The Next Trillion Dollar Industry Is Inside You — Literally
No pep talks here, just a prediction by innovation expert Alec Ross that gene code and precision medicine is set revolutionize life the same way that computer code has.
Alec Ross
Alec Ross is one of America’s leading experts on innovation. He served for four years as Senior Advisor for Innovation to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a role that earned him a Distinguished Honor Award from the State Department. He is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and serves as an advisor to investors, corporations, and government leaders. Ross lives in Baltimore with his wife and their three young children. His book is The Industries of the Future.
Alec Ross: The world’s last trillion dollar industry was created out of computer code. The world’s next trillion dollar industry is going to be created out of a genetic code. Our bodies are made up of about 25,000 genes and the first human genome was mapped about 15 years ago. It was done so over a period of about a decade and at a cost of 2.7 billion dollars. Just five years ago Steve Jobs was one of ten people who had the privilege of paying $100,000 to get his genome mapped. Today the same thing that cost 2.7 billion dollars 15 years ago or $100,000 five years ago costs a couple thousand dollars. And that cost is going to continue to go down. What does this mean? It means two things. It means we are going to be able to diagnose illnesses far, far, far, far earlier. And it means we’re going to be able to develop precision medicines. First on precision medicines. Right now if you get an illness you go to your doctor and depending on what you have they’ll prescribe you one or two medicines. If you’re fat you’ll get a big dosage. If you’re skinny you’ll get a lower dosage. That’s the personalization. In the future as what I think will be as soon as four or five years when we get medicines they will be personalized to account for our personal genetic makeup as well as the specific genetic makeup of the illness that we have. And what I think this will do is it quite likely will add a couple years of expected life expectancy to all of us. It’s kind of a big deal.
The second thing – early diagnosis of illnesses. I play racquetball every now and then with this guy named Bert Vogelstein. And when I first met Bert Vogelstein I thought he was a gym rat. He’s sort of this scraggly old guy in his 60s, gray beard, wears a knee brace over his 1970 style gray sweatpants, carts his racquetball gear to the court in a dingy old Samsonite suitcase. It turns out Bert is the world’s most cited living scientist. He’s Dr. Bert Vogelstein from Johns Hopkins University. And some 30 years ago he and his team of researchers determined how mutations in proteins cause cancer. Kind of a big deal. So now Bert and his team of researchers at Johns Hopkins have developed something called a liquid biopsy. And what a liquid biopsy does is it takes a blood sample, you know, just like we get at our annual checkup now testing for things like cholesterol levels and whether you’ve got an STD. And in that blood sample they can detect cancerous cells at 1/100 the size of what can be detected by an MRI. What does that mean? It means that cancers that are routinely found in stages 3 and 4 and which are more likely than not fatal will be found early in stage 1 where cure rates are far, far higher. This is another life expectancy changer. This is another thing that is going to add years to many people’s lives.
Modern medicine is pretty fantastic, right? Wrong. Wow, you walked right into that honey trap. Pharmaceuticals are incredibly impressive and most of us wouldn’t be alive without them, but this industry is set to skyrocket in innovation over the next few decades, making our current practices seem as primitive as the 130-pound mobile phone that seemed really futuristic in '90s.
Alec Ross is one of America’s leading experts on innovation (in fact he served for four years as Senior Advisor for Innovation to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a role that earned him a Distinguished Honor Award from the State Department). The world’s last trillion dollar industry was created out of computer code. What’s the world’s next trillion dollar industry? Turns out it’s been inside us all along – genomes. Procedures like genome mapping that cost $2.7 billion dollars a mere 15 years ago are now available for just a few thousand dollars, and if that still sounds like a lot to you, don’t worry, it will get a lot cheaper still.
With genomic mapping as part of our everyday medical arsenal, doctors and technicians will be able to diagnose illnesses much earlier, which has everything to do with survival rates and quality of life, and will be able to develop precision medicines that are specific to your genetic make-up and to the genomic make-up of each disease. Ross says this is "kind of a big deal" as it will add years onto our life expectancies.
Currently on the cusp of exploding, this industry will be able to detect cancers that are usually only recognized at stages 4 and 5, in stage 1 where cure rates are far, far higher. The times are exiting and hopefully many of us will be able to experience them a little longer thanks to genomic innovation.
Alec Ross' most recent book is The Industries of the Future.
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Study helps explain why motivation to learn declines with age
Research suggests that aging affects a brain circuit critical for learning and decision-making.
27 October, 2020
Photo by Reinhart Julian on Unsplash
Mind & Brain
As people age, they often lose their motivation to learn new things or engage in everyday activities. In a study of mice, MIT neuroscientists have now identified a brain circuit that is critical for maintaining this kind of motivation.
<p>This circuit is particularly important for learning to make decisions that require evaluating the cost and reward that come with a particular action. The researchers showed that they could boost older mice's motivation to engage in this type of learning by reactivating this circuit, and they could also decrease motivation by suppressing the circuit.</p><p>"As we age, it's harder to have a get-up-and-go attitude toward things," says Ann Graybiel, an Institute Professor at MIT and member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. "This get-up-and-go, or engagement, is important for our social well-being and for learning — it's tough to learn if you aren't attending and engaged."</p><p>Graybiel is the senior author of the study, which appears today in <em>Cell</em>. The paper's lead authors are Alexander Friedman, a former MIT research scientist who is now an assistant professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, and Emily Hueske, an MIT research scientist.</p>
<h3>Evaluating cost and benefit</h3><p>The striatum is part of the basal ganglia — a collection of brain centers linked to habit formation, control of voluntary movement, emotion, and addiction. For several decades, Graybiel's lab has been studying clusters of cells called striosomes, which are distributed throughout the striatum. Graybiel discovered striosomes many years ago, but their function had remained mysterious, in part because they are so small and deep within the brain that it is difficult to image them with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).</p><p>In recent years, Friedman, Graybiel, and colleagues including MIT research fellow Ken-ichi Amemori have discovered that striosomes <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2015/brain-circuit-controls-decisions-causing-anxiety-0528" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">play an important role</a> in a type of decision-making known as approach-avoidance conflict. These decisions involve choosing whether to take the good with the bad — or to avoid both — when given options that have both positive and negative elements. An example of this kind of decision is having to choose whether to take a job that pays more but forces a move away from family and friends. Such decisions often provoke great anxiety.</p><p>In a <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2016/neural-connections-linked-emotional-decision-making-0919" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">related study</a>, Graybiel's lab found that striosomes connect to cells of the substantia nigra, one of the brain's major dopamine-producing centers. These studies led the researchers to hypothesize that striosomes may be acting as a gatekeeper that absorbs sensory and emotional information coming from the cortex and integrates it to produce a decision on how to act. These actions can then be invigorated by the dopamine-producing cells.</p><p>The researchers later discovered that chronic stress has a major impact on this circuit and on this kind of emotional decision-making. In a <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2017/stress-can-lead-risky-decisions-1116" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2017 study</a> performed in rats and mice, they showed that stressed animals were far more likely to choose high-risk, high-payoff options, but that they could block this effect by manipulating the circuit.</p>
<p>In the new <em>Cell</em> study, the researchers set out to investigate what happens in striosomes as mice learn how to make these kinds of decisions. To do that, they measured and analyzed the activity of striosomes as mice learned to choose between positive and negative outcomes.</p><p>During the experiments, the mice heard two different tones, one of which was accompanied by a reward (sugar water), and another that was paired with a mildly aversive stimulus (bright light). The mice gradually learned that if they licked a spout more when they heard the first tone, they would get more of the sugar water, and if they licked less during the second, the light would not be as bright.</p><p>Learning to perform this kind of task requires assigning value to each cost and each reward. The researchers found that as the mice learned the task, striosomes showed higher activity than other parts of the striatum, and that this activity correlated with the mice's behavioral responses to both of the tones. This suggests that striosomes could be critical for assigning subjective value to a particular outcome.</p><p>"In order to survive, in order to do whatever you are doing, you constantly need to be able to learn. You need to learn what is good for you, and what is bad for you," Friedman says.</p><p>"A person, or this case a mouse, may value a reward so highly that the risk of experiencing a possible cost is overwhelmed, while another may wish to avoid the cost to the exclusion of all rewards. And these may result in reward-driven learning in some and cost-driven learning in others," Hueske says.</p><p>The researchers found that inhibitory neurons that relay signals from the prefrontal cortex help striosomes to enhance their signal-to-noise ratio, which helps to generate the strong signals that are seen when the mice evaluate a high-cost or high-reward option.</p>
<h3>Loss of motivation</h3><p>Next, the researchers found that in older mice (between 13 and 21 months, roughly equivalent to people in their 60s and older), the mice's engagement in learning this type of cost-benefit analysis went down. At the same time, their striosomal activity declined compared to that of younger mice. The researchers found a similar loss of motivation in a mouse model of Huntington's disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that affects the striatum and its striosomes.</p><p>When the researchers used genetically targeted drugs to boost activity in the striosomes, they found that the mice became more engaged in performance of the task. Conversely, suppressing striosomal activity led to disengagement.</p><p>In addition to normal age-related decline, many mental health disorders can skew the ability to evaluate the costs and rewards of an action, from anxiety and depression to conditions such as PTSD. For example, a depressed person may undervalue potentially rewarding experiences, while someone suffering from addiction may overvalue drugs but undervalue things like their job or their family.</p><p>The researchers are now working on possible drug treatments that could stimulate this circuit, and they suggest that training patients to enhance activity in this circuit through biofeedback could offer another potential way to improve their cost-benefit evaluations.</p><p>"If you could pinpoint a mechanism which is underlying the subjective evaluation of reward and cost, and use a modern technique that could manipulate it, either psychiatrically or with biofeedback, patients may be able to activate their circuits correctly," Friedman says.</p><p>The research was funded by the CHDI Foundation, the Saks Kavanaugh Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, the Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia and Parkinson's Foundation, the William N. and Bernice E. Bumpus Foundation, the Simons Center for the Social Brain, the Kristin R. Pressman and Jessica J. Pourian '13 Fund, Michael Stiefel, and Robert Buxton.</p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a href="http://news.mit.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MIT News</a>. Read the <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2020/why-learn-motivate-age-decline-1027" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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End gerrymandering? Here’s a radical solution
Why not just divide the United States in slices of equal population?
27 October, 2020
Image: u/curiouskip, reproduced with kind permission.
Strange Maps
- Slicing up the country in 10 strips of equal population produces two bizarre maps.
- Seattle is the biggest city in the emptiest longitudinal band, San Antonio rules the largest north-south slice.
- Curiously, six cities are the 'capitals' of both their horizontal and vertical deciles.
<p><span></span></p>
Sweeping re-alignments
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYwMTAwOC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzU3ODA1NH0.u_5xakBvkYwgPtiwLU3z-1e082hBeqwS4Rl1uiJqdF4/img.png?width=980" id="23ff1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="24a5b6ec251a11f3ed7aaefc205dde17" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was drawn in reaction to the newly drawn state senate election district of South Essex created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the Democratic-Republican Party candidates of Governor Elbridge Gerry over the Federalists. The caricature satirizes the bizarre shape of a district in Essex County, Massachusetts, as a dragon-like "monster". Federalist newspaper editors and others at the time likened the district shape to a salamander, and the word gerrymander was a portmanteau of that word and Governor Gerry's last name." />The original cartoon of the 'Gerry-Mander', published in 1812 in the Boston Centinel.
Image: Elkanah Tisdale (1771-1835), Public Domain.
<p>One way for a political party to manipulate the outcome of elections is to 'gerrymander' electoral districts: manipulate their boundaries to increase the likelihood of a favorable outcome (see also #<a href="https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/53-ever-been-ger..." target="_blank">53</a>).</p><p><span></span>The term is almost as old as the United States itself, and the practice continues to disfigure the electoral map to this day. Perhaps these maps can serve as the inspiration for a radical solution. </p><p><span></span>They show the contiguous United States (i.e. without Alaska and Hawaii) sliced latitudinally and longitudinally into ten straight-bordered bands of varying size, so that each contains exactly 10 percent of the population. </p><p><span></span>Although certainly not intended as a reflection on electoral redistricting, it's tempting to see these sweeping re-alignments of the U.S. as a suggestion with some potential in that direction. </p>United Strips of America
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYwMTA4MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NzE1MjQ1MX0.WpISo-g15B5O3qXbHXHf-7lQtAainpO7zPuizXWFOGs/img.jpg?width=980" id="d6656" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="72ed7c905283f9979ec0f82d451ad261" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Reddit user curiouskip used U.S. Census population data to divide the 'Lower 48' into deciles (ten equal parts), each representing about 30.8 million people. Each decile is consigned its most populous city as 'capital'." />The contiguous United States, divided into horizontal and vertical deciles.
Image: u/curiouskip, reproduced with kind permission.
<p>Reddit user curiouskip used U.S. Census population data to divide the 'Lower 48' into deciles (ten equal parts), each representing about 30.8 million people. Each decile is consigned its most populous city as 'capital'.</p><p><span></span>Looking at the top map, which divides the U.S. into 10 longitudinal strips, we see</p><ul><li>Seattle rules the northernmost slice of territory. It is the broadest, and therefore also the emptiest one.</li><li>The Chicago, Omaha, New York City and Indianapolis strips complete the northern half of the country. And indeed: 50 percent of the population occupies roughly one half of the country, from north to south.</li><li>The dividing line between the top and bottom halves of the country runs from just north of the San Francisco Bay to halfway across the Delmarva Peninsula.</li><li>Capital cities of the southern strips are San Jose, Charlotte, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Houston.</li><li>The Houston Strip is divided into two non-contiguous areas. Florida maintains its panhandle, albeit much reduced. </li></ul><p>The bottom map shows the U.S. divided latitudinally into 10 bands of equal population. </p><ul><li>San Jose and Los Angeles both retain their capital status, this time of the two westernmost strips.</li><li>San Antonio is the main city of the Big Empty, more than twice as wide as the second-broadest band.</li><li>The dividing line between America's eastern and western half, population-wise, is far off-center: it skirts the eastern edge of Chicago, making the western half much bigger than the eastern one.</li><li>Houston, Chicago, and Indianapolis also remain the largest cities in their respective bands.</li><li>Further east, Jacksonville and Philadelphia get to rule over their strip of America, while Charlotte and New York City keep winning, both vertically and horizontally.</li></ul><p>Redistricting a country into zones of equal population – and that being your only criterium – will create districts that are randomly diverse, and perhaps also, at least in this case, unmanageably large. </p><p>However, mixing up the political map with a bunch of straight lines as the only instrument is something that has been considered before. Usually, the objective is the wholesale removal of age-old divisions. <br></p>Perfectly square departments
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYwMTEzOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwOTQyMzIwOH0.kYuf58g0bjsPL9DGPq5PycZ7PDJMnItT0rfrPonOP3k/img.jpg?width=980" id="89a68" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5b81a43e785997bb1f11f72548659a9f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="\u200bCh\u00e2ssis figuratif du territoire de la France partag\u00e9 en divisions \u00e9gales entre elles, proposition annex\u00e9e au rapport du 29 septembre 1789 \u00e0 l'Assembl\u00e9e nationale de la commission dite Siey\u00e8s-Thouret" />France divided into 80-odd geometrical departments: failed proposal by Jacques-Guillaume Thouret (1790).
Image: Centre historique des Archives nationales – Atelier de photographie; public domain.
European Pie
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYwMTQ0Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTE5NDE3OX0.dPcY1tkO7nwkx6IX98Sleh7AmBpDnwlcJLfC_Z-WBlY/img.jpg?width=980" id="b35d7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="84509a9425e13c0dd8fbe00df28a197e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />In this rather outlandish proposal, continental Europe's 24 cantons center on Vienna.
Image: PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Maps, Cornell University.
<p>And in 1920, an anonymous author – possibly the Austrian P.A. Maas – proposed slicing up Post-World-War-I Europe as a pie, into 24 slices that would center on Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral. Each of those slices would be made up of a wide and random variety of linguistic, ethnic, and religious groups – and that would be the point: the better to unite them all into one massive superstate (see also #<a href="https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/a-bizarre-peace-proposal-slice-europe-up-like-a-pie" target="_blank">851</a>).</p><p>Needless to say, both plans never left the drawing board. Would a proposal for the longitudinal and/or latitudinal redistricting of the U.S. have more traction? <br></p>Coast-to-coast precedents
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYwMTIwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDM2OTE0OX0.52UjcA_YD9Y9UB9_hoSctI_xBrRDALZ2DRLkIo9a8RM/img.jpg?width=980" id="10784" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1999808ea21e11162fdb9181c3912753" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Illustration of the Connecticut Charter boundary, 1662" />Putting the 'connect' into Connecticut: the Nutmeg State extending from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
Image: Connecticuthistory.org
<p>Well, for one, coast-to-coast polities have some pedigree in America's past: some of the first colonies had claims that extended from the Atlantic all the way to the Pacific. </p><p>If history had gone entirely the way Connecticut would have wanted, the state would include such inland cities as Detroit, Chicago, and Salt Lake City, and extended to what is now the northern part of California.</p><p>Is such geopolitical weirdness reasonable or feasible today? Absolutely not. But in its randomness, would it be it as unfair as gerrymandering? </p><p><em><br></em></p><p><em>Decile maps of the contiguous United States reproduced with kind permission by u/curiouskip; found <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ijyn7p/oc_us_population_deciles_by_latitude_and_longitude/" target="_blank">here</a> on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/" target="_blank">Reddit</a>.<br></em></p><p><strong>Strange Maps #1054</strong></p><p><em>Got a strange map? Let me know at </em><a href="mailto:strangemaps@gmail.com">strangemaps@gmail.com</a><em>.</em></p>
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AI reveals the Sahara actually has millions of trees
A study finds 1.8 billion trees and shrubs in the Sahara desert.
22 October, 2020
Credit: bassvdo/Shutterstock
Surprising Science
- AI analysis of satellite images sees trees and shrubs where human eyes can't.
- At the western edge of the Sahara is more significant vegetation than previously suspected.
- Machine learning trained to recognize trees completed the detailed study in hours.
<p>Satellite imagery of the Sahara desert presents an arid expanse, the endless rolling dunes we know from movies. The thing is, normal satellite images don't show individual trees, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're not there. Researchers from the <a href="https://news.ku.dk/all_news/2020/10/artificial-intelligence-reveals-hundreds-of-millions-of-trees-in-the-sahara/" target="_blank">University of Copenhagen</a> and NASA taught artificial intelligence about trees and had them take another look. It turns out there is lots of vegetation in the Western Sahara: an estimated 1.8 billion trees and shrubs.</p><p>"We were very surprised to see that quite a few trees actually grow in the Sahara Desert, because up until now, most people thought that virtually none existed," says lead author <a href="https://ign.ku.dk/english/employees/geography/?pure=en/persons/504589" target="_blank">Martin Brandt</a> of the university's Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management. "We counted hundreds of millions of trees in the desert alone. Doing so wouldn't have been possible without this technology."</p><p>The research is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2824-5" target="_blank">Nature</a>.</p>
Why this matters
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU2MDQ1OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzOTkyODg5NX0.O3S2DRTyAxh-JZqxGKj9KkC6ndZAloEh4hKhpcyeFDQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="3770d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3c27b79d4c0600fb6ebb82e650cabec0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Area in which trees were located
Credit: University of Copenhagen
<p>As important as trees are in fighting climate change, scientists need to know what trees there are, and where, and the study's finding represents a significant addition to the global tree inventory.</p><p>The vegetation Brandt and his colleagues have identified is in the Western Sahara, a region of about 1.3 million square kilometers that includes the desert, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahel" target="_blank">the Sahel</a>, and the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/subhumid-zones" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sub-humid zones</a> of West Africa.</p><p>These trees and shrubs have been left out of previous tabulations of carbon-processing worldwide forests. Says Brandt, "Trees outside of forested areas are usually not included in climate models, and we know very little about their carbon stocks. They are basically a white spot on maps and an unknown component in the global carbon cycle."</p><p>In addition to being valuable climate-change information, the research can help facilitate strategic development of the region in which the vegetation grows due to a greater understanding of local ecosystems.</p>Trained for trees
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU2MDQ3MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTk5NTI3NH0.fR-n1I2DHBIRPLvXv4g0PVM8ciZwSLWorBUUw2wc-Vk/img.jpg?width=980" id="e02c0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="79955b13661dca8b6e19007935129af1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Credit: Martin Brandt/University of Copenhagen
<p>There's been an assumption that there's hardly enough vegetation outside of forested areas to be worth counting in areas such as this one. As a result the study represents the first time a significant number of trees — likely in the hundreds of millions when shrubs are subtracted from the overall figure — have been catalogued in the drylands region.</p><p>Members of the university's Department of Computer Science trained a machine-learning module to recognize trees by feeding it thousands of pictures of them. This training left the AI be capable of spotting trees in the tiny details of satellite images supplied by NASA. The task took the AI just hours — it would take a human years to perform an equivalent analysis.</p><p>"This technology has enormous potential when it comes to documenting changes on a global scale and ultimately, in contributing towards global climate goals," says co-author Christian Igel. "It is a motivation for us to develop this type of beneficial artificial intelligence."</p><p>"Indeed," says Brandt says, "I think it marks the beginning of a new scientific era."</p>Looking ahead and beyond
<p>The researchers hope to further refine their AI to provide a more detailed accounting of the trees it identifies in satellite photos.</p><p>The study's senior author, Rasmus Fensholt, says, "we are also interested in using satellites to determine tree species, as tree types are significant in relation to their value to local populations who use wood resources as part of their livelihoods. Trees and their fruit are consumed by both livestock and humans, and when preserved in the fields, trees have a positive effect on crop yields because they improve the balance of water and nutrients."</p><p>Ahead is an expansion of the team's tree hunt to a larger area of Africa, with the long-term goal being the creation of a more comprehensive and accurate global database of trees that grow beyond the boundaries of forests.</p>
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Scientists discover why fish evolved limbs and left water
Researchers find a key clue to the evolution of bony fish and tetrapods.
27 October, 2020
Surprising Science
- A new study says solar and lunar tide impacts led to the evolution of bony fish and tetrapods.
- The scientists show that tides created tidal pools, stranding fish and forcing them to get out of the water.
- The researchers ran computer simulations to get their results.
<p>Tides influenced by the sun and the moon were likely the reason why fish developed limbs and early tetrapods evolved, found new research.</p><p>The groundbreaking study took a look at tides during the Late Silurian—Devonian periods, which happened between 420 million years ago and 380 million years ago.</p><p>The scientists built their work on the theory that the Moon's mass and specific location along its orbit can greatly affect vast tidal ranges across Earth and can create tidal pools. Because they are isolated from each other, the pools provided the biological motivation for fish stranded by high tides to eventually grow limbs. </p>
<p>The study involved researchers from from UK's Bangor University and Oxford University as well as Uppsala University in Sweden. They devised very detailed numerical simulations that proved the existence of large tides during the period they studied. They are first to tie tidal hydrodynamics to an evolutionary biological event, states the <a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-10-23-large-tides-may-have-been-key-factor-evolution-bony-fish-and-tetrapods" target="_blank">press release</a> from the University of Oxford.</p><p>To come up with the simulations, the scientists employed <em>paleogeography</em>, the study of historical geography, to reconstruct the Earth's continents within the numerical model. The calculations showed tides over four meters happening around the South China block. That area holds the known origin site of the earliest bony fish we know and has been a treasure-trove of the earliest fossils of that nature. Geological evidence also supports changes in tides to be lined to these fossils.</p>
Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains the Tides
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9913a65f847775722d7c23d40d78938b"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dBwNadry-TU?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Large tidal ranges could have fostered both the evolution of air-breathing organs in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes" target="_blank">osteichthyans</a> to facilitate breathing in oxygen-depleted tidal pools, and the development of weight-bearing tetrapod limbs to aid navigation within the intertidal zones," states the paper.</p><p>The researchers believe further tidal simulations from early Earth can be used to recreate that far past with greater detail. The findings can help us understand more what roles tides played in diversifying early vertebrates or in causing extinction events. </p><p>Check out the study published in <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2020.0355" target="_blank"><em>Proceedings of the Royal Society A</em>.</a></p>
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