They were building a bridge when they happened to dig up history.

Connecticut Department of Transportation crews were excavating the site of a new bridge in January 2019 when they came upon evidence of southern New Englands oldest humans, dating back 12,500 years, the Hartford Courant reports.

Archaeologists had long suspected there may be ancient remnants beneath the soil by Avons Old Farms Road, but didnt have the money to excavate it themselves. In the process of building a bridge over the areas Farmington River, state workers found them.

This is the once-in-lifetime opportunity to look [at a site of this age] in Connecticut, State Historic Preservation Office staff archaeologist Catherine Labadia tells the Courant of the site, which is estimated to be more than 12,000 years old and date back to the Paleoindian Period. This site has the potential to make us understand the first peopling of Connecticut in a way we havent been able to.

The $14.7 million project unearthed prized evidence of human activity roughly six feet beneath the surface, showing traces of evidence regarding human behavior, archaeologist David Leslie says, including holes, walls, a hearth and house posts from temporary dwellings.

And in addition to being ancient, the relics found are also vast. Leslie, who led the dig, says roughly 15,000 artifacts and 27 features which are more highly valued turned up at the site.

And people have been looking for Paleoindian sites for quite some time, says Leslie, adding that evidence from the Paleoindian era is rare in New England and right now, this is the oldest.

While the bridge-building project wasnt intended to uncover history, its quite common that construction reveals museum-worthy finds, experts say.

Far and away most of the archaeological resources that get investigated happened through ... agencies doing their work, going about their business and spending money, says DOT staff archaeologist Scott Speal. While the construction crew didnt intend on finding the artifacts, the National Historic Preservation Act required the DOT to search for them before building.

They afforded us time and money to excavate the entire site, says Leslie.

The discovered artifacts and historic landmark have been named the Dr. Brian D. Jones Paleoindian Site, in honor of a late archaeologist who worked on the site and lost his battle with cancer in July 2019.

Brian had a feeling that there could be the potential for archaeology here, says Leslie.

It was almost like a gift that was given to him, says Labadia.

Read more from the original source:
Construction workers accidentally uncover ancient site in Connecticut - New York Post

Robin Fears

Volker ter Meulen

Joachim von Braun

Today, the number of hungry, undernourished people across the planet is increasing, with micronutrient deficiencies impairing the overall health of more than 2 billion people worldwide. Early child mortality and morbidity are unacceptably high, and problems related to unsafe food, food waste, and poorly managed agricultural systems continue, as do problems associated with overconsumption. The impacts of inadequately managed agricultural systems are damaging land, water, and atmospheric systems, which, together, are posing unprecedented threats to global food security. These problems are rooted in deficient and deeply intertwined policies and practices that need to be addressed on a global scale. These challengesall related to food distribution, agricultural systems, and planetary healthlie squarely in the path of achieving global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and equity in the distribution of resources across global populations.

Although research related to crop cultivation has made great contributions to agricultural productivity, global leaders have begun to recognize the severity of problems rooted in inequity and the expanding demands of populations. In response, they have been increasing efforts to identify scientific endeavors to foster responsible innovation in food systems and, in tandem, shape necessary related local, national, and international policies.

Such scientific leadership has recently coalesced in the form of a global network of academies of science, medicine, and engineering called the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP). The IAP was launched in 2016 by bringing together three established networks of academies (the InterAcademy Panel, the InterAcademy Medical Panel, and the InterAcademy Council). A recent IAP project was designed to work toward the goal of promoting science that will inform societal priorities at the intersection of food/nutritional security and global environmental health. The organization brings together networks of experts from Africa, Asia, America, and Europe to analyze food systems at national, regional, and global levels (http://interacademies.org/37646/Food-and-Nutrition-Security-and-Agriculture) to apply research-based evidence to transform current practices to sustainably feed the planet in the context of global environmental change (1).

To date, the IAP has published five reports that clarify controversial issues, identify potential best practices across regions, and shed light on cross-cutting policy concerns. The authors strike an unusual balance by developing a consensus on many critical recommendations related to food and nutrition security while acknowledging the profound regional differences in agricultural productivity and cultural preferences. The reports powerfully clarify the urgent need for investment in research infrastructure together with the obligation by participants to share robust and verifiable data related to population health, nutrition, agricultural practices and outputs, climate change, ecological systems and sustainability, and human behavior.

Policy-makers must aggressively push for additional and plentiful funding for research related to food and nutrition security because the impact of innovative science is already clear and unequivocal. For example, we already know that gene sequencing and editing can lead to improved and efficient means to breed plants and farm animals with characteristics that serve both the health of people and the environment. New advancements in science have also shown the potential for capitalizing on new understandings of diet-gut microbiome-disease linkages and expanding the use of innovative functional foods and personalized nutrition coupled with smart monitoring of individual status. Of course, the use of any advance must be grounded in stringently reformed regulatory systems that are acceptable to stakeholders.

IAP reports highlight the very large body of scientific knowledge already available to shape and promote more effective food and nutrition security. With a focus on the availability of new information, policy-makers can use this evidence to develop sustainable systems that will support healthy populations, linking these goals to other policy objectives including those related to the circular economy and bioeconomy. As a whole, the reports illuminate how research can clarify and resolve the complexities of the food-energy-water-health nexus, ranging from how social sciences research can inform and transform consumer and farmer behavior to the benefits of studying neglected crops. While focused on how empirical evidence can drive effective policy, the reports reaffirm the central importance of basic and applied science in driving policy, underscore the imperative to address knowledge gaps through increased international collaboration, and ardently articulate the imperative to prioritize education across all topics.

But this is not enough: Research outputs must also be integrated coherently into addressing the SDGs, climate objectives, and other agreed upon societal priorities, a task mandating a redesign of the science-policy interface for food, nutrition, and agriculture. The issues for food and nutrition security are relevant to multiple SDGs. There is an urgent need for additional science-informed analysis of the interactions among SDGs in support of decision-making for systems in transition in an uncertain and rapidly connected world. Policy-makers will, we believe, greatly benefit from taking a broader sweep of research evidence available to them, including the valuable lessons learned in the institutions of the European Union and African Union that stress the benefits of strengthening science-policy connectivity at regional and global levels. Capitalizing on scientific opportunities is something that should pervade public policy widely, beyond those funding and prioritizing the research agenda.

Following this, we see substantial value in constituting an international panel on food and nutrition security and agriculture focused on shaping policy choices and strengthening governance mechanisms. Such a panel would draw on the related large scientific community and could be clearly charged with addressing the most pressing food and agriculture questions as the global challenges continue to mount, particularly those related to population, climate, human nutrition, and sustainable use of land and water resources. These questions are extraordinarily diverse in nature and complexity, ranging from how best to balance the difficult trade-offs between nutritional and environmental goals, to how to collect, verify, and use data in global scientific analyses, to how to attract and incentivize consumers to prefer healthy sustainable diets. In summary, achieving healthy populations requires national actions supported by new international approaches to improve food systems functioning underpinned by an increasingly robust and ambitious science base.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.

Excerpt from:
Global food and nutrition security needs more and new science - Science Advances

Apologies to Taylor Swift and Andrew Lloyd Webber, but the most interesting cat content online right now is a Snapchat filter that lets humans try on a feline face. The resulting clips are adorable, confounding, and a great example of just how little we know about cat cognition.

In a video compilation making the rounds online, cats look at a phone screen that shows their owners with a cat face filter. The cats whip their heads around to look up at the human, and then back to the screen. It appears the cat recognizes that their owners face should be on the phone, but it is not, Kristyn Vitale, who studies cat behavior at Oregon State University, said in an email to The Verge.

However, its particularly challenging to figure out what this behavior says about cats because we know so little about cat cognition to begin with, says Sarah-Elizabeth Byosiere, an animal behavior researcher and director of the Thinking Dog Center at CUNY Hunter College. In cats, its as elusive as cats general personalities can be, she says. Thats partly because they often dont cooperate well in research studies, making data hard to come by. When a researcher tried to test if cats understood what it meant if someone pointed at where food was hidden, for example, multiple subjects wandered off from the testing site.

The video hints at some interesting questions about cat cognitive awareness. It might be a sign the cat recognizes its owner, Vitale said. But it isnt a sign that cats pass the mirror test, despite what some people responding to the video seemed to think.

The mirror test is a key measure of self awareness for animal behavior researchers. It was designed in 1970 to figure out if an animal can recognize itself. When animals are introduced to a mirror, their first reaction is often an aggressive, threatening posture, Byosiere says. They first appear to think its another animal. And then slowly, you see many start to interact with the mirror, she says. In the test, researchers mark the animal with paint or a sticker somewhere they cant normally see. If, when they look at the mark in the mirror, they try to touch it on their body, its a sign they recognize themselves as the animal in the mirror.

But in the videos, the cat isnt looking at itself, its looking at a person. And the cat filters arent on a mirror theyre on a screen, which can flicker in subtle ways, and might be visually different from a mirror to animals. Researchers have started to study how dogs respond to stimuli on a screen, and it seems that they recognize objects on the screen the same way they do in real life. Because theres not much research on cat cognition, we dont know how cats interact with screens, or how they would perceive the properties of screens, Byosiere says.

Its also hard to draw conclusions from videos taken in an uncontrolled environment. We can never really get at what the owner did beforehand, she says. Theres no way to know if its the first time the cat has seen the filter, or if theres something else going on in the background that gets their attention. We dont know if this context is unique, or if it indicates anything about how attentive cats are.

The Verges deputy editor Elizabeth Lopatto tested the filter with her cat, Jeeves, with mixed results. Jeeves turned back to look at her face on the first try, but only after she spoke. And the second time, Jeeves uninterested jumped off her lap and wandered away.

Even if they cant prove anything about how cats think, the videos are fun. Most scientists and researchers really do like these videos, Byosiere says. If the cats are happy to do this, and its not disturbing them, great. They also show that people are interested in learning why their cats behave the way they do, she says. Its exciting because then hopefully theres room for people to do this type of research on cats.

Read more here:
The Snapchat cat filter shows how little we know about cat cognition - The Verge

Its not often that a fossil truly rewrites human evolution, but the recent discovery of an ancient extinct ape has some scientists very excited. According to its discoverers, Danuvius guggenmosi combines some human-like features with others that look like those of living chimpanzees. They suggest that it would have had an entirely distinct way of moving that combined upright walking with swinging from branches. And they claim that this probably makes it similar to the last shared ancestor of humans and chimps.

We are not so sure. Looking at a fossilized animals anatomy does give us insights into the forces that would have operated on its bones and so how it commonly moved. But its a big leap to then make conclusions about its behavior, or to go from the bones of an individual to the movement of a whole species. The Danuvius fossils are unusually complete, which does provide some vital new evidence. But how much does it really tell us about how our ancestors moved around?

Danuvius has long and mobile arms, habitually extended (stretched out) legs, feet which could sit flat on the floor, and big toes with a strong gripping action. This is a unique configuration. Showing that a specimen is unique is a prerequisite for classifying it as belonging to a separate, new species that deserves its own name.

But what matters in understanding the specimen is how we interpret its uniqueness. Danuviuss discoverers go from describing its unique anatomy to proposing a unique pattern of movement. When we look at living apes, the relationship between anatomy and movement is not so simple.

The Danuvius find actually includes fossils from four individuals, one of which is nearly complete. But even a group of specimens may not be typical of a species more generally. For instance, humans are known for walking upright, not climbing trees, but the Twa hunter-gatherers are regular tree climbers. These people, whose bones look just like ours, have distinctive muscles and ranges of movement well beyond the human norm. But you could not predict their behavior from their bones.

Every living ape uses a repertoire of movements, not just one. For example, orangutans use clambering, upright or horizontal climbing, suspensory swinging, and assisted bipedalism (walking upright using hands for support). Their movement patterns can vary in complex ways because of individual preference, body mass, age, sex, or activity.

Gorillas, meanwhile, are knuckle-walkers and we used to think they were unable to stand fully upright. But the walking gorilla Ambam is famous for his humanlike stride.

Ultimately, two animals with very similar anatomies can move differently, and two with different anatomies can move in the same way. This means that Danuvius may not be able to serve as a model for our ancestors behavior, even if its anatomy is similar to theirs.

In fact, we believe there are other plausible interpretations of Danuviuss bones. These alternatives give a picture of a repertoire of potential movements that may have been used in different contexts.

For example, one of Danuviuss most striking features is the high ridge on the top of its shinbone, which the researchers say is associated with strongly developed cruciate ligaments, which stabilize the knee joint. The researchers link these strong stabilizing ligaments with evidence for an extended hip and a foot that could be placed flat on the floor to suggest that this ape habitually stood upright. Standing upright could be a precursor to bipedal walking, so the authors suggest that this means Danuvius could have been like our last shared ancestor with other apes.

However, the cruciate ligaments also work to stabilize the knee when the leg is rotating. This only happens when the knee is bent with the foot on the ground. This is why skiers who use knee rotation to turn their bodies often injure these ligaments.

We have not seen the Danuvius bones in real life. But, based on the researchers excellent images and descriptions, an equally plausible interpretation of the pronounced ridge on the top of the shinbone could be that the animal used its knee when it was bent, with significant rotational movement.

Perhaps it hung from a branch above and used its feet to steer by gripping branches below, rather than bearing weight through the feet. This could have allowed it to capitalize on its small body weight to access fruit on fine branches. Alternatively, it could have hung from its feet, using the legs to maneuver and the hands to grasp.

All of these movements fit equally well with Danuvius bones, and could be part of its movement repertoire. So there is no way to say which movement is dominant or typical. As such, any links to our own bipedalism look much less clear-cut.

Danuvius is undoubtedly a very important fossil, with lots to teach us about how varied ape locomotion can be. But we would argue that it is not necessarily particularly like us. Instead, just like living apes, Danuvius would probably have displayed a repertoire of different movements. And we cant say which would have been typical, because anatomy is not enough to reconstruct behavior in full.

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

More:
New fossils provide evidence about the evolution of walking - Quartz

Heres whats on tap under the Gold Dome on Monday (December 16th):

SENATE SESSION 1:00 PM Senate Chambers

Voting Session:

A268 [Kean, Sean T./Egan, Joseph V.+2], P.I.C.K. Awareness Act-authorize special license plate to support recovery

A442 [Schaer, Gary S./Freiman, Roy+4], Revenue Advisory Board-establish, provide consensus revenue forcasting advice

A790 [Andrzejczak, Bob/Land, R. Bruce+13], Combat to College Act-mil service memb/vets-grant priority course registration

A791 [Andrzejczak, Bob/Land, R. Bruce+11], Military service-requires higher education institution award appropriate credit

A1212 [McKeon, John F./Gusciora, Reed+12], Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative-clarify intent

A1220 [McKeon, John F./Vainieri Huttle, Valerie+9], Drama Therapists and Dance/Movement Therapists Licensing Act

A1305 [Greenwald, Louis D.+1], William H Fauver Youth Correctional Facility-renames Mountainview Youth Facility

A1478 [Chaparro, Annette/Gusciora, Reed+3], Theater liquor license-revises law

A1582 [Conaway, Herb/Moriarty, Paul D.+9], Dietetics and Nutrition Licensing Act-establish

A1992 [Sumter, Shavonda E./Eustace, Tim+8], Call Center Jobs Act-concerns relocation to a foreign country

A2431 [Benson, Daniel R./Jimenez, Angelica M.+13], Prescr. drug coverage-health insurers prov plans that limit patient cost-sharing

A3101 [Jones, Patricia Egan/Benson, Daniel R.+24], Arts, historical heritage & tourism-incr. minimum amount from hotel fee revenues

A3160 [Lampitt, Pamela R./Giblin, Thomas P.], Cosmetology school clinics-permits charging fees for services rendered to public

A3979 [Lopez, Yvonne/Vainieri Huttle, Valerie+10], Dignity for Incarcerated Primary Caretaker Parents Act

A4493 [Pinkin, Nancy J./Conaway, Herb], Sexually transmitted disease-expedite partner therapy for treatment

A4608 [Zwicker, Andrew/Downey, Joann+3], Applied Behavior Analyst Licensing Act

A5037 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Speight, Shanique+4], Drugs, counterfeit-enhance penalties

A5070 [Speight, Shanique/Tucker, Cleopatra G.+2], Parking tax-mun. impose, to fund projects to improve access to mass transit

A5098 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Chaparro, Annette+5], Personal care services-establishes $18 hourly Medicaid reimbursement rate

A5263 [Tully, P. Christopher/Armato, John+4], Firefighters, complete courses at county fire academies-award college credits

A5277 [DeAngelo, Wayne P./Houghtaling, Eric], Professional Boards-eliminates term limits for members

A5509 [Mosquera, Gabriela M./Timberlake, Britnee N.+8], Breastfeeding support-requires health benefits and Medicaid coverage

A5624 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Munoz, Nancy F.+5], Gubernatorial transition-State employee serve as EEO/Affirmative Action officer

A5625 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Munoz, Nancy F.+5], Gubernatorial transition positions-payment req, background investigation expense

A5626 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Munoz, Nancy F.+6], Criminal investigations-disclosure required by applicants for State employment

A5627 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Munoz, Nancy F.+4], Human resource management of employees-grants authority to Civil Service Comm.

A5628 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Munoz, Nancy F.+5], Civil Service Comm-estab standardize recordkeeping w/regards to unclassified emp

A5629 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Munoz, Nancy F.+5], Discrimination or harassment complaints-clarify provisions concerning disclosure

A5630 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Munoz, Nancy F.+5], Discrimination & harassment-Civil Service Commission estab/maintain hotline

A5631 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Munoz, Nancy F.+5], Discrimination complaint in the workplace-State agency review

A5632 [Pintor Marin, Eliana/Munoz, Nancy F.+6], Discrimination or harassment complaints-employees receive add training to manage

A5801 [Coughlin, Craig J./Houghtaling, Eric], Wage claims against subcontractors-concerns responsibility of owners

A5802 [Greenwald, Louis D./Downey, Joann+16], Family planning services-makes FY2020;$9.5M

A5817 [Mazzeo, Vincent/Armato, John], Casino key employee license & regis.-concerns drug offense disqualification

S244 [Connors, Christopher J./Andrzejczak, Bob+6], Combat to College Act-mil service memb/vets-grant priority course registration

S247 [Singleton, Troy/Andrzejczak, Bob+8], Arts, historical heritage & tourism-incr. minimum amount from hotel fee revenues

S469 [Singer, Robert W./Gopal, Vin+1], P.I.C.K. Awareness Act-authorize special license plate to support recovery

S611 [Sweeney, Stephen M./Smith, Bob+1], Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative-clarify intent

S618 [Gordon, Robert M./Oroho, Steven V.+3], State revenue estimating and reporting processes-reforms annual

S761 [Cunningham, Sandra B./Ruiz, M. Teresa+19], Earn Your Way Out Act-devel. inmate reentry plan; establish information database

S974 [Singleton, Troy/Kean, Thomas H.+3], Spinal muscular atrophy-requires newborn infants be screened

S993 [Vitale, Joseph F.], Sexually transmitted disease-expedite partner therapy for treatment

S1618 [Van Drew, Jeff/Brown, Chris A.+3], Veterans cert.-requires higher education institution, grant academic credit

S1648 [Diegnan, Patrick J./Kean, Thomas H.+5], Theater liquor license-revises law

S1751 [Beach, James+1], Cosmetology school clinics-permits charging fees for services rendered to public

S1780 [Diegnan, Patrick J./Turner, Shirley K.+3], Call Center Jobs Act-concerns relocation to a foreign country

S1865 [Weinberg, Loretta/Kean, Thomas H.+1], Prescr. drug coverage-health insurers prov plans that limit patient cost-sharing

S2173 [Weinberg, Loretta/Vitale, Joseph F.], Student, mandatory immunizations-clarifies statutory exemptions

S2448 [Diegnan, Patrick J./Singleton, Troy+2], Veterans and their spouses-waives certain prof. and occupational licensing fees

S2449 [Diegnan, Patrick J.+2], Veterans and their spouses-waives commercial driver license fees

S2540 [Greenstein, Linda R./Cruz-Perez, Nilsa+1], Dignity for Incarcerated Primary Caretaker Parents Act

S2625 [Weinberg, Loretta/Ruiz, M. Teresa], Dietetics and Nutrition Licensing Act-establish

S2930 [Bucco, Anthony R./Beach, James+1], Insurance producer licensing fee-exempts honorable discharged mil veterans

S3099 [Weinberg, Loretta/Kean, Thomas H.+1], Behavior Analyst Lic Act-produce socially significant human behavior improvement

S3170 [Cryan, Joseph P./Pou, Nellie+3], Plant closings, mass layoffs-incr. prenotification time & requires severance pay

S3229 [Vitale, Joseph F./Cryan, Joseph P.+5], Drivers licenses & ID cards-creates 2 categories; MVC increase certain fees

S3457 [Sweeney, Stephen M./Andrzejczak, Bob+5], Hooked on Fishing-Not on Drugs Program;$450K

S3471 [Andrzejczak, Bob/Greenstein, Linda R.+2], Drugs, counterfeit-enhance penalties

S3507 [Ruiz, M. Teresa/Rice, Ronald L.+1], Parking tax-mun. impose, to fund projects to improve access to mass transit

S3519 [Corrado, Kristin M.+3], Firefighters, complete courses at county fire academies-award college credits

S3622 [Rice, Ronald L.], William H Fauver Youth Correctional Facility-renames Mountainview Youth Facility

S3734 [Greenstein, Linda R.], Professional Boards-eliminates term limits for members

S3741 [Weinberg, Loretta/Vitale, Joseph F.], For-profit hospitals-report certain information to DOH

S3759 [Addiego, Dawn Marie/Corrado, Kristin M.+1], Special education unit-create within Office of Admin. Law; require annual report

S3763 [Addiego, Dawn Marie/Bateman, Christopher+1], Joint meetings-renames as regional service agencies; grandfathers existing

S3805 [Ruiz, M. Teresa/Pou, Nellie+2], Breastfeeding support-requires health benefits and Medicaid coverage

S3888 [Ruiz, M. Teresa], Economic Redevelopment & Growth Grant Program-extends submission deadlines

S3920 [Pou, Nellie], Manufacturing fac-concern provisions of energy by prov cert energy related taxes

S3975 [Weinberg, Loretta/Corrado, Kristin M.+1], Gubernatorial transition-State employee serve as EEO/Affirmative Action officer

S3976 [Weinberg, Loretta/Corrado, Kristin M.+1], Gubernatorial transition positions-payment req, background investigation expense

S3977 [Weinberg, Loretta/Corrado, Kristin M.+1], Criminal investigations-disclosure required by applicants for State employment

S3978 [Weinberg, Loretta/Corrado, Kristin M.], Human resource management of employees-grants authority to Civil Service Comm.

S3979 [Weinberg, Loretta/Corrado, Kristin M.+1], Civil Service Comm-estab standardize recordkeeping w/regards to unclassified emp

S3980 [Weinberg, Loretta/Corrado, Kristin M.+1], Discrimination or harassment complaints-clarify provisions concerning disclosure

S3981 [Weinberg, Loretta/Corrado, Kristin M.+1], Discrimination & harassment-Civil Service Commission estab/maintain hotline

S3982 [Weinberg, Loretta/Corrado, Kristin M.+1], Discrimination complaint in the workplace-State agency review

S3983 [Weinberg, Loretta+1], Discrimination or harassment complaints-employees receive add training to manage

S3985 [Smith, Bob], Qualified offshore wind project-expands definition

S4024 [Pou, Nellie/Corrado, Kristin M.], William Paterson University;$2M

S4035 [Pou, Nellie/Singleton, Troy+1], Thomas Edison State University;$1.7M

S4064 [Singleton, Troy/Sweeney, Stephen M.], Wage claims against subcontractors-concerns responsibility of owners

S4066 [Pou, Nellie/Gopal, Vin], Health care service firms-revise requirements for financial information reports

S4103 [Sweeney, Stephen M./Weinberg, Loretta+1], Family planning services-makes FY2020;$9.5M

S4139 [Greenstein, Linda R.], Rutgers-New Brunswick for School of Dental Medicine;$250K

S4141 [Beach, James/Bateman, Christopher], Pauls Law-parent request individualized health plan, epilepsy/seizure disorder

S4154 [Cunningham, Sandra B./Sweeney, Stephen M.+1], Clean slate-revises expungement eligibility and procedures; render inaccessible

S4160 [Lagana, Joseph A./Cunningham, Sandra B.+2], Fair Play Act-allows collegiate student-athletes earn comp, use of name or image

S4162 [Smith, Bob], Climate Change Resource Center at Rutgers University-establish;$2M

S4200 [Ruiz, M. Teresa/Turner, Shirley K.], Breakfast or lunch, reduced price-State pay difference

S4254 [Cunningham, Sandra B./Weinberg, Loretta], Hospital finances-expands DOH oversight

S4255 [Cunningham, Sandra B./Weinberg, Loretta], Hospitals, certain-authorize DOH notify elected officials of financial distress

S4260 [Rice, Ronald L./Cunningham, Sandra B.+1], Paroled person convicted of indictable offense-remove prohibition on voting

S4263 [Cunningham, Sandra B./Sweeney, Stephen M.], Casino key employee license & regis.-concerns drug offense disqualification

S4285 [Sarlo, Paul A.], SPRS member, 9/11 WTC-provides death benefits to surviving spouses & children

S4287 [Pou, Nellie], Insurance group-submit Corporate Governance Annual Disclosure to DOBI

S4289 [Sweeney, Stephen M./Thompson, Samuel D.], Tax levy cap adjustment 2020-2021 thru 2024-2025-sch. districts losing State aid

Read more from the original source:
Here's What's On Tap Under The Gold Dome On Monday (The Last Session Day Of The Year) - InsiderNJ

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

APPLETON, Wis. (WFRV)

There are musicals, and there are MUSICALS.

(Watch Local 5 News at 10 p.m. Saturday, December 14 for the on-air story)

The MUSICAL visiting Fox Cities Performing Arts Centerarrived in 20 truckloads, brought a company of 64, took three 16-hour days toinstall and includes a dress weighing 80 pounds and a chandelier weighing 2,000pounds.

This MUSICAL The Phantom of the Opera has been runningfor more than 30 years on Broadway and in London.

It is an honor to protect such a great piece, Max Quinlan,resident director of the touring production, told especially interested studentsduring a workshop Friday afternoon.

The students are from 23 schools participating in the CenterStage High School Music Theatre Program. Part of the elaborate program is accessto various elements of shows behind the scenes.

Theres not common knowledge of what goes into this show,said Leland Bartikoski, a junior at Green Bay Preble High School.

As did others, he liked getting a glimpse into the process.

Pouring on the information was Quinlan in four spaces in thecenter a secondary theater, a lobby walkway, the main hall and back to thesecondary theater.

Quinlan said his widely encompassing job was part manager, part director and part therapist.

A prime question from a student was about his No. 1 piece ofadvice.

Be kind, Quinlan said.

Everybody in a show the scale of The Phantom of the Operahas to rely on one another, he said.

Collaboration and communication are part of that.

We become a team together in order to bring this to an audience,Quinlan said.

Answering a student, he said a favorite part of his job is bringingnew cast members into a production to help them feel they are individually contributingto what this show is.

Answering another student about pursuing a degree in theater,Quinlan said, Theater is valuable outside of being in theater (as a career).Theater helps anyone understand human beings and human behavior, he said.

On the lobby walkway, students heard Quinlan pour out his soul about his feelings for theater, acting and directing. Along with offering many technical details about the workings of the production, Quinlan offer to the students lessons in life.

He told of coming from performing family in the Chicago anddeveloping through acting and studies and experience. A key meeting was withCameron Mackintosh, producer of this reshaped production of The Phantom of theOpera and shaper of much about theater in his home country, England, and the UnitedStates.

I was liked, and that was it, Quinlan said.

He often returned to the theme.

Theater is all about relationships, he said.

And, what is needed to put on a show of this scale is respectingeverybody.

Quinlan also offered a tip on directing. Every player bringshis or her own self to a role, an individual quality, and he or she should begiven that space. Its not like, This is the way its done, he said.

A highlight of the workshop was Quinlan telling the ins andouts of the specially built chandelier. That included his descriptions as thechandelier was being checked and prepared for the evening show. In theperformance, the chandelier sparks and puffs flames and smoke, aside from eek! falling.

It is unbelievably safe, Quinlan said.

Students came from both onstage and backstage experience in their school productions. Most I spoke with from Fond du Lac, Mishicot, Pulaski, Kaukauna and Green Bay Preble said they hoped to come away with a broader knowledge of what theater takes, from a high-level pro.

One student boiled down his expectations to simply this: Enjoy. Anywhere Quinlan held forth, questions flowed from students.

Only one stumped him. He didnt know how many lights are used in The Phantom of the Opera.

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PREVIEW: Director of touring Phantom of the Opera offers insights in Appleton - WeAreGreenBay.com

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.

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

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