text:
To be honest, it was all looking a bit grim as I swung open the garage door at 7am last Sunday morning. The rain was really coming down, and the clouds hung low and heavy over the High Peaks. For a second I contemplated closing the garage door again and crawling back to bed.
Then I reminded myself that the darkness of winter would soon be upon us again, which of course equates to those dreaded salted roads. No, we have to make the most of the summer season – even if it is a wet one. So into the rain I splashed with my trusty 2002 as we made our way south along scenic roads through the length of the Peak District as we headed for Walsall Arboretum.
Gemini Events host an array of classic car shows across the country every summer, and their Classic Motor Show on the 16th of July was their 27th event at Walsall Arboretum. They were expecting about 500 vehicles to show up, but sadly I think the wet morning might have kept a few classics indoors. Quite a shame really, as once we had all arrived on the show grounds, we ended up having rather decent weather with just a very minor shower around lunchtime.
The turnout was still impressive enough, though I was a little surprised as to just how biased it was towards British classics. From memory, I believe a late-80's Alpine GTA V6 Turbo was the sole French contender, and a cute little Fiat 500 was possibly the sole Italian contender. There were a few early MX-5's, but despite having very high thoughts of the first generation MX-5, it's just not a car I can yet regard as a true classic. Other than them, a '67 one-owner Toyota Corona RT40 was the only Japanese classic I came across. My 2002 was also the only BMW there, though I did get some German company from a handful of Beatles and VW campervans, along with a couple of Porsches and even a stunning Mercedes-Benz W108. But it was truly the Austin and Morris owners that were out in force, closely followed by a wide selection of classic Fords and of course some MG's, Triumph's and Rover's too.
Luckily the British classics display great variety within their own rows. One particular example which stood out for me was the '67 Reliant Scimitar Coupé SE4 of Brian Kenyon from Pelsall. I've always been a big admirer of the SE4, but they're of course quite rare, so it's not often I have the pleasure of coming across one out in the wild. Brian bought his example 7 years ago as a restored but very bare shell and several boxes of random parts. It's a puzzle as to why the Scimitar was ever disassembled to this extent, as it still retains a full history including its original Green Logbook, a very low documented 39,000 miles, and the original interior only needed a thorough clean in order to present itself perfectly. None the less, several parts were missing from the boxes and it took Brian 5 years to get his Scimitar back on the road again. It now looks beautifully and Brian has spent the last 2 years using it for shows just like he does his later Scimitar SE6a which he has owned for 29 years.
But the Swedes can do stylish coupés too, and the '70 Volvo 1800E of Tracey Holmes from Warwickshire immediately caught my attention. However, Tracey's story is even more spectacular than her 1800E. Aged only 23 the Volvo had clearly caught her attention as well, as she fell in love with the stylish coupé even though she at the time didn't even know what it was. She just knew she had to own it. Tracey finally managed to trade in her Spitfire and purchase the 1800E, to bring it home and show her parents on the 23rd of November 1981 – her father's birthday. Since then Tracey used her Volvo as her daily up until the early 90's, at which point it was put into her father's workshop where he restored it between working on other jobs. By '96 the Volvo was back to its former glory and looking just like when Tracey originally purchased her dream coupé – even still sporting the rare and period correct Goodyear Gemini alloys. Since then Tracey has continued to use the 1800E for all sorts of classic events right from small local meets to big shows. A 36 year love affair which I'm sure will continue for a fair while still…
In stark contrast to these two sleek coupés, I just had to stop and admire the awesome quirkiness of the '61 Vauxhall Velox Friary Estate owned by Peter Marshall from Shropshire. Peter tells me that while numbers vary a little depending on the source, approximately 470 of these Vauxhall-approved estate conversions were built by Friary in Basingstoke, and today only around 20 are believed to survive. While Peter has owned his saloon version of a Vauxhall PA for just over 30 years now, he admits that it's the rare estate version which has been the one he really wanted for all those years. He too admits that one can hardly claim that it's a beautiful design in the classic sense. But the Friary estate certainly has presence, not to mention charm and character in spades! Only last December did he finally manage to purchase this one after finding it in Yorkshire. The estate had been sitting in a lock-up from 1977 right up to 2009, where it was resurrected. Luckily it had been stored well, so didn't need a full restoration, though it did receive a respray in the original factory colours. Due to its many years in storage, the Vauxhall has only had 4 previous owners and the 67,000 miles on the speedo is documented and true. With that kind of mileage, I suppose it's no wonder that the original factory interior has held up so well, and also had no need for a refurbishment. A dare to ask Peter about his saloon, but no, it's staying as they make up such a nice pair in the garage.
Compared to the above classics, I suppose a mk. II Escort might seem rather common. But not Philip Maeer's '78 Ford Escort! For starters it's a RS2000, and if you're the slightest of a gearhead, then that specific combination of letters and numbers should be enough to get your heart pumping a bit faster. But furthermore, while we regularly see RS2000's in the more common colours of red, white, black or even yellow, I don't recall having ever seen another in Tucson Beige. It's marmite, no doubt, but I personally think it's seriously cool in all its period brownness. Philip was really more into Saabs during his working years, but when he retired 8 years ago, his son Robert who was already into Escorts suggested that he should buy himself a retirement present. When Philip saw this Tucson Beige RS2000 on eBay, he knew this was the one. Since then father & son have enjoyed driving their two mk. II Escorts to shows together, and they are now looking forward to taking part in "Tour of Snowdonia" this coming August.
A lovely day in Walsall ended with a fabulous drive along small backroads heading north – and this time with clear blue skies. Good thing I didn't decide to stay in bed on that wet Sunday morning!


text:
The president of the United States of America is a "shitposter."
It's not an elegant turn of phrase. But it is, I think, the correct terminology to capture a political moment so monstrously stupid that even Jerry Springer finds it embarrassing. To shitpost, according to the scholarly journal Urban Dictionary, is to "make utterly worthless and inane posts on an internet message board," particularly those involving memes or low-quality visuals.
And the president's latest act of shitposting—tweeting out a video edited to show Trump wrestling, and beating up, the CNN logo—has flung the 24-hour news network into a week-long controversy involving death threats, claims of blackmail and a Reddit user who calls himself "HanAssholeSolo." It's very hard to imagine having to explain that sentence to a person from 2007. But frankly, it's also pretty hard to explain that sentence to a normal person from 2017 who doesn't spend every waking moment following incremental developments in Trump's blustery war with the media. (Which, probably, is healthy.)
Daily Emails and Alerts – Get the best of Newsweek delivered to your inbox
Related: Trump blocked me on Twitter for telling him he's not as cool as witches
Now, a week after Trump's tweet, CNN is accused of blackmailing the Reddit user behind the wrestling clip, and the network's journalists (and even some of their families) are being subjected to threats and harassing phone calls from pro-Trump trolls and Redditors. Curiously, the line from the CNN story that was interpreted as blackmail (a stretch) wasn't written even by the reporter. According to Gizmodo, it was added by a CNN executive as a legal safeguard, but the threatening tone proved disastrous. But as the #CNNBlackMail hashtag spread through the alt-right this week, things got ugly. "These far-right trolls are really threatening people and coming after people," an anonymous CNN employee told The Daily Beast. "Somebody's gonna do something stupid at some point."
Again, it's really striking how the CNN Blackmail nonsense is being conducted almost exactly like Gamer Gate was.
— Katherine Cross (@Quinnae_Moon) July 7, 2017
A perceived slight, and an unfortunate editorial choice, is spun into this enormous scandal pitting Ordinary Folks against the Eebil MSM.
— Katherine Cross (@Quinnae_Moon) July 7, 2017
For observers of Gamergate, these tactics are familiar—only now the digital mob is taking inspiration from the highest reaches of government. Trump frequently approaches social media like a message board troll, so it's darkly fitting that far-right trolls are adopting the basest instincts of internet forum culture to wage war against the president's perceived enemy: CNN.
Trump can't win a war against CNN in the courts. But he can continue to troll the network (and other media outlets) into chaos and disarray. Consider Trump's 2006 battle with the journalist Tim O'Brien, who had published a book alleging that Trump's net worth was far lower than claimed. Trump sued the author for libel, and after a lengthy legal process, the case was eventually dismissed. But Trump was pleased: "I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees," he later told The Washington Post, "and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I'm happy about."
It's not farfetched to think that Trump feels similarly pleased with himself for bringing chaos to CNN. (Jeffrey A. Zucker, the president of the network, has described Trump's behavior as "bullying.") By casting journalists as villains in his administration, the president makes questions of objectivity even trickier to navigate. As the writer/comedian Sarah Cooper tweeted, "Journalists aren't supposed to be the story, so by making them the story, Trump automatically makes them look biased in defending themselves."
If you're still confused about the state of the president's war with CNN, here's an explainer.
Q: Why is the president so mad at CNN?
Trump has been regularly fuming about CNN, which reports critically on him (and which he calls "Fake News"), since the campaign days. But this particular wave of hostility seems to have been prompted by a retracted CNN story regarding a "Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials." Three journalists resigned after CNN pulled the story. The president spent days gloating about this, though it's worth noting that when he lies, nobody resigns or issues a retraction.
Q: What about that video? Did Trump really wrestle a guy from CNN?
No. The video is an old clip of Trump's appearance at WrestleMania. The CNN logo was superimposed over another guy's head.
Q: Where did the doctored video come from?
Reddit, of course. CNN's Andrew Kaczynski did some digging and determined that the video originated with a Reddit user named "HanAssholeSolo," who's left behind a sizable trail of racist and anti-Semitic posts (including a graphic showing CNN employees with Jewish stars next to their names). Mr. Asshole Solo apologized and deleted his other posts.
Q: "HanAssholeSolo"? What kind of name is—
It's a Reddit username. If you haven't spent much time on Reddit, feel free to keep it that way.
Q: I heard that CNN is blackmailing the pro-Trump Reddit guy. Is that true?
Not exactly—though the outlet definitely botched how the story was handled. CNN tracked down the source of the video, but declined to publish his real name. It's reasonable for news outlets to take an interest in this Reddit user, since he's been involved in a big, newsworthy event; there was a clear public interest in how the violent video traveled from pro-Trump forums to the president's Twitter feed. But the issue of anonymity is somewhat thorny, since the guy is a private citizen and, by most accounts, didn't give permission for Trump to use his video. He is not a public figure, and if doxed, he could be subject to threats or harassment.
What's weird is that CNN granted "HanAssholeSolo" a sort of conditional anonymity. This passage from the story was widely interpreted as a threat to dox the Reddit user if he resumes his "ugly behavior":
CNN is not publishing "HanA**holeSolo's" name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same. CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.
This is odd language to include in a news story. It makes it seem as though the promise of anonymity is transactional, in exchange for a promise not to misbehave. But it wasn't intended as blackmail. It was just sloppy wording. As Kaczynski noted on Twitter, the line was meant to express that CNN hadn't made any agreement with the man regarding anonymity. (If that paragraph was poorly phrased, it might be because it wasn't constructed by a writer; it was written "by a network executive as a defensive measure to explain their sourcing decision," Gizmodo later found.)
This line is being misinterpreted. It was intended only to mean we made no agreement w/the man about his identity. https://t.co/9FL6EvTikx
— andrew kaczynski _ (@KFILE) July 5, 2017
"I don't think CNN intended this as blackmail," Poynter's ethicist concluded, but "it's easy to see how the unfortunate wording in the story could be easily misinterpreted." It's also easy to see that aggressive pro-Trump trolls might act in bad faith and attack CNN's reporters regardless of the anonymity issue. When Trump characterizes the media as "the enemy of the American people," his most vociferous followers might regard it as a patriotic deed to harass journalists.
Q: Wait, I thought the wrestling video was made by a 15-year-old kid?
No. This false detail spread quickly in early social media posts, stirring up anti-CNN fervor among Trump supporters inclined to believe that the network was threatening a minor. (Donald Trump Jr., for instance, tweeted: "So I guess they weren't effective threatening the admin so they go after & bully a 15 y/o?") But it isn't true. Andrew Kaczynski, the CNN reporter who spoke to the Reddit user, has confirmed that he is an adult.
Need to point out again HanAssholeSolo is a middle aged man. People claiming he's 15 are wrong. Some are intentionally spreading this.
— andrew kaczynski _ (@KFILE) July 5, 2017
Trump did once retweet a 16-year-old boy bashing CNN, but that was a separate incident.
What's going on at CNN now?
Lots of unease, reportedly. Kaczynski's family is receiving dozens of harassing phone calls. So are reporters and executives at the network.
Why doesn't Trump just tell his followers not to target journalists with death threats or anti-Semitic memes?
Well… . That would require Trump to acknowledge that some of his followers make death threats and post anti-Semitic memes. Plus, Trump's tweet was interpreted as encouraging attacks on journalists. The larger issue isn't that the president dislikes CNN (which has mishandled plenty in recent weeks). It's that the president dislikes the fundamental notion of journalism holding power to account.
Are we going to be OK?
At press time, we really don't know.
Article Source link

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Become a woman2woman donor |Donate | Become a Member | Renew Membership | Contact Us
Volunteers are the key to the success of our events across New Zealand and the organisation as a whole and we welcome any contribution. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please fill in your details below:
UN Women National Committee Aotearoa New Zealand
PO Box 12473, Thorndon
Wellington 6144
New Zealand
Email us | Contact Form
© 2014 UN Women NC Aotearoa New Zealand. All rights reserved. UN Women National Committee Aotearoa New Zealand is a registered charity with the NZ Charities Commission (registration CC40606), making all donations tax refundable.
Website and Database Development by Fuzion Aotearoa Ltd using open source Drupal and CiviCRM


text:
The top question on everyone's mind when talking to a Real Estate person is "What's my house worth now?" This question is further developed when considering selling. Every homeowner wants to achieve the best return on the sale of their property. Various articles have reported and suggested many different strategies to achieve the highest sale price in the market but what is the "Sweet Spot" in pricing your home to sell? We have heard and seen many commercials… but what is the reality between the one property that attaches to the "bragging rights" and all the other sales in the marketplace which are not identified? The local real estate market has seen many changing dynamics over the past few months. My concern is that often a homeowner does not drill down in the discussion to identify the context, timing, or relevancy of some of this information.
In the past year, the real estate market has gone from one of the strongest Sellers' Markets to a more balanced market to arguably sliding into a Buyers' Market. Each of these markets require a well studied analysis of the facts to bring forward the best strategy for the home owner looking to sell. Every property is different and potential purchasers may respond to each property in a different fashion. Therefore, one must consider all the options when pricing their home. The value obtained by the home owner up the street is not always the "bench mark" to guide your decision making. Your home could establish a new value level if priced properly to maximize the "Buyer Attention". However, the reverse is also true. I have heard some of these thoughts: A) Pricing a home too high can deter people from viewing it. B) Pricing a home at the low end can attract multiple offers and thereby boost the sale price…. not always possible. C) Market and Price the home to attract an "out of area buyer" ….ie. perhaps from Toronto where the average house price is higher.
There is no "sweet spot" pricing. A homeowner should consider all the facts and determine what the suggested honest range of value for the property is in the existing market area. The market conditions, including the economic landscape will contribute to the outcome. Based on that range of value and the potential time available to "test" the market, start with a list price which maximizes the possible interest from buyers and has the potential to achieve the highest and best value on the sale. Know the facts. Work with one of our knowledgeable Sales Representatives to achieve the best outcome.


text:
Me Too
I am usually very reluctant to associate with any trending hashtag but this #metoo is different.
I have watched over the past week as the story surrounding a Hollywood mogul has unfolded knowing in my soul that he is probably not the only one and for some reason he has been thrown under the bus.
Retribution? Distraction? Anything is possible these days.
The positive surrounding this event is the narratives we have been seduced into are being exposed. For us to move into the new age all of the illusions have to go.
It is disheartening to see what some of the most celebrated and often envied women felt they needed to do in order to advance thier careers. Did they have any other choice? I have no idea. I have never been on the inside of the film industry.
My own experience has been meeting my own gatekeeper to where I wanted to go and unfortunately for me he was not the only one.
For people who know me personally this admission may come as a surprise but I also know that others have their secrets too. Not everybody feels comfortable coming forward and this is how the predators manage to continue. They know that the shame, confusion and guilt you feel will keep you silent. By raising our hands in such numbers they will start to realise that their game is over.
I feel for the good guys because unfortunately for a while there may be a tendency to look at them suspiciously.
For those who are guilty I always wonder how they rest in their minds especially when they have wives, daughters, sisters of their own? When did this behaviour start? Why? How long do they think they can continue?
This, for me, is not about about seeking pity, vigilante reactions or man hating. It is about speaking up when you have been done wrong. It is about being seen as a woman of worth not an opportunity for someone to misuse their power. It is about not letting shame and the potential judgement of others make you feel that you need to keep heavy secrets.
Social media has given us each a platform to have a voice in the world. It is a powerful tool and we should use it.
Me too.
Love Yourself!
Thanks for reading.
Please comment and share.


text:
Christmas Coffee Morning
Our monthly Coffee Mornings were set up so that our existing volunteers can get to know each other better over a slice of cake (or a mince pie this month) and for new potential volunteers to drop in and find out more about us - if you're new, you don't need to ask if you can attend, ignore the button saying "book tickets online", simply turn up and say hello and we'll give you a warm welcome.
Over the months we may have guest speakers, tours of the theatre, quizzes, games - it will very much be led by those who come along as to how these sessions develop.
If you'd be interested in learning more about becoming a volunteer to help with front of house duties or perhaps get involved technically backstage, please send an email to our Volunteer Manager, Liz Maisey, at [email protected] and she'll invite you to our next Coffee Morning or arrange to meet you separately one evening at the theatre.
Times & Prices
|Full Price
|Wednesday, 12th December 2018
|Lounge Bar


text:
Carolina Counseling Services - BCBS and Counseling Working Together for Your Recovery
How Do I Set Up my FIRST Appointment?
- Call: (910) 485-6336 (Fastest way to schedule)
- Text: (910) 308-3291 (Reply will be via phone)
- Email: Click to send email (You must include your phone number, because replies will only be made by telephone to ensure security/privacy)
- Call or Text for your New Patient Appointment Anytime!
- Appointment scheduling for NEW clients: Mon-Fri 8:30am-5:15pm
- New client appts may be scheduled when therapists have openings, which may include daytime, evenings and weekends.
- Established/Standing Appointments are made directly with your therapist!
- Some Therapists schedule appointments Mon-Fri 8am-8pm and Saturdays (if requested)
- Referrals: MOST beneficiaries do NOT need a Referral!
- 1310 Raeford Rd Suite 2 Fayetteville, NC 28305
For your first appt at the Raeford Rd location come to this address:
Our Mailing Address:
PO BOX 9909 Fayetteville, NC 28311
Insurance Information:
Related Articles
BCBS and Counseling Working Together for Your Recovery
Counseling as a means of coping with distress has grown in effectiveness and popularity in recent years. Stigmas surrounding counseling have dramatically decreased allowing individuals to freely seek counseling to address upsetting symptoms or even major life changes such as death, divorce, or chronic illness. Many clients engage in therapy to address what some may view as daily stressors, like jobs and relationships, which may create an imbalance in one's life and affect both their psychological and physical health.
How Counseling Helps
There can be many reasons and various motivations for pursuing counseling. Regardless of the motivator, it can take courage and dedication to go through therapy. This may be why finding the right therapist can be the key to achieving recovery, improving relationships, promoting self-empowerment, and/or reducing emotional suffering. While it may allow you to feel better when you talk to and feel listened to by a supportive person, you may need the expert guidance of a therapist to truly find the healing you deserve.
Therapists are professionally-trained and can help you meet your own personal goals and overcome the daily emotional challenges you are faced with. Working with a therapist can help you dig at the root of your concerns and identify the best ways to make positive changes in your life. Therapy can provide long-lasting benefits to you and even possibly those around you.
Counseling and Insurance
Apart from the stigma associated with counseling, some people shy away due to concerns related to expenses. If you have decided to see a therapist, one of the initial questions you may ask is whether or not your insurance is accepted. A lot can depend on what type of insurance policy you hold. Many insurance companies have limited coverage and some types of mental health professionals, such as therapists or counselors, may not be included. Oftentimes, a referral from your primary care provider may be required.
This may not be the case if you are a Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) health insurance beneficiary. With BCBS, you can easily receive the type of counseling service you need. Unlike other insurance agencies with restrictive policies on health providers, BCBS allows most licensed counselors, therapists and psychologists in its network. Policies such as these allow you access to a professional of your choice without having to worry about getting a doctor's referral for counseling.
The Importance of Trust in Your Recovery
It can take time and effort to find the right therapist for you. End your search at Carolina Counseling Services Fayetteville with a licensed, independently contracted therapist that has advanced training and is certified by their respective board.
You deserve a therapist that you can trust and feel confident with. Most especially, you may need a partner to accompany you on your way to recovery. Together with CCS and BCBS you can find a strong therapeutic alliance based on trust and reliability. Call now to request an appointment.
We can help!
Call now and make an appointment!
Confidential / Private Sessions
Carolina Counseling Services contracts independently with Licensed professional counselors/therapists/psychologists who provide a friendly, relaxed atmosphere to everyone. Carolina Counseling Services independently contracted therapists assist individuals, couples, families, and children with counseling services that will help put your life back on track. Working with both non military and military is a joy and the therapist you choose will be happy to assist you whether you are a "civilian", or if you are a dependent or retiree.
Counseling and Therapy are often used interchangeably in our English language. The same is true for Counselor and Therapist. It really doesn't matter which word you use. When you need help, it is best to talk to someone who is not only objective, but who has had lots of experience helping others who have been in similar situations as yourself. A friendly Counselor or Therapist who is trained, licensed and experienced is the one who can assist the most. You don't have to figure it out alone. All independently contracted therapists are licensed, friendly professionals. Call to schedule your appt now!
If we can't help you, we will be happy to refer you to someone who can. We look forward to assisting you!!!.
Evening and Weekend Appts Available with specific therapists
Evening and Weekend appointments: We have therapists available for appointments from 8am to 8pm Monday through Friday. Some therapists have Saturday appointments available if requested.
Serving Areas: Carolina Counseling Services
Counties: Cumberland, Hoke, Bladen, Sampson, and Robeson Counties, NC
Areas: Fayetteville NC, Ft Bragg NC, Pope Field NC, Hope Mills NC, Raeford NC, Rockfish NC, Silver City NC, Cedar Creek NC, Bowmore NC, Autryville NC, Parkton NC, Dundarrach NC, Broadway NC, Lumber Bridge NC, Rex NC, Eastover NC, Stedman NC
Military Community areas: Ardennes NC Bataan NC, Casablanca NC, Anzio Acre, NC, Corregidor NC, Bougainville NC, Hammond Hills NC, Nijimegen NC, Cherbourg NC, Normandy NC, Bastogne NC, Pope NC, Ste Mere Eglise NC,
Zip Codes: 28301, 28302, 28303, 28304, 28305, 28306, 28307, 28309, 28312, 28314


text:
OnePlaceMail: Outlook to SharePoint Integration by Scinaptic
User reviews
14 reviewsBack to Listing
Super value for our clients
I'm happy to recommend the product to all my clients if they need to archive or collect information from their mailboxes.
The support we have got from Scinaptic Communications has just been perfect, we enjoy the attention we get from them.
Product Reviews
Works fine
Simple to use
Supports meta data collection, very usefull
Top 500 Reviewer
View all my reviews (1)
Wow. The BEST Support I have ever experienced.
Again, thanks James!
I can't say enough good about you or your company.
Product Reviews
Scinaptics has out done themselves in terms of product quality.
Their support is outstanding, other organizations should take note of their style, efficiency and courtesy. Although I was running the demo, James was available at a moments notice (he's over 25,000 miles away from me!) and was more than willing to remote in and help me through a minor permissions problem that turned out to be a server problem. Simply stated, if you need a solution that Scinaptics can provide and you're considering another provider - quite considering and just call Scinaptics. Unbelievable - this company should be a model for all small software shops!
Thank you James!!
Top 100 Reviewer
View all my reviews (1)
Fast, simple, flexible
We needed a simple and effective means to copy e-mails to SharePoint and apply metadata at the time of saving the e-mail. OnePlaceMail provided the right balance between great functionality yet easy to configure, deploy and use and virtually no overhead on Outlook. Also Scinaptic listened to our comments about how to make the product even better and provided updates really quickly. Great product and even better service.
Product Reviews
Simple to use
No noticeable overhead on Outlook
Good deployment options
Great Product...and Best Support
I recommend this product to everyone who needs to sync email to SharePoint
Product Reviews
But what's more impressive is their tech support.
I mainly work with Cameron and James and their support is always immeidate and patient.
One time there was big brush fire in Sydney area and they had to evacuated.
But they still replied to my emails and phone calls immediately and rescued me from troubles.


text:
But I don't want to think big
Before starting my own businesses, I was working in the corporate world as an IT Consultant. I thought having a solid career that paid well and allowed me to travel would be my "dream job". I hadn't found my true passion yet.
Each morning, especially Mondays, I would wake up with that feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.
Hmm, what excuse can I come up with today so I can skip work? And after about 10 minutes of going through all the scenarios in my head, I'd eventually give up, pull myself out of bed and drag myself into work. Hating life. I realised I only lived for 2 days of the week.
I remember it started to become like Groundhog day. It didn't matter what meeting I was in or if I was up for a promotion. It was against my whole entire being sitting in a stale room, allowing my soul to slowly die, doing whatever I could to stay awake. My eyes would be glazed over, sometimes I would have micro naps as I pressed my eyes closed. That was probably a great talent of mine, getting away with having micro naps in meetings.
Then one day I had a moment... I started to day dream at work.
I wonder, how would it feel like to live a life where I could create anything I wanted? And if my life were a movie, what role would I play in it?
From that day forward, I would roll into work each day with a coffee in hand and a renewed outlook in life. I started researching about others that had achieved their dream of opening up a boutique bakery. My obsession with cupcakes was now getting out of hand but it was the only thing that I would look forward to each day. It was the only thing that made me feel alive inside.
My discovery of this passion for baking cupcakes led me to experiencing something mind-blowing. Call it an epiphany. A magic moment. Or maybe a quarter life existential crisis.
For so long, I hadn't let myself think big because I was afraid. I didn't want to "think big" because it was scary. It was scary because I knew when I would start thinking those thoughts, I could never go back. That voice, would continue to haunt me. "Psst.. that thing you've always wanted to do, I think it's time".
That magic moment is when you realise that you create your own reality. You might even feel like the stars start to align and all these neat little coincidences and opportunities start popping up. You realise that you are the director of the movie you call life.
Let's do a Marianne Williamson quote, shall we?
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
Now some of you may have already experienced those magic moments. Or maybe you're still on that journey and might be thinking… I want to experience those magic moments, "give it to me".
These moments can come at any time, they cannot be forced. What I have found though is this:
Proximity is power
Surrounding myself with others that are constantly creating their own realities, it inspires me to think differently and want to think bigger.
Watch videos, read books, attend events. Meet those inspiring people, you'd be surprised how many people will say yes to a "coffee catch-up" if you're genuinely putting yourself out there with good vibes.
Stay Peachy!
Sheryl Thai, CEO
League of Extraordinary Women


text:
Bruno Latour, the Post-Truth Philosopher, Mounts a Defense of Science
He spent decades deconstructing the ways that scientists claim their authority. Can his ideas help them regain that authority today?
He spent decades deconstructing the ways that scientists claim their authority. Can his ideas help them regain that authority today?
You might want to wait a couple more weeks before submitting that next manuscript
Is the peer review system broken? Many scientists, reporters, and even editors of peer-reviewed journals have weighed in extensively on this question, so I'll let their words speak for themselves. I did, however, think of a slight permutation to the question after seeing a recent Tweet from virologist John Schoggins about his inability to recruit a peer reviewer over the summer.
It made me wonder: Do peer-reviewed journals go through a summer slump just like we do? In other words, does it take longer for a study to be accepted, edited and published when it's submitted in the summer?
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a peer-reviewed study on this topic, but I did find several discussions in fora for scientists that supported my hypothesis that summer slump for the peer review process is indeed a real thing. One article proposed that many potential reviewers are on vacation during the summer. Another poster on the topic posited that the delays may actually be caused by journal editors who are away.
I also discovered a couple of blog posts published by the peer-reviewed journal conglomerates PLOS and Cell Press that explicitly mentioned summer delays. Both journals observed that submissions tend to be highest in summer months — a trend that Emilie Marcus for Cell Press guessed was a combination of theses defended in the spring, professors with newfound free time, and "inspiration/competitive angst" from the science presented at summer conferences.
All this is to say that you, the scientist, can take back some control of the process of getting a paper published. And if your paper is already stuck in the peer review summer slump, know that you're not alone! It'll get better in September after reviewers and editors get back in the swing of things.
Researchers from Cambridge have found that run-of-the-mill sample contamination likely led to the discovery of a placental microbiome
A recent Massive Science article by Adriana Romero-Olivares highlighted the fact that many fungal and protist species are missed in microbiome studies, which tend to focus heavily on just bacteria. If this doesn't change, we might miss out on a lot of important discoveries. But now, a new paper in Nature, led by Marcus de Goffau and Gordon Smith of the University of Cambridge, U.K., shows that the opposite is also true: some microbiome studies are finding microbes that aren't actually there at all!
Ed Yong explained this finding in his excellent piece for The Atlantic. A 2014 study claimed to find a defined microbiome in the human placenta, an environment previously thought to be sterile. This surprised scientists, who had long thought that we are colonized by our microbial friends soon after birth, based on the fact that babies delivered by C-section take a lot longer to develop a stable and healthy microbiome than babies born vaginally. The paper made waves back then because, if the placenta itself were also colonized, this would certainly change our view on when and how the human body becomes host to a complex microbial ecosystem.
But the recent Nature paper by de Goffau and colleagues strongly challenges the published observation of a placental microbiome. They showed that there were reproducible microbial contaminants in the equipment and reagents used in the 2014 study, a nightmare scenario for lab-based scientists. Knowing that this type and scale of microbial contamination is possible in microbiome studies is hugely important, and encourages a healthy level of skepticism among readers of such studies.
Although the whole thing might seem like an embarrassing oversight to some, rest assured that this is how science should work: we test our colleagues' work and refine our findings based on the data. Mistakes and misinterpretations happen, but we are always in search of the truth.
A drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis may also protect developing brains from danger
The last major Zika virus outbreak began in 2015, which was also the year that the country of Brazil identified a link between the virus and brain damage in developing fetuses. Zika is a mosquito-borne disease that usually causes minor illness in infected patients, but transmission of the virus from an infected mother can cause her growing fetus to be born with an abnormally small head and brain damage, a condition called microcephaly. There is currently no treatment for Zika, nor is there a way to prevent fetal infection.
Now, a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University has found that Kineret, an anti-inflammatory drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, may protect infected fetuses from brain damage. We previously knew that inflammation in the fetal brain can cause lasting damage, and that Kineret had been found to prevent fetal brain damage after other kinds of infections. So the researchers infected pregnant mice with the Zika virus, then treated some of them with Kineret. At five days old, the pups of untreated mice had impaired motor and cognitive skills while pups whose mothers had received Kineret showed normal development. Unsurprisingly, the treated pups also had less inflammation in their brains. Kineret also reduced inflammation in and promoted normal developing of the placenta.
Kineret is a well-characterized drug that appears to be safe to use during pregnancy, which smooths the path toward its potential use in Zika patients. Thanks to the Johns Hopkins researchers and some pregnant mice, we just may be more prepared for the next outbreak.
It is important for patients — and presidential candidates — to accurately understand how psychiatric drugs work
After Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson's controversial claims about medicine and healthcare, individuals with chronic illnesses took to Twitter under the hashtag #iNeedMyMedsMarianne to raise awareness of how medication improves their health and quality of life. One meme circulated by some of these Twitter users, many of whom suffer from psychiatric illnesses, contains the following slogan: "If you can't make your own neurotransmitters store bought is fine." The well-intentioned meme was meant to reduce the stigma against psychiatric drugs. However, this assertion is false: these medications are not "store-bought neurotransmitters."
Neurotransmitters are chemicals that help signals travel between nerve cells, helping to regulate thoughts and emotions. Many mental illnesses occur when levels of neurotransmitters in our brains get out of balance. No current psychiatric drug produces new neurotransmitters, but they can change how much or how little is available at any one time.
For instance, depressed patients have too little of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) prevent serotonin from being reabsorbed back into the cells, while the older antidepressant drugs, called monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), block the enzyme that helps break down serotonin.
Some psychiatric illnesses, like schizophrenia, result from too much serotonin and dopamine rather than too little. Antipsychotics work by blocking the receptors of these chemicals on the nerve cells, preventing the cells from being overloaded.
This misunderstanding of psychiatric drugs as "store-bought neurotransmitters" or otherwise made of the same "stuff" as neurotransmitters may seem minor, but it isn't. People who claim to be on the side of science and medicine need to demonstrate that they know what they're talking about, or they (and the rest of us scientists) won't be taken seriously. And the reality is that, because the brain is so complex, scientists simply don't yet know the best way to treat psychiatric illnesses. The drugs available today were discovered through serendipity and don't work for every person. Unfortunately, no patient can simply buy neurotransmitters off the shelf, the way a diabetic can take insulin. Anyone who uses psychiatric drugs should know what they actually do and why.
Food scientists have designed a better brine, reducing the pickle's environmental impact
Did you know that the brine used to make pickles is saltier than seawater? While this gives pickles their delicious taste, it also creates concerns about the water waste – the salt concentration in pickle brine exceeds the EPA's maximum limit by about four orders of magnitude.
Most commercial vendors recycle their brine to reduce their waste, but this is only a short-term solution. Eventually, the brine loses enough salt in the pickling process to be unusable, but is still salty enough to be bad for the environment. And considering that a 2018 Forbes article reported that an estimated 245 million Americans will be consuming pickles by 2020, the salinity and environmental impact of pickle juice will become a growing concern.
Enter North Carolina State University-affiliated food scientist Erin McMurtrie and her colleagues. Based on a fermentation process proposed by another research team in 2010, they have now used a calcium chloride brine containing acetic acid (the same acid that is in vinegar) to pickle cucumbers. The resulting pickles had firm skin and high rates of sugar conversion to lactic acid, making them flavorful. The firm skin of these pickles was thanks to relatively low abundances of yeasts, molds, and bacteria, microbes which produce cucumber skin-softening enzymes during the traditional fermentation process.
Using this new brine, commercial retailers can completely eliminate sodium waste and cut the chloride in their fermentation broth by a fifth without sacrificing the flavor or quality of their pickled products. So rest easy, and enjoy a dill pickle – one made in a calcium brine, that is.
Our understanding of spin-orbit torque has greatly improved, thanks to University of Illinois physicists
You might think that magnetism is as simple as a north pole and a south pole attracting each other. Yet this phenomenon, silently omnipresent in our daily life, still isn't completely understood, as evidenced by a new study from physicists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Magnetic fields are created whenever electric charges move, most commonly when electrons spin around themselves. But electrons also orbit around the nucleus of an atom, much like the Earth orbits around the sun. This creates another magnetic field. The combination of the magnetic field from the spin with the magnetic field from the orbiting creates and effect called the spin-orbit torque. This causes electrons in a current to shear off to opposite sides of a film depending on their spins. Electrons spinning clockwise might move to the top of the sheet, and those spinning anticlockwise to the bottom.
Scientists previously thought that to create the spin-orbit torque, another metal touching the magnetic film was needed, but this new study suggests otherwise. To show this, the researchers passed a current from one edge of a magnetic film to the other and measured the spin of the electrons on both sides by shining light onto the film. Since the magnetic surface actually changes the direction of light's vibrations, they could then measure the reflected light to infer the direction of magnetization. It sounds complicated, but the press release for the paper makes it clear that this is "indisputable evidence" in favor of the phenomenon observed, which is called "anomalous spin-orbit torque."
It is exciting that even for something as well-studied as magnetism, we still have discoveries to make. And this research could lead to advances in magnetic-memory technology, which will make computer memory storage faster and more energy-efficient.
The Trump administration's new rules prioritize the economy over America's wildlife
Up to one million species are at risk of extinction, including some 40% of invertebrate pollinators, including bees and butterflies. There have been some biodiversity conservation success stories here in the United States, including the healthy return of the iconic bald eagle and the recovery of the American crocodile. Such stories are largely thanks to the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Originally signed in 1973 under President Nixon's administration, the ESA has been called one of the most successful pieces of environmental legislation ever.
We're still in the middle of a major biodiversity crisis, but now the Trump administration wants to take the cynical and counterproductive step of considering economic concerns when categorizing species — even though prioritizing the economy over nature is what jeopardizes many species in this country. The edits to the ESA would allow for removing species from the endangered list, as well as limiting protections for threatened species. This could accelerate habit degradation and the demise of our country's wildlife.
I'm studying forest ecology and I worry about the future of forestry in this country. The ESA encouraged sustainable forest management, forcing industry, land managers, and conservationists to work together. The logging industry was able to adapt to these changes and continues to be productive while preserving species' habitat. But now, if economic assessments predict lost revenue from restricted logging in habitats with endangered species, ESA protections might be overlooked.
Changes to the law are set to go into effect in 30 days. If you are worried like I am, consider calling or writing to your senators and representatives! Endangered species are counting on us.
Scientific American presents ten notable entries from this year's competition
The human brain is hugely complex. There is still much that scientists don't understand about this incredible organ — and the things that we do know can often be hard to visualize and communicate. For the last nine years, the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam has run a competition called the Art of Neuroscience, celebrating artwork that powerfully and beautifully illustrates the intricacies of brain biology. This year's winners include a striking installation representing the neurological links between depression and loneliness, and veins depicted in ways you've never seen them before. Have a look at 2019's top entries, and be both captivated and educated at the same time.
You can see images like these year-round by following Art of Neuroscience on Twitter.
It may be perceived as "boring" or "routine," but preventative medicine should be a priority in today's health care system
A largely overlooked area of modern medicine is preventative medicine. In medical schools and rehabilitation fields, we are trained to fix problems, a skill which is hard to apply if the problem is still in the future. However, that is not the way that medicine used to be. Historically, the town doctor took time to know their patients and understand their lifestyle, which was possible because they interacted with their patients more frequently, both personally and professionally, than doctors do today. And while (or, perhaps, because) we see the doctor less than ever before, the collective health of the U.S. population is consistently poor. In fact, every year since 2004, the U.S. has come in last place in terms of life expectancy among the top 11 industrialized countries in the world.
Preventative medicine often results in better personal and financial health for patients. For example, as detailed in the Scientific American article linked above, an otherwise healthy man was repeatedly admitted to the hospital for breathing problems during a scorching Texas summer, spending $60,000 on repeated hospital stays and medical exams. When someone finally stepped back to question why a relatively healthy individual suddenly developed poor lung health and sent a team member to visit the man's home, they discovered that he lived without an air conditioner, which was damaging his lungs. The fix for this simple problem costed $400.
Preventative medicine could also help relieve the health and economic challenges that people with obesity-related illnesses face. Routine check-ups with a doctor could catch heart disease or cancer before they become life-threatening. Regular dental cleanings can even be considered preventative medicine! Stopping diseases before they start is the best outcome for patients, and should be the goal of modern medicine.
Individual actions help us feel empowered while the global community works to reduce carbon emissions and pollution
In the face of constant reports regarding the rapid and rising impacts of pollution and climate change, a call to action can often seem overwhelming. While there is a lot to be said about federal, global, and industry action, the power to incite mass changes isn't always in our hands. However, there are things that we can do in our everyday lives that can add up.
Swapping a coffee cup with a reusable mug may not seem like a large impact if you do it once, but what about bringing your own mug every day? If you're one to drink two to three cups of coffee per day, that's nearly a thousand coffee cups a year! That will surely cut down on your landfill contributions. According to David McLagan of Ecoffee Cup, "If two million people chose to reuse their cup just once a week, it would save 104 million cups a year."
Clearly small swaps can add up over time. More importantly, they are stepping stones to larger changes. Setting and meeting achievable green goals can make way for a sustainable lifestyle. If you are understandably overwhelmed and unsure where to start, here are some swaps you can incorporate today:
1. Invest in a reusable coffee mug and water bottle. This can be a real money-saver if you normally drink bottled water.
2. Buy bigger tubs of yogurt and other snacks instead of to-go containers. This requires a few minutes to portion out your food into a reusable snack container, but has the added benefits of saving money and reducing plastic.
3. Carry your own utensils. Having a handy set of travel utensils (and potentially, straws) can reduce plastic waste. Some examples can be found here.
4. Cut down on take-out meals. Those styrofoam containers they are packaged in are bad for the environment and our health, and are hopefully going extinct: Earlier this year, Maine became the first U.S. state to ban styrofoam containers.
While seemingly insignificant in the short term, just a few months of sustainable changes can make an impact. However, research suggests that people often feel satisfied with the small changes they make and forget to support the larger-scale policy and economic solutions that are necessary to save the planet. Congratulations on doing what you have thus far, and at the same time, let's keep our eyes on the prize!
... but we should take interplanetary contamination seriously
On April 11 this year, the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet was about to land on the moon when it lost contact with Earth and crashed into the moon. Its precious cargo included a DVD-sized archive of 30 million pages of information… and thousands of tardigrades. Tardigrades, also known as "water bears," are microscopic organisms that can survive under harsh conditions like radiation, extreme temperatures, and dehydration.
So should we be worried?
Without water, the moon is unlikely to support extraterrestrial life. The tardigrades spilled on the moon were dehydrated, meaning that for them to come back from dormancy, they need water - something they can't get on the moon. (Another source of contamination: Apollo astronauts left 96 bags of human feces on the moon. It's debated whether the microbes in there are alive or dead.
But for planets like Mars that has potential for supporting life, contamination is more worrisome. A tardigrade spill on Mars could endanger any possible life. This is why space missions to Mars and other moons, such as Europa, undergo sterilization precautions to reduce the chance of microbes from Earth hitching a ride to another celestial body and vice versa.
Yet, can we actually safeguard against interplanetary contamination? Meteorites have bombarded planets for billions of years potentially transferring microbes from one planet to another. Some scientists think that interplanetary contamination has already happened. But it doesn't hurt to be careful just in case.
A new study finds that linden nectar inflicts a one-two punch of toxicity and starvation on bees that depend on it
Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) are the chunky black and yellow insects that dwell in our gardens. Their buzzy nature attracts children, home gardeners, naturalists, and scientists to take a closer look. Bumblebees do not produce large amounts of honey like the other types of bees do, but they are excellent pollinators of crops including cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, and a variety of berries. Unfortunately, bumblebees are in decline, and may eventually disappear all together.
Many European and North American cities have planted linden trees (Tilia spp., which can also go by the common name of basswood) in parks and along roads. These trees have lovely flowers and an "intoxicating" fragrance that attracts insects. However, a new study published last month in PLOS ONE suggests that, despite their appealing flowers, linden trees are killing bumblebees.
I've observed this myself walking around my campus at the Institute for Insect Biotechnology at Justus Liebig University Giessen in Germany. In the last few days I have seen either crawling and dead bumblebees on the ground around the bases of linden trees. Bee mortality has previously been linked with mannose (a type of sugar) toxicity from the nectar. Bees that depend entirely on these trees are also at risk of starvation, because linden flowers bloom relatively late in the season and so nectar is only available at specific times of year.
The PLOS ONE study ties the story together. The researchers found that the mass death of bumblebees is due partly to ineffective metabolism of linden nectar and partly to a toxin in the nectar that impairs the bees' nervous systems. Specifically, in cool morning temperatures, the energy that the bees get from nectar isn't enough for constant flight, so the bees are forced to crawl on the ground and may not be able to regulate their body temperatures. Also, the linden nectar is loaded with toxic chemicals, so bees that continue feeding on it eventually die.
The linden trees are just a small piece of the larger puzzle of what is causing bumblebee declines all over the world, but may point researchers working on other causes in new directions. Hopefully we can find a way to save the bumblebees, because they are responsible for much of the nutritious food we humans rely on each day.
New research identifies how our gut microbiomes interfere with the medications we take, and offers the possibility of medicine personalized to our gut bacteria.
Drugs can be incredibly effective or complete duds in different people: One that works for me may not do anything for you. Researchers at Yale have now pinpointed the genetic and metabolic processes of our gut microbes that cause these differences.
Gut microbes perform a variety of natural functions in the human body, from digesting the carbohydrates in your lunch to producing essential vitamins. In addition, gut microbes also interact with pharmeceuticals – sometimes irreversibly changing the active component and inhibiting its intended function.
Evaluating how these microbes modify drugs in vivo during product development is difficult, most notably because we have not identified all the microbes, and consequentially active in our intestinal tracts. Drugs treating everything from cancer to Parkinson's disease show strong evidence of modification or inactivation from gut microbes, and until recently the "how" and "why" of this process was unclear.
Andrew Goodman's team at Yale University tackled this problem by developing a "gain-of-function" assay. They introduced genes from one well-known bacterial species into E. coli cells and observed which cells degraded or changed a range of chemical compounds, functions that they were not able to perform before the bacterial gene was introduced. They tested a large variety of genes from our gut bacterial microbiome to see which genes encoded enzymes that affected 271 different drugs.
This experiment and the data they produced offer exciting potential for drug development and disease treatment. For instance, drug developers could use the data to avoid using chemical compounds that are easily digested by common gut microbes. And doctors may eventually be able to cultivate a patient's microbiome and identify the exact reason why some presciption is not working as expected, and then identify drugs that might work more effectively.
Researchers are doing experiments to understand how zebrafish deal with environmental stress
A warmer world with more extreme weather events is here, and things will almost certainly get worse. Scientists are currently working to understand how animals may respond to these new environmental stressors, and particularly want to understand the effects of combined stressors that will likely co-occur in the real world.
Two commonly occurring stressors that occur in aquatic environments and are often individually studied are high water temperatures and low water oxygen content (hypoxia). A new study by researchers at Canada's University of Guelph looks at the effects of these two stressors in concert on zebrafish embryos and larvae. Specifically, the researchers wondered whether zebrafish had increased tolerance to hypoxia when exposed to high temperature early in life. This could happen through a phenomenon known as "cross-talk," which occurs at the cellular level.
First, they needed to identify if exposure to just high temperature or just hypoxia would elicit similar responses from zebrafish embryos. They measured the average expression of genes from each stress pathway for each group to determine if there were differences in expression between embryos exposed to high temperatures and those exposed to hypoxic environments. They found that either stressor caused an increase in gene expression in the other stress pathway as well, suggesting that there was cellular cross-talk!
Next, to determine if the gene expression differences caused physiological changes for the fish themselves (not just within their cells), embryos from each treatment group were reared until the larval stage and then exposed to hypoxia. The researchers were looking for differences in larval tolerance to low-oxygen environments between larvae that had experienced the high-temperature environments as embryos and those that had already been exposed to hypoxic environments as embryos. They expected that more tolerant larvae would be able to maintain normal levels of activity (e.g. swimming) and have better survival rates than their counterparts at lower water oxygen levels. But contrary to their expectations, there was no significant increase in either tolerance or survival regardless of what conditions the larvae had been exposed to as embryos.
So although there was cross-talk at the cellular level, this did not translate into higher-level differences in zebrafish stress responses. Still, this research opens interesting avenues for better understanding whether animals will be able to increase their physiological tolerances to the warmer and less oxygenated environments that may develop as the climate changes.
Using aspirin to fight heart disease could, instead, have side effects like major bleeding
For years, people have been following doctor's orders of taking a daily dose of aspirin for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, three randomized controlled trials published last year set out to determine the efficacy of a daily low dose of aspirin for this indication in adults, and they found surprising results. The associated health risks observed with daily aspirin were higher than expected, with few benefits overall. One such risk is major bleeding. Guidelines from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology were re-evaluated and as of March 2019, they advise against daily aspirin use as a primary prevention of CVD for many adults.
To figure out how many U.S. adults might be affected by the changes, a group from Harvard and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center set out to characterize aspirin use for CVD prevention among this population. Based on data from the 2017 National Health Interview Survey, they project that nearly 30 million U.S. adults 40 years old and older used aspirin to prevent CVD despite having no known heart disease. A large proportion of these were self-medicating, which can be dangerous, even with an over-the-counter drug. While patients who have experienced a previous heart attack may still be advised by their doctors to take some aspirin, those with no history of CVD who do are potentially causing themselves harm.
[Editor's note: This article does not constitute medical advice. If you have questions about using aspirin or CVD, please speak to a medical professional.]
Read how this scientist explained myrmecochory to a kid, a college student, and a professor.
Editor's note: as part of our Massive training, we ask authors to write about one concept for a few different audiences. It's inspired by one of our favorite science storytelling series: Wired's One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty video series. Here's one example of the result of this exercise!
Has your dog ever come home with a seed stuck to its fur, or have you ever thrown out an apple core because you don't want to eat the seeds? These are both forms of seed dispersal, the movement of seeds to new homes away from their parents. Because seeds can't walk on their own, sometimes they're moved by the wind, sometimes by big animals, and sometimes by tiny animals, like ants. Some seeds have a gooey attachment that smells like yummy dead insects to hungry ants. Ants take their new food home to their nest, and the seed goes along for the ride, ending up in a new location where it has a higher chance of surviving and growing into a big plant.
Across the world, different plants have evolved seeds that rely on small but strong ants for movement. The distances ants transport these seeds are often small, under a meter or so, but the benefits can be quite large, as ant nests are often rich in nutrients and safe from predators. However, not all ant species provide obvious benefits to these plants, and some actually exploit the system, eating the juicy bits of the seed without dispersing it, or even worse, eating and killing the entire seed. This variation provides scientists with plenty of questions about seed dispersal, mutualism, and ecology.
Seed dispersal is an important step in most plants' life cycles, profoundly affecting fitness by determining many of the conditions in which new generations will germinate and grow. Different plants have evolved different strategies for seed dispersal, but one is particularly striking for its specificity of syndrome yet ubiquity across plant families, continents, and habitats. Seeds of around 11,000 species exhibit the same suite of traits that attract ants, which then disperse them with varying degrees of faithfulness. For something so common, we still have much to learn about the different evolutionary pressures that led to such convergent evolution.
Skull morphology suggested it, and DNA sequencing confirms it: narlugas are real
In 1990 a Danish Biologist noticed an odd narwhal skull in West Greenland. The man who had hunted the animal described it as a mix between a narwhal and a beluga. These two types of whales were known to have synchronous mating seasons and close evolutionary history, which added up to a plausible story, but the origin of this hybrid creature could not be confirmed with the technology available.
Flash forward almost 30 years later and we finally have the technology to figure out whether narwhal-beluga whale hybrids really exist. Scientists from the Natural History of Denmark used Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), the results of which were recently published in Nature Scientific Reports. NGS allows researchers to sequence genomes in parallel, instead of one base at a time. This comes in handy when you're working with a 31 million base-pair genome! But the authors didn't just sequence the potential hybrid's genome, they also sequenced eight belugas and eight narwhals from West Greenland for comparison.
Collecting DNA from the 30-year-old hybrid skull was a task in and of itself: bone and teeth contain much less DNA then tissues do, and so the researchers had to collect 0.5 g of bone dust for each sample. Even from that, they were only able to cover 5% of the total narwhal-beluga genome. Five percent of 31 million is still over 1 million base pairs. When the researchers compared these sequences to the two whale species, they observed similarities to both narwhals and belugas. They also used NGS to determine which of the whale species - narwhal or beluga - contributed mitocondrial DNA, which is only passed down by mothers. Their final determination was that the hybrid was indeed a narwhal-beluga mix, with a narwhal mother. Some have even dubbed the animal a "narluga."
There are still so many mysteries about the world's biodiversity to be solved, and NGS will be key in unlocking them!
Portrait collections showing only white male scientists send clear signals to anyone who does not fit the mold
Sometimes, barriers to entry in science are invisible, like the lack of confidence felt more routinely by women than men. Other times, it is literally hanging on the walls themselves. The Yale School of Medicine's flagship building is just one example: of the 55 portraits hanging throughout the building, 52 depict white men and three depict white women.
The impact of these portraits on Yale medical students is the focus of a new study that appears to be the first of its kind. Researchers (also from Yale) conducted interviews with 15 students, the majority of whom were not white men, and organized their responses thematically.
Multiple students said they felt the portraits reflected institutional values of whiteness, maleness and elitism — values they did not share and, as a result, made them feel alienated. If the portraits could speak, "they might spit at me," one student said. Others noted the literal whitewashing of history by glorifying the subjects in the portraits without acknowledging in some cases their ties to the slave trade.
These results should not shock anyone, but they do underscore the need for administrators to think critically about visual representation in science. Some hospitals and universities are tackling this issue by commissioning works depicting historic figures who made standout contributions to science despite their non-whiteness or maleness (and they certainly do exist). As Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale professor not involved in the study put it so elegantly on Twitter, "Can we take down the #dudewall?"
MIT researchers have created entire soundtracks from amino acid sequences with the help of artificial intelligence
Researchers at MIT have just developed an artificial intelligence method to correlate amino acids found in the functional proteins in our bodies to music. They allocated a tone to each amino acid, and when the sequence of amino acids that makes up any given protein is played back, each is a unique musical composition.
This works so well because proteins are structurally complex, made up of hundreds of amino acid units which fold into distinct motifs and shapes that allow them to do their jobs in our cells. Proteins are typically studied by examining amino acid sequences or with 3-D X-ray crystallography - this new work provides a completely new way to study proteins.
One challenge the researchers faced is that conventional musical scales have just 12 notes, but there are 20 amino acids that make up proteins in our bodies. They actually used quantum chemical theories to translate the specific vibrational frequencies of the molecules in the amino acids into sounds, then made these audible to human ears. In addition to the protein "orchestra" linked about, you can listen to another amino acid soundtrack in the MIT press release about this publication.
One very exciting aspect of this method is that it is also possible to do the process in reverse to generate new proteins not found in nature based on small changes made by artificial intelligence to the existing protein soundtracks!
Drug companies have been prioritizing profits over human lives for years
Opioid use and abuse has been on the rise in the United States since the late 1990's, when drug companies began to market opioid products, particularly oxycodone, as safe and effective pain-relievers. This marketing scheme led to a dramatic increase in production and distribution of opioids. Deaths from opioids began to increase dramatically after 2000, and many illegal distribution centers sprang up to meet demand for the drugs. Things have gotten so bad that in 2017 the federal government declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. Things haven't improved much since then.
Recently, the Washington Post and the Charleston Gazette-Mail teamed up to demand the public release of the Automation of Reports and Consolidated Order System (ARCOS), a database containing information about how the companies produced and distributed opioids. Although only part of the database was released to the public, the information provides a solid overview of the opioid epidemic's scope and impact. For instance, we now know that a staggering 76 billion pills were distributed around the US between 2006 - 2012. Alarmingly, the information in the database showed that many of the companies manufacturing opioids ignored requirements from the DEA to report suspicious orders, filling them in the hopes of maximizing profits.
What I find particularly striking about this report is the very idea that opioids could be widely used safely. Opioids are, by nature, powerfully addictive drugs, because they stimulate the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Did the drug companies not know that people could get addicted to their products before their abuse became a problem? Or did they simply not care?
Hopefully, now that this information is available, policymakers and physicians can use it in response to the opioid crisis. The evidence implicating the companies will also make it easier for plaintiffs to hold them accountable. Unfortunately, the data comes too late for the many victims of the opioid epidemic, which by now has had devastating social and economic costs for them and their families.
The week's not over yet but it's been pretty good so far
We here at Massive have great taste. Particularly when it comes to science writing. It's our job! These are the stories we've been reading this week that we think you should read too. Imagine this round-up like your favorite cupcake baker taking you around town to all the cupcake shops they love. You all do that too right?
The obsession with colonizing space from many people (especially the ultra rich) has always been baffling to me. Space is big, and dead. It always struck me as a kind of anti-environmentalism, where we can solve all the problems we've made here on Earth by just packing up and leaving. It isn't happening. -DS
Dying from heatstroke seems like something that can only happen to extreme athletes or particularly unlucky folks. This article (the partner to Outside's piece on what it's like to die of hypothermia) dispels that myth. Human physiology piled onto mildly questionable choices - that certainly wouldn't be deadly in other circumstances - can easily result in a very dangerous situation for anyone spending time outdoors in the summer sun. Read this article as a reminder to keep yourself and your loved ones safe on your next hike or beach day. - CF
Algae's kind of gross but harmless as long as you're not a kid or a dog and don't swim in it. Also PSA, don't let your dog eat algae chips: "It'll get all crunchy like potato chips, and the dogs love to eat that." - GSM
No explanation necessary. -DS
Employers and government have a responsibility to help ease the burden for those caring for loved ones with dementia
With Alzheimer's disease expected to impact 16 million individuals in the US by 2050, younger generations will increasingly assume caregiving responsibilities. More than a third of today's caregivers are employed full-time. As millennials take on more and more informal caregiving responsibilities, public and workplace policies must consider financial assistance or other support (e.g., family leave or allocated time off).
More than half of millennial caregivers are minorities and are more likely than any other generation to balance caregiving with employment. Latinx millennials work more hours each week, on average, and spend more time providing care than young adults of other backgrounds. This is partly because Latino culture is built around families and they are, therefore, more likely to live in multigenerational households.
With these challenges come opportunities to promote policies that enable active engagement and quality of life for millennial caregivers who are ethnoculturally diverse. Both the public and private sectors must collaborate to create culturally sensitive resources and implement innovative strategies affecting the millennial caregiving experience. While by no means exhaustive, the list below provides some ideas that could lead to a substantial impact.
Health Effects: Better training for informal caregivers to understand the signs of dementia (and specifically Alzheimer's disease) and the family caregiving experience. This can help identify and tackle stressors to reduce caregiver burnout and depression.
Financial Well-being: Permitting Medicare Advantage plans to offer a respite care benefit as a distinct and optional benefit. Medicare currently covers respite as a part of its hospice benefit, but the beneficiary qualifications are more appropriate for patients who are terminally ill.
Employee Productivity: Supporting caregivers through flexible work policies, including offering paid or unpaid caregiving leave beyond the requirements of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). This is a promising but still emerging trend that has been shown to boost an employer's competitive advantage in recruitment and retention. Currently, FMLA covers only 55 to 60% of workers due to limitations on eligibility. For instance, employees must have worked for their current employer for at least 12 months.
As the burden of dementia increases in the US, it may also be worth looking toward Japan - a country where 27% of the population is over 65 years old - for the "dos and don'ts" of how to create effective public policies and social space for those affected and their caregivers.
We still understand very little about life in Earth's most extreme environments
When most people think of "parasites", they imagine malaria, tapeworms, and the mind-controlling Toxoplasma gondii.
But researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia have observed a new parasitic interaction in salty Antarctic lakes. The study has enhanced our understanding of how some organisms acquire nutrients and survive in freezing cold environments.
The researchers collected water from two different lakes in Antarctica and found that it contained a large amount of archaebacteria, which are highly resilient organisms that inhabit some of the world's most extreme environments. They found especially high numbers of two species called Nanohaloarchaeum antarcticus and Halorubrum lacusprofundi.
Previously believed to be 'free-living' organisms, the Nanohaloarchaea are actually unable to survive on their own. Instead, they acquire essential nutrients by poking holes in H. lacusprofundi cells, sucking out their cytoplasmic "juices", and feasting on their gooey insides. Yum!
We still have a lot to learn about how microorganisms survive in extreme environments, as evidenced by this fascinating discovery.
Although new research finds that huge areas of the earth could be reforested, this will not let us off the hook for reducing emissions
As a growing number of world governments declare climate emergencies and cities around the world experience record-smashing deadly heatwaves, more thought is being given to concrete actions that will limit global warming and avert the transformation of our planet into a "hothouse" state. In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it will likely be necessary to invest in carbon capture – reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by storing the carbon in other forms. Photosynthetic organisms naturally convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into biomass as they grow, so one straightforward strategy is to increase forest cover.
A recent study published in Science analyzed satellite photographs of the Earth and determined that our planet could theoretically support just under a billion new hectares of forest cover without impinging on existing urban and agricultural land, potentially enough to allow us to meet climate goals. However, this estimate assumes current environmental conditions, and the actual potential forest cover could be much lower due to climate change itself.
While a global reforestation effort would likely require international collaboration, over half of the estimated potential forest is in one of six countries: Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, or China. Tree planting is considered the cheapest and simplest solution to climate change, but it will certainly have to be mixed with emission reduction and other carbon capture strategies to represent a clear path forward.
Her experiments uncovered the greenhouse effect three years before the man who was widely credited with this discovery
In the spirit of Massive's "Science Heroes" theme, I present Eunice Newton Foote, an early climate scientist and leader of women's rights. Since July 17 would have been her 200th birthday, here are a few facts about the woman who demonstrated the greenhouse effect and predicted its effect in the geologic past before John Tyndall, who is commonly credited with that accomplishment.
1. Foote was one of the committee members for the Seneca Falls Convention for women's rights, and was one of the signers of the Declaration of Sentiments.
2. Foote's research on carbon dioxide and water vapor's effects on temperature were published in 1856, three years prior to Tyndall's work on the greenhouse effect (which did not credit her experiments or publication).
3. Having attended Troy Female Seminary and taken basic science courses at a nearby college, Foote then carried out her experiments not at a university, but in a lab at her home.
4. Foote's work was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science by a male colleague, although it's debated whether this was because women were not permitted to present work, or for other reasons.
5. Her research was later published under her own name. Foote was an AAAS member, but the organization did not grant women the title of 'Fellow.'
Although little is known about Foote following the Convention, and the 1856 publication appears to be her only paper, she now stands as more than a Foote-note in time.


text:
A pickup and a motorcycle collided on Interstate 15 in Norco briefly blocking lanes during rush hour traffic, according to the CHP.
The two collided shortly before 6:49 a.m. north of Sixth Street, according to CHP Officer Travis Monks.
Emergency workers briefly closed all northbound lanes and rushed the victim to a hospital with serious injuries, Monks said.
For more breaking news updates, follow the author on Twitter @PeterSurowski and like him on Facebook.
[mappress mapid="952″]


text:
New Delhi: Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma has issued a rallying cry to his teammates that they cannot take Kolkata Knight Riders lightly in Qualifier 2, even if they have already beaten Gautam Gambhir's men twice in the tenth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Mumbai hold a supreme 15-5 record against Kolkata in the cash-rich league, while they came out on top in both matches this season as well. However, Rohit has said that records doesn't matter as the better team on that particular day will prevail.
"We will be confident against these guys (KKR) but I believe that whoever is good on the day will win the match. We will not be thinking that we have beaten them twice in the competition. We have to come out and do what we have been doing as a team," Rohit told Mumbai Indians TV.
The Mumbai skipper also said that they cannot get ahead of themselves and start thinking about the final already as they have to get the better of a buzzing KKR outfit first.
"You have to focus on the job at hand which is coming out here and play good cricket. I am hoping that we play out best game agaianst KKR and we will worry about the finals later, said Rohit.
"We have to come out & do what we've been doing as a team!'' @ImRo45 on inspiration ahead of the Qualifier.#CricketMeriJaan #CaptainsCorner pic.twitter.com/qP3019IiN9— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) May 18, 2017
"We have to come out & do what we've been doing as a team!'' @ImRo45 on inspiration ahead of the Qualifier.#CricketMeriJaan #CaptainsCorner pic.twitter.com/qP3019IiN9
Rain has been a constant factor at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium — the venue of the second qualifier — during the course of the season and one match has already been cancelled because of it(Bangalore vs Hyderabad clash). Meanwhile, rain also played spoilsport during the eliminator clash, which KKR managed to win courtesy of the Duckworth and Lewis method.
But Rohit has played down the weather factor by stating that it is something which they cannot control.
"We have to come to the ground with a positive frame of mind thinking that there will be 40 overs of play. Conditions are conditions and it is something that you cannot control" said the MI skipper.
Live Score, News & WC 2019 Updates


text:
Southampton Solent University has opened the first "student enterprise" pop up store in a UK shopping centre.
Re:So – which takes its name from "Retail Solent" – is the result of a collaboration between Southampton's Marlands Shopping Centre and the University.
The idea behind the project is to give students a real feel for business and prepare them for moving into industry themselves. The University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Van Gore, officially opened the store and said: "The main reason for the University to be involved in this project is to enhance the student experience. This innovative retail project is one of several initiatives that you will see from Solent as we pioneer different ways of enhancing student employability."
Lisa Mann, Programme Group Leader for Fashion Management says: "Our emphasis has always been to develop the real industry-led skills that students need to combine artistic credibility with commercial vigour, and this project is perfectly placed to develop these skills in tandem."
More information about the project is available at http://so-blog.tumblr.com/


text:
Can you believe it's been one day short of a year since I started my video blogging on a weekly basis after having taken a few years hiatus? Quite the learning experience for me. Being in front of the camera was intimidating at first. Now, I can honestly say I enjoy it and have even built quite a good level of confidence with it all.
That said, I've decided to start a bit of an experiment with this week's blog… While I am still committed to providing you with information and ideas on which to ponder and reflect over the weekend, I will write blogs while only occasionally sprinkling in a video or two. Also, for the summer's duration I will blog on a bi-weekly basis. Therefore you will hear from me next on July 13th and every other Friday morning thereafter.
Recently, I saw an article about the four most important words a manager can say. What four words come to your mind? Send me an email and let me know.
The four words were: What do you think?
After pondering this for a few days, I understand where the author is coming from. All too often a manager will ask employees what they think. Yet before the individual has a chance to respond, she provides the employee with what she thinks. Most employees will not offer a differing idea. Rather they will provide supportive arguments to the managers thoughts.This becomes an unconscious collusion that serves no purpose, and inadvertently caps idea generation in the company.
If a manager asks employees what do you think, the impact of the question can be wide reaching. Initially, the manager is eliciting the best thinking from people, sending a message that says, I want to know what you think about this. People feel good when someone wants their opinion, particularly at the office. By asking this, the manager is granting permission for employees to express thoughts and ideas, while also providing foundational pillars for a culture of inclusion and engagement. Continually asking for employees' input strengthens their connection to the organization. The caveat here is that the manager must be sincere in wanting employee input. Ask for clarification and what made them think of that so that employee thinking skills are also being developed.
Try it and let me know what you think.
Next week we celebrate the Fourth of July, Independence Day. This is a difficult time for our country. The lack of civility is rampant. I am sure you have experienced it whether it be in the form of road rage, on a check out line, on your child's sports team, or at work. Each of us needs to work hard to take personal responsibility for our behavior and energy. Three deep breaths always work.
Lastly, I'd like to give a shout out to NAWBO NYC's Evening of Excellence.
Have any of my comments evoked something in you? What is your thinking on these topics? Sharing your reflections helps all of us to grow and expand our thinking. Comments can be left at the BE website, on the Contact Rosemary page.
If you have found the information in this blog of value, please forward it to colleagues, associates and friends.
I'm always available by email at email@example.com or phone 212 685 0870.
Scatter joy, and be kind to others particularly at work,


text: When Lindsay first reached out to me about her wedding photography I was extremely jealous to find out that she and Tim live in Hawaii! They made the long trip back to their Western New York hometowns to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends, and wanted to squeeze in an engagement session during their stay. I knew this shoot was going to be a rain or shine thing since we wouldn't get another chance, so I was relieved that we got a rain-free afternoon! Despite the cloudy skies we found a lot of color in the High Falls area of Rochester, and then the sunshine peaked out a little bit when we arrived at Schoen Place in Pittsford, our second location. I'd gotten a great vibe from Lindsay's emails so I wasn't surprised upon meeting her and Tim how laid-back and fun they were to work with! I had a great time at this session and I'm really looking forward to shooting their wedding!