Monthly Archives: December 2019

Human Behavior

Florida’s bear-control plan leaves hunting on the table – Orlando Weekly

Florida wildlife officials Wednesday backed a 10-year plan to manage the states growing black bear population, with the plan maintaining hunting as an option.

After nearly three hours of comments from activists, most opposed to hunting bears, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission agreed to advance a 209-page staff draft report that primarily stresses using education and non-lethal techniques of managing the animals.

The report keeps open the possibility of permitted hunting if interactions between bears and humans escalate amid the increasing number of people in the state.

Chairman Robert Spottswood, the only member who was on the commission when a controversial 2015 hunt was held, called the plan a balanced approach.

The idea of keeping (a hunt) there as a possibility for the future sounds like a sound and wise thing to do, Spottswood said during a commission meeting in Panama City. Who knows what is going to happen two, three years from now.

Vice Chairman Michael Sole said hunting is a tool that might not be warranted today but could be required in parts of the state over the next decade.

Commission Executive Director Eric Sutton said the bear population isnt at a critical juncture to rush into a revival of hunting. At some point soon, however, more control will be needed that includes hunting, Sutton said.

The question really is not if we need to do population management, its when and how, Sutton said. With the advantage of time, we should really prepare to develop our options on the question of how.

The plan outlines management strategies that include contracted shooting and trapping; fertility control; reducing vegetation near suburban and urban areas; regulated hunts; and relocating adult female bears and their 3- to 4-month-old cubs.

The effort also seeks to maintain the BearWise program, which started in 2016 and has used proceeds from sales of the states Conserve Wildlife license plates and legislative funding to assist local governments in providing residents and businesses with bear-resistant trash containers.

Another suggested technique involves working with the Florida Department of Transportation to reduce collisions between vehicles and bears.

Corey Davis, a member of the American Hounds Federation, said the commission should avoid simply calling for random hunts and should establish numbers to maintain the bear population.

We dont want a one-and-done bear hunt, like the last bear hunt, Davis said. There needs to be a determined number of bears to be taken over a course of three to five years, while also keeping the bear population at a sustainable level.

But critics said killing bears doesnt reduce bear-human interactions and that a 20 percent target that would be sought with a hunt is already reached each year through poaching, loss of habitat, nuisance kills and impacts with vehicles.

Some life forms need killing, regulated, ethically, responsibly, and that was my job and responsibility to defend the (U.S.) Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, said Steve Duresky, a veteran U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. Bears dont need killing in this situation. Certainly not this year. Probably not until a lot more thought was put into this.

Megan Sorbo, an Orlando teen who has been a leading advocate against reviving bear hunting, implored commissioners to increase education about reducing incidents between bears and humans.

Hunting does not reduce human-bear conflict, Sorbo said. We need to focus on improving human behavior, like securing trash and education. Just a couple of months ago, I spoke with someone my age that has always lived in Florida. He did not know that bears even live in Florida and thought that bears were these vicious killing machines that kill any humans for fun. Clearly, education needs to be a higher priority.

Samantha Gentrup, a teacher from Venice opposed to bear hunting, said the states water and wildlife is what makes Florida a unique tourist destination.

For our state to thrive, we need to preserve both, Gentrup said.

David Telesco, the agencys bear management program coordinator, said the goal of the plan is sustainable coexistence, meaning a healthy bear population of a minimum of 3,000 bears with limited human interaction.

We want to have bears on the landscape in suitable habitats to benefit both people and bears, Telesco said.

The plan is expected to replace a statewide bear-management framework created in 2012.

The states bear population has grown from 300 to 500 in the late 1970s to more than 4,000 following the 2015 hunt, which remains the only time hunting black bears has been permitted in Florida in more than two decades.

The October 2015 hunt resulted in 304 bears being killed in two days.

Over the last decade, calls to the commission regarding bears have increased 400 percent, from sightings and bears in garbage to incidents in which people and pets were injured, Telesco said.

According to state records, Florida has had 13 incidents of people requiring medical treatment because of encounters with bears since 2006. Eight of the incidents have occurred since 2012.

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Florida's bear-control plan leaves hunting on the table - Orlando Weekly

Human Behavior

The Bot Decade: How AI Took Over Our Lives in the 2010s – Popular Mechanics

The Decade, Reviewed looks back at the 2010s and how it changed human society forever. From 2010 to 2019, our species experienced seismic shifts in science, technology, entertainment, transportation, and even the very planet we call home. This is how the past ten years have changed us.

Bots are a lot like humans: Some are cute. Some are ugly. Some are harmless. Some are menacing. Some are friendly. Some are annoying ... and a little racist. Bots serve their creators and society as helpers, spies, educators, servants, lab technicians, and artists. Sometimes, they save lives. Occasionally, they destroy them.

In the 2010s, automation got better, cheaper, and way less avoidable. Its still mysterious, but no longer foreign; the most Extremely Online among us interact with dozens of AIs throughout the day. That means driving directions are more reliable, instant translations are almost good enough, and everyone gets to be an adequate portrait photographer, all powered by artificial intelligence. On the other hand, each of us now sees a personalized version of the world that is curated by an AI to maximize engagement with the platform. And by now, everyone from fruit pickers to hedge fund managers has suffered through headlines about being replaced.

Humans and tech have always coexisted and coevolved, but this decade brought us closer togetherand closer to the futurethan ever. These days, you dont have to be an engineer to participate in AI projects; in fact, you have no choice but to help, as youre constantly offering your digital behavior to train AIs.

So heres how we changed our bots this decade, how they changed us, and where our strange relationship is going as we enter the 2020s.

All those little operational tweaks in our day come courtesy of a specific scientific approach to AI called machine learning, one of the most popular techniques for AI projects this decade. Thats when AI is tasked not only with finding the answers to questions about data sets, but with finding the questions themselves; successful deep learning applications require vast amounts of data and the time and computational power to self-test over and over again.

Deep learning, a subset of machine learning, uses neural networks to extract its own rules and adjust them until it can return the right results; other machine learning techniques might use Bayesian networks, vector maps, or evolutionary algorithms to achieve the same goal.

In January, Technology Reviews Karen Hao released an exhaustive analysis of recent papers in AI that concluded that machine learning was one of the defining features of AI research this decade. Machine learning has enabled near-human and even superhuman abilities in transcribing speech from voice, recognizing emotions from audio or video recordings, as well as forging handwriting or video, Hao wrote. Domestic spying is now a lucrative application for AI technologies, thanks to this powerful new development.

Haos report suggests that the age of deep learning is finally drawing to a close, but the next big thing may have already arrived. Reinforcement learning, like generative adversarial networks (GANs), pits neural nets against one another by having one evaluate the work of the other and distribute rewards and punishments accordinglynot unlike the way dogs and babies learn about the world.

The future of AI could be in structured learning. Just as young humans are thought to learn their first languages by processing data input from fluent caretakers with their internal language grammar, computers can also be taught how to teach themselves a taskespecially if the task is to imitate a human in some capacity.

This decade, artificial intelligence went from being employed chiefly as an academic subject or science fiction trope to an unobtrusive (though occasionally malicious) everyday companion. AIs have been around in some form since the 1500s or the 1980s, depending on your definition. The first search indexing algorithm was AltaVista in 1995, but it wasnt until 2010 that Google quietly introduced personalized search results for all customers and all searches. What was once background chatter from eager engineers has now become an inescapable part of daily life.

One function after another has been turned over to AI jurisdiction, with huge variations in efficacy and consumer response. The prevailing profit model for most of these consumer-facing applications, like social media platforms and map functions, is for users to trade their personal data for minor convenience upgrades, which are achieved through a combination of technical power, data access, and rapid worker disenfranchisement as increasingly complex service jobs are doubled up, automated away, or taken over by AI workers.

The Harvard social scientist Shoshana Zuboff explained the impact of these technologies on the economy with the term surveillance capitalism. This new economic system, she wrote, unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioural data, in a bid to make profit from informed gambling based on predicted human behavior.

Were already using machine learning to make subjective decisionseven ones that have life-altering consequences. Medical applications are only some of the least controversial uses of artificial intelligence; by the end of the decade, AIs were locating stranded victims of Hurricane Maria, controlling the German power grid, and killing civilians in Pakistan.

The sheer scope of these AI-controlled decision systems is why automation has the potential to transform society on a structural level. In 2012, techno-socialist Zeynep Tufekci pointed out the presence on the Obama reelection campaign of an unprecedented number of data analysts and social scientists, bringing the traditional confluence of marketing and politics into a new age.

Intelligence that relies on data from an unjust world suffers from the principle of garbage in, garbage out, futurist Cory Doctorow observed in a recent blog post. Diverse perspectives on the design team would help, Doctorow wrote, but when it comes to certain technology, there might be no safe way to deploy:

It doesnt help that data collection for image-based AI has so far taken advantage of the most vulnerable populations first. The Facial Recognition Verification Testing Program is the industry standard for testing the accuracy of facial recognition tech; passing the program is imperative for new FR startups seeking funding.

But the datasets of human faces that the program uses are sourced, according to a report from March, from images of U.S. visa applicants, arrested people who have since died, and children exploited by child pornography. The report found that the majority of data subjects were people who had been arrested on suspicion of criminal activity. None of the millions of faces in the programs data sets belonged to people who had consented to this use of their data.

State-level efforts to regulate AI finally emerged this decade, with some success. The European Unions General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enforceable from 2018, limits the legal uses of valuable AI training datasets by defining the rights of the data subject (read: us); the GDPR also prohibits the black box model for machine learning applications, requiring both transparency and accountability on how data are stored and used. At the end of the decade, Google showed the class how not to regulate when they built, and then scrapped, an external AI ethics panel a week later, feigning shock at all the negative reception.

Even attempted regulation is a good sign. It means were looking at AI for what it is: not a new life form that competes for resources, but as a formidable weapon. Technological tools are most dangerous in the hands of malicious actors who already hold significant power; you can always hire more programmers. During the long campaign for the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Putin-backed IRA Twitter botnet campaignsessentially, teams of semi-supervised bot accounts that spread disinformation on purpose and learn from real propagandainfiltrated the very mechanics of American democracy.

Keeping up with AI capacities as they grow will be a massive undertaking. Things could still get much, much worse before they get better; authoritarian governments around the world have a tendency to use technology to further consolidate power and resist regulation.

Tech capabilities have long since proved too fast for traditional human lawmakers, but one hint of what the next decade might hold comes from AIs themselves, who are beginning to be deployed as weapons against the exact type of disinformation other AIs help to create and spread. There now exists, for example, a neural net devoted explicitly to the task of identifying neural net disinformation campaigns on Twitter. The neural nets name is Grover, and its really good at this.

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The Bot Decade: How AI Took Over Our Lives in the 2010s - Popular Mechanics

Human Behavior

Conversing with chatbotsArtificial Intelligence research keeps it more ‘human’ – SFU News – Simon Fraser University News

The rapid advance of artificial intelligence (AI) begs a daunting question will we ever achieve human-like behavior in computational systems? SFU professorSteve DiPaolaand his research team are developing a solution called the AI Empathic Painter, using natural interaction methods to enable users to converse efficiently, while highlighting two major human qualities empathy and creativity.

DiPaolas team showcased its work at a major AI conferenceNeurIPS 2019 in Vancouver this past week. Their demo enables visitors to approach and converse with a 3D avatar chatbot, which creates an artistic portrait of the visitors inspired by their emotions and personality via the teams Empathy-based Affective Portrait Painter.

To achievethis, the researchers have combined their research in empathy-based modeling for AI character agents with machine learning models from the teams creativity artistic system.

With a host of gestural, motion and bio-sensor systems, the teams AI systems are designed to give coherent, empathy-based conversational answers via speech, expression and gesture.

Using our special system, the AI avatar can, through conversation, evaluate the user words, facial expression and voice stress to make an empathetic evaluationjust as a human would be able to, about someone they are talking to, says DiPaola, a professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), whose team includes post-doctoral researcher Nilay Yalcin and PhD student Nouf Abukhodair.

Then the researchers take it a step furtherusing the Empathy-based Affective Portrait Painter to paint a unique portrait of the user, based on the empathetic evaluation.DiPaolas AI artwork has been showcased globally in such museums as New Yorks Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The growing success of dialogue systems research makes conversational agents a perfect candidate for becoming a standard in human-computer interaction, explains Yalcin. The naturalness of communicative acts provides a comfortable ground for the users to interact with. There have been many advances in using multiple communication channels in dialogue systems, simulating humaneness in an artificial agent.

DiPaolas and Yalcins extensive research on empathy in AI is also addressing issues in a variety of industries, including e-health. In a collaborative project with the national AGE-WELL initiative, a helper AI conversational bot is being developed to assist the elderly in staying independent at home. Other applications are geared to the entertainment industry.

After premiering at the NeuroIPS conference, the AI Empathic Painter system will travel to Europe to be showcased in Florence in May 2020.

Formerly from Stanford University, DiPaola lead SFUs Interactive Visualization Lab (iVizLab), which strives to make computational systems bend more to the human experience by incorporating biological, cognitive and behavior knowledge models. The lab creates computational models of human ideals such as expression, emotion, behavior and creativity typically for gaming, sciences, arts and health fields.

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Conversing with chatbotsArtificial Intelligence research keeps it more 'human' - SFU News - Simon Fraser University News

Cell Biology

Molecular structure of the cell nucleoskeleton revealed for the first time – Spring Hill Insider

The 3-D view of the nuclear lamina shows a section of the architecture of the delicate meshwork made of lamin filaments (filament rod in dark grey and its globular domains in red) beneath the cell nuclear membrane (transparent grey) and the nuclear pore complexes (blue). Credit: Yagmur Turgay, University of Zurich

Using 3-D electron microscopy, structural biologists from the University of Zurich succeeded in elucidating the architecture of the lamina of the cell nucleus at molecular resolution for the first time. This scaffold stabilizes the cell nucleus in higher eukaryotes and is involved in organizing, activating and duplicating the genetic material. Diseases such as muscular dystrophy and premature aging, caused by mutations in the lamin gene, the major constituent of the lamina, can now be studied more effectively.

Compared to bacteria, in eukaryotes the is located in the cell nucleus. Its outer shell consists of the nuclear membrane with numerous nuclear pores. Molecules are transported into or out of the cell nucleus via these pores. Beneath the membrane lies the nuclear lamina, a threadlike meshwork merely a few millionths of a millimeter thick. This stabilizes the cell nucleus and protects the DNA underneath from external influences. Moreover, the lamina plays a key role in essential processes in the cell nucleus such as the organization of the chromosomes, gene activity and the duplication of genetic material before cell division.

Detailed 3D image of the nuclear lamina in its native environment

Now, for the first time, a team of researchers headed by cell biology professor Ohad Medalia from the Department of Biochemistry at UZH has succeeded in elucidating the molecular architecture of the nuclear lamina in mammalian cells in detail. The scientists studied fibroblast cells of mice using . This technique combines and tomography, and enables cell structures to be displayed in 3D in a quasi-natural state, explains Yagmur Turgay, the first author of the study. The cells are shock-frozen in liquid ethane at minus 190 degrees without being pretreated with harmful chemicals, thereby preserving the cell structures in their original state.

The lamin meshwork is a layer thats around 14 nanometers thick, located directly beneath the pore complexes of the nuclear membrane and consists of regions that are packed more or less densely, says Yagmur Turgay, describing the architecture of the nucleoskeleton. The scaffold is made of thin, threadlike structures that differ in length the lamin filaments. Only 3.5 nanometers thick, the lamin filaments are much thinner and more delicate than the structures forming the cytoskeleton outside the in higher organisms.

New approach for research on progeria and muscular dystrophy

The building blocks of the filaments are two proteins type A and B lamin proteins which assemble into polymers. They consist of a long stem and a globular domain, much like a pin with a head. Individual mutations in the lamin gene elicit severe diseases with symptoms such as premature aging (progeria), muscle wasting (), lipodystrophy and damage of the nervous system (neuropathies). Cryo-electron tomography will enable us to study the structural differences in the nuclear lamina in healthy people and in patients with mutations in the lamin gene in detail in the future, concludes Ohad Medalia. According to the structural biologist, this method permits the development of new disease models at molecular level, which paves the way for new therapeutic interventions.

The study is published in Nature.

More information: Yagmur Turgay et al, The molecular architecture of lamins in somatic cells, Nature (2017).

Originally posted here:
Molecular structure of the cell nucleoskeleton revealed for the first time - Spring Hill Insider

Cell Biology

Will ABCAM PLC ORDINARY SHARES UNITED KINGDO (OTCMKTS:ABCZF) Run Out of Steam Soon? Short Interest Is Down – FinanceRecorder

The stock of ABCAM PLC ORDINARY SHARES UNITED KINGDO (OTCMKTS:ABCZF) registered a decrease of 3.12% in short interest. ABCZFs total short interest was 9,300 shares in December as published by FINRA. Its down 3.12% from 9,600 shares, reported previously. With 4,000 shares average volume, it will take short sellers 2 days to cover their ABCZFs short positions.

The stock increased 0.21% or $0.04 during the last trading session, reaching $18.18. About 296 shares traded. Abcam plc (OTCMKTS:ABCZF) has 0.00% since December 14, 2018 and is . It has by 0.00% the S&P500.

Abcam plc, together with its subsidiaries, produces and distributes research-grade antibodies and associated protein research tools worldwide. The company has market cap of $3.75 billion. The firm primarily offers primary and secondary antibodies, biochemicals, isotype controls, flow cytometry multi-color selectors, kits, loading controls, lysates, peptides, proteins, slides, tags and cell markers, and tools and reagents. It has a 45.56 P/E ratio. The Companys products are used in the areas of cancer, cardiovascular, cell biology, developmental biology, epigenetics and nuclear signaling, immunology, metabolism, microbiology, neuroscience, signal transduction, and stem cells, as well as in drug discovery services and products.

Another recent and important Abcam plc (OTCMKTS:ABCZF) news was published by Investorplace.com which published an article titled: The 3 Best Ways to Buy International Stocks Investorplace.com on July 25, 2016.

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Will ABCAM PLC ORDINARY SHARES UNITED KINGDO (OTCMKTS:ABCZF) Run Out of Steam Soon? Short Interest Is Down - FinanceRecorder

Cell Biology

McGill Reads: 2019 holiday edition – McGill – McGill Reporter

The Poor Poet Carl Spitzweg (1838)

Were back! The seventh annual McGill Reads holiday reading list has been carefully compiled and lovingly laid out, highlighting the thought-provoking selection of great reads as suggested by McGill students, staff, faculty and administrators.

Once again, eclectic is our watchword as our list features everything from literary classics to fresh new releases; sci-fi to self-help; best-sellers to biographies; and poetry to graphic novels. And, as always, just as fascinating as the diverse list itself are the backstories behind each selected title that give us a little glimpse into each of our contributors.

Thanks to everyone who participated and may all your books be page-tuners!

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We will kick things off by giving a big McGill Reads welcome to Manal Abou-Ghaida, one of the Universitys newest employees. Im new to McGill (started December 9th!), and I just stumbled on the McGill Reads book list call for entries, writes Abou-Ghaida, Records Administrator, Enrolment Services. I love to read! Im from Edmonton, Alberta, and Im known for starting book clubs in my place of work.

Abou-Ghaida suggests Agatha Christies And Then There Were None because I love a good classic mystery, something thats a page turner, and importantly over the holiday season something that excites me and stirs my imagination.

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From a first-timer, we go to a grizzled McGill Reads vet. One of our lists most enthusiastic supporters, Victor Chisholm has been contributing since the inaugural McGill Reads in 2013.

I am grateful to the Cundill History Prize for providing such interesting options in their annual shortlists and longlists, says the Student Affairs Administrator, Faculty of Science. From the 2019 shortlist, I would be delighted to read Victoria Johnsons American Eden: David Hosack, Botony, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic, because anything that makes us think about plants, without whom our lives would be impossible, must be worth reading!

Ideas on CBC Radio just aired an interview with a past laureate, Maya Jasanoff, who won the 2018 Cundill Prize for her book The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World. She gave a fascinating account of how to read Conrads writings about colonialism both critically and appreciatively, says the avid cyclist and ice cream connoisseur. Ive never read Conrad, and the prose excerpts that were aired on the radio were astonishing, so I may give Heart of Darkness a try.

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Sean Goldfarb, a graduate student in Cell Biology, has his eyes on a number of books including:

Les racines du ciel, by Romain Gary, whose books La vie deavant soiIread(one of two books Ireadthat ever made me cry), andLes cerfs-volantswhichIm finishing up. Its funny, it took me till Iread a non-English book to be able to say Ive found my favourite author!

Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham, which is my mothers favourite book by her favourite author. Just need to find it among all the books at home

The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham, because Im drawn to it, having found it while looking for Of Human Bondage.

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Domenic Aversano, Customer Service Coordinator, Printing Services is succinct and to the point when it comes to his pair of suggestions for people looking for books to tackle during the break. Aversano recommends The View from Flyover Country, by Sarah Kendzior and How to be Less Stupid about Race, by Crystal M. Fleming. Two books that are essential to understand and challenge who we are and why, he writes.

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Anita Kar admits to having already read most of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, but I want to finish it over the holidays and try to assimilate it into my brain permanently, says the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital Communications Officer. The simple reason is because I think the messages in this book will help me be more peaceful in my everyday life, in everyday situations.

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Over the holidays, Ill bereading Annie ProulxsBarkskins, an epic tale that follows the lives of three main characters over the course of 300 years: the first two being French colonists (and their respective progeny) as they eke out a life in North America, and the third being the forests and wild spaces of the new world, perceived at first as vast and endless but gradually recognized as finite and fragile, writes Andra Syvnen, Assistant Dean, Admissions & Recruitment.

The book is beautifully written an amazingly detailed and captivating recounting of hardship, success, adventure, cultural genocide and environmental destruction that is heartbreaking in its vividness. Its impossible to put down.

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Jim Nicell is another longtime contributor to McGill Reads and is renowned for his voracious literary appetite. My wife knows very well that I sneak books into the house when she isnt looking, jokes the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering.

My to read this year is a little eclectic. I plan to get a head start on the holidays next week by starting the new biography of Thomas Edison called Edison by Edmund Morris, says Nicell.

After that, I plan to dive into Maoism: A Global History, which was on my bookshelf well before its author, Julia Lovell, was nominated and then awarded the 2019 Cundill Prize. I often tell my wife that I take great pride in picking winning books each year, but she seems to think that this may simply be due to the fact that I buy too many books. Shes probably right, but dont tell her, says Nicell. And then, to lighten the reading a bit, I am hoping to reread Douglas Adams complete Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series again and, in the process, try to get my kids addicted to it. Hope springs eternal.

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Gwen Wren, U3 Environment, says she will be finishing Margaret Atwoods Testaments. Im a big Atwood fan and I think the issues she engages with through fiction are very prevalent in the world today, writes Wren.

As well, Ill be re-reading Marina Keegans The Opposite of Loneliness, a book of short essays that reminds me to slow down and relish in the moment. Something I often forget in the fast pace life of being a McGill student.

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Cynthia Leehas a pair of books lined up for the break. First, she will tackle We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Recently I watched the documentary, Eating Animals based on Safran Foers book and it was very powerful, I encourage everyone to watch it, says everyones favourite Associate Director, Media Relations. This subject of this book is again global warming and its direct relation to humans consumption of animals for food.

Next, she will revisit When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. Im rereading this book because its one of my favorites, she says. Its the memoir of Paul Kalanithi, an American neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at the age of 36. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live.

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Kim Davies, an Administrator at the Rossy Cancer Network, is nothing if not precise. She says she will read the following three books, in order (with page count);

Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Dont Know 400 pages

Ryu Murakami, Piercing 192 pages

Ian Williams, Reproduction 464 pages

1,056 pages in 10 days. ~106 pages/day, notes Davies.

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This year I will be less ambitions in my holiday reading, writes regular contributor Kendra Gray. The feature of my holiday reading will beBlowout by Rachel Maddow. Russia, oil, and politics, as told by Rachel Maddow. I can think of no better combination.

Gray also plans on finishingAmin Maaloufs Origins: A Memoir, the story of Maaloufs family and his travels to Cuba to learn about the great-uncle who left Lebanon and made a life in Cuba in the early 1900s. In addition to being a fascinating history of the time, it is addresses issues of belonging, home and success, says Gray.

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Antonia Maioni, Dean of the Faculty of Arts has set three reading goals for the holidays.

The Cundill History Prize (administered by the Faculty of Arts) attracts extraordinary books from around the globe, but only a sliver make it as the three finalists, says Maioni. I plan to go back to two fascinating shortlisted books: A Fistful of Shells by Toby Green and Unruly Waters by Sunil Amrith.

Next, Maioni wants to catch up with Louise Pennys Armand Gamache series. She is so prolific I can barely keep up!

Finally, says Maioni, as a Tudor history buff, I will be re-reading Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies in anticipation of Hilary Mantels new book, the Mirror and the Light, due out in March 2020.

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William Hip Kuen, MSc in Mathematics and Statistics,plans on reading A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard. I have heard that this book is extremely fruitful for university students, and I decided to read it to help myself become a better person in the future, he says.

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Here is my list if my history holds true I will read two of these, and something else, writes McGill Reads regular Kimberley Stephenson, Trade Buyer, Le James McGill University Bookstore. Stephensons list includes:

Spying on the South by Tony Horwitz, because I loved his previous book Confederates in the Attic, and he brilliantly mixes the past with the present.

One Day by Gene Weingarten. Weingarten is the author of Fiddler on the Subway, and the Pulitzer Prize winning feature article Fatal Distraction I am looking forward to a longer piece by him.

Blue Moon by Lee Child, because Reacher.

High Five Joe Ide this is Joe Ides fourth book. If Sherlock Holmes lived in South Los Angeles and was a scrawny kid, then you would have IQ, the detective in this series.

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Melissa-Anne Cobbler, Wellness Advisor, Faculty of Science has two books lined up for the break; Magnetic Equator, by Kaie Kellough; and Here Comes the Sun, by Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn

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If we had a Best Backstory Award, it might very well go to Juliana Rigante, who will be graduating in May 2020 with a Bachelors degree in Pharmacology.

Being a student in science and working part-time can be quite overwhelming at times, so to stay sane, I sing opera at my high school with the same teacher whos been training me since I was 12 years old, she writes. Thats why this year, A Night at the Opera: An Irreverent Guide to The Plots, The Singers, The Composers, The Recordings, by Sir Denis Forman is on my list. I cant wait to educate myself on the songs Ive already sung and perhaps get some inspiration for what I can sing in the New Year!

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What fun! writes Carola Weil, Dean of the School of Continuing Studies. This actually reminds me of a project I initiated at my previous university where the dean of Libraries and I hosted a type of book club for the entire university community based on a list of 80 most influential books in the U.S. Members of the university community could volunteer to read, present and lead a discussion on their book of choice. Very illuminating and a lot of fun.

With those kind of literary chops, it comes as no surprise that Weils nightstand has the following stack of books waiting for her:

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A self-proclaimed huge Sci-Fi and historical fantasy fan, Bojan Vastagsays hisreading list is pretty long. However, recently I stumbled across Hugh Howeys Wool (first book of a Silo trilogy) and it blew my mind. It gives a good portrait of how our society is intertwined and how beliefs based on an edited truth impact our lives, says the Solutions Architect, IT Services This means that my holidayreads will be Shift (part 2) and Dust (part 3).

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Ive been enjoying the McGill Reads series for the past few years and I think its time I participated, writes Sarah Delisle, Emergency Planning Officer, Campus Public Safety.

Delisle will readGeorge Takeis They Called Us Enemy, a graphic novel about the actors childhood experiences in Japanese internment camps in the US during World War II. She says the book caught my eye as I was walking through Indigo recently and reminded me of Mark Sakamotos bookForgiveness: A Gift From My Grandparents, which Ireadas part of CanadaReads 2018. Sakamoto tells about his paternal grandparents experiences in WWII internment camps in Canada so I was drawn to They Called Us Enemy as a way to learn about what was going on south of the border. Plus, graphic novels are a format I love for autobiographies!

Delisle also plans to read Daniel Aldrichs Black Wave: How Networks and Governance Shaped Japans 3/11 Disasters.

Black Wave is part of my ever-expanding library of disaster-related books (professional hazard!), she writes. Working in emergency management, Im always interested in how communities respond to, deal with, and recover from large-scale disaster events, so Im intrigued to read about the response to the magnitude 9.0 earthquake (and resulting 60-foot tsunami) that impacted Japan in 2011.

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While Im a pretty avid reader all the time, I do find the holidays an especially satisfying time for getting into some great books, says Chris Buddle, out-going Dean of Students and in-coming Associate Provost, Teaching and Academic Programs.

On the fiction front, our favourite spider-hunting entomologist has lined up three selections.

Of course, Buddle also likes non-fiction and is planning to tackle a trio of tomes.

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Dorothy Redhead, Assistant to the Dean, Faculty of Arts, says she wants to finishreading Ducks and Newbury Port, by Lucy Ellmann and is looking forward to reading Save me the Plums, Ruth Reichls memoir of her time as editor of the magazine Gourmet. It was my favourite magazine and, sadly, is no more having published its last issue in November 2009, says Redhead.

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Sweet-talker Erin McDonagh writes that the annual McGill Reads is the highlight of the McGill holiday season!

Thank you, Erin. Its one of our favourite projects too!

The Teaching and Learning Planner from Teaching and Learning Services has two books lined up for the holidays.

First, theres The Secret History of Jane Eyre by John Pfordresher. The author reconsiders Charlotte Bronts life and experiences, and links them to the development of her novelJane Eyre, says McDonagh. Pfordresher challenges the idea that this small, short-sighted woman from the Yorkshire Moors had a uninteresting, sheltered life by showing how experiences with her brother Branwells addiction, her travels to Brussels and London, and her own thoughts and dreams provided her with ample grist for the mill of her literary imagination.

Next, McDonagh has chosen an all-time classic with a fantastical twist; Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, with illustrations by Salvador Dali. This book needs no introduction, and rereading it is a yearly holiday treat for me, she says. Last year, however, I discovered this fantastic illustrated version of the tale with works by Salvador Dali. It seems like a completely natural pairing, and adding weird, surrealist art to a weird, surrealist book has certainly yielded a fantastic product.

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Albert Le, a DMD candidate in the Faculty of Dentistry, thinks everyone should read aul Kalanithis When Breath Becomes Air. It is a poignant memoir from a man whose story that can inspire so many of us on the value of life, says Le. I cant do this book justice in describing it myself.

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Having just finished Claremont by local Montreal author, Wiebke von Carolsfeld, Dino Dutz, is singing its praises.

As a film director, I was already a fan of her award-winning films, so naturally I was intrigued toread her first novel, writes the Administrative Coordinator to the Associate Deans at the Schulich School of Music. Its a beautifully and sensitively written story that begins with a horrifying family trauma whose survivors must navigate through an uncertain, unexpected, often awkward aftermath. The characters imperfections are also their strengths, and their relationships to each other are a testament to the strange and unexpected ways that love can guide you through the unthinkable to a new version of family.

****

Daniel McCabe wins the 13th Hour Award for the last submission of the year. Truthfully, if we didnt owe him money, he might not have made the cut.

I made a happy discovery recently when I stumbled upon a deeply discounted copy of Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. in a downtown comic book shop, writes the much-admired editor of McGill News. A collaboration between Warren Ellis, one of the comic book worlds most influential writers (the second Iron Man film borrows heavily from one of his works) and the wonderfully versatile Canadian artist Stuart Immonen, Nextwave pokes gentle fun at the absurdity of superheroes, while simultaneously delighting in some of the over-the-top pleasures that super hero comics offer.

McCabe says his Christmas present to himself will be another graphic novel: the years-in-the-making Clyde Fans collection. The book, about a failing family business and the long, troubled relationship between two brothers, is by Seth, another Canadian, who is known for his retro cartoony style. The tone is nuanced and full of melancholy, and Seth, whose artwork has been featured in more than one museum, is one of his mediums most skilled cartoonists exemplified in the careful way he constructs a narrative, panel by panel by panel.

A fan of Emily Nussbaum, McCabe is looking forward to reading her new book I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning TV critic for The New Yorkerand her collection of essays explores the legacy of Norman Lear, looks at some of the questions raised by the #MeToo movement, and makes the case for whyBuffy the Vampire Slayeris one of the greatest shows in TV history.

One of her favourite shows and one of mine too is Bojack Horseman.Its among the funniest shows around, but its also pointed, wrenching and moving at times, says McCabe. The mastermind behind the show, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, has a new short story collection out, Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory. Given how much I loveBojack,I was thinking of picking up a copy.

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David Syncox says Bren Browns Dare to Lead has been on my desk for the entire fall semester and the hes determined to read it this holiday season. I am excited to read it as it speaks to being courageous and vulnerable as a leader, says the perpetually upbeat Director, Alumni Communities. As a staunch believer in lifelong learning and skills development, Im excited to learn a few strategies to add to my ever growing tool box.

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When Caitlin MacDougall last checked in with us earlier this year for the McGill Reads summer edition, she had already read or listened to 39 of the 75 books she was planning to tackle this year. Take that Jim Nicell!

We are happy to report that the Liaison Officer for the Farm Management and Technology Program has finished her 69th book and is on track to finish by December 31 (woot woot!), she says. Once again, it wouldnt be possible without the McGill Librarys Overdrive app and selection of audiobooks.

Over the holidays, MacDougall plans to read;

Continued here:
McGill Reads: 2019 holiday edition - McGill - McGill Reporter

Physiology

Just two weeks of reduced activity decreases muscle strength, particularly among seniors – Malay Mail

New research highlights the importance of getting out and staying active during the winter months. Susan Chiang/Istock via AFP

LONDON, Dec 13 New UK research has shown that although it might be difficult to get out and about on cold, dark winter days, its important we all try to keep moving to preserve muscle mass and avoid weight gain, particularly for seniors.

Carried out by researchers at the University of Liverpool, the new study looked at 47 participants who were all walking over 10,000 steps per day, but did not do any vigorous exercise.

The participants were split into two groups depending on their age, with 26 subjects in their 20s and 30s placed in the younger group, and 21 subjects in their 50s and 60s places in the older group.

At the start of the study, the researchers carried out tests to assess various physiological measures such as participants lean mass, bone mineral density (BMD), muscle function and strength.

The participants were then asked to reduce their physical activity to just 1,500 steps a day for a period of 14 days, before going back to their usual 10,000 steps a day for another 14 days.

The findings, presented at The Physiological Societys conference Future Physiology 2019, showed that after just two weeks of reduced physical activity, muscle size, muscle strength and bone mass was equally reduced in both the younger and older groups. The two groups also gained a similar amount of fat around their waist and in their muscle tissue, which reduces its quality, leading to significant reductions in muscle strength.

However, as the older adults had less muscle and more fat to begin with, these changes are likely to have a bigger negative effect on this population, compared with younger adults.

Moreover, the researchers found that there were two physiological measures that decreased substantially in the older group but not among the younger participants cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and mitochondrial function. CRF is how efficiently oxygen is supplied to muscles during sustained physical activity, with low CRF usually found in those with poor physical health and linked with developing diseases at a younger age, while mitochondrial function, which is the energy production of our cells, is important for muscle and metabolic health. The declines in both CRF and mitochondrial function may also be linked to the loss of muscle mass and strength and the gains in muscle and body fat during the period of physical inactivity.

Researchers Juliette Norman commented on the findings saying, The severe impact of short-term inactivity on our health is hugely important to communicate to people. If the gym is hard to get to, people should be encouraged to just meet 10,000 steps as even this can guard against reductions in muscle and bone health, as well as maintaining healthy levels of body fat. AFP-Relaxnews

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Just two weeks of reduced activity decreases muscle strength, particularly among seniors - Malay Mail

Biochemistry

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Degree Fully Accredited by ASBMB – UMass News and Media Relations

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) recently awarded full accreditation to the UMass Amherst biochemistry and molecular biology B.S. degree.

Aspects of the departments application that were considered particularly noteworthy according to the society include excellent faculty, outstanding in both teaching and research, integration of programs that promote student teamwork and communication skills, career advising and the advanced course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) allowing students to gain authentic research experiences.

Jennifer Normanly, head of the department, says, Students who graduate from an ASBMB-accredited program have the opportunity to take an assessment, an exam, to have their degree certified by ASBMB, showing prospective graduate schools and potential employers that the students have met the societys high academic standards.

Dean Tricia Serio of the College of Natural Sciences said of the accomplishment, I am thrilled to see this well-deserved recognition for our stellar undergraduate major in biochemistry and for the departments leadership in and dedication to preparing our students for successful careers in the life sciences.

ASBMB, based in Rockville, Maryland, was founded in 1906 to advance the science of biochemistry and molecular biology through publication of scientific and educational journals, the organization of scientific meetings, advocacy for funding of basic research and education, support of science education at all levels and by promoting the diversity of individuals entering the scientific workforce. It publishes three peer-reviewed research journals covering research in microbiology, molecular genetics, RNA-related research, proteomics, genomics, transcription, peptides, cell signaling, lipidomics and systems biology. The society has over 12,000 members and has awarded accreditation to 85 colleges/universities.

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Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Degree Fully Accredited by ASBMB - UMass News and Media Relations

Biochemistry

Biochemistry Analyzers Market: 2020 With Top Competitors Analysis And Insights – TheLoop21

New York City, NY: Dec 12, 2019 Published via (Wired Release) The Biochemistry Analyzers Market Report characterizes and briefs perusers about its items, applications, and particulars. The examination records key organizations working in the market and furthermore features the key changing course received by the organizations to keep up their quality. By utilizing SWOT investigation and Porters five power examination instruments, the qualities, shortcomings, openings, and malediction of key organizations are out and out referenced in the report. Each and every driving player in this worldwide market is profiled with subtleties, for example, item types, business outline, deals, fabricating base, candidate, applications, and particulars.

Key players inside the Biochemistry Analyzers market are known through auxiliary investigation, and their pieces of the pie are resolved through essential and optional examination. All action shares split, and breakdowns are fearless exploitation auxiliary sources and checked essential sources. The Biochemistry Analyzers Market report starts with a fundamental rundown of the exchange lifecycle, definitions, characterizations, applications, and exchange chain structure and each one these along can encourage driving players to see the extent of the Market, what attributes it offers and the manner in which itll satisfy clients needs.

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Our Free sample report provides a brief introduction to the research report overview, TOC, list of tables and figures, an overview of major market players and key regions included.

Major Players:

Abbott LaboratoriesDanaher CorporationHoffman-La Roche Ltd.MerilSiemens AGHologic Inc.Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.Randox Laboratories Ltd.Beckman Coulter Inc.Horiba Medical

Biochemistry Analyzers Market Research Methodology:

This investigation gauges it gives a point by point subjective and quantitative examination of the Biochemistry Analyzers market. Essential sources, for example, specialists from related enterprises and providers of Biochemistry Analyzers were met to acquire and confirm basic data and survey possibilities of the Biochemistry Analyzers market.

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The research provides explanations to the accompanying key queries of Biochemistry Analyzers industry:

1. What will be the market size and improvement pace of the Biochemistry Analyzers market for the assessed time period 2020 2029 transversely over different regions?

2. What are the key primary purposes expected to shape the destiny of the Biochemistry Analyzers business around the globe?

3. What procedures are the unquestionable traders changing in accordance with stay before their Biochemistry Analyzers contenders?

4. Which critical examples are influencing the improvement of the Biochemistry Analyzers market worldwide?

5. Which factors can avoid, challenge or even cutoff the improvement of the Biochemistry Analyzers market the world over?

6. What are the odds or future conceivable outcomes for the business visionaries working in the industry for the measure time allotment, 2020 2029?

Table of Contents:

1. Biochemistry Analyzers Market Survey.

2. Executive Synopsis.

3. Global Biochemistry Analyzers Market Race by Manufacturers.

4. Global Biochemistry Analyzers Production Market Share by Regions.

5. Global Biochemistry Analyzers Consumption by Regions.

6. Global Biochemistry Analyzers Production, Revenue, Price Trend by Type.

7. Global Biochemistry Analyzers Market Analysis by Applications.

8. Biochemistry Analyzers Manufacturing Cost Examination.

9. Advertising Channel, Suppliers, and Clienteles.

10. Market Dynamics

11. Global Biochemistry Analyzers, Market Estimate.

12. Investigations and Conclusion.

13. Important Findings in the Global Biochemistry Analyzers Study.

14. Appendixes.

15. company Profile.

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Biochemistry Analyzers Market: 2020 With Top Competitors Analysis And Insights - TheLoop21

Cell Biology

Interview with Gavin Jeffries from Fluicell: Cell Biology is at the Core of our Work – 3DPrint.com

Getting to know cells well helps understand how organisms function. This is one of the aspects that drive scientists, researchers, and physicians to create bioprinting technology to generate living structures that can mimic the actual environment of human tissues. Bioprinters today usually involve a syringe-like mechanism to deposit cell material within a gel or scaffold structure, which helps keep the desired 3D shape while printing and is then washed away or dissolved. A Swedish company called Fluicell is out to change the reigning trend and has just released a new system for cell 3D printing. Based on innovative open-volume microfluidics technology, their brand new bioprinting system, Biopixlar, is capable of generating detailed, multi-cellular biological tissues without the need for a gel matrix.

The Biopixlar bioprinter

Biopixlar is designed for handling scarce and valuable cell sources such as stem cells, primary cells, and patient biopsies. The company has actually begun working at their own labs building full tissue and cancer models, which usually takes them just 24 hours to print thanks to their technology. The system is an all-in-one discovery platform that allows the printing of multiple types of different cells at once with high precision and resolution. One of the fun features is the gamepad interface, used to manually control the position of the print head and deposit the cells. Also, an integrated multi-color fluorescence imaging configuration enables real-time monitoring of the printing process and post-print analysis.

Gavin Jeffries

Fluicell, a spin-off company out of Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden, has been around since 2012, developing biotech hardware devicesincluding the BioPen and Dynaflow Resolve systemsbut their research has taken them to explore changes in the bioprinting market, namely producing human-like tissue replicas. 3DPrint.com spoke to Gavin Jeffries, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Fluicell, to understand the process behind Biopixlar.

How did Fluicell become a pioneer in open-volume microfluidics?

Microfluidics is essentially the control of liquids on a smaller scale and is very useful when scientists need to handle the smallest amounts of liquid or have very rare samples and need fast responses. Over the last 20 years, microfluidics has been advancing quite a lot but has largely focused on chip-based devices, which means the whole field is centered around putting cells or liquids inside another device. When we first started the company we noticed that having something inside a device was restrictive, because within biology you normally want to have your cells in a petri dish or on your microscope, not inside a chip. But at the same time, we wanted to harness the power of microfluidics to use small sample amounts and have those very fast response times, so essentially we came up with a way of very precisely controlling both positive and negative pressures to allow control of liquids outside of our microfluidic chip. Meaning we can still have the function of microfluidics but in an open volume (basically in any kind of biological platform.) Since 2011, this technology has been picked up by different fields for research.

How will the gamepad simplify the user experience?

Biopixlar is a complete discovery platform, with everything embedded in it. Actually, just like a game system, the gamepad interface provides user control over the responsivity of the machine. This control format is ideal for people who are coming into the workforce and who have grown up with advanced interfaces, without the need to use a mouse or a keyboard. We also hoped to focus on the comfort of working with the device, for example, researchers will be able to get a direct response in real-time because it is fully embedded with microscopy, so they will see everything they are doing, every cell they put in, just everything.

Biopixlar is designed to be a complete platform where discovery science is its home and marketplace. Research and development, whether it is looking at disease models or interrogating biological systems, the user has control over building these early-stage models as accurately as possible. These can be found in academia and the pharma industry, so it will be our first bridge between the two market segments.

Closeup of the Biopixlar printhead

What makes Biopixlar so unique?

After one layer of cells is put down, Biopixlar allows them to grow and then pattern them using a molecular cell binder to put the next level of cells, and so on, building up layer by layer and using the extracellular matrix binding agent in between, which would naturally be reproduced by the cells. We chose to use components of the extracellular matrix that are naturally formed with the cells so that the device can pattern them on top of the cells which are printed, allowing for more cells to attach. In this way, researchers will not need to house the cells in any binder to build in three dimensions.

Why is cell viability really high with the Biopixlar system?

That is largely because of the microfluidics within the device. We use a consumable cartridge to load the cells, but inside there is a series of complex circuitry that allows the handling of liquids in a no-sharing regime so the fluids dont rub against each other and the cells are much happier being in this kind of no shared environment. When we patterned the cells at the lab, we noticed that there is no negative impact of printed cells versus putting them in a dish. Moreover, we feel comfortable and very happy that we minimally interfere with the cells when we build them into the structure that we want to create.

Printed skin cancer model

Do you consider Biopixlar will be successful among researchers?

We stand alone within the market of bioprinting because we do not need to use any binding matrix, our goal is to put cells as close as possible to each other so that they begin communicating straight away. Most of the full tissue and cancer models we built at the lab were done within 24 hours, and this is largely due to the fact that we dont have anything in the way of the cells communicating with each other. Additionally, thanks to the gamepad, we can see exactly what we are doing in real-time. The technology sparks interest in the field because people can actually see the bridge between advanced technology and biology and we are now starting to get to a point where we can show results and people are starting to get excited about them.

Is understanding cell behavior at the core of what you do?

The only thing which we are really focusing on is the cells. With Biopixlar, scientists dont have to pattern ink or deposition areas, they will not have to deal with that and instead, focus on the cells. Biopixlar has a unique advantage to see if anything is going wrong because if something were to happen to the cells or the biology during the process, it will be seen directly. Thanks to the high-resolution microscopy, we can interrogate the cells as they are printed or while they are growing. This all-in-one discovery platform approach is necessary to carry out bioprinting while providing advantages over how the biological tissues are actually built.

Printed liver cancer model

How would you describe Biopixlar to a potential buyer?

It is a high-resolution machine that fits in a comfortable lab setting with an easy-to-use experience, built with microscopy for looking at individual cells. Researchers need an accurate micro position to move around all the microcomponents while having a very stable infrastructure because it is moving on the micron size scale, instead of the millimeter size, we wouldnt want it to vibrate and lose calibration in the middle of a print. Overall, it is an accessible, original and optimal resolution device for lab spaces.

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Interview with Gavin Jeffries from Fluicell: Cell Biology is at the Core of our Work - 3DPrint.com