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Tag Archives: adapting
‘The Last of Us’ Come Alive: Fungi Are Adapting to Warmer Temperatures
Dangerous fungal infections are on the rise, and a growing body of research suggests warmer temperatures might be a culprit.
The human body’s average temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit has long been too hot for most fungi to thrive, infectious-disease specialists say. But as temperatures have risen globally, some fungi might be adapting to endure more heat stress, including conditions within the human body, research suggests. Climate change might also be creating conditions for some disease-causing fungi to expand their geographical range, research shows.
“As fungi are exposed to more consistent elevated temperatures, there’s a real possibility that certain fungi that were previously harmless suddenly become potential pathogens,” said
Peter Pappas,
an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Deaths from fungal infections are increasing, due in part to growing populations of people with weakened immune systems who are more vulnerable to severe fungal disease, public-health experts said. At least 7,000 people died in the U.S. from fungal infections in 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, up from hundreds of people each year around 1970. There are few effective and nontoxic medications to treat such infections, they said.
Photos: What We Know About Deadly Fungal Infections
In the video game and HBO show “The Last of Us,” a fungus infects people en masse and turns them into monstrous creatures. The fungus is based on a real genus, Ophiocordyceps, that includes species that infect insects, disabling and killing them.
There have been no known Ophiocordyceps infections in people, infectious-disease experts said, but they said the rising temperatures that facilitated the spread of the killer fungi in the show may be pushing other fungi to better adapt to human hosts and expand into new geographical ranges.
A January study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that higher temperatures may prompt some disease-causing fungi to evolve faster to survive.
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Researchers at Duke University grew 800 generations of a type of Cryptococcus, a group of fungi that can cause severe disease in people, in conditions of either 86 degrees Fahrenheit or 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The researchers used DNA sequencing to track changes in the fungi’s genome with a focus on “jumping genes”—DNA sequences that can move from one location on the genome to another.
Asiya Gusa, a study co-author and postdoctoral researcher in Duke’s Molecular Genetics and Microbiology Department, said movement of such genes can result in mutations and alter gene expression. In fungi, Dr. Gusa said, the movement of the genes could play a role in allowing fungi to adapt to stressors including heat.
Dr. Gusa and her colleagues found that the rate of movement of “jumping genes” was five times higher in the Cryptococcus raised in the warmer temperature.
Cryptococcus infections can be deadly, particularly in immunocompromised people. At least 110,000 people die globally each year from brain infections caused by Cryptococcus fungi, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Candida auris, a highly deadly fungus that has been reported in about half of U.S. states, also appears to have adapted to warmer temperatures, infectious-disease specialists said.
“Fungi isn’t transmitted from person to person, but through fungal spores in the air,” Dr. Gusa said. “They’re in our homes, they’re everywhere.”
An analysis published last year in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases said some potentially deadly fungi found in the soil, including Coccidioides and Histoplasma, have significantly expanded their geographical range in the U.S. since the 1950s. Andrej Spec, a co-author of the analysis and an associate professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said warming temperatures, as well as other environmental alterations associated with climate change, could have played a role in this spread.
Cases of Coccidioidomycosis or Valley fever, a disease caused by Coccidioides, were once mostly limited to the Southwest, Dr. Spec said. Now people are being diagnosed in significant numbers in most states. Histoplasma infections, once common only in the Midwest, have been reported in 94% of states, the analysis said. Histoplasma is also spread through bat droppings and climate change has been linked to changing bat migration patterns, Dr. Spec said.
The World Health Organization has identified Cryptococcus, Coccidioides, Histoplasma and Candida auris as being among the fungal pathogens of greatest threat to people.
“We keep saying these fungi are rare, but this must be the most common rare disease because they’re now everywhere,” Dr. Spec said.
Write to Dominique Mosbergen at dominique.mosbergen@wsj.com
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Sega Adapting Space Channel 5, Comix Zone Movies – The Hollywood Reporter
With a third Sonic the Hedghog movie now in the works, Sega, the video game company behind the global hit, is now targeting other titles for adaptation.
Sega has partnered with Picturestart, the banner behind the recently released Am I Ok? and Sundance hit Cha Cha Real Smooth, to develop film adaptations of two of its 1990s video game titles, Space Channel 5 and Comix Zone.
Channel 5, a comedy/dance adaptation of the cult-classic 1999 dance game, will tell the story of a hapless fast-food worker who is recruited by a freedom reporter from the future to save the world from aliens using the one thing that unites all people on the planet: our love of silly viral dances.
That project is being written by Barry Battles and Nir Paniry. Battles wrote and directed The Baytown Outlaws, a 2012 crime comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton and Eva Longoria. Paniry wrote and directed Extracted, a sci-fi drama nominated for the Emerging Visions Award at South by Southwest.
Zone, an adaptation of the cult console game, follows a jaded comic book creator and a young, queer writer of color who, when sucked into the final issue of his popular series, must put aside their differences to stop a dangerous supervillain from sowing complete destruction. In the process, they wittily explore the ever-evolving art of storytelling itself.
Zone will be written by Mae Catt, whose credits include writing on the Emmy-winning animated DC series Young Justice, and the How to Train Your Dragon spinoff series, Dragons: The Nine Realm. She was also a writer on Netflix’s Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy.
Royce Reeves-Darby and Erik Feig are overseeing both projects for Picturestart and will produce alongside the company’s Samie Kim Falvey. Picturestart already has a toe in video game adaptations as it is one of the companies producing Borderlands, Lionsgate’s fantasy based on the Gearbox/2K Games video game.
Sega’s Toru Nakahara, producer for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie franchise as well as executive producer for Sonic Prime TV series, will produce the two adaptations. Takumi Yoshinaga, Sega video game director, will join the team for Channel 5 while Kagasei Shimomura, Sega’s video game producer, will join the team for Zone.
Battles is repped by CAA and Bellevue Productions while Paniry is repped by Bellevue. Catt is repped by Writ Large.
Emmanuel, emu viral on TikTok, Twitter, adapting to ‘new life of fame’
We wanted to know how Emmanuel felt about being a viral sensation. Millions of people have watched videos of the giant bird strutting into the frame of Blake’s TikTok videos, uninvited and oblivious to anything going on around him. In some cases, Emmanuel attacks the phone while it’s recording — pecking the device to the ground — and he constantly interrupts the social media content creator’s educational videos about animals and farm life.
In the videos, Blake, 29, can be heard scolding the emu, 7: “Emmanuel, don’t do it!” Merchandise is coming, Blake says.
In their first joint interview, Emmanuel stared into our Zoom call, then at Blake, then away from the screen. He refused to comment.
“Emmanuel’s just kind of a down-to-earth guy,” Blake told The Post. “I don’t really think he cares [about being famous].”
Blake says fame isn’t going to change Emmanuel: “I have talked to him about it a few times, but he hasn’t really had much of a reaction. I think he’s just … adapting to this new life of fame.”
Emmanuel may not care about his newfound celebrity, but people on the internet do. TikTok videos posted on the account of Knuckle Bump Farms — Blake’s family farm in South Florida, where she and Emmanuel live — have each garnered tens of thousands of likes.
“I would watch this 24 hours a day,” Scottish comedian Janey Godley wrote when she shared the video on Twitter on Saturday.
One video, in which Blake calls Emmanuel by his full name — Emmanuel Todd Lopez — has been viewed more than 2 million times.
Emmanuel has become a symbol: Of defiance. Of audacity. “Become ungovernable. Be the Emmanuel you wish to see in the world,” one book author tweeted.
And Blake herself is relatable to many on social media — representing those just trying to get things done amid the chaos of life. Some parents compared her futile attempts at persuading a giant bird not to do something — and watching helplessly while Emmanuel, as Blake says, chooses “violence” anyway — with trying to raise a toddler. Some teachers said it reminded them of unruly classrooms.
“This is other-worldly. It’s magical,” one Twitter user wrote. “I like how she tries to reason with the animals, and they just won’t be reasoned with,” wrote another.
Blake, who has been raising Emmanuel on the farm since 2015, has been shocked and somewhat “overwhelmed” by the success of her Emmanuel videos. She attributes it to the fact that people need distraction and a reason to smile — as the news cycle is dominated by the war in Ukraine, deadly heat waves and other grim stories.
Blake describes her videos as “fun, lighthearted content, where you’re not having to worry about politics, you’re not having to worry about all the terrible things that are going on in the world right now.”
Blake was raised near her grandparents’ farm and developed a deep love for animals as a child. She has been creating social media content professionally since 2013. After a brief stint in Los Angeles, she moved to Knuckle Bump Farms with her girlfriend to help Blake’s aging grandparents care for their animals full time.
She began posting videos with the animals — cows, donkeys, ducks and, yes, emus in the plural — in 2018. Her rationale: “The world is dark, and animals bring everyone joy. They’re funny, they’re entertaining.”
The first time Emmanuel interrupted her as she was filming a video on the farm, Blake was irritated and didn’t post it. About a month later, she was re-watching the video on her phone and thought the interruption was funny.
“I just posted it, not thinking anything of it,” she said. It “completely spiraled from there.”
Blake says Emmanuel’s interruptions aren’t staged. He has a genuine “obsession with the camera” — and “obsession with me. … No matter where I am … he always has to be right next to me.”
Emmanuel does not seem to feel the same way about the other emu on the farm, Ellen. She is his least favorite creature on the property, Blake says.
Instead, Emmanuel prefers the company of a little donkey named Rose. Ellen has also interrupted Blake’s TikToks to stare curiously at the phone — as has Princess, an affectionate deer, and Regina, a curious rhea. But no one has taken off online quite like Emmanuel.
Knuckle Bump Farms mostly specializes in miniature cattle. Emmanuel and Ellen were adopted by Blake’s grandmother from another farm in 2015 and have been raised as pets ever since.
“They were about a foot-and-a-half tall when they first came,” Blake said.
And while Blake shares the highlights on her family farm’s TikTok account, she says “what you see online is literally maybe 2 percent of the chaos that ensues” there.
Now, Blake hopes to leverage Emmanuel’s social media stardom to sell merchandise with his face on it to benefit Knuckle Bump.
She has long-term ambitions, too — perhaps even a television series featuring the giant bird, she says. While wild emus tend to live five to 10 years, Blake says, in captivity, they can live 20. Some emus have even been known to live to 60. Emmanuel is “in great health,” Blake says.
“There’s a bright future for Knuckle Bump Farms and for Emmanuel and for all the other animals, and I could see this going really, really far,” Blake adds. “I am just super stoked to be along for the ride.”
Sony Appears to be Interested in Adapting Previous-Gen Peripherals for Modern Consoles, According to Patent
Do you ever wish you could hook that dusty old EyeToy up to your shiny new PS5?
Us neither, but the use of older peripherals with modern hardware appears to be something Sony is interested in, according to a recent patent filing spotted by Game Rant.
The patent (which is absurdly technical and filled with jargon beyond the comprehension of mere mortals) is called “Systems and Methods For Converting A Legacy Code Into An Updated Code”.
Contained within is an image which appears to show a way of emulating software that used peripheral devices like the PlayStation Eye, PSP Go, PlayStation Mouse, a DualShock controller, Sony Media Remote, and Playstation Move wand, through something called a “legacy card reader”.
VGC was quick to note that these devices are primarily from the PS3 generation, which might lend credence to those hardware-level PS3 emulation rumours we heard about back in April.
Perhaps Sony is more interested in game preservation than we had initially given it credit for, although the jury is still out on that one.
While a pretty compelling concept, it is worth noting that patents alone aren’t a guarantee of anything more concrete, simply an idea that a company has thought about pursuing.
What do you think about the idea of previous generation hardware running on modern consoles? Adapt yourself in the comments section below.
How European businesses are adapting to Brexit
By Victoria Bisset
BBC News
image copyrightGetty Images
It’s been almost two months since the UK’s post-Brexit free trade deal with the EU came into effect.
Under the new rules, European companies must directly pay UK sales tax, or VAT, on sales under £135 (€155; $190), so they now have to register and file quarterly declarations with the UK authorities.
Other changes include customs declarations and additional paperwork. So how have they adapted so far and what impact have the changes had?
Laurent Caplat, founder of French online food shop BienManger.com
BienManger took its final orders from the UK on 18 December and shipped them before the new rules came into effect on 1 January. It is unclear if and when it will resume service to the UK.
We run an e-commerce deli, selling a selection of fine foods from France, Europe and worldwide. Around 20% of our orders come from outside France.
The UK market is not central to our business, but UK customers were looking for these products and happy to find them on our website.
Even in November and December it was kind of blurred in terms of what would happen with Brexit and what the rules would be. Now we’ve heard about the new procedures to send parcels to the UK but it’s still not very clear.
We still have a relationship with some English producers and sell products from England and the UK on our website. And we have customers in England calling to say: “I used to order this product on your website, where can I find it?”
It would be a pleasure to start reselling to the UK but we need to spend more time to better understand the changes and cost involved. The question we have is, is it worth implementing all of these solutions for the small amount of business we were doing with the UK?
From my perspective it’s hard to have an opinion on Brexit: everyone will adjust and adapt. I just regret that we used to have this free market and it was so easy to do business all across Europe, and now it’s more difficult.
Thomas Leppa, co-founder of Finnish online wall sticker design company Made of Sundays
The company was established around three years ago and has continued to sell to the UK since Brexit.
We are a very small business but around 20% of our exports go to the UK.
The biggest practical thing has been the confusion among customers. Many do not understand how the system works: people think if they order above £135 they do not have to pay tax at all, so then we have to explain that the more you buy, the more you have to do yourself.
With purchases over £135, the customer is responsible for paying VAT once the product arrives in the UK.
With online shopping nowadays people expect free shipping, but with Brexit it’s fairly expensive and those costs have to be paid for. When you use a courier service, they have to do customs declarations and that’s around €5 (£4.30) added cost for each package.
What I don’t know yet is how complicated the tax declaration to the UK is, and how much work that is. Luckily a big part of our UK sales go through Etsy, the marketplace, and there they add the UK VAT on top of the price.
But the biggest issue for us is our accounting: it’s one more country where we have to check all the taxes and get the sums correct for the Finnish tax authorities. It’s a bit more work in that sense but otherwise it’s been going fairly well, so we haven’t really thought about not selling to the UK – at least for the moment.
Dorte Randrup, export manager for clothing brand NÜ Denmark
The company faced a month of disruption but deliveries to its UK suppliers have now returned to normal.
I think the UK is the fourth or fifth biggest country we work with.
We managed to send some stock to our distributors in the UK and Ireland before Brexit, then we had around a month or so when we were unable to send deliveries.
We had to wait for VAT numbers to make sure we had everything correct in our system for the new customs regulations but we had a company help us to get it right.
Our distributors in the UK managed contact with customers, but the impact wasn’t too bad because it’s the middle of the season and because of the UK lockdown.
We are able to deliver to the whole of the UK now.
Harald Mücke, owner of German online shop Spielmaterial.de, selling board game components
The company has stopped selling direct to hundreds of individual customers in the UK because of the VAT rule.
We thought about getting a VAT code to be able to send smaller items to the UK but it’s too much work. So we cannot send to private customers in the UK if the order is below £135.
I have some business-to-business clients and they are not affected, but all the small clients are gone. There are something like 400-500 UK customers we cannot serve any more, so it’s causing a loss here.
On orders above £135, it’s much more expensive for all UK clients because they have to pay customs charges and some fees: for example, DHL is charging a fixed fee of €12 per parcel.
I can sell to UK private customers via platforms like Etsy and eBay – then the platform has to collect the UK taxes. But you have to pay an initial fee, which costs money. We have something like 10,000 items so we’d have to pay the fee 10,000 times, and that’s something we don’t want to do. So the customers can’t buy everything.
We also have to update our online shop system to adopt the VAT system and UK shipping costs, which costs several thousand euros. This is the only country in the world handling taxes in this manner and that’s the main problem. It’s an individual thing done by the UK and nowhere else in the world.
Bal Loyla, owner of online Eastern European grocery store Europa Fresh, UK
The company launched shortly before the first UK lockdown in 2020 but has now suspended deliveries to Northern Ireland and Europe.
We’re still growing as a business, but right now that’s been stifled.
The idea was to start exporting more: we know the customers are out there and we get a lot of enquiries. But it’s something we’re going to have to put on the back burner until things become easier or clearer.
We’ve been advised by the couriers that they’re no longer carrying food to Northern Ireland.
Then with Europe we’re having a lot of issues with orders because there’s a lot of paperwork involved. You have to detail every single product that’s in the order – sometimes our orders have anything up to 50 to 100 items and that takes too much time.
We’re only a small business so it’s not worth the headache.
We used to import ourselves from wholesalers in Europe but now we have to use companies here in the UK. One supplier we had in Germany is now using a customs broker and the cost is added to each delivery, so it’s no longer worth it for us to import from them – I think they’re adding an extra €200 on top of delivery charges and product costs.
Our margins are almost cut in half because we have to pay the middleman, whereas before we could import and save. Unfortunately we have to pass the extra cost on to the customers.
We’re only seven weeks into Brexit and prices have gone up, but it’s difficult to say at the moment exactly how much that’s going to affect us long term. I think there needs to be a lot more guidance for smaller businesses like us.