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Human Behavior

TNT’s Claws Star Jenn Lyon Proves Her Theatre Cred – Playbill.com

Before she was manicurist Jennifer on TNTs new summer series Claws, before she was Lindsey Salazar on Justified or Mackenzie on Saint George, Jenn Lyon was working hard in theatre. A graduate of North Carolinas School of the Arts, Lyon originated the role of Elsie in the world premiere of John Guares Are You There McPhee?. Shes worked with A.R. Gurney and Kenneth Lonergan, appearing in the latters Hold on to Me Darling, which was named one of the New York Times Best Plays of 2016. She made her Broadway debut in Tom Stoppards three-part extravaganza The Coast of Utopia, the most Tony-winning play in history, and returned to the Great White Way for Larry Davids sold-out hit Fish in the Dark in 2015.

Her years in theatre taught her bold choices are the best choices. A strong choice is not arbitrary, she says. Human behavior is so wild and weird and you can incorporate that: choices that kick you out of the norm, like Oh, what a weird thing to do, but also informs the text and reveals the content even more.

Now, she brings that daring to Claws. A show about good women caught in bad places with worse men, her character is struggling to stay afloat. Shes ten years sober, and we, as humans, go back again and again to these vices that sustain us or give us something, says Lyon. I just want [audiences] to know shes fighting against it. It may look like shes drowning, but shes trying really hard to swim.

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What was your first professional acting job? Jenn Lyon: My first professional gig, where I got my equity card, was a Polly Pen musical at the Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia called Embarrassment. I was right out of school. Id done like outdoor drama in North Carolina as a non-Eq, and worth it. I remember that first union job and I remember walking into the apartment and being so excited that I cried.

What was the stage show that you saw, at any age, that has most influenced you as an actor? Remember that Im from a little small town in North Carolina. When I was in second grade they took us to see an opera version of Cinderella and it was the most bizarre thing Id ever seen. When I look back on it, it was kind of a restoration comedyoutfits, white faces, huge up-dos and moles and fans and I just had never seen a world like that before and I was so transported (and upset with my classmates for talking during the performance). Something clicked inside of me where I was like, Man, I want to do something weird like this. When I would go see shows and I would sit in that dark place full of people that were doing this ritual, I just felt so at home.

Is there a stage moment that stays with you? [The Coast of Utopia] thats like 25 of the best actors ever. I can remember being really floored in rehearsal watching a scene between Billy Crudup and David Harbour and I was just so stunned at both of them, and Daves commitment to the work; hes just making these bold choices all the time and his seemingly effortless take on things. They both took up so much space and it really floored me. Also, watching Jennifer Ehle and Martha Plimpton brings up the similar sense of wonderment. And, on the beginning of The Trip to Bountiful at South Coast Rep in California and watching Lynn Milgram be onstage in her walking chair and viewing just incredible poignant themes, I dont know, it touches some chord inside of you that nothing else really does. Willem Dafoe said this thing about theatre being so magical because it evaporatesand it does. The record that exists of it is between you and the audience; thats it. I think that whole nature of it makes it so special.

The Coast of Utopia ran from Nov 27, 2006 - May 12, 2007 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, NY. Here are some photos from that production.

What has been the most rewarding onstage experience for you? It might be some of the regional theatre that Ive done. Ive gotten to do Born Yesterday twice, and that Ill never forget; I felt like I was walking in the footsteps of legends. All of New Yorks just been fucking great, but some of the best things Ive seen was in regional theatre.

Is there a particular collaborator, scene partner, director, or someone from theatre that made you better? Warner Shook, he directed The Kentucky Cycle on Broadway, directed me in Crimes of the Heart and I feel like it opened a space inside of me that wasnt open before. I also felt the same way about John Guare because his take on the world, like his eccentricity, is so profound and he is so prolific that getting to work with him and be with him, and shop with him at Trader Joes, it kind of changed my view of the world; seeing his view opened up mine. Hes like a magnet; when he starts to tell me a story, I wouldnt rather be anywhere else.

What are you bringing from your theatre and stage knowledge into this series? Going to the School of the Arts and doing theatre you learn how to break down a script. Fast. You learn how to pursue objectives, how to talk and listen, how to act with your whole body. I always check my own props. Theres a certain sense of self-government and independence that you get in the theatre because its so much scrappier than television. No ones offering you bottles of water, you do your own makeup, you are dependent on you. The sense of self-government and fearlessness comes from theatre.

What is your favorite part of doing TV thats different from theatre? Craft services. [Laughs] I cannot understand how glamorous it is. They have catered lunches; you go to lunch and theres salmon and quinoa. I cannot believe it.

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TNT's Claws Star Jenn Lyon Proves Her Theatre Cred - Playbill.com

Biochemistry

Stephan Spencer on His Biochemistry Background, TV Appearances, and GTD – FeedFront Magazine (blog)

Stephan Spencer, SEO expert, consultant, and bestselling author, joined me to chat on my podcast, This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins.

I wanted to learn more about the real Stephan, so I asked him a variety of questions I figured he had not been asked in previous interviews.

Links from this episode

Subscribe to This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins on iTunes.

If you enjoyed this episode of This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins, please share it.

This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins is focused on the people behind the affiliate management/OPM companies, advertisers/merchants, affiliates/publishers, and affiliate networks.

On each episode, Shawn interviews a new guest related to the industry, so you can learn more about the people of affiliate marketing.

After all, affiliate marketing is about the people; not the companies.

The rest is here:
Stephan Spencer on His Biochemistry Background, TV Appearances, and GTD - FeedFront Magazine (blog)

Anatomy

The Anatomy of Health Care Deal – Patriot Post

When Obamacare was forced on the nation by former President Obama and the Democrats in control, Americans responded by handing Republicans the keys to Congress. The irony is that they could very well lose that same majority if they dont deliver on four election cycles of campaign promises. Late Thursday, the draft repeal plan, which had been holed up in leadership and committee meetings, was finally released to mixed reviews. At least four senators Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Ron Johnson put leaders on notice that they would need to see more changes before lending their support. Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to the floor, the statement said.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), whos adamant about voting before the July 4th holiday, has a week to get everyone on the same page, which President Trump is optimistic the GOP can do. Its not that [these four conservative senators are] opposed. Theyd like to get certain changes. And well see if we can take care of that, he promised. On Twitter, he was even more exuberant. I am very supportive of the Senate #HealthCareBill. Look forward to making it really special!

In many ways, The Wall Street Journal points out, the 142-page bill is a lot like the Houses American Health Care Act. The plan would end Obamacare penalties, cut taxes on higher earners, and revamp Medicaid. But in other ways, its not. It isnt clear if those changes, such as the shape of the tax credits and a more gradual phasing-out of the Medicaid expansion, would be enough to attract more centrist Republicans without alienating the most conservative lawmakers in both chambers.

As far as FRC is concerned, the plan isnt perfect but weve been working with the Senate and the White House to iron out the problems so that pro-lifers can support it, and we will continue to do so. Friday morning, in a meeting with the White House, HHS Secretary Tom Price, and other pro-lifers, we discussed our concerns in greater detail namely that the legislation fulfills the longstanding promise to protect taxpayers and the unborn.

In a joint statement with SBA List, we explained that the expectations of the pro-life movement have always been clear. The health care bill must not indefinitely subsidize abortion and must re-direct abortion giant Planned Parenthoods taxpayer funding to community health centers. The Senate discussion draft includes these pro-life priorities, but we remain very concerned that either of these priorities could be removed from the bill for procedural or political reasons. We are working closely with our pro-life allies in the Senate to prevent this from happening as it could result in our opposition. We are confident that the pro-life Senate will ultimately move forward with our pro-life priorities intact.

But the Senate needs to hear from you so that they are reminded they need to listen to us. Let your leaders know that you elected them not just to finish the job but to finish the forced partnership between taxpayers and the abortion industry!

Originally published here.

Its rare to get good news from the courts these days, but in Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant (R) got exactly that. Before the ink had even dried on his Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act, a group of liberal activists at the ACLU filed suit. In one of the more ironic parts of the case, the group went to court not over what had happened under the law but what might happen if Christians could opt out of ceremonies or jobs that violated their faith. That speculation was enough for a lower court judge, Carlton Reeves, to block the measure from taking effect.

Fortunately, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals doesnt base their judgements on speculation, but on facts. And Thursday, a panel unanimously overturned Reeves, arguing that the plaintiffs didnt even have the standing necessary to sue. Gov. Bryant, who was the picture of courage in passing the bill last year, felt vindicated. As I have said all along, the legislation is not meant to discriminate against anyone, but simply prevents government interference with the constitutional right to exercise sincerely-held religious beliefs.

Under H.B. 1523, no one is allowed to discriminate not against same-sex couples and not against Christians. All the law does is ensure that the government cant punish someone for their natural views on marriage or sexuality. Theres no fine print giving people the right to deny services, despite the Lefts bogus propaganda. If coexistence is the goal, then this law provides the path. Alliance Defending Freedoms Kevin Theriot agrees with us that Mississippians shouldnt have to live in fear of losing their careers or businesses simply for believing in natural marriage.

As Ryan Anderson explained, When the government takes Americans to war, exceptions cover pacifists. When the government guarantees abortion, exceptions cover pro-lifers. These exemptions dont amount to establishments of any religion, and neither do laws protecting dissenters after Obergefell.

Unlike other cases, which have been about the laws merits, this was about the groups standing. In order to sue, the ACLU needed to establish an injury, and all the activists could come up with was that they felt stigmatized and insulted because of the law. FRCs Travis Weber points out, Courts have been facing this type of tenuous, emotionally based allegation of injury more and more in recent years, and they only bog down the judicial system with claims that were never meant to be brought in the first place. When such claims are allowed to proceed, and a law is struck down, the effect is that one more area of our democratic process is chiseled off and placed into the hands of activists who would happily destroy the process if that meant they could achieve their aims.

Thanks to the Fifth Circuit, Mississippis law still stands. And, maybe just as importantly, liberals were held in check. Like the rest of America, these judges are probably tired of the Left trying to push agendas through the courts that they cant pass legislatively!

Originally published here.

America is under new management all right and the Trump administration isnt just making that clear at home. The United Nations got one of its first tastes of the change in U.S. policy during a debate over a Canadian resolution in Geneva earlier this week. As part of a push to eliminate violence against women, the UN tried to slip in language about the importance of access to health care (read: abortion). Women should have the benefit of comprehensive sexual and health-care services including modern contraception, prevention programs for adolescent pregnancy, and safe abortion where such services are permitted by national law.

Obviously, the American delegation is opposed to violence against anyone, including women. But, as Jason Mack, the U.S. First Secretary to the UN, told the body, We do not recognize abortion as a method of family planning, nor do we support abortion in our reproductive health assistance. That said, Mack went on, America strongly supports the spirit of this resolution and joins other members of this Council in condemning all acts of violence against women and girls.

Pro-lifers cheered the move, which comes on the heels of other major changes on the world stage. Just last month, the Trump administration announced that it wasnt just reinstating the Mexico City policy but redirecting billions of dollars of global aid to groups that dont perform or promote abortion. Our hats go off to the White House for exceeding everyones expectations on the issue and protecting millions of innocent children in the process!

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.

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The Anatomy of Health Care Deal - Patriot Post

Neuroscience

U.S. drug policy needs a dose of neuroscience | Stanford News – Stanford University News

Tens of thousands of Americans die from drug overdoses every year around 50,000 in 2015 and the number has been steadily climbing for at least the last decade and a half, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Yet a team of Stanford neuroscientists and legal scholars argues that the nations drug policies are at times exactly the opposite from what science-based policies would look like.

Professor Keith Humphreys is one of the leaders of the Stanford Neuroscience Institutes Neurochoice Big Idea initiative. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

Drug policy has never been based on our scientific understanding, said Robert Malenka, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a coauthor on the paper. Instead, it is based mostly on culture and economic necessities and a misguided desire to punish drug users harshly.

The time has come, he and coauthors write June 22 in the journal Science, to do better.

We have an opioid epidemic that looks like its going to be deadlier than AIDS, but the criminal justice system handles drug addiction in almost exactly opposite of what neuroscience and other behavioral sciences would suggest, said Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and one of the leaders of the Stanford Neurosciences Institutes Neurochoice Big Idea initiative.

A central problem, the authors argue, is that drug use warps the brains decision-making mechanisms, so that what matters most to a person dealing with addiction is the here and now, not the possibility of a trip up the river a few months or years from today.

We have relied heavily on the length of a prison term as our primary lever for trying to influence drug use and drug-related crime, said Robert MacCoun, a professor of law. But such sanction enhancements are psychologically remote and premised on an unrealistic model of rational planning with a long time horizon, which just isnt consistent with how drug users behave.

What might work better, Humphreys said, is smaller, more immediate incentives and punishments perhaps a meal voucher in exchange for passing a drug test, along with daily monitoring.

The environment in which individuals live matters, too, Humphreys said especially when that environment pushes alcohol, cigarettes and prescription painkillers hard. Cigarette advertising, for example, works to make smoking seem like a pleasant escape from the grind of daily life. Meanwhile, drug companies advertising campaigns helped push American doctors to prescribe painkillers at much higher rates than in other countries, a fact that has likely contributed to the countrys growing epidemic of opioid addiction.

The scientists argue that basing policy on science rather than on a desire to punish addicts would improve lives, including victims of drug-related crime.

To learn that addictive drugs distort the choice process is not the same as showing that addicts are incapable of making choices. Addicts already know full well that their behavior is inappropriate and stigmatized, MacCoun said. But mostly I think questions of morality distract from very practical questions about what works and what doesnt work to reduce drug-related harm.

And, the researchers say, the costs of current policy are staggering: on average 78 Americans die every day from opioid overdoses.

The new commentary is timed to appear four days before a much-anticipated report from a presidential commission on drug addiction. While it may not have an impact on that particular report, Humphreys and his coauthors say they hope the commentary and the Neurochoice Initiative it is part of will make a difference in a critical area of public policy.

To that end, Neurochoice brings together neuroscientists, psychologists, public policy scholars and others to tackle drug addiction and find better treatments and policies for dealing with the problem. It has already produced some intriguing results. Professor of Psychology Brian Knutson and colleagues, for example, recently showed that brain scans could help predict which adolescents would initiate excessive drug use in the future. Those are the kinds of results, the authors write, that might guide better laws and practices in the future.

Each of the authors is a member of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute and its NeuroChoice project, which funded the research. Malenka is a member of Stanford Bio-X and the Nancy Friend Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science. Knutson is a member of Bio-X and an affiliate of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. MacCoun is a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the James and Patricia Kowal Professor of Law.

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U.S. drug policy needs a dose of neuroscience | Stanford News - Stanford University News

Human Behavior

Ocean pollution is no laughing matter – Mother Nature Network (blog)

We go to the beach to see its natural beauty. If we're lucky, maybe we'll see a dolphin flopping off in the distance, or a whale exploding plumes of vapor above the surface. We never go to the beach to see trash, and yet it's always there. Obviously, the garbage is full of stuff people don't want, like old toothbrushes, flossers, cigarette lighters, shopping bags, popped balloons ... I could go on and on. As you know, most of this junk is made of plastic.

Since most of the disposable plastic can't get recycled it just sits in landfills, releasing toxins. Tons of it journeys down our waterways, into the depths of the oceans or pushed onto the beaches and most sadly, stuck in the bodies of just about everything that lives on our planet.

Join me exclusively on MNN as I reflect about the impact that human behavior has on our fellow Earthlings. As you can tell, this piece is about the immense problem that's bleeding into our oceans: disposable plastic.

Let's take a quick trip to Midway Atoll, which is located between North America and Asia in other words, an island in the middle of nowhere. Just a few dozen people live there, and yet the tiny patch of land is completely littered with human-produced garbage.

The garbage that's strewn about is not new it takes quite a long time to reach Midway via the ocean currents. While the plastic is floating around in the ocean, it accumulates algae particles on it, and this algae confuses seabirds, like the Laysan albatross, into thinking the plastic is food. For instance, small lighters are often confused for squid bodies.

It's not just seabirds that feel the burn from plastics invading their environment. All kinds of animals wind up either eating plastic or getting entangled.

Since we humans are causing these problems, we need to find solutions. The animals can't. They have evolved to thrive in their environments. Disposable plastic is less than a century old, they don't have time to adapt even though I wish they would try!

Well, some animals do try, like these hermit crabs.

If you're feeling powerless from this suffocating tidal wave of garbage, there are some things you can do. Before the planet gets zip-locked in an airless vacuum filled with hormone disruptors (unpronounceably called phthalates), we can refuse much of this stuff. We need to be pickier, and let those around know it, too. We need to act like this albatross chick:

And tell our own chic--er, children about it. We humans need to change our behavior before every trip to the beach winds up like this:

Thanks to Rob Lang for doing a guest stint on the photo blog for MNN! He lives in Seattle, and you can follow him on Instagram/UnderdoneComics, where he posts a new cartoon almost every weekday morning. You can buy shirts, environmentally righteous tote bags, prints and other stuff at UnderdoneComics.com.

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Ocean pollution is no laughing matter - Mother Nature Network (blog)

Human Behavior

When the Fox Becomes a Friend – New York Times

Photo Paula Cocozza Credit Christian Sinibaldi

HOW TO BE HUMAN By Paula Cocozza 278 pp. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company. $26.

Paula Cocozzas hypnotic first novel, How to Be Human, features 34-year-old Mary Green and the urban fox that takes up residence in her London garden. Mary, who as a girl wrote letters to herself to stem acute loneliness, welcomes the vulpine caller. The fox is soon leaving tokens for her, the kind a knight pledges before going into battle. She begins to call him a friend. Within weeks, theyve formed a natural intimacy. In this suspenseful tale animal and human behavior begin to meld, even reverse, and whos dangerous and whos endangered is not always clear.

Mary fetishizes her fox with Jamesian granularity: She understood his show of nonchalance was the disguise for an as yet unarticulated intention. The novel is dynamic with contrasts: the fecund and the fallow. The single and the paired. The urban and the wild. His jaws slackened to liberate his tongue, and he licked his lips with her thoughts. In short order, the fox has possessed her. Time is measured by his visits, his winks, his yawns. His poise today was a stillness with caveats: Every hair bristled with his power to surprise. Mary plies his attentions to her psychic wounds, and who can begrudge her that? Who has not wanted to believe that an animal loves her? If, as I do, one likes to dwell on the handsome presence of animals, and on the rustlings of various leaves, grasses and insects, this novel satisfies and delights. But even greater pleasure is to be had from the dark side of Marys enchantments.

The opening pages present a confounding mystery: Who or what has placed a baby on Marys steps? Next door, Michelle and Eric, with their two small children, seem troubled; Mary perceives them as the classic stressed and self-absorbed young family, somewhat perplexing to all but those in the same straits. She even conjectures, persuasively, that they dont really want the baby shes a crafty one, Mary. When she ventures into their domestic midden she begins to seem like a predator, a fox in a henhouse (indeed, eggs of all kinds are a recurring motif); the narrative balance is wonderfully sly and assured throughout. The mystery surrounding the baby deepens and twists. Readers may slowly come to realize they are on thrillingly unstable ground, waiting to see how far afield Mary will go.

And go she does. Where ones uneasiness sets in will be a personal matter. Is it when Mary leaves her own scent in the garden, by way of a strategic squat? Or is it only once shes gone full-on feral? How soon might one wonder if the fox loves her back, or if hes been outfoxing her all along? And Marys ex, Mark, is a disturbing bystander, on the face of it a clingy pest. But is he as bad as all that?

Cocozza cleverly blurs our capacities to judge Marys narrowing world. I wanted to root for this spirited underdog all the way. But is that who she really is? She might be the eloquently rationalizing Humbert Humbert of the neighborhood, or maybe the spooked and high-strung governess in The Turn of the Screw, losing herself in an obsession. Or, in the end, maybe just another fragile soul trying to get by, chasing a dream of happiness: She tried to keep up, but at some perfect point where distance equaled darkness, he began to silver and fade for her, as if his fur were intercut with nights invisible stripes, and it was no longer possible to know for sure if she was seeing him or seeing the night behind him. One thing is sure: Mary bends whats at hand to her needs. What more does it take to be human?

Elizabeth McKenzies most recent novel is The Portable Veblen.

A version of this review appears in print on June 25, 2017, on Page BR13 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Fox and Friend.

See the article here:
When the Fox Becomes a Friend - New York Times

Human Behavior

Tobii Pro combines eye tracking with VR to understand human … – The Internet of Business (blog)

Stockholm-based Tobii Pro is a world leader in eye-tracking technology, with its products and services used by businesses and academic institutions around the world. Now, it is combining eye tracking solutions with virtual reality.

Eye-tracking technology is a widespread method employed by organizations and institutions keen to understand human behavior better. The movement of the eyes offers information about much more than what we are looking at. Eye tracking is also a doorway into what draws our attention and for how long it keeps it. Its a simple, objective way to observe the conscious and unconsciousmind at work.

There are plenty of parties interested in applying eye-tracking technology, from advertisers conducting market research to psychologists observing phobias.

In this regard, Tobii Pro has notched up a real track record. It currently provides eye-tracking research products and services to every one of the worlds top 50 universities, four of the top five global market research organizationsand 18 of the worlds top 20 advertising spenders.

Read more:Competition Charities challenged to take advantage of AR & VR technologies

Tobii Pro has now announced new research solutions that combine eye tracking with virtual reality (VR). This will allow the companys partners to conduct eye-tracking research within virtual environments, supporting potentially endless new experiments.

The new eye-tracking solution has been embedded into HTCs Vive headset andcomes with Tobii Pros software development kit. Researchers will now be able to conduct experiments in virtual environments that would otherwise be too costly, dangerous or difficult to create in real life.

Tobii Pros new VR eye-tracking solution promises to open doors for researchers of human behavior. Most notably, scientists eager to better understand anxieties, phobias and disorders such as PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] can now carefully control stimuli, regulate scenarios and study without putting participants at risk.

This is because with VR, the real world can be duplicated to allow for stricter controls on variables than behavioural studies usually support.

The technology is also useful for testing professionals in disciplines where on-the-job training might put lives at risk. Tobii Pro highlights surgeons and crane operators as examples in which the need to ensure professional skills are constantly assessed and sharpened cannot be met in the real world.

Recreating these high-risk environments virtually and applying eye-tracking technology will provide objective insights into situational awareness and form an ideal training tool.

Combining eye tracking with VR is growing as a research methodology and our customers have started to demand this technology to be part of their toolkit for behavioral studies, said Tobii Pro president Tom Englund.

The Tobii Pro VR Integration is our first step in making eye tracking in immersive VR a reliable and effective research tool for a range of fields. It marks our first major expansion of VR-based research tools.

Read more:Lloyds is banking on Virtual Reality to attract top grads

Tobii Pros new VR solution is a retrofit of the HTC Vive business edition headset. Its capable of eye tracking all types of eyes and collecting binocular eye tracking data at 120 Hz.

The headset can be used in conjunction with handheld controllers. Its been designed not to compromise the user experience or the output of eye tracking data.

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Tobii Pro combines eye tracking with VR to understand human ... - The Internet of Business (blog)

Genetics

Fungal Genetics Conference Q&A identifying new L maculans effectors, a fungal pathogen of oilseed rape – BMC Blogs Network (blog)

Fungal Biology and Biotechnologyrecently attended the 29th Fungal Genetics Conference in California. Whilst there, we invited three young scientists who presented excellent posters to take part in a Q&A. In this blog we talk to Julie Gervais, a third year PhD student in INRA BIOGER (France) whos currently working on a fungal pathogen of oilseed rape, Leptosphaeria maculans.

Julie Gervais 23 Jun 2017

Leptosphaeria maculans is an oilseed rape pathogen and is responsible for the stem canker disease.

Pixabay

My name is Julie Gervais and I am a third year PhD student in INRA BIOGER (France) working on a fungal pathogen of oilseed rape, Leptosphaeria maculans, which is responsible for the stem canker disease. This fungus has two colonization stages of the plant. During the first stage, the fungus infects leaves and cotyledons (the first leaves to appear from a germinating seed). Once in the leaves, the fungus has a short biotrophic stage of 10 days and then switches to necrotrophy.

Following this primary leaf infection, L. maculans grows inside the stem tissues during a long endophytic systemic colonization. This colonization is completely symptomless and may last up to 9 months. I am aiming to gain a better understanding of how the fungus can grow inside the oilseed rape stem for several months without causing any symptoms. I am particularly focused on the identification of new effectors, secreted proteins, produced by the fungus enabling it to develop itself efficiently into the plant.

I am particularly focused on the identification of new effectors, secreted proteins, produced by the fungus enabling it to develop itself efficiently into the plant.

By transcriptomic analysis, I identified late effector candidates, under-expressed in the early colonization stage and over-expressed in the infected stems. My analysis revealed a link between the regulation of expression of effectors and their genomic location: the late effector candidates, putatively involved in systemic colonization, are located in gene-rich genomic regions, whereas the early effector genes, over-expressed in the early colonization stage, are located in gene-poor regions of the genome. These results were recently published in an article of Molecular Plant Pathology.

I am also trying to confirm the role of effector for six late effector candidates: I am measuring the impact of the silencing of these genes on the fungal growth inside the stem. Preliminary results indicated that the silencing of one of these candidates induced smaller necrosis on the stem.

Another aim of my thesis is to identify new resistances to control L. maculans. The identification of new effector genes would contribute to the identification of new resistance genes specific to these effectors.

During my studies, I became more interested in the understanding of interactions between plants and micro-organisms, so I decided to pursue this interest in my thesis on L. maculans and its host, oilseed rape. I especially enjoy trying to dissect the network of interactions between the two organisms and to be able to apply such findings in the effective control of plant diseases.

I would advise young scientists to stay focused on what they are interested in and to always take pleasure in what they do. Science is fun!

I was able to attend to the Fungal Genetics Conference thanks to travel fundings from the Acadmie dagriculture (grant Jean & Marie-Louise Dufrenoy) and from the Genetics Society of America.

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Fungal Genetics Conference Q&A identifying new L maculans effectors, a fungal pathogen of oilseed rape - BMC Blogs Network (blog)

Genetics

Florida higher education official said women may earn less than men because of genetics – New York Daily News

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Florida higher education official said women may earn less than men because of genetics - New York Daily News

Genetics

Did That Fox Just Wag Its Tail? Inside a Bold Genetics Experiment – Undark Magazine

One spring morning in 1963, a Soviet scientist named Lyudmila Trut was making the rounds at a commercial fox farm, visiting several litters of three-week-old fox pups. As she approached one cage, a fuzzy male pup named Ember began to wag his tail. This simple, back-and-forth movement was a startling sight. Several years earlier, Trut and another scientist had launched an audacious experiment to solve the mysteries surrounding dog domestication by trying to replicate the process in foxes. Embers restless tail was the best sign yet that they were succeeding.

BOOK REVIEW How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution, by Lee Alan DugatkinandLyudmila Trut (University of Chicago, 240 pages).

A six-decade project that challenged conventional wisdom about domestication and evolution and is still yielding new scientific insights.

Wagging their tails in response to humans is one of the signature behaviors of dogs, and until that day, they were the only animals observed to do so, Trut and the biologist Lee Alan Dugatkin write in their new book, How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog). And yet, here was Ember, who appeared to be wagging his tail due to a new emotional response to people, and if other pups also began to do so, that might prove to be a big step in the process of domestication. This comprehensive book provides an inside look at one of the most remarkable and longest-running experiments in science. Its a rich and fascinating story of a six-decade project that challenged conventional wisdom about domestication and evolution and is still yielding new scientific insights today.

The fox experiment was the brainchild of Dmitri Belyaev, a geneticist who worked at Moscows Central Research Laboratory on Fur Breeding Animals, where he was tasked with helping fox breeders produce animals that would earn more money for the Soviet Unions lucrative fur industry. But as he worked with the often-ferocious foxes that lived on Soviet fur farms, he began to wonder how humans had managed to tame the wolf a close relative of the fox into the docile domestic dog. Fossil evidence provided snapshots of how wild animals had changed over the course of domestication, but a major riddle remained unsolved: How had the process begun in the first place? As Dugatkin and Trut put it, How had fierce wild animals, intensely averse to human contact, become docile enough for our human ancestors to have started breeding them?

Belyaev had a theory. In his own work, he had noticed that while most foxes were aggressive or agitated around people, a few seemed to have an innate calmness. Perhaps, he speculated, all our ancestors had done was breed the wild wolves that seemed to be the most naturally docile, exhibiting the least fear of and aggression toward humans. And over evolutionary time, as our early ancestors had begun raising them and selecting for this innate tameness, the animals became more and more docile, Dugatkin and Trut write. He thought that all of the other changes involved in domestication had been triggered by this change in the behavioral selection pressure for tameness.

Belyaev decided to test his theory by putting it into action. He would start with wild foxes, breeding the tamest ones he could find over the course of many generations. If he could basically turn a fox into a dog-like animal, he might solve the longstanding riddle of how domestication comes about, the authors write.

The idea wasnt just scientifically bold it was politically risky. Stalins government had banned genetics research in 1948, calling it a bourgeois perversion, and many leading geneticists had been fired, arrested, imprisoned, and even executed. (Belyaevs older brother, a prominent geneticist, was among those killed.) So Belyaev would have to be discreet about the real purpose of his experiment, spinning it as physiological, rather than genetic, research.

In 1958, he recruited Trut, a young animal behaviorist, to run the experiment. She almost immediately began to have doubts about the endeavor. Having had no prior experience with foxes, Lyudmila was taken aback at first by how aggressive they were, Dugatkin and Trut write. Becoming acquainted with these fire-breathing dragons, as she called them, snarling and lunging at her when she approached their cages, she found it hard to believe that they could ever be tamed. Still, she would try. Each morning, she donned a pair of thick gloves and began visiting each fox, carefully observing its reaction as she approached, opened its cage, and slid a stick inside. She selected the calmest foxes, bred them together, and then selected the tamest of the pups to parent the next generation.

It didnt take long for dog-like traits to emerge. By the fourth generation and just the fourth year of the experiment Ember was wagging his tail. By the sixth, about 2 percent of the pups would lick Truts hand, roll over for belly rubs, and cry when their human caretakers walked away. By the following generation, 10 percent of the pups were displaying these behaviors. There seemed to be no doubt at all that these pups, from as early as they could walk, eagerly sought contact with humans, Dugatkin and Trut write. These tame foxes also seemed to have extended puppyhoods, remaining playful and curious well past the age that wild fox pups typically mature. Their bodies changed, too; the tame foxes developed curly tails, floppy ears, and piebald coats.

Maybe it wasnt the foxes underlying genetic code that was changing, but how the genes were regulated or expressed. The idea was wildly ahead of its time.

These new traits had appeared mind-bogglingly fast, over far fewer years and generations than evolution was thought to occur. The speed and nature of the changes led Belyaev to propose a radical theory. Belyaev had realized that most of the changes theyd seen in the foxes involved changes in the timing of when traits turn on and off, Dugatkin and Trut write. Many of the changes they were observing in the tamer foxes involved retaining a juvenile trait longer than normal. The whimpering was a youthful behavior that normally stopped as foxes matured. So was calmness; fox pups are serenely calm when theyre first born, but as they age, foxes typically become quite high-strung. It occurred to Belyaev that maybe it wasnt the foxes underlying genetic code that was changing from one generation to the next, but how the animals genes were regulated or expressed; certain genes that were already present in wild foxes might have become more or less active in the tame ones, or have turned on or off at different stages of development.

The idea was wildly ahead of its time, and it would be decades before research would bear it out. In the meantime, Belyaev and Trut kept breeding foxes. They built their own experimental fox farm in Siberia, and Trut moved into a nearby house with some of the tamest foxes, which quickly adopted behaviors common in pet dogs. (A visiting researcher later demonstrated that the tame foxes had the same high level of social intelligence that dogs did and better social cognition than the wild foxes.) Belyaev died in 1985, but two decades later, researchers finally validated his hypothesis, documenting differences in gene expression between tame and wild or aggressive foxes. (Gene expression isnt the entire story researchers have also found changes in gene sequence in the tame foxes but its clearly an important part of it.)

Dugatkin and Trut deftly synthesize scientific findings from fields ranging from genetics to animal cognition and openly grapple with some provocative unanswered questions: How much further can scientists push these foxes? What do the foxes tell us about the domestication of more distant species, such as cows and pigs? And might they teach us something about our own evolution? (Belyaev proposed that as we organized ourselves into ever-larger social groups, there would have been a selective advantage for individuals who were calm and comfortable around others, rather than aggressive and fearful. Essentially, we are domesticated, but in our case self-domesticated, primates, Dugatkin and Trut write.) The answers to these questions wont come easy, but the experiment is still running; considering what scientists have learned so far, theres no telling what evolutionary insights might emerge if they keep Belyaevs legacy and his line of tame foxes alive for another 60 years.

Emily Anthes, who has written for Undark, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Wired, and Scientific American, among other publications, is the author of Frankensteins Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotechs Brave New Beasts.

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Did That Fox Just Wag Its Tail? Inside a Bold Genetics Experiment - Undark Magazine