanting to follow in
your footsteps?

Nobody knows what the hell they are doing most of the time. Just do your own thing. I believe everyone has their own specific way of how the universe will unfold itself to them.

What I will say is that life begins when people understand that the key is to give back. When they realise that serving and creating real change and impact in people's lives through their creativity is the most powerful thing they can do.

Forget rules, and let nothing hold you back. That's why I love the next generation. They don't care about paying homage or being constrained to the past, they are more focused in making new, making their own path. That energy is so empowering.

I would also encourage creatives to embrace failure more. I used to be very self-conscious about failing early on in my career. I have now realised how vital it is to understanding the journey of growth that comes with getting to a certain level. Failure will come but you will get over it. If you are not failing you are honestly not innovating enough.

What's next for you?

I continue to be dedicated to my passion of collaborating and showcasing creatives. I will continue to build the YWW network and aim to create impact with the greatest creative talents the world has to offer. Most importantly I aim to have fun.

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For more information visit:

https://www.behance.net/smbstudios

https://www.facebook.com/SMBStudios

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Network:

THE CARIBBEAN:

ANIMAE CARIBE CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS. Held every year in the caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago, the Animae Caribe animation festival will run from October 24th to 31st 2016. The largest animation film network with a regional coverage in the Caribbean, it is recognized to be one of the many notable international annual festivals. In addition, Animae Caribe has a regional and international network of storytellers, writers, puppetry artists, visual artists (including graphic designers and photographers), theatre and music performers, sound and lighting technicians and reseachers, which feed into the animation production sector. Submissions for Short animation are open. Deadline 30th August 2016

EUROPE:

FASHION CITIES AFRICA the first major UK exhibition dedicated to contemporary African fashion opened at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery on 30 April 2016. Exploring fashion and style in four cities at the compass points of the African continent Casablanca in Morocco, Lagos in Nigeria, Nairobi in Kenya and Johannesburg in South Africa Fashion Cities Africa considers recent and contemporary fashion practices in these distinctive metropoles, from couture to street style. Until 8 January 2017

Included in Museum admission fee/£3.50 residents, members and children free brightonmuseums.org.uk/fashioncitiesafrica

#FashionCitiesAfrica

AFRICA:

ALBUS EXHIBITION BY JUSTIN DINGWALL. Barnard Gallery is pleased to present Justin Dingwall's solo exhibition Albus in association with Lizamore & Associates. With an arresting vulnerability and striking intimacy, the photographs in Justin Dingwall's ongoing body of work Albus constitute an extended meditation on the nature of beauty and perception.  Aiming both to raise awareness about Albinism and to challenge the taboo that exists around it, the series interrogates and offers an alternative to traditional notions of beauty. From 23 August til 11 October 2016.

 

The post Samuel Mensah: “Black designers are never placed at the forefront” appeared first on Design Week.

 
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Reddit refuses to hand over IP address of music pirate  

Reddit says it's not giving up the IP address of a user who leaked a Twenty One Pilots song a week before its planned release. A track from the Suicide Squad soundtrack, ‘Heathens,' made its way to file-sharing site Dropfile on June 15 and was uploaded to the Twenty One Pilots subreddit minutes later. The leak then forced Atlantic Records and its subsidiary label Fueled by Ramen to release the track on June 16, a week before scheduled rollouts with Spotify, iTunes and other platforms. According to a lawsuit filed in the New York State Supreme Court, Atlantic Records and Fueled…

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Report: Apple to introduce 10.5-inch iPad Pro in 2017, new display tech in 2018  

A new report by esteemed analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggests Apple has plans to release three different iPad models for its 2017 lineup, including a new 10.5-inch size iPad Pro and a “low-cost” 9.7-inch tablet. Oh, and you can expect new display technology for the iPad later in 2018. According to Kuo, the newly added 10.5-inch model will accompany the 12.9-inch iPad Pro 2 and its more affordable 9.7-inch alternative: We expect three new iPads (12.9” iPad Pro 2, new size 10.5” iPad Pro & low-cost 9.7” iPad) to be launched in 2017, though this may not drive shipment growth amid structural headwinds; 2017F shipments…

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Malicious KickassTorrents clone wants to steal your credit card details  

It's a cold summer for the torrent community. Last month pirates' favorite tracker KickassTorrents shut down following the arrest of alleged founder Artem Vaulin and last week the internet's largest meta-search engine, Torrentz.eu, mysteriously closed its doors. With two of its major players out of the picture, the torrent community had a massive gap to fill up and it didn't take long before a bunch of clones spurred. Now it turns out not all of these mirrors are genuine. Popular KickassTorrents clone KAT.am  recently taken down following a run-in with Hollywood  has now resurfaced on the Web; but this time as a scam aimed at stealing your bank account details.…

This story continues at The Next Web  
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US one sheet for SUDDEN FEAR (David Miller, USA, 1952)Designer:...  

US one sheet for SUDDEN FEAR (David Miller, USA, 1952)

Designer: unknown

Poster source: Heritage Auctions

Now playing at Film Forum through Thursday!

 
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Fishing gear entanglements of marine birds is focus of Smithsonian ecologist's study  

(Study is one of dozens to be presented by bird scientists this week at the
2016 North American Ornithological Conference in Washington, D.C.)

To catch tuna in the Pacific today, many commercial fishing ships set a series of long lines through the water—lines that are bristling with hundreds and even thousands of baited hooks. While a chunk of squid may be irresistible to a tuna, many seabirds also chase and swallow these fishing baits.

Albatrosses, including Hawaii's black-footed and Laysan albatrosses, feed at the ocean's surface. “Bait on a hook is tempting. It looks like easy prey before the long line sinks into the sea,” explains Autumn-Lynn Harrison, a marine ecologist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. “But, going after the bait means an albatross can also get caught on the hook, become injured, or even drown,” Harrison says.

Albatrosses are one of the most threatened groups of birds globally and information about their interactions with fisheries is important. When fishing vessels pull in the line to release or salvage the bird, they are encouraged to also look for a band on its leg. Metal bands are placed on albatross chicks in the nest, or on breeding adults. A band can identify the specific colony where it was born and its age, or for birds banded as breeding adults, where it bred.

If a hooked albatross has a band on its leg, it is hoped the band information and the circumstances of how it was obtained is reported to the United States Geological Survey, which maintains the North American Bird Banding Database. Database records go back to the 1920s, when major fishing operations hadn't yet left the coast to spread throughout the open ocean. Many original band-return records of albatrosses banded by Smithsonian biologists in the 1960s can even be found in our own records at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

This week, Harrison will speak on large-scale patterns of bird entanglement in fishing gear in North and South America and the Pacific at the 2016 North American Ornithological Conference in Washington, D.C. One of the largest ornithological conferences ever held, lectures by dozens of world experts, workshops, roundtable discussions and interactive sessions and symposia on a vast array of bird-related topics will be featured. Held every four years, this year's conference runs from Tuesday, Aug. 16 to Saturday, Aug. 20 and is being hosted by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

In addition to albatrosses, entanglement of North American banded birds by fishing operations, including recreational fishing, also is reported in large numbers for royal terns, double-crested cormorants, and brown and white pelicans. Globally, entanglement by fishing is a primary reason “all of the 22 species of albatross is listed in someway on the International Union for Conservation Nature Red List of Endangered Species,” Harrison continues.

This interactive map was created from data on all reported fishing-gear entanglements of birds of all species from 1920-2014. (Map courtesy Autumn-Lynn Harrison)

Harrison's current research involves using the USGS Bird Banding database to investigate patterns that show if members of specific albatross colonies (many different colonies nest across the Hawaiian Islands) died more frequently as the by-catch of specific North Pacific fisheries.

Albatross by-catch by the fishing industry is a well-studied phenomenon, yet “how different colonies might be impacted differently because of their migration patterns is just starting to come to light,” Harrison says. The traditional migration route of a specific colony may place its members in harm's way at specific times of operation—right in the seasonal path of a commercial fishery. Another colony in a different area may not face this threat.

“I am trying to learn what 100 years of banding data can tell us about which colonies were caught in which fisheries and how this might have changed through time. Birds that breed on Midway Island in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands [west], for example, may have a higher likelihood of being caught by an Asian fishing fleet versus birds that breed on Kauai or Oahu Islands in the main Hawaiian Islands [east] that are caught more frequently in Hawaiian long-line fleets.”

Albatross death by long-line fishing is “changing over time,” Harrison observes. “Fishing fleets have become more aware about the impacts of their operations on seabirds, and have gotten smarter about ways to try to get albatrosses away from their fishing vessels.  A lot of this work is really improving the ways fisheries are able to avoid bird by-catch.”

Second to commercial fishing as a marine bird hazard, Harrison says, are two other human-introduced threats: floating plastics that albatrosses feed to their chicks, and climate change. “Many marine birds nest on low-lying islands that are likely not to be there in the future,” due to rising sea levels.

The post Fishing gear entanglements of marine birds is focus of Smithsonian ecologist's study appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

 
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Fifth force of nature? Light particle may be key to understanding dark matter in universe  
Recent findings indicating the possible discovery of a previously unknown subatomic particle may be evidence of a fifth fundamental force of nature, according to new research by theoretical physicists.  
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Brown dwarfs reveal exoplanets' secrets  
Brown dwarfs are smaller than stars, but more massive than giant planets. As such, they provide a natural link between astronomy and planetary science. However, they also show incredible variation when it comes to size, temperature, chemistry, and more, which makes them difficult to understand, too. New work surveyed various properties of 152 suspected young brown dwarfs in order to categorize their diversity and found that atmospheric properties may be behind much of their differences.  
astronomy  

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London Skyline  

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Sunset  

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Budget cuts threaten to weaken powers of England's nature watchdog  

Leaked documents and sources show Natural England will use its legal powers less and seek funding from the private companies it is meant to keep in check

England's nature watchdog is planning to use its legal powers less and risks becoming a weak regulator forced to raise funding from the private companies it is meant to keep in check, leaked documents and sources reveal.

Natural England is duty-bound to defend rare species and protected areas including national parks and England's 4,000 sites of special scientific interest from potentially environmentally damaging developments.

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Luna moth's long tail could confuse bat sonar through its twist  
A detailed look at how sound waves bounce off a flying moth's body offers new clues for how its long, twisted tail might help it evade predatory bats.  
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Tropical sea urchins caught between a rock and a hot place  
The balmy waters of the Caribbean could turn into a deadly heat trap for countless tiny creatures. Authors of a new study have discovered that microscopic sea urchin eggs and larvae may suffer stunting or death when the water temperature spikes just a couple of degrees above normal, adding to the impact of climate change in already warm tropical oceans.  
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A very hungry caterpillar: Researchers sequence genome of 'gluttonous' tobacco hornworm  
The genome of the tobacco hornworm -- an important model of insect biology -- has now been sequenced by a team of researchers. The sequenced genome can lead to improved molecular biology, physiology and neurobiology research in insects and also may help in developing future new methods for insect pest management. The tobacco hornworm is a good model species because of its large size -- the caterpillar can measure up to 4 inches long -- making it easy to collect tissue samples.  
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Why Thousands Are Buying This $100 Rubber Duck  
Pi lab started out making traditional consumer electronics, but found its biggest hit with a high-tech spin on a classic children's toy.  
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London at Sunset  

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From Greenwich

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London at Sunset  

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From Greenwich

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Antalya, Turquie 08/2016

 
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PrEP For Her: Bringing Women Into The HIV Prevention Conversation  
"PrEP for a lot of women, will be their entry point for access to care," noted Martha Cameron, Director of Prevention at The Women's Collective. "They are hearing about it for the first time and you see the surprise," she added. "The first part of the session is trying to convince people that it's real, it's out there, that it's for women and not just for MSM, and it works."

The Women's Collective is a non-profit organization in Washington D.C. that serves women of color who are HIV positive or at risk for HIV. They're working with the D.C. Department of Health on PrEP for Her, a new campaign that aims to increase knowledge about PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, among African-American Women. PrEP can be more than 90 percent effective in preventing HIV when taken daily.

Not everyone who is eligible for PrEP is aware of it, however, and that's where the health department along with their community partners hope to make a dent. CDC estimates that there are 1.2 million people in the nation who are eligible for PrEP: 38 percent are women. "This group hasn't really been targeted in any other initiative," noted Ashlee Wimberly, PrEP for Women Project Coordinator at the Washington AIDS Partnership, a similar initiative to bring PrEP awareness to women. "There's a very big gap."

Ms. Wimberly is referring specifically to women of color. "The most important thing that needs to be mentioned is that there has hardly been any campaign, social media strategies, even images out there that have targeted women in general and especially women of color with regard to PrEP," added Ms. Cameron.

17.2 percent of HIV diagnoses in 2014 in DC were among women; of all the women diagnosed, 91.2 percent were Black. Data from Gilead Sciences, the pharmaceutical company that makes Truvada® (the medication used for PrEP), showed an almost four fold increase in PrEP uptake between 2014 and 2015 among men, while the numbers of women taking PrEP remained stagnant.

PrEP for Her wants to change that. "It's exciting to see it come together," said Dr. Travis Gayles, Chief Medical Office at the D.C. Health Department. "I think for so long, especially around HIV, a lot of our resources haven't been targeted towards women." Dr. Gayles noted that while there are high numbers of men who have sex with men (MSM) impacted by HIV, and thus much of HIV prevention efforts focus on that population, it's exciting to have an effort that includes women as well.

However, prescribing PrEP isn't enough. "I'm a big believer that the easy part of PrEP is to write a prescription," Dr. Gayles said. Ms. Cameron agrees. "The drug is not the issue," she said. "The issue is you have to have follow-up medical care, and labs, and so on." Ms. Cameron noted that many of the women she works with face barriers to sustained care, from financial instability, to housing security, being in violent relationships, and having mental health or substance use concerns. All those aspects must be addressed in order to reap the benefits from PrEP. Dr. Gayles concurs. "There are a lot of factors that go into adherence beyond just the patient's desire to take the medication," he said.

Ms. Wimberly added that the PrEp for Women Initiative aims to reach 5,000 women and 300 doctors in D.C. to increase knowledge and PrEP awareness through social media and traditional marketing over the next two years. The conversation is about empowering women and PrEP helps HIV negative women do that by putting prevention in their hands, in the form of a pill. Everyone agrees that messages about PrEP must be relevant for women and their sexual circumstances. "I think we definitely have to make sure that the information is accessible and we relay it in a way that connects with our intended audience," Ms. Wimberly said. "If we're going to be effective, that's a key piece to it."


The D.C. Health Department launched the PrEP for Her initiative this year with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the MAC AIDS Foundation. In July 2016, their STD clinic began offering PrEP to patients for the first time. The Washington AIDS Partnership launched the D.C. PrEP for Women initiative in July 2016. This fall, the Partnership will release a request for applications to support innovative projects aimed at increasing PrEP knowledge and utilization in Washington, D.C. Additionally, the D.C. Health Department provides funding to The Women's Collective for some of their HIV prevention efforts.

The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the City and County of San Francisco.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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China, The World, Greed, Cognitive Dissonance, The Best and the Brightest, and Why People Seem to Encourage ... - China Law Blog (blog)  

China Law Blog (blog)

China, The World, Greed, Cognitive Dissonance, The Best and the Brightest, and Why People Seem to Encourage ... China Law Blog (blog) Now for the Best and the Brightest/ cognitive dissonance part. When I was in college, I read David Halberstram's The Best and the Brightest as part of an international politics course. Wikipedia does an excellent job at distilling the book in the ...

 
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r0B0t: SRI Spin-off Abundant Robotics Developing Autonomous Apple Vacuum - IEEE Spectrum  

IEEE Spectrum

SRI Spin-off Abundant Robotics Developing Autonomous Apple Vacuum IEEE Spectrum The first automated apple harvesting system that doesn't bruise or damage the produce will be a huge breakthrough in an industry that has been dependent on the challenges of seasonal labor.” Abundant Robotics' initial prototype is designed with ...

 
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r0B0t: Four Player Co-op: Is Final Fantasy XV's Season Pass Too Costly? - 411mania.com  

411mania.com

Four Player Co-op: Is Final Fantasy XV's Season Pass Too Costly? 411mania.com Quizmaster Well, it looks like Telltale is going to keep the ball rolling with a Mr. Robot game in the future. I've played and completed Episode ... Niantic at first, took a while to say anything, which angered players of the beloved app. When ... and more »

 
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Puffin Wintering Grounds Need To Be Protected  


A long-running mystery in the bird world has been solved: Where do the little clown-faced Atlantic Puffins go when they leave their Maine nesting grounds?

Within just the last year, with the help of tracking tags attached to puffin leg bands, scientists have learned that Maine puffins winter about 150 miles southeast of Massachusetts' Cape Cod in the waters of an area known as the Grand Canyon of the undersea world. Here, mountains rise thousands of feet from the sea floor and brilliant corals grow to tree-like proportions in aquatic forests that resemble a Dr. Seuss creation.

This discovery has come just as President Obama is weighing a decision to declare the undersea area--the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts--the first Atlantic Marine National Monument.

So why should the recent puffin discovery by Audubon scientists help President Obama make that decision?

This is one of the most pristine biodiversity hot spots on the planet, a place remarkably free from human disturbance. It's not only the winter home to the threatened Atlantic Puffins, but hosts whales, porpoises, tuna, sailfish and countless other sea creatures and ocean fauna. And those are just the seafaring creatures we know about. Much remains unexplored in this aquatic wonderland.

But the pressure to fish, drill and mine in increasingly remote and unexplored places puts this fragile habitat at risk. President Obama, with a stroke of his pen, has the power to permanently protect the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts by declaring it a Marine National Monument.

Some commercial fishers oppose the national monument designation, saying it would hurt their business if they are not allowed to fish these waters.

We believe protecting this underwater biodiversity hot spot would have exactly the opposite effect. Rather than hurt commercial fishers, protecting this highly diverse undersea world will help improve declining populations of lobsters and commercial fish in the overfished waters off the New England Coast.

Fishers have experienced declining hauls for years due to overfishing and climate change that is shifting the patterns of fish populations.

When fish and other sea creatures have a safe haven as diverse as the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts, they grow and repopulate the seas for hundreds of miles, bolstering populations with more and healthier fish.

That's the economic side of preserving this unique area. Just Google "images for New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts" and you can't help but be awed by the photos of lacey corals, sea creatures more magical than anything Hollywood animators could ever create, and thriving sharks and whales.

Scientists believe the Atlantic Puffins are attracted to the area because of the huge upwelling that provides abundant food, the same conditions that attract other sea birds along with whales, porpoises, tuna, sailfish and other fish.

Protecting this pristine habitat that will help ensure the health and bio-diversity of the region's ocean waters for wintering Atlantic Puffins and countless other species of birds and marine wildlife. With the video evidence from our live puffin cams on Explore.org, Audubon scientists know the puffins are going to need all the support they can get to survive as warming sea waters impact the kinds of fish they need to survive.

There is much we still don't know about the area. It's one of the aspects that makes it so special, and would create such a tragedy if it were destroyed.

President Obama has an opportunity to make a decision that will impact the planet and future generations: He can ensure that one of the most magical and bio-diverse spots on the planet will be protected for decades to come.

(And here's how you can help.)

David Yarnold is president and CEO of the National Audubon Society.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Without oxygen from ancient moss you wouldn't be alive today  
The earliest terrestrial plants, such as moss, made a surprising contribution to the levels of oxygen in the atmosphere some 400 million years ago  
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A New Buzzfeed Piece Shows How Juanita Broaddrick Has Drifted to the Right  

Long before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, he vowed that the ammunition he had stocked for Hillary Clinton would include constant reminders of her husband's sexual misdeeds. Now, Trump appears to have won the support of the woman with perhaps the most disturbing allegations against Bill Clinton, Juanita Broaddrick, as Buzzfeed's Katie J.M. Baker reports in a nuanced profile.

Broaddrick, who claims that Clinton raped her in 1978 when he was Arkansas' attorney general, told Baker what she has always told reporters: that her animus toward the Clintons is personal, not political. But Baker found that as conservatives have embraced Broaddrick's cause, she seems to have increasingly returned the favor. Broaddrick, who voted for Obama in 2008, “insists she has no plans to join Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign and says she's only voting for him because she doesn't want the man she claims raped her—and the woman she believes enabled him—back in the White House,” Baker writes. But her public profile tells a different story. “She used to tweet mostly about her own story and other sexual assaultrelated issues; these days, her feeds are filled with outlandish Clinton conspiracy theories and angry posts about Benghazi.”

Broaddrick also granted her—slightly ambivalent—approval after the Trump campaign, without her permission, used her voice and story in an anti-Hillary attack ad. Though Broaddrick told Buzzfeed that she was “really hurt” when the Trump team pulled audio of her describing the alleged rape, fighting tears, in a 1999 Dateline interview, she said in a radio interview in May that she thought her role in the ad was “important,” and that she wasn't “unhappy” that the clip was used.

For those who don't remember the details of Broaddrick's allegations against Clinton, here's a brief refresher: Broaddrick, who met Clinton when he made a campaign stop at the nursing home where she worked, claims that she'd arranged to meet the then-attorney general in a coffee shop in Little Rock, but at the last minute he instead invited himself to her hotel room, where he raped her “like it was an everyday occurrence.” Broaddrick says she told a few friends at the time, but might never have come forward if lawyers for Paula Jones, the Arkansas state employee who sued Clinton for sexual harassment, hadn't heard about her through word-of-mouth and subpoenaed her in 1998. At the time, Broaddrick signed an affidavit swearing that Clinton had not raped her—hoping, she says now, “to stay out of it.” When Clinton was impeached the next year, however, and federal prosecutor Ken Starr reached out to Broaddrick, she testified the opposite. Ultimately, she agreed to do the 1999 Dateline interview, hoping to lend her voice to the clamor for impeachment.

Starr deemed Broaddrick's claims “inconclusive,” and the Dateline interview didn't air until after the impeachment proceedings had ended. In the end, Broaddrick's testimony didn't stick to Bill Clinton's presidency—but it lingered in the air after his time in the White House had ended. As Lisa Myers, the Dateline reporter who interviewed Broadrrick for NBC News, told Baker: “No one can objectively look at Juanita's story and not be troubled.”

According to Trump—and to Broaddrick herself—voters should be especially troubled to see Hillary Clinton, wife of an accused rapist, running an openly feminist campaign. One New Hampshire voter asked her in December, “You say that all rape victims should be believed. But would you say that about Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and/or Paula Jones?” Clinton replied stiffly: “Well, I would say that everybody should be believed at first, until they are disbelieved based on evidence.” Baker reports that, in the months following this incident, Clinton's campaign seemingly tinkered with its website focused on the issue of campus sexual assault. A block quote on the page once read: “I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault: Don't let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed, and we're with you.” The final sentence has since disappeared.

There's a long history of wives being called to account for their husband's sins, as Rebecca Traister has written at New York magazine—and Hillary Clinton has more experience than anyone with that particular American instinct. As Michelle Goldberg wrote for Slate in December, “I don't think for a moment that the people who hope to use Broaddrick against Hillary care about victim blaming. And it would be a profound sexist irony if these accusations, having failed to derail Bill Clinton's political career, came back to haunt his wife.” Of course, irony doesn't begin to capture the glaring dissonance between Trump's enthusiastic support of Broaddrick and his own reportedly violent history with women: His ex-wife Ivana has accused him of rape, though she later disavowed the statement. It's telling that Trump has had so little trouble painting Clinton as a hypocrite while presenting himself as Broaddrick's long-awaited advocate. Often, what a powerful man can brush off, a woman must contend with for the rest of her life. Juanita Broaddrick may know that better than anyone.

 
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An Olympic Showdown: Human versus Ant  
Could the fungus-farming leaf-cutter ant take on an Olympic weightlifter?

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com  
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r0B0t: Researchers Are Growing Living Biohybrid Robots That Move Like Animals  

This article originally appeared in the Conversation.

Think of a traditional robot and you probably imagine something made from metal and plastic. Such “nuts-and-bolts” robots are made of hard materials. As robots take on more roles beyond the lab, such rigid systems can present safety risks to the people they interact with. For example, if an industrial robot swings into a person, there is the risk of bruises or bone damage.

Researchers are increasingly looking for solutions to make robots softer or more compliant—less like rigid machines, more like animals. With traditional actuators—such as motors—this can mean using air muscles or adding springs in parallel with motors. For example, on a Whegs robot, having a spring between a motor and the wheel leg (Wheg) means that if the robot runs into something (like a person), the spring absorbs some of the energy so the person isn't hurt. The bumper on a Roomba vacuuming robot is another example; it's spring-loaded so the Roomba doesn't damage the things it bumps into.

But there's a growing area of research that's taking a different approach. By combining robotics with tissue engineering, we're starting to build robots powered by living muscle tissue or cells. These devices can be stimulated electrically or with light to make the cells contract to bend their skeletons, causing the robot to swim or crawl. The resulting biobots can move around and are soft like animals. They're safer around people and typically less harmful to the environment they work in than a traditional robot might be. And since, like animals, they need nutrients to power their muscles, not batteries, biohybrid robots tend to be lighter too.

Building a biobot

Researchers fabricate biobots by growing living cells, usually from heart or skeletal muscle of rats or chickens, on scaffolds that are nontoxic to the cells. If the substrate is a polymer, the device created is a biohybrid robot—a hybrid between natural and human-made materials.

If you just place cells on a molded skeleton without any guidance, they wind up in random orientations. That means when researchers apply electricity to make them move, the cells' contraction forces will be applied in all directions, making the device inefficient at best.

So to better harness the cells' power, researchers turn to micropatterning. We stamp or print microscale lines on the skeleton made of substances that the cells prefer to attach to. These lines guide the cells so that as they grow, they align along the printed pattern. With the cells all lined up, researchers can direct how their contraction force is applied to the substrate. So rather than just a mess of firing cells, they can all work in unison to move a leg or fin of the device.

Biohybrid robots inspired by animals

Beyond a wide array of biohybrid robots, researchers have even created some completely organic robots using natural materials, like the collagen in skin, rather than polymers for the body of the device. Some can crawl or swim when stimulated by an electric field. Some take inspiration from medical tissue engineering techniques and use long rectangular arms (or cantilevers) to pull themselves forward.

Others have taken their cues from nature, creating biologically inspired biohybrids. For example, a group led by researchers at California Institute of Technology developed a biohybrid robot inspired by jellyfish. This device, which they call a medusoid, has arms arranged in a circle. Each arm is micropatterned with protein lines so that cells grow in patterns similar to the muscles in a living jellyfish. When the cells contract, the arms bend inwards, propelling the biohybrid robot forward in nutrient-rich liquid.

More recently, researchers have demonstrated how to steer their biohybrid creations. A group at Harvard used genetically modified heart cells to make a biologically inspired manta ray-shaped robot swim. The heart cells were altered to contract in response to specific frequencies of light—one side of the ray had cells that would respond to one frequency, the other side's cells responded to another.

When the researchers shone light on the front of the robot, the cells there contracted and sent electrical signals to the cells further along the manta ray's body. The contraction would propagate down the robot's body, moving the device forward. The researchers could make the robot turn to the right or left by varying the frequency of the light they used. If they shone more light of the frequency the cells on one side would respond to, the contractions on that side of the manta ray would be stronger, allowing the researchers to steer the robot's movement.

Toughening up the biobots

While exciting developments have been made in the field of biohybrid robotics, there's still significant work to be done to get the devices out of the lab. Devices currently have limited lifespans and low force outputs, limiting their speed and ability to complete tasks. Robots made from mammalian or avian cells are very picky about their environmental conditions. For example, the ambient temperature must be near biological body temperature and the cells require regular feeding with nutrient-rich liquid. One possible remedy is to package the devices so that the muscle is protected from the external environment and constantly bathed in nutrients.

Another option is to use more robust cells as actuators. Here at Case Western Reserve University, we've recently begun to investigate this possibility by turning to the hardy marine sea slug Aplysia californica. Since A. californica lives in the intertidal region, it can experience big changes in temperature and environmental salinity over the course of a day. When the tide goes out, the sea slugs can get trapped in tide pools. As the sun beats down, water can evaporate and the temperature will rise. Conversely in the event of rain, the saltiness of the surrounding water can decrease. When the tide eventually comes in, the sea slugs are freed from the tidal pools. Sea slugs have evolved very hardy cells to endure this changeable habitat.

We've been able to use Aplysia tissue to actuate a biohybrid robot, suggesting that we can manufacture tougher biobots using these resilient tissues. The devices are large enough to carry a small payload—approximately 1.5 inches long and one inch wide.

A further challenge in developing biobots is that currently the devices lack any sort of on-board control system. Instead, engineers control them via external electrical fields or light. In order to develop completely autonomous biohybrid devices, we'll need controllers that interface directly with the muscle and provide sensory inputs to the biohybrid robot itself. One possibility is to use neurons or clusters of neurons called ganglia as organic controllers.

That's another reason we're excited about using Aplysia in our lab. This sea slug has been a model system for neurobiology research for decades. A great deal is already known about the relationships between its neural system and its muscles—opening the possibility that we could use its neurons as organic controllers that could tell the robot which way to move and help it perform tasks, such as finding toxins or following a light.

While the field is still in its infancy, researchers envision many intriguing applications for biohybrid robots. For example, our tiny devices using slug tissue could be released as swarms into water supplies or the ocean to seek out toxins or leaking pipes. Due to the biocompatibility of the devices, if they break down or are eaten by wildlife these environmental sensors theoretically wouldn't pose the same threat to the environment traditional nuts-and-bolts robots would.

One day, devices could be fabricated from human cells and used for medical applications. Biobots could provide targeted drug delivery, clean up clots or serve as compliant actuatable stents. By using organic substrates rather than polymers, such stents could be used to strengthen weak blood vessels to prevent aneurysms—and over time the device would be remodeled and integrated into the body. Beyond the small-scale biohybrid robots currently being developed, ongoing research in tissue engineering, such as attempts to grow vascular systems, may open the possibility of growing large-scale robots actuated by muscle.

 
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Spire and Chimneys  

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Palace  

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End of Terrace  

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Golden Tower  

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Sunset  

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Phaselis  

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Antalya, Turquie 08/2016

 
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Thames Barrier, Canary Wharf and the O2 III  

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Canary Wharf and the O2  

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Thames Barrier  

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r0B0t: Adorable miniature robot is teaching kids mechanical engineering  

Meet Marty, the robot that is teaching kids and makers about programming, electronics and mechanics. 

The cute robot is Wi-Fi enabled, can be customized through 3D printing, and with the help of his spring legs, can to do all types of things other robots cannot do.  

The founder is currently raising money on Kickstarter, and hopes to ship Marty the Robot kits in early 2017.  Read more...

More about Mashable Video, 3d Printing, Kids, Programming, and Real Time  
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r0B0t: Read This Book! - Human Resource Executive Online  

Read This Book! Human Resource Executive Online His sixth book, Silicon Collar, is a Renaissance man's view of automation in the workplace, bringing rare historical perspective and balance to the cry: "The robots are coming!" By Bill Kutik .... And my doctors still can't share information online ...

 
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Velvet Antlers (BW)  

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A Red Deer Stag with new antlers covered in a layer of velvet.

By using a low vantage point and by positioning the stag between the sun and the camera I was able to capture a halo of light around the edges of the antlers. This was enhanced by using the dark tree canopy in the distance as a backdrop.

In post processing I reduced the exposure level down so that very little detailed remained other than the glowing outline of the stag.

 
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Photos of the Day: Aug. 15, 2016  

Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world.  
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Rio 2016: Photos From the Second Weekend (40 photos)  

Hundreds of photographers have gathered in Rio to follow the action in the Olympic arenas, swimming pools, racetracks, and more. Over the two weeks of the games, I'll be featuring some amazing images from recent Olympic events. Today's entry encompasses rowing, marathon swimming, sailing, weightlifting, steeple-chase, tennis, synchronized swimming, handball, wrestling, a marriage proposal, and much more.

 
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r0B0t: How a robot wrote for Engadget  
John McCarthy, the late computer scientist who first coined the term Artificial Intelligence, famously said "as soon as it works, no one calls it AI any more." What was once cutting-edge AI is now considered standard behavior for computers. As I writ...  
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r0B0t: Why I've Stopped Reading Parenting Articles  


I, like pretty much every parent out there, want to do the best for my children and I spend far far too much time worrying about what I'm doing wrong. I am a worrier by nature so this does not come as too much of a surprise but I do think that today's society doesn't help. I've always believed in the most fundamental way that knowledge is power so when it comes to the most important task of my life I feel I should arm myself accordingly but there comes a point when it becomes demoralising.

I've found recently the amount of articles explaining what NOT to do is becoming overwhelming and actually hindering me to the point of utter indecision. We are bombarded daily by articles telling us how to parent, from 'Late bedtimes make obese children' to 'Breast is best' and 'Fussy eaters will sprout new heads' (OK, so I made that last one up, but you get the point). No matter how you raise your children, there will be an article somewhere saying you're doing it wrong, most likely with research and scary percentage figures to back it up. And it's exhausting!

A particular meme I saw said something like 'If you don't listen to the small things your children tell you now then they won't tell you the big things later' so I'm now obsessed with listening to every single word that falls from my 5yo (motormouth) child's mouth in case he doesn't want to tell me about his blossoming heroin habit when he's older. And I'm terrified my 2yo is going to have ADHD or depression when he grows up because he was born so early (and he exists only on cheese sandwiches and Hula Hoops, don't get me started on the salt content).

I mean, do we need that stress in our lives? To be told constantly we're getting it wrong? It's hard enough to get through the day to day stuff, things like dinner time, supermarket trips and death defying stunts at the play park, let alone worrying about things 15 years down the line. How on earth can we possibly take into account the '50 different ways you're failing when your child has a tantrum' when they are already face down on the shop floor wailing about the sweets you won't let them have because they are '10 times more likely to cause childhood obesity'. And that's without even taking into account the 2 hours of Paw Patrol 'screen time' they had this morning just so you could make a home made organic fish pie to prevent an anxiety disorder when they grow up. But wait, aren't home made meals now worse for your kids? Oops!

By doing the wrong thing we can make our children insecure, clingy, fussy eating, obese, anxious, bratty, inarticulate robots who will contribute nothing to society. Ok, no pressure then!

I was brought up before the joys of the Internet and my parents had nothing to go on but their own instincts and what their parents taught them and I turned out OK... to a point. Yeah, I am a fussy eater but who's to say that's anything my parents did? I have a fair feeling I would have been a fussy eater regardless of what hand pressed, dunked in holy water, divinely worshiped food my mother had fed me. I have my issues, we all do, it's what makes us human.

The reality is, no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we strive to be the perfect parent, we will make mistakes. We will lose our tempers, we will do things the wrong way, we will make the wrong decisions but we will still be trying our best.

So I've decided to read less articles about how 'My ill chosen sofa is ruining my child's bottom' and spend more time listening to my instincts (and my children) about what I think I'm doing right and wrong. I'll do my best to improve every day, I will strive to be the best parent I can be and I'll live in the now. I will no longer worry about the studies that show 'My child's dirty finger nails will cause hair loss when he's 50' or 'Hugging your children less than 80 times a day will cause a phobia of t shirts'. But I might still read the ones about fussy eaters, you know, 'cause I'm a glutton for punishment.

This summer The Huffington Post UK is spearheading an initiative helping families thrive, with a focus on parent wellbeing, the challenges facing stay-at-home and working parents, friendships and navigating the landscape of modern parenting beyond the 2.4. To kickstart the campaign, Jamie Oliver guest edited the site, bringing a focus on feeding healthy families.

We'll be sharing stories and blogs with the hashtag #ThrivingFamilies and we'd like you to do the same. If you'd like to use our blogging platform to share your story, email ukblogteam@huffingtonpost.com to get involved.  
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r0B0t: This Website Mails Out Physical Greeting Cards for You  

At the end of last month, I received seven birthday cards in the mail. The senders were my mom, a friend from high school, my college roommate, an ex from a relationship that ended in 1984, that ex's mom, someone I've been close to since the mid-'80s, and a guy I met for about 20 seconds as I was leaving a 2014 holiday party.

Of course, those weren't the only birthday wishes I received. Other people sent greetings via Facebook, email, Gchat, Slack, and Twitter. I even got an ecard! And while I genuinely appreciated all those salutations, the one that stuck with me the most—the one I'm staring at three weeks later—was the card from the rando. It's made from 100 percent cotton, tree-free paper, and the design is one I'd choose myself: The letters “HBD” are spelled out in colorful cake-topping sprinkles. Inside was a touching sentiment written in a loose cursive script.

To be fair, describing my acquaintanceship with the person who sent the card exclusively in terms of our face-to-face encounters gives a false impression. Gabriel Arana, the sender, is far from a stranger. He's a journalist whose work I admire; our beats overlap; we move in similar social circles; and we often interact on Facebook. We know each other relatively well for people who've never really spent any time together. In other words, we have the kind of modern friendship that doesn't typically involve sending physical cards through the U.S. mail. Which made receiving one from him all the more memorable.

After a couple of minutes spent staring at the card, I started to question a few things: Upon closer inspection, the handwriting on the envelope looked like the robot script familiar from fundraising appeals. Then I asked myself how Gabe knew my postal address. I searched through my email archive and found a delightful note from him, sent back in January 2015. It began, “I apologize for the mass e-mail, but in order to fulfill my dream of sending people birthday and anniversary cards like a fancy society lady, I need your mailing addresses.” There was a link to a site called Postable.com, which I had apparently followed. So that's how he got my postal address: I had given it to him! Sneaky.

Over at Postable, I learned that the site bills itself as “snail mail heaven.” It notes that postal mail seems special and surprising these days precisely because “it's a pain in the ass to send.” We're all familiar with that particular PITA. In the case of a friend's birthday, you have to remember the date, acquire a card, find the time to compose a message—if I've spent money on a card, I generally want to write more than “Happy birthday”—dig up an appropriate stamp, and take it out to the mailbox. Postable claims it was “created to alleviate that ass pain. We make sending seriously stylish snail mail as easy as sending an email. You type it and we handle all the annoying stuff. We print, stuff, stamp, address and mail all of your cards directly to everyone for you.” (It may sound a little like the letter-writing shop where Joaquin Phoenix works in Her, but with Postable, the words are your own.)

My first response was that this is cheating. Then I consulted my to-do list and noticed that four of the items included the words “send card to.” All had been on the list for a couple of weeks. It's possible that I send more cards than most of the people reading this—I came of age before the email era; I grew up in another country so I rarely see childhood friends to catch up in person; and I'm a stationery addict who's always looking for opportunities to use her pens. But it's still surprisingly difficult for me to write and mail the darned things on time.

Postable offers a wide range of cards—in terms of design and occasion—and generally speaking, they're a little cheaper than the ones I typically buy in the chic card shops of Brooklyn. Cards cost $3 each, or $2 each if you send 10 or more, plus the cost of postage. You can choose among several handwriting fonts—I'm dying to use “As If Your Kid Wrote It,” a tribute to the comically inept letter formation of small children—and there are also various type options. The font you choose for your message is also used on the envelope. You can set up automated birthday and anniversary cards—though you have a chance to tweak the message or cancel before it's sent out—or you can send one-off greetings. I imagine the service is particularly useful for people who are planning a big event like a wedding: Having someone—or something—else take care of dozens of save the date cards and invitations would surely save hours of repetitive toil.

But is snail mail still special if the person wishing you well used an online service rather than taking care of all the details themselves? I confess that when I first examined my Postable card, I briefly felt as though I'd been tricked into thinking it was more personal than it really was. I got over that very quickly, though. The Postable URL had been on the back of the card, but I just hadn't paid it much mind—URLs have become so ubiquitous these days, we barely notice them anymore. And the most important thing was that Gabe had put me on his list. It's always the thought that counts, but he'd also spent real money to wish me a happy birthday.

The more I looked at the Postable site, the more tempting it seemed. Soon enough, I was sending an overdue birthday card to a high-school friend in England. I used one of the cursive scripts for my breezy note—a choice I now regret. That isn't my handwriting, so it lends an unnecessarily ersatz tone. If there's nothing shameful about paying someone to send your cards, why not embrace the artificiality and use a typewriter-style font.

Postable won't let me cross off all the “send card to” entries on my to-do list, though. I know that some friends would be insulted by my time-saving automation, and certain occasions, like sympathy cards, demand a more personal touch. But I'll soon be sending out my own mass email to acquire my friends' addresses and birthdays. I feel guilty when birthday cards are late and Christmas cards go out in January, so why not let a website do some of the work?

 
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r0B0t: Bill Nye: Worrying about the AI Robot Apocalypse Is Pointless | Big ... - Big Think  

Big Think

Bill Nye: Worrying about the AI Robot Apocalypse Is Pointless | Big ... Big Think Bill Nye laughs in the face of the robo-pocalypse. Or more accurately, he laughs at those who worry that AI might run amok. If we build robots that want to kill us, ... and more »

 
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