‘Mulan’ | Anatomy of a Scene – The New York Times

September 5, 2020 medical

new video loaded: Mulan | Anatomy of a Scene

transcript

Hi Im Niki Caro, Im the director of Mulan. Here we find Mulan, played by Liu Yife, returning to battle, this time no longer in disguise as a man. She has had a confrontation with the witch, Xian Lang, played by Gong Li, who has seen through her disguise and reminded her that she will die pretending to be someone shes not. Mulan understands that if shes going to survive and thrive in battle, that shell need to do so as herself. And so she sheds her disguise and returns to battle as a young woman. And her fighting is now so strong and so pure that she turns the battle around. When I joined this project, there was already a script. And the script did not include this sequence. But I really felt that we could really honor the avalanche in live action. And with all of our immense capabilities of the visual effects world, we could create something that was really quite fantastic. The sequence was really hard to execute in one really critical and basic way, which is that the sequence required us to have a piece of land that had a number of working levels. And so we spent many days location scouting really remote parts of New Zealand in a helicopter. And we found our battleground in the Ahuriri Valley, which is in the middle of the South Island of New Zealand in a place called Central Otago. The key for me to creating and executing a sequence of this size and scale and complexity was really the collaboration of some really singular women. Mandy Walker, the DP, and Liz Tan, our first AD. The sequence itself was created a couple of years before we shot it. We storyboarded it. We trained all of the horses for it. We brought in 80 Kazakh and Mongolian trick riders to be our Rouran army, because it was incredibly important to us that the people in our film were authentically the ethnicities that they needed to be for the storytelling. And it was like, as a director, being the conductor of a really brilliant orchestra. [AVALANCHE FALLING] [HORSE NEIGHING]

Recent episodes in Anatomy of a Scene

Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.

Excerpt from:
'Mulan' | Anatomy of a Scene - The New York Times

Anatomy

Infographic: Anatomical Construction by Cell Collectives – The Scientist

September 5, 2020 medical

During morphogenesis, cells cooperate to reliably build anatomical structures. Many living systems remodel and regenerate tissues or organs despite considerable damagethat is, they progressively reduce deviations from specific target morphologies, and halt growth and remodeling when those morphologies are achieved. Evolution exploits three modalities to achieve such anatomical homeostasis: biochemical gradients, bioelectric circuits, and biophysical forces. These interact to enable the same large-scale form to arise despite significant perturbations.

N.R. FULLER, SAYO-ART, LLC

BIOCHEMICAL GRADIENTS

The best-known modality concerns diffusible intracellular and extracellular signaling molecules. Gene-regulatory circuits and gradients of biochemicals control cell proliferation, differentiation, and migration.

BIOELECTRIC CIRCUITS

The movement of ions across cell membranes, especially via voltage-gated ion channels and gap junctions, can establish bioelectric circuits that control large-scale resting potential patterns within and among groups of cells. These bioelectric patterns implement long-range coordination, feedback, and memory dynamics across cell fields. They underlie modular morphogenetic decision-making about organ shape and spatial layout by regulating the dynamic redistribution of morphogens and the expression of genes.

BIOMECHANICAL FORCES

Cytoskeletal, adhesion, and motor proteins inside and between cells generate physical forces that in turn control cell behavior. These forces result in large-scale strain fields, which enable cell sheets to move and deform as a coherent unit, and thus execute the folds and bends that shape complex organs.

Recent work from our group and others has demonstrated that anatomical pattern memories can be rewritten by physiological stimuli and maintained indefinitely without genomic editing. For example, the bioelectric circuit that normally determines head number and location in regenerating planaria can be triggered by brief alterations of ion channel or gap junction activity to alter the animals body plan. Due to the circuits pattern memory, the animals remain in this altered state indefinitely without further stimulation, despite their wildtype genomes. In other words, the pattern to which the cells build after damage can be changed, leading to a target morphology distinct from the genetic default.

N.R. FULLER, SAYO-ART, LLC

First, we soaked a planarian in voltage-sensitive fluorescent dye to observe the bioelectrical pattern across the entire tissue. We then cut the animal to see how this pattern changes in each fragment as it begins to regenerate.

We then applied drugs or used RNA interference to target ion channels or gap junctions in individual cells and thus change the pattern of depolarization/hyperpolarization and cellular connectivity across the whole fragment.

As a result of the disruption of the bodys bioelectric circuits, the planarian regrows with two heads instead of one, or none at all.

When we re-cut the two-headed planarian in plain water, long after the initial drug has left the tissue, the new anatomy persists in subsequent rounds of regeneration.

Read thefull story.

Anatomy

Ancient Chinese Silk Text Could Be ‘Oldest Surviving Anatomical Atlas In The World’ – IFLScience

September 5, 2020 medical

This 2,200-year-old silk manuscript, found entombed alongside a family of ancient Chinese elite, could be the worlds oldest known medical textbook, according to a new study.

Reported in the journal The Anatomical Record, the ancient Chinese text has recently been studied by anatomy experts at Bangor University in the UK and Howard University in the US, leading them to arguethat this relic could be considered the oldest surviving anatomical atlas in the world.

Known as the Mawangdui medical manuscripts, the silk texts were discovered in 1973 when archaeologists opened the tombs of Lady Dai, a Han dynasty aristocrat in 168 BCE, and her family at the Mawangdui burial site of Changsha in Chinas Hunan Province.

The manuscripts are thought to be a precursor to the famous acupuncture textsThe Yellow Emperors Classic of Internal Medicine,also known as the Huangdi Neijing. Although the script doesnt explicitly mention acupuncture points, it does describe meridians and pathways of connection still used in traditional Chinese medicine today. In particular, it describes the organization of the human body in the form of 11 pathways throughout the body, each of which has associated disease patterns.

It's understood that the history of anatomy traces its roots back to classical Greece. The question is: can this manuscript be considered a scientific evidence-based approach to understanding human anatomy? If so, the ancient Chinese were anatomists too.

From the perspective of Western modern medicine, the texthas previously been interpreted as a loose description of mystical energies, rather than as empirical descriptions of the body. However, the researchers argue that, in fact, the descriptions are based on physical anatomical structures.Within their study, the researchers compare how the features of the body detailed in the Mawangdui manuscript do line up with observations of the physical human body. As one of many examples, theMawangdui text alludes to the tai yin meridian that described some system of connection between the center of the palm, running along the forearm between the two bones. If we now look at a dissected human elbow, there is a flat band of tissue, called the bicipital aponeurosis, along the arteries and nerves that do follow this pattern.

This isn't to say that acupuncture is a rock-solid science; although evidence-based research has supported the efficacy of acupuncture for some conditions like managing pain, in Western medicine the consensus islargely skeptical that acupuncture is an effective means for treatment for many more conditions.Nevertheless, the researchers argue that, in a sense, the Mawangdui manuscript is not simply a piece of mysticism based on unfounded ideas, but a valid attempt to describe human anatomy from the perspective of someone living in the ancient Eastern culture.

We have to approach these texts from a different perspective than our current Western medical view of the bodys separate systems of arteries, veins, and nerves, study author Vivien Shaw, who lectures in anatomy at Bangor Universitys School of Medical Sciences and has studied the anatomy found in ancient Chinese medical texts for years, said in a statement.

The authors did not have this understanding, instead, they looked at the body from the viewpoint of traditional Chinese Medicine, which is based on the philosophical concept of complementary opposites of yin and yang, familiar to those in the west who follow eastern spiritualism, explained Shaw.

Previous scholars have not seen the works as describing anatomy, because contemporary Confucian cultural practices venerated ancestors and so shunned dissection, added co-author Izzy Winder from theSchool of Natural Sciences.However, we think that dissection was involved and that the authors would have had access to the bodies of criminals, as is recounted in later texts.

Anatomy

Grisly Slabs of Gothic Horror – The New York Times

September 5, 2020 medical

In the introduction to WEIRD WOMEN: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers 1852-1923 (Pegasus, 384 pp., $25.95), the editors Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger write that horror often seems to be a genre bereft of female writers. Here they set out to correct that misperception, highlighting stories by women writers whose work has fallen into obscurity.

One of my favorite stories in this excellent collection is by the British novelist Marie Corelli (1855-1924). A popular author in her day, she regularly outsold her contemporaries Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle, yet her work has all but disappeared from print. Her story, The Lady With the Carnations, is a compact masterpiece in which a woman is drawn to a portrait in the Louvre and begins to encounter the subject of the painting a lady with carnations first at the opera and again in Brittany. She concludes that the woman is an illusion, but whether she is real or a figment of her mind doesnt matter: The narrator carries the scent of carnations with her like a curse.

Theres a fine line between the horrible and the sublime, and Joanna Ebensteins ANATOMICA: The Exquisite and Unsettling Art of Human Anatomy (Laurence King, illustrated, 272 pp., $35) walks it. This collection of strikingly beautiful, challenging, even bizarre anatomical illustrations explores our attempts to come to terms with the tragedy and wonder of being born into a body, and the certainty of our own death. Paging through, one finds bodies in various states of undoing dissection, surgery, pregnancy and the result is repulsive and resplendent in equal measure. The human body, one feels while looking at these prints, is both an intimate and shockingly impersonal thing. Gazing at people opened up and displayed so coldly evokes one of the horror genres most defining traits: the visceral, almost primal, need to see what frightens us, even while covering our eyes.

An etching by Cornelius Huyberts of fetal and infant skeletons is particularly hard to turn away from. With skulls arranged as delicately as a tower of profiteroles, this 18th-century memento mori is both morbid and magnificent: We are here today, it seems to say, and gone tomorrow, so make the most of it. And indeed, Ebenstein writes that she hopes the book might itself serve as a memento mori of sorts.

Ebenstein, creator of the Morbid Anatomy blog, points out that in the Renaissance dissection of the human body was a form of spectacle performed for a paying public and often part of the festivities related to carnival celebrations and might be accompanied by drinks and music.

Those who like to stream movies will find Bruce Lanier Wrights NIGHTWALKERS: Gothic Horror Movies (Castle Bridge Media, 178 pp., paper, $24.95) an essential guide. Originally published in 1981, and just reissued in paperback, Wright has curated a list of Gothic movies, rated each one, and situated them in the larger horror canon. He is interested in the enormously popular features produced by Britains Hammer Studios, particularly The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The Mummy (1959), which both star Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, the twin kings of the Hammer repertory.

For Wright, Gothic is about mystery and awe, and he laments the rise of the modern horror film as Grand Guignol entertainment, so named after the theater that offered prototypical gore thrills to Parisian audiences. Wright argues that the Gothic offers unambiguous representations of good and evil and expresses the spiritual dissatisfaction with contemporary life and a slightly perverse nostalgia for a time when mankind knew less and dreamed more.

As J. W. Ockers CURSED OBJECTS: Strange but True Stories of the Worlds Most Infamous Items (Quirk Books, 270 pp., $19.99) demonstrates, curses can come in all shapes and sizes, taking refuge in everything from King Tuts tomb to the Ring of Silvianus, which some people believe inspired J. R. R. Tolkiens The Hobbit. Ocker describes dozens of curses but, thanks to Nightwalkers, I was most fascinated by the cursed objects that inspired horror films like Annabelle, the haunted doll, and a dybbuk box containing a malicious spirit that spawned the film The Possession.

He also discusses ways in which curses are cast. The Romans and Greeks chiseled stones with curses, the Vikings had nithing poles wooden poles carved with invective while the Japanese inscribed ill wishes on plaques called ema.

While Ocker tends to breeze over many of his objects without getting under the surface, his book is so fun that I couldnt put it down. It reminded me that life is short, death is nigh and a little humor can help us seize the day just as well as a memento mori.

Excerpt from:
Grisly Slabs of Gothic Horror - The New York Times

Anatomy

How Mulan Goes to Battle – The New York Times

September 5, 2020 medical

In Anatomy of a Scene, we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series each Friday. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

For the live-action film Mulan, putting together a sequence where an avalanche drives back an army was no big deal. It only required two years of preparation, multiple location scouts, intense horse training and a cast of more than 80 Mongolian and Kazakh trick riders. In other words, a cinch.

Niki Caro, the director of the anticipated film (finally on a home screen near you via Disney+), worked tirelessly with a large team of crew and cast to pull off a sequence many will remember from the animated version. But the new scenes have some narrative updates.

In this video, she discusses the moment when Mulan (played by Yifei Liu) comes into her own as a warrior and uses her smarts with an assist from nature to beat back an aggressive army.

The key for me to creating and executing a sequence of this size, scale and complexity was the collaboration of some really singular women, Caro said. That collaboration included her cinematographer Mandy Walker, and one of her first assistant directors, Liz Tan.

They found the right location, one with multiple levels to stage a battle, in the Ahuriri Valley, on the South Island of New Zealand. In managing all of the moving parts, like extras, stunts and the use of a trebuchet to fire a real flaming cannonball, Caro said it was like being the conductor of a really brilliant orchestra.

Read the Mulan review.

Go here to see the original:
How Mulan Goes to Battle - The New York Times

Anatomy

The Lightning finally boast the anatomy of a true contender – Yahoo Sports

September 5, 2020 medical

There are no grand surprises about a team coming off a 128-point season, which ultimately culminated in one of hockeys most stunning upsets. This season, prolonged due to the COVID-19 pandemic, mustve been doubly excruciating for this iteration of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who enter their fourth conference final under Jon Cooper, hell-bent on finally lifting the Stanley Cup that has heartbreakingly eluded them.

It may be too early to declare that the Lightning exorcised their demons, but their roster flexibility, ability to navigate tight spaces, create shots and their stars elevating their game without captain Steven Stamkos helped this team make quick work of the Presidents Trophy-winning Boston Bruins. As it stands, there are no teams left in the field, perhaps other than the Vegas Golden Knights, who ought to feel more qualified and this is a portrait of a contender rounding into its fullest form, with an elite goal scorer working to get back into the lineup.

Tampa Bay is a relentless shot-creation machine with 806 shot attempts and 558 unblocked shot attempts through 13 postseason games prior to Wednesdays slate, according to Natural Stat Trick. Vegas, for comparison, ranks second with 727 shot attempts and 518 unblocked shot attempts. In part due to Stamkoss absence due to injury, the Lightning have deployed a lineup consisting of 11 forwards and seven defencemen and it has worked to near-perfection because of continuity, superstar performances from Brayden Point, Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Nikita Kucherov and the ability to deploy burgeoning stars throughout the roster to create true balance.

The decision to surrender a first-round pick and a conditional first-round pick for Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman, respectively, at the deadline has been a major talking point, proving that not all first-round picks hold inherently equal value. Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois correctly assessed that his team needed a new wrinkle and added two players who bring an element of toughness without sacrificing real skill. Paired with Yanni Gourde, this trio has often started games as the nominal shutdown line, but they dont always play traditional roles.

Lets use the opening goal against the Bruins in Game 5 as an example. Coleman and Gourde work in tandem to free up the puck from David Krejci, then Coleman gets the puck to Kevin Shattenkirk, waiting at the point. Gourde, listed at 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, sets up in front as an unmarked screener, while Shattenkirk fires the puck with the direct intention of it being deflected.

Ondrej Palat whos been exceptional lately, and more on him below deftly deflects the puck past Jaroslav Halak. Tampa Bay has often deployed the much larger Alex Killorn and Pat Maroon as its screeners, but all of its forwards can retrieve the puck and rotate when called upon.

Point has ascended to superstardom with Stamkos out of the lineup and while his acceleration is dazzling, his navigation of small spaces is what elevates him from your average star to a playoff-defining superstar. Hes been the focal point of Tampa Bays nominal top scoring line. These distinctions dont matter all too much for a team this deep, especially with Kucherov returning to MVP form.

The above video, compiled by ESPNs Dimitri Filipovic is a perfect encapsulation of Points playoffs, so lets go through the clips:

1) During Tampa Bays 7-1 rout of Boston in Game 3, Point makes the Bruins look silly after he gathers a loose puck and in one fell swoop uses Kucherov as a screen. John Moore begins to retreat with Point barrelling down, but cant force him into a decision and helplessly stabs at the puck as the Lightning forward makes an eye-popping through-the-legs move, finishing with a no-look pass to Kucherov out front, who tucks the puck past Halak uncontested. This entire sequence took six seconds.

Story continues

2) Point is trapped along the boards with Bruins defenseman Connor Clifton and Matt Grzelcyk converging on him during Game 2. Charlie Coyle is the third man in for support, but after Clifton releases, Coyle moves up in an attempt to cut off a passing lane to MikhailSergachev. Its the right idea by Coyle but the wrong application as Point pulls off a nasty little spin-o-rama. After weaving out of traffic, Point realizes the Bruins have collapsed four defenders on him and finds a wide-open Shattenkirk. Kucherov, after sitting in front of the net unattended for the majority of the possession, gamely tips it in to tie the game up.

3) This third clip is a perfect summary of Points ability to navigate through tight spaces. Point takes advantage of a turnover and blazes into the offensive zone. After his initial attempt to get the puck to the front of the net fails, Point gathers himself and puts on a stick-handling clinic, toying with Bruins defenseman Torey Krug and finding the red-hot Palat in front of the net for the opening goal.

Theres more to unpack from Filipovics video edit, but these three plays best encapsulate Points brilliant playoffs to date and especially how hes elevated his linemates. Palat, a puck-retrieval specialist, has come alive with unbridled confidence, wiring shots from in close and he only needs a sliver of space to get an accurate slapshot off.

Kucherov, the reigning Hart Trophy winner, has been as good as his pedigree suggests. Hall of Famer and Lightning broadcaster Phil Esposito argued on August 25 that Kucherov doesnt use the full scale of his immense talent and that the Lightning would need him to return to MVP form if they were to win it all. Kucherov responded with six points in his next two games, before leaving Game 5 with an undisclosed injury. In any event, Kucherov helps the Lightning reach an absurd ceiling no other team is capable of, but if he is out for a while after taking an errant high-stick to the face from Zdeno Chara, his team has proven they can adapt.

Weve gone this far without talking about Hedman, who has been the best defenseman in the playoffs by some margin. Hedman logged 38:25 in Game 5 before scoring the series-winner, his fifth goal of the postseason, and unless you were paying close attention to the injury report, one wouldnt notice the absence of Ryan McDonagh, who missed three games due to injury. Hedman allows for the 11F-7D lineup to work because to borrow from soccer, he can operate like a sweeper, joining into the rush as he sees fit without sacrificing anything in his own end.

As for Vasilevskiy, well, my colleague Justin Cuthbert said it best:

Tampa Bays positional flexibility also works on the back end too because of Hedman. Only a team this absurdly talented could sneak Sergachev onto their third defense pairing, a future star in the making. But Tampa will be ready to adjust as Stamkos works his way back to full health, and Kucherovs status remains up in the air.

What does that look like?

Stamkos helped Tyleer Johnson reach his lone All-Star Game in 2015 and has played large stretches throughout their shared tenure with Palat. Is it worth breaking up the Palat-Point-Kucherov combination, though? It would be a little surprising if Palat, to accomodate a right-hand shot on the left wing, was bumped down. Hes earned his spot for now.

It doesnt seem likely Jon Cooper will break up the Coleman-Gourde-Goodrow line, although with due respect to Gourde, who has played well during the playoffs, it would be totally justifiable to toss Stamkos in, and bump Gourde onto a line with Pat Maroon and Cedric Paquette, resetting the lineup to a 12-F 6-D format.

The line of Killorn, Anthony Cirelli and Johnson may be where Stamkos fits in best, and could see Killorn or Johnson bumped down to the fourth line. Cirelli is Tampa Bays best defensive forward and earned some discussion for the Selke Trophy, so hes too valuable to knock out of the top-nine rotation.

These are all good problems to have, of course, and by not only experimenting with an 11-F 7-D lineup, but thriving with it, the Lightning are the most flexible team left in the dance, while remaining a shot-creation juggernaut.

This is a portrait of a true contender. But the Lightning know better than anyone that games arent won on paper. With the Bruins out of the way, their march to the Cup is in full swing.

More NHL coverage from Yahoo Sports

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The Lightning finally boast the anatomy of a true contender - Yahoo Sports

Anatomy

The Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory | Libby Anne – Patheos

September 5, 2020 medical

Sometimes it seems like the whole world is going to hell in a hand basket. The QAnon conspiracy theories, combined with the conspiracy theories about COVID death counts and everything else, have me wondering if I have gotten some fundamental ideas about how humans operate wrong. Are we as humans that much more inclined to believing conspiracy theories than to fact checking?

Somehow this all feels easier to handle if we look instead at a conspiracy theory we all already knew existed. Say, Young Earth Creationism for a moment. Lets turn to a post by Ken Ham on Answers in Genesis website that I found insightful because of what it tells us about how conspiracy theories work.

Were not going to evaluate the truth or falsehood of Hams claims. Instead, were going to analyze some patterns common to all conspiracy theories.

1. The Highly Technical Claim

Lets start with Hams claim:

In places like the Grand Canyon, scientists routinely find fossilized trackways millions of years before they find fossils of the creatures that made them. Its pretty convenient that creatures made footprints... then millions of years later the same creatures lived in the same region and just happened to be fossilized too! (Actually, such a notion strains credulity! It makes much more sense that these footprints and the creatures that made them were buried very soon after one another as the global floodwaters buried creatures as they fled).

The first thing to note is that there are no footnotes here. For all the reader knows, Ham could be making this up whole cloth. And remember, this piece isnt written for geologists or others with relevant expertise. Its written for laypeople. The average layperson does not have the background to effectively evaluate these claims. I am a reasonably well educated person, and even I am not sure where Id go to try to determine whether Hams claims regarding tracks and fossils are accurate.

Oh and by the waythe paper Ham is responding to here does not even make this claim. It analyses some footprints found in the Grand Canyon and concludes that they are roughly 313 million years old, and that the creature that made them had a similar gait to modern tetrapods such as dogs and cats.

See this, from the papers press release:

Living species of tetrapodsdogs and cats, for exampleroutinely use a lateral-sequence gait when they walk slowly, says Rowland. The Bright Angel Trail tracks document the use of this gait very early in the history of vertebrate animals. We previously had no information about that.

In other words, Hams entire claimthat tracks are found millions of years before the creatures that made them are foundis complete bullshit. Rowland is manifestly not saying that modern dogs and cats are the creatures that left the 313 million year old footprints.

So thats the first thingconspiracy theorists take advantage of the fact that the average person does not have the background knowledge needed to assess the truth or falsehood of arcane technical information.

2. The Questionable Experts

Ham then does this bit:

Geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling, who heads up our Research Department here at Answers in Genesis, comments on finds such as this one

Okay, quick pause. The second thing to note in this piece is that Ham brings in an expert whom he describes as a geologist. Snelling must be credible, because he is a geologist with a Ph.D., right? Well no, not necessarily. People with doctorates are not automatically experts on everything in their fieldand you can get a Ph.D. and still fall for nonsense. And as it turns out, Snelling is a special case.

If you click on Snellings name, you find this:

Dr. Andrew Snelling holds a PhD in geology from the University of Sydney, Australia. He serves as Answers in Genesis Director of Research and is the Editor-in-Chief of the online Answers Research Journal. Dr. Snelling is active in research and writes and also speaks on topics such as the Flood, fossils, and the Grand Canyon.

If you scroll down on the page, you find that Snelling received his Ph.D. in geology in 1982, you find a list of awards and papers, all from creationist organizations. You also find this bit:

Andrew was raised in a Christian family in Sydney, Australia, and his interest in geology began very soon after his conversion to Christianity at nine years of age. His very firm conviction in the authority and veracity of the Scriptures brought him to the creation/evolution controversy early in his teens, so that by the commencement of university studies, Andrew already had a clear scriptural perspective on the literalness of Creation and Noahs Flood, and an unmistakable call from the Lord for a life-long involvement in creationist ministry.

According to his bio (also listed by Answers in Genesis), Snelling went full-time into creation research in 1983, a year after receiving his Ph.D. Nearly all of his published work is in young earth creationist journals. The only exceptions are a handful of papers in the 1980s about theKoongarra uranium deposit, which is unsurprising given that that is what he did his dissertation on. Answers in Genesis touts the fact that Snelling did some ongoing consulting on the Kungarra uranium deposit for both industry and the Australian government throughout the 1980s as proof that he is a real geologist, when in fact he appears to never have moved beyond the narrow scope of what he studied in his dissertation.

Snelling is not an actual expert. He got his Ph.D. because he wanted to go into young earth creationist ministry, not because he wanted to actually become a geologist. The only actual geologist work hes done is directly directly to his dissertation, in the years immediately following its completion. But even if hewerean actual geologist working in his field, that would not make Snelling infallible.

And remembergeology is a big field.Everyfield is a big field. Acting like a radiologist is de facto a trusted expert on COVID-19a virusbecause he has an MD by his name isweird.

3. The Coverup

Lets look at Snellings comments, quoted by Ham:

Yes, its a pattern in the fossil record that footprints are found in strata millions of years before foot bones, and evolutionists never explain how the critter survived millions of years after leaving its footprints until it finally got buried.

This is outrageous. No one claims this. This is a blatant attempt to sow misinformation.

I discuss this in my book Earths Catastrophic Past (chapter 52) and in one of my presentations (Fossils: Buried in the Flood, not Evolution over Millions of Years), and it was first presented in detail in a paper by Adventist Leonard Brand and a co-author J. Florence in 1982. The evolutionists have never answered this challenge in the 38 years since. The pattern is the same for reptiles, amphibians, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals.

Often there is 5 to even 20 million years between the fossilized footprints and the fossilized foot bones of the same animals. How did these animals survive for these millions of years after making their footprints before their bodies were buried and fossilized?

This is the third thingthe allegation of a coverup. Heres the thing, thoughif there really were a big problem with footprints and foot bones being separated by millions of years, youd see a lot more than one paper published by two Seventh Day Adventists in 1982in a young earth creationist journal.

The place to work out questions like this is within the relevant scientific field, not in the court of public opinion. Brand and Florenceand Snellingcould have gone through the regular channels. They could have done research and written papers and submitted them to credible scientific journals. If the papers were rejectedif there is indeed some sort of wide scale coverup going onthey could go public with that. But to allege, without even trying proper channels, that an entire field has a huge flaw, isweird.

To a degree that may be unhealthy, every researcherand every scientific journalwants to publish a big break. Theres a lot more to be gained in publishing show-stopping new research thats flashy than in plodding along with research articles that, while important, will be read by two dozen people tops. So if you want to get me to believe that theres some obvious problem in geology thats being covered up, youre going to have to do a lot more than just assert that.

Remember, the layperson does not have the background to know whether what Ham is asserting (and quoting Snelling asserting) is true. Hams piece makes an assertion, quotes an expert backing it up, and alleges a coverupbut does not offer one single piece of evidence, or even provide information that would let a layperson check it for themselves. I tried googling fossil tracks and leg bones and millions of years, and found nothing at all.

If I as a relatively well educated layperson cant double check Hams assertions to see if they are valid, effectively no one can. And remember, this isnt an article in a scientific journal or conference program raising a question for discussionthis piece is aimed at laypeople, the very people without necessary background information or access to data necessary to actually assess the claims validity.

4. Just Asking Questions

One last thing. What is Hams central claim?

Ham asks whether it seems odd that scientists would claim footprints were created millions of years before fossils of the sort of creature that made them were found. Its pretty convenient that creatures made footprints... then millions of years later the same creatures lived in the same region and just happened to be fossilized too, he says. Its pretty convenient is sort for just asking questions.

Conspiracy theorists frequently raise questions as odd with the implied assertion that answers dont exist. In this case, what Ham asserts is odd does not soundat allas odd as he claims, when you break it down. A creature left footprints, but did not leave fossils. (Most creatures do not leave fossils.) Millions of years later similar creatures lived in the same area. Some of these creatures left fossils. There is literallynothingodd about this at all. If you talked to someone who actually studies this, theyd be able to flesh out a lot of whats going on here in much further detail with no problem at all.

Remember that Hams actual assertion is that the creatures left footprints while trying to escape a global flood, and then died and were buried by the flood, and then fossilized. This is a more extraordinary claim that you might realize hes making when he is just asking questions about scientific claims. This is something conspiracy theories do quite oftenthey lure someone in with their questions about things that seem odd and then later, after a person has stepped foot in the door, things get reallyweird.

Conclusion

So. What did we find? First, the making of a claim that the intended readers do not have the technical knowledge or background to actually understand. Second, bringing in a someone with a Ph.D. to hold up as an expert, despite serious problems with their credentials. Third, the allegation of a coverup, with no evidence at all to back this claim up. And forth and finally, the central claim is based on innuendo and just asking questionsits pretty convenientrather than on positive evidence.

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The Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory | Libby Anne - Patheos

Anatomy

‘Grey’s Anatomy’: This 1 Major Character Wouldn’t Be on the Show If It Wasn’t for George O’ Malley – Showbiz Cheat Sheet

September 5, 2020 medical

AlthoughGreys Anatomyfans only had their belovedGeorge O Malley (T. R. Knight)for five seasons, hes one character viewers will never forget. If it werent for his shy personality,another major character which lasted much longer wouldnt even be on the show.

Fans will never forget the tragic death of George OMalley. He had left the hospital to join the army but gets hit by a bus while saving someone. The young man is rushed to the hospital, but his fellow residents cant tell its him until its too late. O Malley draws the numbers 007 in Meredith Greys (Ellen Pompeo) hand, and thats when she realizes her John Doe is George.

RELATED: Greys Anatomy: The Truth About Cristina Yang and Addison Montgomery Not Being at Derek Shepherds Funeral

While his on-screen death was one of the saddest on the show, the reason why T. R. Knight left is more complicated. In 2007, the actors co-star Isaiah Washington, who played Preston Burke, reportedly referred to Knight with a homophobic slur. Washington was fired soon after, but Knight could never get past the incident, forcing him to come out as gay publicly.

He also cited a breakdown in communication with creator Shonda Rhimes and his characters decreased screen time as the reasons he left.

Justin Chambers, who portrayed Alex Karev for 16 seasons of Greys Anatomy, was not in the shows original pilot. After shooting the initial episode, the writers felt that George O Malley needed a male character to play opposite him. George was so shy and kind that they needed someone to balance him out.

RELATED: Greys Anatomy Fans Are Still Arguing Over Alex Karevs Send-Off Episode It Was Disrespectful to His Character

Thats when the character of Alex Karev was created. Instead of filming the entire pilot over again, the producers used CGI to add him in. Although it wasnt evident to fans who watched the show in 2005, looking back on old episodes, viewers can tell something odd is going on.

A whole new scene was filmed with Meredith and Alex, but otherwise, the magic of CGI brought him to life in the pilot.

For fans of the show, the departure of Alex Karev was confusing. He left to take care of his mother in Iowa and never came back. Then reports of Chambers exit began flying around in January 2020. However, when the show came back from winter break on Jan. 23, 2020, there was no mention of Karevs departure.

RELATED: Greys Anatomy Star Camilla Luddington Explains What It Was Like to Give Birth During COVID-19

On March 5, 2020, fans finally got closure for Alexs storyline. He found out that he had two children with his ex-wife Izzie Stevens, and left Seattle, Washington, to be with them.

Chambers cited the reason for his departure as wanting to branch out into different avenues and spend more time with his family.

Theres no good time to say goodbye to a show and character thats defined so much of my life for the past 15 years,Chambers shared. For some time now, however, I have hoped to diversify my acting roles and career choices. And, as I turn 50 and am blessed with my remarkable, supportive wife and five wonderful children, now is that time.

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'Grey's Anatomy': This 1 Major Character Wouldn't Be on the Show If It Wasn't for George O' Malley - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Anatomy

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Was Once Part of a Secret Social Experiment That Fans Never Knew About – Showbiz Cheat Sheet

September 5, 2020 medical

The long-running medical dramaGreys Anatomyis heading in season 17. Over the years, the writers and producers have tackled many current events and social issues. However, there was one social experiment that fans never knew the show was a part of.

The upcoming season of Greys Anatomy is going to jump ahead in the timeline to about a month and a half into full COVID, according to actor Giacomo Gianniotti who plays Andrew DeLuca.

Theres been no shortage of incredible stories that have been going around this time, he toldEntertainment Tonight. Both in the hospital walls and in the streets of cities protesting, [there are many things going on], so we hope to tell all those stories this season.

RELATED: Greys Anatomy: The Truth About Cristina Yang and Addison Montgomery Not Being at Derek Shepherds Funeral

Although season 16 ended with episode 21 instead of 24, the producers are not planning to pick up where things left off. Instead, they will address the current events going on in the world today.

In season 4, episode 13 ofGreys Anatomy, Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) meets a couple who thinks they might be pregnant Sarah and Freddie. Izzie gets the pregnancy test results, and Sarah is indeed pregnant; however, she is also HIV positive.

The couple would like to have an abortion because they do not want the baby to have HIV. However, Izzie informs them that they could have a healthy baby. Sarah doesnt believe the doctor and insists she is only getting her husbands hopes up. During a moving speech, Izzie tells the pair that there is a 98% chance that they could have a perfectly healthy baby.

RELATED: Greys Anatomy Fans Are Still Arguing Over Alex Karevs Send-Off Episode It Was Disrespectful to His Character

Sarah had given up all hope of having a child a long time ago. With this news, they decide to keep the baby. The social experiment was conducted by theKaiser Family Foundation(KFF) to see if they could change peoples negative attitudes about HIV positive pregnancies. KFF is a non-profit organization that conducts research focusing on national health issues.

The study found considerable potential for popular TV shows to educate the public about health. Many viewers remembered the information that Greys Anatomy provided about HIV, even six weeks later.

On the key fact presented in the showthat an HIV-positive pregnant woman who gets the proper treatment has more than a 90% chance of having a healthy babythe proportion of viewers who were aware of that fact quadrupled, the study byKFFreported.

RELATED: Greys Anatomy Star Camilla Luddington Explains What It Was Like to Give Birth During COVID-19

The results of surveys conducted went from 15% before the show to 61% after it aired, an increase of 46 percentage points.

The foundation found that the social experiment was very impactful on educating the general public about important health topics.

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'Grey's Anatomy' Was Once Part of a Secret Social Experiment That Fans Never Knew About - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Genetics

Genetics start-up continues COVID-19 testing as DPH probes testing errors, including some in Fall River, Taunton – Taunton Daily Gazette

September 5, 2020 medical

A Boston consumer genetics company that has batted away former employees accusations of shoddy practices since at least 2019 is now under investigation by the state Department of Public Health for logging hundreds of false positive coronavirus test results, including some in Fall River and Taunton.

The company, Orig3n, has halted COVID-19 testing in the state. A company spokesman said the false positives were due to human error in processing the tests.

In August, after learning about the Massachusetts investigation, North Carolina issued a stop order for its coronavirus testing contract with the company, Orig3n.

The consumer genetics start-up, which claims it can tell customers what kind of foods they should eat and whether theyre predisposed to intelligence based on their DNA, has secured some of the biggest coronavirus testing contracts in the country.

According to an Orig3n spokesman, the company continues to offer COVID-19 testing elsewhere in the U.S.

So far, the Massachusetts DPH has found Orig3n sent out more than 300 COVID-19 tests wrongly classified as positive in Massachusetts, a number that could increase as DPH staff continue investigating. Orig3n claims the company isnt aware of any additional false positives. According to a Harvard epidemiologist and lab director, false negatives are far more difficult to discover, because most tests come back as negative.

Ted Owens, CEO at North Hills Pines Edge skilled nursing facility in Needham, one of roughly 60 long-term care facilities that used Orig3n test services, said in an Aug. 11 bulletin to residents and staff that Orig3n returned a total of 19 false positives to the nursing home.

The numbers didnt seem credible to Owens, but Pines Edge began immediately to take actions based on the working assumption that we needed to treat these results as correct.

It turned out that several other skilled nursing facilities also showed an unusual spike in positive cases last week, and oddly enough, all these facilities had used the same testing vendor, Owens continued. This caught the attention of the epidemiologists at Mass DPH, who intervened and instructed the vendor to re-test the samples.

Upon retesting, all of the positive tests were found to be negative.

The spike in cases -- which turned out to be false positives -- caused a panic in Needham. They came as the school district made plans to return to in-person learning, and a public health nurse for the town was asked to appear before its Select Board.

Needham Public Health Nurse Tiffany Zike told the Board on Aug. 18 that a number of coronavirus cases reported in July were considered false cases that were revoked due to the lab having an issue.

A $25,000 wire transfer

In early May, nursing homes across Massachusetts were looking for a miracle.

The Massachusetts DPH had ordered long-term care facilities coping with severe coronavirus outbreaks to test 90% of residents and staff for COVID-19 by May 25 in order to qualify for a portion of the $130 million in relief funding offered by the state.

Many nursing homes struggled to meet the deadline because of a shortage of COVID-19 tests. The National Guard was testing nursing home residents and staff on behalf of the state, but demand was high.

When Ron Doty got a memo from the Massachusetts Senior Care Association on May 6 offering Orig3n as a turnkey mobile testing option, he immediately reached out to the company.

Doty, administrator at Marlborough Hills Rehabilitation & Health Care Center in Marlborough, wired $25,000 to Orig3n. The next day, he received 250 COVID-19 test kits from the company.

Two months later, Orig3n was asked to suspend COVID-19 testing in Massachusetts, which it did on Aug. 8. Staff at the Massachusetts DPH noticed the lab was reporting an unusually high rate of positive tests, prompting the agency to investigate, according to a DPH spokesperson.

The state DPH declined to identify which nursing homes used Orig3ns testing services, citing the ongoing investigation.

Tony Plohoros, Orig3ns spokesman, said the lab is now working with state health officials to correct problems in its Boston lab, which has ceased processing coronavirus samples but continues to process consumer genetic profiles.

While it remains unclear if the federal government has taken action to halt use of Orig3ns COVID-19 testing services in other parts of the country, as North Carolina did, concerns about Orig3n hadnt yet reached a health care supply company in Ohio as of this week. That company, Link-age Solutions, is still working with Orig3n to provide coronavirus tests to long-term care facilities nationwide.

Patrick Schwartz, a spokesman for Link-age Solutions, said Thursday the company was unaware Orig3n was asked to cease coronavirus testing in Massachusetts.

One of the highest accuracy ratings in the market

Orig3n received an emergency authorization to conduct COVID-19 testing from the Food & Drug Administration in April.

The same month, the company received a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan valued between $350,000 and $1 million from Silicon Valley Bank, according to U.S. Treasury data.

Since getting the FDA approval, Orig3n has provided testing services to The New England Power Generators Association, Bostons homeless population, a boarding school in Virginia, and other public and private entities.

In late June, Link-age Solutions, a Mason, Ohio-based company that helps long-term care facilities nationwide obtain supplies ranging from pharmaceuticals to office supplies issued a press release touting Orig3ns breakthrough testing method as having one of the highest accuracy ratings in the market.

In partnering with Orig3n, Link-age could offer in-demand coronavirus tests to its members at a reduced cost, according to the press release. Results would be returned less than 36 hours after specimens arrived at the lab, the release said.

The lab boasts output capabilities of 6,000 and up to 12,000 tests per day, and will offer billing to Medicare where appropriate, the press release stated. Reporters questions to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have gone unanswered.

Schwartz, the Link-age spokeman, said Thursday his company continues to offer COVID-19 testing services performed by Orig3n, and that feedback about Orig3ns tests from its customers has been positive.

Company flagged in the past

Orig3n lists its office location as the third floor of 27 Drydock Ave. in the heart of Bostons Seaport. Until August, thats where the company processed its coronavirus tests.

Before it got into the coronavirus business, Orig3n billed itself as a consumer genetics pioneer, carving a path toward a future of wellness and health through the use of diagnostics, genetics and biotechnology.

The company, founded in 2014, offers tests ranging in cost from $29 to $298 that are supposed to help people learn what kinds of food, exercise and beauty products would work best for their genetic profiles, and even whether they are genetically predisposed to so-called superhero traits including intelligence and strength, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

A former Orig3n employee who spoke to Gannett New England reporters on the condition of anonymity because of a nondisclosure agreement with the company said the number one complaint received by customer service was genetic profile tests not being returned to customers. The employee, who left the company pre-pandemic, didnt think the company could handle both genetic profile testing and coronavirus testing.

Unless things drastically changed since I have left, not even testing, just bandwidth-wise, they were already kind of drowning when I left, the employee said.

Despite its start-up status, Orig3n quickly gained prominence partly through securing big-name partnerships, including one with the NFLs Baltimore Ravens.

In September 2017, the Ravens linked up with Orig3n for an event called DNA Day. Roughly 70,000 Ravens fans were set to pour into the teams stadium, where they could have picked up a free genetic testing kit.

The event never happened. The Ravens postponed it days before federal health officials told The Baltimore Sun they were, working to determine whether any of the testing being offered by Orig3n is subject to the requirements of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988.

The federal regulatory standards apply to labs testing human samples in the United States, and are intended to ensure accuracy, effectiveness and reliability.

About a year after DNA Day was scrapped, 17 former Orig3n employees criticized the company in Bloomberg Businessweek, alleging it, habitually cut corners, tampered with or fabricated results, and failed to meet basic scientific standards.

Marketing, not science, the employees said, was the companys priority.

Press releases put out by Orig3n throughout the pandemic show the company was eager to publicize contracts with respected institutions, both public and private.

On May 12, the company announced what it called a comprehensive solution to enable COVID-19 testing for Massachusetts nursing home residents.

In the press release, the company said it sought to become the partner of choice for coordinating and providing COVID-19 testing for defined populations beyond long-term care residents and employees, including private employers, schools, government agencies, and cities and states.

The nursing home program is one of many applications for Orig3ns fully-integrated solution, the press release said.

What went wrong?

Doty, the Marlborough nursing home administrator, would not have known about Orig3n if not for the May 6 memo from Massachusetts Senior Care Association, an organization many nursing homes relied on during the viruss spring surge in the state to interpret complex and shifting guidance from the DPH.

Massachusetts Senior Care Association President Tara Gregorio said in a statement that her organization essentially serves as a messenger for its members, and that it relies on governmental agencies to vet labs like Orig3n.

Throughout the pandemic, MSCA has passed along lists of government approved COVID-19 PCR testing labs options available to our members, Gregorio wrote. We must rely, as all providers do, on the licensing process to ensure legitimacy and accuracy of these labs.

The FDA, which gave Orig3n emergency authorization to conduct coronavirus testing last spring, has not yet responded to Gannett New England reporters seeking comment.

According to a Massachusetts DPH spokesman, Orig3n told the agency after it was contacted by DPH that errors in testing occurred because of a broken vial or contaminated plate during final processing, an explanation DPH investigators are now trying to confirm.

In an email to Gannett New England reporters on Friday, Plohoros, Orig3ns spokesman, said, human error at the beginning of the laboratory testing process caused a pre-extraction reagent that was used in the affected batch tests to become contaminated.

In an Aug. 18 press conference, Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders said erroneous results from Orig3n affected the number of COVID-19 cases reported in Fall River and Taunton.

The positive test rates for that three-day period for that one lab just seemed high, and so (we) went back, and the lab stopped processing, theyre still not processing any tests, Sudders said, adding that DPH staff was analyzing tests processed prior to the discovery to make sure the issue was, as Orig3n told the DPH, a one-time problem rather than a more structural issue.

Dr. Michael Mina is an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health who has experience running laboratories that perform PCR testing.

Mina says a lab that processes 6,000 to 12,000 PCR coronavirus tests a day as Orig3n has said it does would need to be run with what he called extreme quality control measures.

It requires an amazing amount of concentration and care to really ensure youre not getting contamination or any number of other problems that can happen, he said. If this was an easy (test), I would have said, sure, any lab can do it but this particular (test) ... it really is a finicky test. You have to be extremely careful about how youre doing it, and that means you need a lot of quality controls. You need to be a really diligent lab.

Mina, who stressed he has no knowledge of Orig3n other than circulating allegations that the company had previously been investigated, said when a mistake like the kind Orig3n described occurs, staff should immediately stop processing, sterilize the area and alert any affected patients and health departments.

The fact that the Massachusetts DPH noticed the problem and not Orig3n is a problem, Mina said.

That shows in general that the quality control wasnt being maintained, he said, adding that performing intense quality control checks multiple times daily is a core tenet of running any lab, especially a high-complexity clinical lab. And if were giving them the benefit of the doubt, they didnt know that there was a problem because otherwise its just nefarious.

Mina said that a professionally run lab would likely have caught the mistake, and alerted the state DPH immediately.

Part of the reason for that is simply a motive to care for the patient, who will likely make important decisions about their own behavior based on the test result they receive, which in turn affect other people.

At Brigham, for example, where I was one of the medical directors, of course people feel embarrassed (about making a mistake), but theres this strong culture where people recognize that their embarrassment is not worth a patients hardship, Mina said. Thats one thing that really, I think, lacks a little bit when we move into industry laboratories running clinical tests. That same spirit of honesty ... might not exist everywhere.

While mistakes at labs are common, Mina said, theyre also commonly fixed and they dont usually require an investigation.

Mina said that the U.S. did need to increase its capacity to process coronavirus tests this spring, but labs, especially ones new to the medical diagnostics space, as Orig3n is, need to be monitored closely.

Its just important to keep all these things in check, Mina said. The frenzy to do coronavirus testing has been so extreme. I dont think labs should be immediately shut down for mistakes, but we have to remain vigilant to ensure that all the testing that is being done is up to the highest standards.

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Genetics start-up continues COVID-19 testing as DPH probes testing errors, including some in Fall River, Taunton - Taunton Daily Gazette