Factual Friday
This post was uploaded by Rachel Brauner of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service-Wounded Warrior Program and published on the Military Families Learning Network blog.
Create An Animated Website Presentation Using After Effects
Looking for more on After Effects? Check out these tutorials:Video Tutorial: Animate a 2D Mobile Device with After EffectsUnderstanding Keyframe Interpolation in Adobe After Effects5 Ways To Create A Background in After EffectsCreate A Shootout Scene In After Effects + Free Muzzle Flashes and SparksVideo Tutorial: How to Stitch 360 Footage in After Effects If you’re looking for an amazing, ready-to-go website presentation, check out Header at RocketStock.com. What to Take Away from This TutorialLearn how to stitch together your website screenshots and animate them to create a smooth scroll effect. Furthermore, you’ll also learn how to create callout titles and add information to your presentation. Beyond the basics, this After Effects tutorial takes a close look at 3D animation and how to animate the website however you like.Here are a few of the main takeaways from this After Effects tutorial:Composite your website together using multiple screenshots.Animate your presentation in 3D space with rotation.Create titles that animate with your scrolling website.
In this video tutorial, learn how you can capture and animate a website presentation for your projects using Adobe After Effects.Whether you are a video editor or a motion graphics artist, at some point, you may need to display a website in a video project. A simple way to do this is to video-capture the website while scrolling through it. However, the scrolling may look jumpy when you scroll down an entire web page. Plus, you’ll have to download video-capture software to record the screen. If you want the best quality and the most control, this After Effects tutorial has you covered!To create a smooth scroll effect with complete control over your website animation, take screenshots of each portion of the web page and composite them together in After Effects. This approach yields the best results and gives you the option to design your website presentation however you want it.
Pretending to Be a Salesperson
You can’t love part of sales. It is all or nothing.You want to be a salesperson, you just don’t want to have to prospect. You don’t want to interrupt people, and you don’t like bothering them. If you don’t like prospecting, you don’t like selling. Selling requires that you create new opportunities, and prospecting is how you do that work.You want to a be a salesperson, but you only want to sell something that your prospective clients really want. You only want to sell to people who are already trying to buy what you sell. This belief makes you an order-taker, not a salesperson. There is a lot of talk about salespeople being replaced by technology in the future, and the people in sales who suffer from this belief will be the first to be replaced.You want to be a salesperson, but you don’t want to have to ask people to make commitments. You want them to tell you they’re ready to take the next step. Selling is conversations about the future, creating a preference for you and your solution, and it is most definitely about gaining commitments. There is no waiting in sales, least of all waiting for your dream client to ask if you are ready for them to buy.You want to be a salesperson, but you want to communicate with people over email because you am more comfortable when you have time to carefully consider every word, making every communication just right. Email is a necessary but inferior medium when it comes to selling. It doesn’t allow for the kind of communication necessary to sell, including collaboration, building consensus, and resolving concerns. If you want to be a salesperson, you’re going have to engage in more effective mediums.You want to be a salesperson, but you don’t want to deal with the big issues that prevent your prospective clients from generating the results they need. You don’t want to deal with all their problems. If you don’t like dealing with conflict, you aren’t going to love being a salesperson. Selling comes with a certain amount of healthy conflict. If you don’t want to manage problems, challenges, and conflicts, you aren’t in sales.You want to be a salesperson, but only if you can do the consulting part without having any responsibility to sell what your company sells. If you want to give your advice without having to deliver results, start an advice column. You never have to sell anyone anything that won’t serve them, but you also don’t need to spend time advising people who can’t or won’t buy what you sell.
Don’t Mistake the Example for the Principle
Essential Reading! Get my 3rd book: Eat Their Lunch “The first ever playbook for B2B salespeople on how to win clients and customers who are already being serviced by your competition.” Buy Now Every day for the last several weeks, I receive an email or a message on LinkedIn or Facebook Messenger from someone who has read Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away From Your Competition. Most of these notes are to inform me that the contents of the book are helping them to produce better sales results, and a good many of them are around the language I used to demonstrate how one might prospect effectively.The language goes something like, “I am calling to ask you for a 20-minute briefing where I can share with you the four trends that we see having the biggest impact on businesses like yours over the next 18 to 24 months.”The language is my attempt to share what works now, making it practical and tactical. One of my biggest complaints as a reader is when authors who teach provide a concept without demonstrating it in a way that makes it easy to put to use. I have endeavored to make all three books something like field books, something you can use. However, that said, I don’t want you to cheat yourself of the principle behind the practical and tactical application.The principle that undergirds the sample language above is the Trading Value Rule. The Trading Value Rule says that one must provide an equal or greater amount of value for the commitment they are seeking to gain. You violate this rule when you say, “I’d like to stop by, introduce myself, tell you about my company, and learn a little about you and your business.” I didn’t decide that this offer trades too little value; the prospective clients we call on concluded it offers too little value in trade for their time.Here’s what you need to know. The language works now, in part, because it is a new and novel approach and one that now indicates that the person making the ask has something worth trading twenty-minutes to obtain. But the real power is in the principle: Trading Value.When you realize the principle, you open up more opportunities to trade value. You could offer to analyze your dream client’s current processes and give a report on what they might need to do differently to produce better results. You could offer to share an assessment of the industry to show where the industry is going and what makes one a leader or a laggard in the industry. You could do something as simple as inviting your dream client to a customer forum to listen to you, and some of your existing clients share the changes you believe are necessary to do better work together in the future.The principle here is more than the the example in Eat Their Lunch. Moreover, it applies broadly across all the commitments you need from your clients, which is why I published a chapter on Trading Value in The Lost Art of Closing before releasing Eat Their Lunch.
North India to get DNA bank for wildlife
North India is all set to get its first DNA bank for wildlife. Scientists at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) in Bareilly are in the process of collecting DNA samples of all wild animals to set up the bank. It is expected to help in research and also in bringing down poaching.At present, the Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) in Hyderabad is the only such facility in the country.To start by year-endAccording to principal scientist and in-charge of the Centre for Wildlife, IVRI, Anil Kumar Sharma, so far, the scientists have collected 140 samples of 25 wild animals. The DNA bank is expected to start this year-end.“We are making a baseline data of different animals. Every time we receive some identified specimen, viscera, skin or part of the body of a wild animal from either forest department or zoo, we take out the DNA,” Mr. Sharma told The Hindu on phone from Bareilly.It took one year for the IVRI to collect the DNA samples of animals such as tigers, leopards, lions, elephants, rhinos and deer, which are on the radar of poachers. “At present, every time there is an incident of poaching, the specimen is sent to the facility in Hyderabad, which is an expensive affair. Also it is too much of a pressure on the Hyderabad institute. We are starting this to cater to the needs of north India,” Mr. Sharma said.The DNA bank was the brainchild of Dr. Raj Kumar Singh, the director of Indian Council of Agricultural Research-IVRI, Mr. Sharma added. “The bank has ‘positive sample’ meaning ‘known sample’ which will have DNA sequencing. In future, if we get some ‘unknown sample’ like hair or skin, then with the help of the DNA bank, we can tell which animal it belongs to,” Mr. Sharma added.
U.P. Congress unit passes resolution to make Rahul party chief
The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution declaring that Rahul Gandhi be made the party’s national president, a spokesperson said in Lucknow. State Congress chief Raj Babbar moved the resolution at a meeting of party functionaries, including city and district unit presidents. “The resolution was passed unanimously,” party spokesperson Amarnath Agarwal said.Mr. Gandhi has been the Congress vice president since 2013 and has been assisting his 70-year-old mother Sonia Gandhi, who heads the party. Ms. Gandhi took over as the party president from Sitaram Kesari in 1998 and is the longest-serving head of the party in its 131-year history.The UPCC has taken this decision in one voice that Mr. Gandhi be made the All India Congress Committee (AICC) president, Mr. Babbar said at the meeting. “This is the duty of all Congressmen that the one who has given us new strength and power, and has taken the values of Mahatma Gandhi forward, be made the AICC president…We will become the strength of Rahulji and work under his leadership,” Mr. Agarwal quoted Mr. Babbar as saying.Other speakers at the meeting, including party MP Sanjay Singh, MLA Aradhana Misra and MLC Deepak Singh also lauded Mr. Gandhi, calling him the “messiah of labourers and farmers” and urged him to rid the country of BJP rule. The resolution will now be sent to the AICC, Mr. Agarwal said.Several other State units of the Congress, including Maharashtra, Goa and Delhi have also passed similar resolutions.
GST rollout disastrous, says Sinha
Senior BJP leader and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha on Thursday said the Goods and Services Tax (GST) would make a fine Harvard University case study of everything that was wrong with the rollout of a tax reform.Mr. Sinha was speaking on the topic ‘Failed economics and failure of demonetisation and GST’ at an event organised by local Congress leader Sanjay Balgude at the Vasantdada Seva Sanstha.“There probably is no finer instrument of tax reform the world over than the GST… However, its implementation in India has been disastrous. It is high-time that the Centre stop touting its so-called economic achievements and think seriously on critical issues staring in the face of the country’s economy today,” he said. Mr. Sinha said it was imperative that the government spur the sagging economic growth.Saying that the tax had severely affected common people and the pace of the country’s economic growth, Mr. Sinha reiterated his suggestion that a committee be formed under economist Vijay Kelkar, who had earlier headed a committee on GST, to advise the government on effective and efficient implementation of the tax. Criticising the government’s “complacent” attitude, Mr. Sinha said, “Even the dictatorship of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe was not permanent and he had to step down … this only proves that no one is secure. And India is a strong democracy which nobody should take for granted,” he said. Mr. Sinha was joined at the programme by Nana Patole, the BJP MP from Bhandara-Gondia, another prominent critic of Mr. Modi and the Maharashtra government’s policies. “Instead of revamping the economy and creating more jobs, 5,000 businesses have wound up following the Make In India project,” Mr. Patole said.
Revival of confidence biggest achievement, says Amarinder
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has said that “revival of confidence” across all sections of society has been the biggest achievement of the Congress government in the State in the last one year.He said that farm issues remain the priority of his government, which is also focussed on attracting investment, skill development and crop diversification, among other steps required to revive the economic growth.“Revival of confidence across all sections of society is, in my opinion, the biggest achievement of my government during this one year. In the decade of the SAD-BJP misrule, people had lost all confidence and trust in governance, administrative and police functions,” Capt. Singh said when asked what was his government’s biggest achievement in the first year of the term.Capt. Singh, along with his Ministers, was sworn in on March 16, 2017, after the Congress stormed to power in the Assembly polls.“It has been a successful roller-coaster ride for my government. Roller coaster because of the sheer challenge of battling the fiscal mess and overall development crisis that we inherited from the previous government, and successful because, notwithstanding these problems, we have done and achieved far more than was feasible under the circumstances.”Asked about the major challenges of his government, the Chief Minister said, “The major challenge has, of course, been the paucity of funds and resources. But we are on top of it and have found new ways of generating revenue.”With the Opposition criticising the Congress government for not fulfilling poll promises like implementing complete farm debt waiver and smartphones, Capt. Singh lashed out at the Akalis and the AAP for resorting to “blatant fabrications and petty street politics”.“As far as debt waiver is concerned, we had not defined any time frame to complete the process post-government formation… Yet, I have committed to completing the first phase of the waiver (covering 1.25 million farmers) by November this year, and I can assure these farmers that they would be free of their debts in another few months,” he asserted.Investment proposalsThe Chief Minister said his government has received several investment proposals ranging from solar power to tourism, agro and food processing, health, education, and manufacturing.On prospects of the Congress nationwide, he said, “While things began looking up much earlier, the elevation of Rahul Gandhi as the party president has given a major fillip to the party’s prospects and the results will be even more tangible in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.”
Cross-border love story ends in arrest of Assam woman in Bangladesh
All love stories do not have a happy ending. Mousumi Das of Karimganj in southern Assam’s Barak Valley was arrested by police in Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Tuesday evening, for entering the country without valid travel documents. She had met Numan Badshad of Dhaka at a trade fair in Assam and fell in love. She was produced before a court on Wednesday.A final year student of Rabindrasadan College in Karimganj, Ms. Das had met Numan Badshad of Dhaka at a trade expo in her hometown and fell in love with him.Karimganj, about 315 km south of Guwahati, borders Bangladesh.Her parents lodged a kidnapping case with the police after she went missing on March 12. A video uploaded on social media a fortnight later revealed she was in Bangladesh. Clad in a burqa, she claimed she had not been kidnapped.She also said she had eloped with Mr. Badshah and converted to Islam to marry him.The Karimganj police said the duo had entered Bangaldesh via Tripura.“Badshah, an employee of a Bangaldeshi company that deals in sarees, came to India on a business visa. He met the woman in Karimganj during an expo a few weeks ago,” Gaurav Upadhyay, Karimganj Superintendent of Police, said.Mr. Upadhyay said Ms Das could be handed a prison term for illegal entry into Bangladesh, or the Indian high commission in Dhaka may seek consular access to her. In the latter case, the high commission may record her statement and get her nationality verified.“Consular access could facilitate her repatriation. This case is now beyond the control of police, it is between two countries now,” the police officer said.
6 kg of ivory bound for Nepal seized in Assam
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Guwahati zonal unit has seized ivory weighing about 6 kg from two persons, including a contractual railway employee, near Guwahati Railway Station.DRI officials said that this confirmed an elephant tusk smuggling trail from within a certain radius of Assam’s Kaziranga National Park to Nepal via the Chicken’s Neck corridor in West Bengal.Wildlife crime investigators had a whiff of this trail when DRI detectives seized 12.41 kg of ivory from a bus in northern West Bengal’s Siliguri town on February 15.“Acting on a tip-off, our officials caught two persons near Guwahati Railway Station about 1 p.m. on Saturday and seized 24 pieces of ivory weight 5.838 kg from them,” a DRI officer who declined to be identified said.Railway employee involvedThe two men were identified as Badrul Hussain of Hojai from central Assam and Suraj Kumar Das from West Bengal. Mr. Das is a contractual railway employee working as a coach attendant of the daily Howrah-Guwahati Saraighat Express train.They were caught as Mr. Das was in the process of receiving the ivory package from Mr. Hussain.Interrogation revealed that Mr. Hussain had received the package from an animal body parts trader in Hojai. Mr. Das was expected to deliver it to a dealer in New Jalpaiguri (railway station for Siliguri) for smuggling out to Nepal.“Wildlife officials have confirmed the ivory was extracted from five adult and sub-adult elephants killed, in all likelihood, in Karbi Anglong district of central Assam,” the DRI officer said.The hills of Karbi Anglong, adjoining Kaziranga National Park, is where animals take refuge when the rhino habitat with a large population of elephants is submerged during floods.Officials said the 12 kg ivory seized in Siliguri earlier this year were sourced from north-eastern Assam’s Lakhimpur district, close to the border of Kaziranga’s Northern Range.
M.P. government letting children die: Rahul Gandhi
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday hit out at the Madhya Pradesh government, accusing it of doing nothing but only marketing itself at a time when children are dying of malnutrition in the State. On the campaign trail in Madhya Pradesh where the Assembly poll will be held on November 28, Mr. Gandhi said the problems of malnutrition, farmers’ distress and youth unemployment were plaguing the State.The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has “done nothing” to resolve these issues, he said.At a public meeting in Sheopur city, he said, “Here children are dying of malnourishment, but the BJP government is not doing anything worthwhile to check it. Rather, it is busy in marketing itself and advertising the Chief Minister with photographs.” “When children die, the Chief Minister doesn’t do anything,” the Congress leader alleged.The State BJP government during its 15-year rule has not done anything for farmers and for the unemployed youth, the Amethi MP said.“I will not give you false assurances. But I want to assure that if the Congress is voted to power in Madhya Pradesh, farmers’ loans will be waived,” he said.Urging people to give a chance to the Congress, he said State party chief Kamal Nath has the experience and senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia has the strength. “They both will work together for the Congress.” If the Congress forms a government in Madhya Pradesh, it will set up industries and food processing plants close to agricultural fields and the Chief Minister will work for the welfare of youth “for 18 hours out of 24 hours daily”, he promised.Earlier in the day, Mr. Gandhi, who is on a two-day visit to the central Indian state, paid obeisance at a gurdwara in Gwalior. He will also hold a roadshow in Morena district of the State.
17 Odisha workers stranded in Oman
Seventeen workers from Odisha, including eight from Ganjam district, are allegedly stranded in Oman.These workers over the phone have informed their families of their plight.According to sources, the other nine workers were from Bhubaneswar and Balasore.‘Being exploited’The workers alleged that they were being exploited at their workplace in Muscat and had not received their wages for the past six months. They were also not in a position to return to their homeland.According to the Labour department sources, a private agency had sent the workers to Oman in January this year to work as welders and fitters.No complaint yetWhen contacted, Ganjam Assistant Labour Commissioner Diptiranjan Mohanty said that family members of these workers had not lodged any official complaint with the department. “But our officials have made contact with some of these workers in Oman through video call,” he added.On Thursday, Labour officials in Ganjam district tried to contact and take details from the families of these workers. “After collecting and ascertaining details about these workers, we will inform the Labour Commissioner for necessary action through the External Affairs Ministry for their safe return,” said Mr. Mohanty.
Madhya Pradesh govt. treads soft Hindutva path
Making the party’s soft Hindutva line more starkly visible, the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh has decided to increase the honorarium of priests by five times and bring in an Act to make rivers of the State a living unit.The State Government is committed to the welfare of every section of society, said Religious Trust and Endowments Minister P.C. Sharma, adding that “a proposal will be presented in the Cabinet meeting to hike the honorarium of temple priests, math mahants, narrators and mujavirs”.An Act will be brought in to make the rivers of the State a living unit, said Mr. Sharma.Pilgrimage sitesHe said all work related to the planned development of pilgrimage sites and providing facilities to pilgrims would be completed on a priority basis.Mr. Sharma was speaking to media persons over the weekend at the first meeting of the newly constituted Department of Spirituality at the Mantralaya. The Ministry has issued necessary instructions to instal indicators along with marking for the Narmada Parikrama Path besides development of the Omkareshwar Parikrama Path and the Ram Van Path Gaman, said an official here on Sunday.Ahead of the November-December 2018 Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the Congress had adopted a soft Hindutva policy to counter the ruling BJP in these three States.In its manifesto in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress had promised to set up gau shalas (cowsheds) in every gram panchayat, build new Adhyatmik Vibhag (Department of Spirituality) and open new Sanskrit schools across the State. Besides, it had also promised to develop the ‘Ram Path’ – a mythical route taken by Lord Ram during his 14 years of exile.
Home Ministry puts Assam Rifles notification on hold
The Union Home Ministry has kept its order that empowered Assam Rifles, deployed along the Myanmar border, to arrest anyone and search a place without warrant in border districts of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram “in abeyance.”The notification was withheld after Opposition parties moved an adjournment motion against the order in the Assam Assembly. Home Ministry said the matter would be “revisited in consultation with the State governments concerned.”The notification said “an officer of the rank corresponding to that of the lowest rank of members of the Assam Rifles” will have the powers under the CrPC.It is not clear why the notification included Assam, as the State does not share its border with Myanmar. Assam Rifles has power to detain anyone where Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) is in place. But it was finding it difficult to operate in Mizoram, which is not covered by AFSPA. Entire Assam is under AFSPA. Assam Rifles, a central armed police force (CAPF) came into being in 1835. It is under the administrative control of the Home Ministry and operational control of the Army.A senior government official said after the Assam Rifles Act was amended in 2006, the powers under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) earlier available to it under the Assam Rifles Act, 1941, were not restored.The official said 13 years after the Act was amended, the issue has acquired urgency for effective enforcement of the Free Movement Regime along the Myanmar border (on the 16 km belt on either side). The Free Movement Regime was streamlined after the bilateral agreement between India and Myanmar on Land Border Crossing was finalised in 2018. “This will require giving suitable powers to Border Guarding Forces under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and Passport Act, 1967 and Passport Entry into India Act, 1920,” the official explained.Assam Rifles personnel will exercise these powers and discharge their duties “under sub-section(1) of section 41, sections 47, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54, 149, 150, 151 and 152 of the CrPC within the local limits of the area comprised within the border districts of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram,” the notification said. Section 41 of the CrPC states that any police officer may, without an order from a magistrate and without a warrant, arrest any person. Section 47 gives powers for search of place entered by person sought to be arrested.
BJP mismanaged water resources to win Pune, Baramati: Congress
As Pune stares at a water crisis, the opposition Congress on Thursday alleged that the leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) deliberately ‘mismanaged’ the situation for political gains in the Pune and Baramati Lok Sabha (LS) constituencies.Soaring mercury levels in the past weeks have caused water reserves in Pune’s dams to plummet dangerously, triggering fears of imminent water cuts. In this backdrop, senior leaders like Mohan Joshi, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)’s candidate for the Pune Lok Sabha seat, and Arvind Shinde, leader of the Congress in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), have alleged that Pune’s Guardian Minister Girish Bapat deliberately diverted potable water from the city’s share to outlying areas in Daund and Indapur in order to enable the BJP to win the all-important Pune and Baramati Lok Sabha constituencies.Both Daund and Indapur are important segments of the Baramati LS seat, where NCP MP Supriya Sule faced the BJP’s Kanchan Kul in the elections on April 23.“Mr. Bapat was careful not to introduce water cuts when the electoral contest was in full swing for the Pune Lok Sabha seat. Furthermore, the potable water sorely needed for Pune city has been diverted to the outlying areas Indapur and Daund [part of the Baramati Lok Sabha seat] to ensure Kanchan Kul’s victory,” said Mr. Joshi. He also accused Mr. Bapat of diverting potable water meant for Pune for irrigation and running sugar mills in the district’s outlying areas.Mr. Shinde too said while there protests over the acute water scarcity in several parts of urban Pune, rural areas in Pune district were not complaining. “It is interesting to note that not a single factory in Bhigwan or Patas [in Daund] or other sugar factories there have been affected while Pune thirsts for potable water,” Mr. Shinde said.However, the ruling BJP, which controls the PMC, has dubbed the Congress’ allegations as “utterly baseless”. “There is not an iota of truth in the Congress’ allegations against Mr. Bapat that water was diverted for political gains… we promise that the city will not face any water cuts till the start of the monsoon season on July 15,” said Shrinath Bhimale, the BJP’s leader of the House in the PMC.Other BJP leaders pointed to the weak showers in September 2018, which, compounded by rising mercury levels, had resulted in reduced water stocks in Pune’s major dams.According to PMC authorities, the cumulative water stocks in the four major dams that constitute the city’s potable water lifeline: Khadakwasla, Panshet, Varasgaon and Temghar, are down to a perilous 6.62 TMCft as opposed to a reserve of 10 TMCft same time last year.The Congress has further alleged that the PMC, which is controlled by the BJP, has failed to ‘stand up’ to the Irrigation Department as it kept tapping into the city’s ‘water quota’ to supply outlying areas in Pune district at will. In September last year, a massive discharge of excess water from the Khadakwasla dam, apparently authorised by the Irrigation Department, caused the right wall of the Mutha canal to cave in, leading to massive water wastage while damaging hundreds of homes and slum areas along the riverfront.“2.5 TMC was released from the Khadakwasla dam in September last year. Now, another 2.5 TMC has been diverted from there since April 15 to Daund and Indapur… There is no accountability whatsoever in these decisions,” said Right to Information activist Vivek Velankar, observing that it was strange that the city was facing acute scarcity despite experiencing good rainfall in 2018 when all four dams were filled to capacity.
For students from Marathwada, no return home this summer
As drought and the concomitant water crisis grip Maharashtra, several students from the State’s parched hinterland studying in Pune city have no choice but to skip their summer visit to their respective hometowns.The drought has compelled these students, who hail from some of the worst-hit districts in the Marathwada region, to be ‘exiled’ in Pune during their summer holidays. According to 21-year-old Vinayak Renewal, an M.A. student at S.P. College, a visit to his home in Nanded at this time of the year could cause embarrassment to him and his family.“Much as I would love to go home for the summer, my presence there would only add to the burden of my family. The drought and water crisis has ravaged farmlands in my village, putting a great financial strain on my father. If I go there now, he would feel sorry at not being able to offer me something and I in turn would be ashamed to ask him for financial help,” says Mr. Renewal.His father’s two-acre cotton and soyabean plot has been destroyed by the truant monsoon, plunging the family into debt. To support himself and pay for his studies, the student works a six-hour evening shift everyday at a clothes shop . “I get paid ₹6,000 a month, which helps me pay part of my fees, books and other study material. It is tough to surmount the soaring education costs, but there is no other way,” says Mr. Renewal, who sleeps in a clothes godown at night to defray his expenses.No unique situation Twenty- four-year-old Nivrutti Tigote, hailing from Rinsangaon in Nanded’s Loha taluk, has a similar story. Now pursuing his M.A. in Economics from S.P. College, his father’s death from cancer in 2017 was a turning point in his life.“At that time [in 2017], I seriously toyed with the idea of giving up education and settling in my village to care for my mother. But I was persuaded by my teachers who said I could only secure my future through studies. Moreover, consecutive years of bad rainfall have laid waste to my village, which faces a water and food crisis as all crops have been destroyed,” says Mr. Tigote.He says that his situation is not unique. It is the story of hundreds of students across Marathwada who have no jobs and hail from villages reeling under acute agrarian distress.Mr. Tigote, who shares a single room in Pashan with five other students hailing from drought-hit regions, has taken up a job with a catering service to sustain himself. “I get ₹600 for a night event and ₹400 for a day job,” he says.For 26-year-old Deepak Kangane, hailing from Ranmala in drought-racked Jalna district, there is no leaving Pune until he “makes good” by cracking one of the competitive exams. “Like many others, I hail from a family of farmers. I had two unsuccessful attempts and cracking the UPSC exams. Now, I am determined to get into government service,” he says.Mr. Tigote, Mr. Renewal and Mr. Kangane pursue studies somewhere in the hours stolen between classes and their part-time jobs.A helping handIn a bid to ameliorate their hard-pressed situations, the ‘Student Helping Hands (SHH)’, a volunteer outfit formed by proactive student leaders in Pune, has come forward to help out their colleagues with free meals. “If a student from the arid districts in Marathwada thinks about visiting home, the dire water situation is a major deterrent. A whole lot of planning needs to be done on how to procure additional water in the event a relative comes to visit,” says Kuldeep Ambekar, a founding member of the SHH and leader of the student wing of the Loktantrik Janata Dal United. He notes that these students barely get a chance to reunite with their families twice — once during summer and the second time during the Diwali holidays.“They are cut off from their families, without emotional support and are forced to battle it out in the big city. To ease their expenses, the SHH is helping 700 students from drought-hit regions by providing them two meals a day. We are also helping these students secure part-time jobs, so that they support themselves and are not dependent on their already hard-pressed relatives back home,” said Mr. Ambekar.
Huge Research Gaps on Youth Concussion in Sports, U.S. Report Finds
A new report released today by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) may help dispel some common misconceptions about sport-related concussions in youth—for example, that wearing helmets can prevent them. First and foremost, however, it highlights the large gaps in knowledge that make it difficult for parents, coaches, and physicians to navigate decisions about prevention and treatment. The report also suggests where federal research agencies should focus their attention.The study, by a 17-member committee assembled by the Washington, D.C.-based IOM, which advises the government on health issues, comes amid growing concern about sports-related brain injuries. Although much of the attention has focused on adult professional athletes playing American football, health professionals have highlighted the need to understand risks among young athletes as well. To help clarify matters, a number of agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Defense, and the Department of Education, asked IOM to conduct its study.The most glaring obstacle to understanding youth concussion at this point is a lack of data, the report finds. Most published research on sports-related concussions has been conducted in adults, and “there’s little-to-no information about concussions in youth,” particularly for ages 5 to 21, says panel member Susan Margulies, a bioengineer at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s dangerous to assume that findings in adults can be mapped onto children, she says, because of the changes that occur during brain development. “It’s possible that the threshold for injury might be different across different age ranges.”Sign up for our daily newsletterGet more great content like this delivered right to you!Country *AfghanistanAland IslandsAlbaniaAlgeriaAndorraAngolaAnguillaAntarcticaAntigua and BarbudaArgentinaArmeniaArubaAustraliaAustriaAzerbaijanBahamasBahrainBangladeshBarbadosBelarusBelgiumBelizeBeninBermudaBhutanBolivia, Plurinational State ofBonaire, Sint Eustatius and SabaBosnia and HerzegovinaBotswanaBouvet IslandBrazilBritish Indian Ocean TerritoryBrunei DarussalamBulgariaBurkina FasoBurundiCambodiaCameroonCanadaCape VerdeCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChadChileChinaChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsColombiaComorosCongoCongo, The Democratic Republic of theCook IslandsCosta RicaCote D’IvoireCroatiaCubaCuraçaoCyprusCzech RepublicDenmarkDjiboutiDominicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEgyptEl SalvadorEquatorial GuineaEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFalkland Islands (Malvinas)Faroe IslandsFijiFinlandFranceFrench GuianaFrench PolynesiaFrench Southern TerritoriesGabonGambiaGeorgiaGermanyGhanaGibraltarGreeceGreenlandGrenadaGuadeloupeGuatemalaGuernseyGuineaGuinea-BissauGuyanaHaitiHeard Island and Mcdonald IslandsHoly See (Vatican City State)HondurasHong KongHungaryIcelandIndiaIndonesiaIran, Islamic Republic ofIraqIrelandIsle of ManIsraelItalyJamaicaJapanJerseyJordanKazakhstanKenyaKiribatiKorea, Democratic People’s Republic ofKorea, Republic ofKuwaitKyrgyzstanLao People’s Democratic RepublicLatviaLebanonLesothoLiberiaLibyan Arab JamahiriyaLiechtensteinLithuaniaLuxembourgMacaoMacedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic ofMadagascarMalawiMalaysiaMaldivesMaliMaltaMartiniqueMauritaniaMauritiusMayotteMexicoMoldova, Republic ofMonacoMongoliaMontenegroMontserratMoroccoMozambiqueMyanmarNamibiaNauruNepalNetherlandsNew CaledoniaNew ZealandNicaraguaNigerNigeriaNiueNorfolk IslandNorwayOmanPakistanPalestinianPanamaPapua New GuineaParaguayPeruPhilippinesPitcairnPolandPortugalQatarReunionRomaniaRussian FederationRWANDASaint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da CunhaSaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint Martin (French part)Saint Pierre and MiquelonSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesSamoaSan MarinoSao Tome and PrincipeSaudi ArabiaSenegalSerbiaSeychellesSierra LeoneSingaporeSint Maarten (Dutch part)SlovakiaSloveniaSolomon IslandsSomaliaSouth AfricaSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSouth SudanSpainSri LankaSudanSurinameSvalbard and Jan MayenSwazilandSwedenSwitzerlandSyrian Arab RepublicTaiwanTajikistanTanzania, United Republic ofThailandTimor-LesteTogoTokelauTongaTrinidad and TobagoTunisiaTurkeyTurkmenistanTurks and Caicos IslandsTuvaluUgandaUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited KingdomUnited StatesUruguayUzbekistanVanuatuVenezuela, Bolivarian Republic ofVietnamVirgin Islands, BritishWallis and FutunaWestern SaharaYemenZambiaZimbabweI also wish to receive emails from AAAS/Science and Science advertisers, including information on products, services and special offers which may include but are not limited to news, careers information & upcoming events.Required fields are included by an asterisk(*)Still, some general conclusions can be drawn from the existing literature, the report says. It’s clear that, overall, getting a concussion is not good, and that the closer together multiple concussions occur, the more likely it is that negative symptoms will result. Roughly 10% to 20% of concussion cases in youth result in symptoms that last for weeks to years, the study found—most commonly headaches, memory impairment, and processing speed.However, there’s not yet enough scientific data to guide safety programs such as the Hit Count Initiative launched last year by the Sports Legacy Institute, which aims to set a threshold for a “safe” number of hits to the head, the report finds. Without sufficient evidence, any such recommendation at this point could give parents a false sense of security, says panel member Kristy Arbogast, a pediatrician and engineer at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.Also unclear is the benefit of preventative measures such as wearing helmets or mouth guards. Although helmets can prevent skull fractures and protect the face, eyes, and mouth, no available evidence suggests that they prevent concussion, contrary to many commercial claims, the report says. It’s “very common on the sidelines” to hear parents say that they believe a specially designed helmet they have purchased for their child will help protect them from concussions, says Rebekah Mannix, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital, who was not involved in the IOM report. The report could help “cut through some of the misconceptions out there,” she says. Some common-sense measures, such as playing fair and by the rules, do appear to reduce concussions in youth sports, the report finds.Large, controlled, randomized studies will be needed to answer the most burning questions asked by worried parents—such as whether concussions sustained in childhood can result in long-term problems, like the degenerative brain disease thought to have contributed to retired football player Junior Seau’s suicide last year. However, there is some evidence from studies of retired professional athletes that a history of concussions increases depression risk, the report found. Among other suggestions, the panel recommends that CDC set up a national surveillance system to monitor the incidence of sports-related concussions, including in ages 5 to 21. That system should gather information about factors that may contribute to how children recover from concussions, such as age, sex, preexisting conditions such as learning disabilities, and socioeconomic status, it suggests.The report also recommends that the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and organizations such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association support research to develop better age-specific recommendations and rules, and educate parents, coaches, and schools to help change the “culture of resistance” that surrounds concussion in many sports, according to the report. “All of those that interact with an injured child need to recognize that this is an injury that requires serious attention,” Arbogast says.
Ancient worms may have saved Earth
You can credit your existence to tiny wormlike creatures that lived 500 million years ago, a new study suggests. By tunneling through the sea floor, scientists say, these creatures kept oxygen concentrations at just the right level to allow animals and other complex life to evolve. The finding may help answer an enduring mystery of Earth’s past.At the dawn of the Cambrian period about 570 million years ago, multicellular organisms were just beginning to appear, largely in the oceans. But for animals to evolve, the concentration of oxygen in the ocean and atmosphere had to be just right. Too little oxygen, and nascent animals would have suffocated. Too much, and lightning strikes would have created catastrophic fires, torching the primordial land vegetation. “How come oxygen levels didn’t crash or double?” says Tais Dahl, a geochemist at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Odense. “Something [regulated] oxygen in relatively narrow limits.”A key moment in the evolution of the new study was when Dahl met Richard Boyle, a geochemical modeler who was then at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. Dahl was puzzled by data he and others had collected from rock outcroppings that were once on the floor of the ocean. For 30 million years, beginning 530 million years ago, the oxygen levels of the ocean dropped steadily, four different sets of chemical measurements suggested.Sign up for our daily newsletterGet more great content like this delivered right to you!Country *AfghanistanAland IslandsAlbaniaAlgeriaAndorraAngolaAnguillaAntarcticaAntigua and BarbudaArgentinaArmeniaArubaAustraliaAustriaAzerbaijanBahamasBahrainBangladeshBarbadosBelarusBelgiumBelizeBeninBermudaBhutanBolivia, Plurinational State ofBonaire, Sint Eustatius and SabaBosnia and HerzegovinaBotswanaBouvet IslandBrazilBritish Indian Ocean TerritoryBrunei DarussalamBulgariaBurkina FasoBurundiCambodiaCameroonCanadaCape VerdeCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChadChileChinaChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsColombiaComorosCongoCongo, The Democratic Republic of theCook IslandsCosta RicaCote D’IvoireCroatiaCubaCuraçaoCyprusCzech RepublicDenmarkDjiboutiDominicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEgyptEl SalvadorEquatorial GuineaEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFalkland Islands (Malvinas)Faroe IslandsFijiFinlandFranceFrench GuianaFrench PolynesiaFrench Southern TerritoriesGabonGambiaGeorgiaGermanyGhanaGibraltarGreeceGreenlandGrenadaGuadeloupeGuatemalaGuernseyGuineaGuinea-BissauGuyanaHaitiHeard Island and Mcdonald IslandsHoly See (Vatican City State)HondurasHong KongHungaryIcelandIndiaIndonesiaIran, Islamic Republic ofIraqIrelandIsle of ManIsraelItalyJamaicaJapanJerseyJordanKazakhstanKenyaKiribatiKorea, Democratic People’s Republic ofKorea, Republic ofKuwaitKyrgyzstanLao People’s Democratic RepublicLatviaLebanonLesothoLiberiaLibyan Arab JamahiriyaLiechtensteinLithuaniaLuxembourgMacaoMacedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic ofMadagascarMalawiMalaysiaMaldivesMaliMaltaMartiniqueMauritaniaMauritiusMayotteMexicoMoldova, Republic ofMonacoMongoliaMontenegroMontserratMoroccoMozambiqueMyanmarNamibiaNauruNepalNetherlandsNew CaledoniaNew ZealandNicaraguaNigerNigeriaNiueNorfolk IslandNorwayOmanPakistanPalestinianPanamaPapua New GuineaParaguayPeruPhilippinesPitcairnPolandPortugalQatarReunionRomaniaRussian FederationRWANDASaint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da CunhaSaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint Martin (French part)Saint Pierre and MiquelonSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesSamoaSan MarinoSao Tome and PrincipeSaudi ArabiaSenegalSerbiaSeychellesSierra LeoneSingaporeSint Maarten (Dutch part)SlovakiaSloveniaSolomon IslandsSomaliaSouth AfricaSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSouth SudanSpainSri LankaSudanSurinameSvalbard and Jan MayenSwazilandSwedenSwitzerlandSyrian Arab RepublicTaiwanTajikistanTanzania, United Republic ofThailandTimor-LesteTogoTokelauTongaTrinidad and TobagoTunisiaTurkeyTurkmenistanTurks and Caicos IslandsTuvaluUgandaUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited KingdomUnited StatesUruguayUzbekistanVanuatuVenezuela, Bolivarian Republic ofVietnamVirgin Islands, BritishWallis and FutunaWestern SaharaYemenZambiaZimbabweI also wish to receive emails from AAAS/Science and Science advertisers, including information on products, services and special offers which may include but are not limited to news, careers information & upcoming events.Required fields are included by an asterisk(*)Boyle, now at SDU, had developed a hypothesis that might explain why. By burrowing, he reasoned, seafloor creepy-crawlies that lived at the start of the Cambrian kick-started a complex chain of events that altered the chemical composition of Earth. In the new study, the two scientists and their colleagues use a simple model to spell out their proposed mechanism. The idea is that as they dug and wiggled, these early multicellular creatures—some were likely worms as long as 40 cm—exposed new layers of seafloor sediment to the ocean’s water. Each new batch of sediment that settles onto the sea floor contains bacteria; as those bacteria were exposed to the oxygen in the water, they began storing a chemical called phosphate in their cells. So as the creatures churned up more sediment layers, more phosphate built up in ocean sediments and less was found in seawater.Because algae and other photosynthetic ocean life require phosphate to grow, removing phosphate from seawater reduced their growth. Less photosynthesis, in turn, meant less oxygen released into the ocean. In this way, the system formed a negative feedback loop that automatically slowed the rise in oxygen levels as the levels increased. What kept the oxygen levels from getting too low? Less oxygen in the water also meant fewer worms, so less oxygen-reducing digging, the researchers explain. “We think these animals may have completely transformed geochemical cycles,” says Dahl, whose team reported its work online this week in Nature Geoscience.”Although we are still far from knowing to what extent worms and their ilk influenced the geochemical history of our planet, this is a novel and testable hypothesis, which will inspire novel thinking,” writes Filip Meysman, a biogeochemist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research in Yerseke, in a commentary on the research in Nature Geoscience. But he cautions that the rapid increase in the extent of worms’ burrowing modeled in the new study may have been limited to some areas of the ancient ocean and has yet to be shown to be a global phenomenon.“In hindsight, the result isn’t particularly surprising or counterintuitive,” adds biogeochemist Lee Kump of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, in an e-mail to Science. Still, he says, “I wish I’d thought of that.”
Rare bird now thrives in tree farms
Even when John James Audubon first described the Swainson’s warbler in the 1830s, this small songbird bird was considered rare. While other birds from Audubon’s day, such as the ivory-billed woodpecker and the passenger pigeon, have now disappeared, this secretive warbler barely hung on, breeding in the dense underbrush of southeastern U.S. deciduous forests. Now, its populations are on the rise because the species is shifting where it spends its summers. Over the past 50 years, foresters in Texas, Louisiana, and other southeastern states have been planting rows of pines and harvesting them every 25 or so years. These plantations cover 16 million hectares, and biologists have called them biological deserts, thinking they support little wildlife. But following up on a report of Swainson’s warbler nests on one such tree plantation in Texas in the 1990s, Gary Graves, a Smithsonian Institution ornithologist who has studied this warbler for decades, has since 2008 found the bird in pine plantations in 10 states. The warbler thrives in young pine plantations, when the trees are still tightly packed and crowded with other bushes. Fortunately, because agroforesters rotate their plots, as the birds outgrow one section, there’s always a new one to settle into. By the turn of the next century, pine plantations could be the primary breeding ground for this bird, Graves reports online today in Bird Conservation International.
Inside the TalkTalk Indian Scam Call Centre
TalkTalk customers are being targeted by an industrial-scale fraud network in India, according to whistleblowers who say they were among hundreds of staff hired to scam customers of the British telecoms giant. Related Items