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Understanding Google's E-A-T Guidelines – Gearing Up for Search Success
by Team iQuanti | 10 Sep, 2019
Today, the E-A-T (expertise, authority and trustworthiness) metric is highly influential in determining how pages rank in search—especially for so-called YMYL (your money or your life) content.
The reason is that Google looks closely at page quality to assign rank. As Google describes in its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, high E-A-T is a prerequisite for a page to be considered high or very high quality.
How did this come to be—and what does the primacy of E-A-T mean for marketers and webmasters?
Putting E-A-T into context: How search works
Search engine crawlers sift through billions of pages, then rank-order them, using a diverse set of criteria, against specific keywords or keyphrases.
This rank-ordering rewards pages that have a very specific focus. A page that is optimized for the keyphrase "best travel credit cards" is, therefore, unlikely to rank for the related but fundamentally dissimilar search "best credit cards".
Capturing user intent with strong content is just one piece of the SEO puzzle, however. Imagine the phrase "best credit cards". When many pages are optimized for that particular phrase, how does Google rank them against each other?
The answer is: by looking at how valuable the page/domain is to users.
EAT: An expanded notion of what makes a page valuable
In the web's early days, links were used as a proxy for value. Domains that had more inbound links were seen as more authoritative—and thus, more trustworthy.
While links are still relevant and remain highly correlated with rank, there are additional attributes that make E-A-T a more comprehensive measure of a domain's value to the end-user.
In its search quality guidelines, Google says that the amount and quality of main content, website information, and website reputation all inform the E-A-T of a website.
"Think about the topic of the page," the guidelines read. "What kind of expertise is required for the page to achieve its purpose well? The standard for expertise depends on the topic of the page."
A human can intuitively look at a page and judge whether it has high E-A-T. The challenge for Google and its competitors has been to replicate that ability algorithmically.
The key components of E-A-T
While it seems like E-A-T is made up of three unique variables, they are difficult to separate into multiple contexts. This is why Google refers to them together and not as three different components.
Expertise refers to depth of knowledge and experience—in either a niche topic or across a broad topic category.
Certain key on-page attributes can signal expertise:
An article's depth/comprehensiveness, quantified in terms of the number of subtopics, the relevance associated with each of these subtopics and the amount and kind of data or examples cited
The uniqueness of content, i.e., the number of sentences/paragraphs within an article that are completely unique
The usage of complex vocabulary in a piece of content
References to other expert articles
The overall amount of high-quality expert content concentrated on a particular topic
The overall breadth of coverage of different aspects of the topic.
Off-page attributes can also signal expertise:
Content published by the entity in journals and on high-authority websites which have demanding selection criteria
Association of the source with other known experts on different websites and pages
Thought leadership expressed by the entity in topical forums, interviews, and conferences
Validation on .gov sites, awards or patents
Authority is a vested position of topical superiority, often granted by an even higher authority.
Search engines use various signals to measure the extent of authority:
Links to a page or citations from high-authority websites or identified bodies of authority
The number of topically relevant backlinks pointed to the entity
Communication from government agencies, regulators or industry bodies
Association of the source with other known experts on different websites
The number of search terms related to the topic for which the entity ranks
Trust, the final component of E-A-T, was defined by Aristotle as a quality possessed by those with practical intelligence, a virtuous character and goodwill.
More recently, influential work by Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman has identified expertise, integrity and benevolence as crucial factors of trustworthiness.
Borrowing these concepts, we are able to identify the following attributes as signals of trust:
Best practices to safeguard a website from malware
Best practices to communicate that a website is run by real people who can be contacted
Best practices to communicate that customers can safely make payments
Association with a list of trusted sites
Whether the entity shares a hosting server with any known spam sites
The entity's association with forums and consumer grievance sites
What EAT means for marketers
While Google uses hundreds of variables to determine rank, we increasingly see E-A-T as one of the most impactful—particularly with YMYL (Your Money Your Life) topics like health and personal finance.
The reason is Google's keen focus on end-user needs. Content that is more expertly written, more trustworthy and more authoritative is ultimately better for users, especially for topics where misinformation could be harmful.
Regardless of your site's purpose, looking at your content with E-A-T in mind will:
Result in better (i.e., more authoritative) answers to user queries
Improve visitor engagement (e.g., time on site and bounce rate)
Enhance SEO and search ranking
Lead to more traffic and higher conversions
Optimizing for relevance (via strong content) and authority (via links) is no longer sufficient to guarantee high rankings. Instead, marketers must think about their pages the same way that Google now does: by way of the holistic E-A-T approach.
Having relevant content and cultivating backlinks were once the primary elements of moving rank. Today, though, marketers, webmasters and SEOs must consider how well their pages and domains perform under the E-A-T methodology. Scoring for E-A-T—via a tool like ALPS—will increasingly become a necessity for search success.
Reach out to us with questions/comments here or request a free ALPS demo here.
How iQuanti's award-winning campaign optimized Paid Search for HomeEquity Bank.
iQuanti won the Best Paid Search Campaign award at the 5th International Performance Marketing Awards 2021 for its work with HomeEquity Bank.
Google I/O 2019: Googlebot updates (and its impact on enterprise SEO)
By using the latest Chromium rendering engine, Google will greatly improve how it interprets JavaScript web content. Here's what the news could mean for enterprise digital marketing.


If you're a marketer who hacks away at design to get your content out the door like I do, this is a post for you.
The one aspect of designing that has always been a pain for many marketing pros is matching their design work with the same colors used in their branding.
You can download a free template for designing, but unless you can alter the color palette to align with your brand, your content won't match your overall presence.
This post delves into how you can grab your brand colors and use them in your design work in PowerPoint. We'll discuss how to not only alter colors of your text or shapes used, but also how to recolor an image to better match your brand.
Let's start by wanting to change the color of your copy or shape to match your brand colors.
Now, let's say I wanted this to match the same yellow as our Inbound Marketing Methodology chart. Here's what I'll do.
In my example, I'm going to start by inserting the image of the colors I want to grab.
To change the shape or text to the desired color, I'll click into the shape or highlight the text. Then, I'll go to the "Fill" icon in the toolbar and click on "More Colors." There's a magnifying glass at the top of the module that appears. I'll click on it in the box and use it to pick up any color I like.
And voila! The shape is now colored with the brand color of my choice. The same steps apply for changing text color.
With that out of the way now, let's move on to another helpful tip: the steps to recolor images used in a PowerPoint.
Say you've purchased an image or icon you want to adjust the color of. While you can't perfectly adjust the color into your brand color, you can change an image hue.
This means that while the image won't automatically convert into your brand color, it can be shaded differently to better match your brand. This is purely a function of how PowerPoint works and how the base colors of your image are imported into PowerPoint.
For this example, I'm going to pull one of the general icons from our collection of 135 free icons, and insert it into PowerPoint.
Once the image is in PowerPoint, double-click on the icon. Then, go to "Recolor" in your navigation, and click a color to change it to. If you'd like to recolor it to a brand color, follow the same steps from above by going to "More Colors."
But, as mentioned, keep in mind that the color won't come exactly as you'd like, but rather present a shaded version of what you'd like.
As a result, you'll see an image recolored to a shade similar to what you'd like. In my case, I adjusted the black icon house to be a more HubSpotty orange!
Now doesn't that look lovely?
Got any PowerPoint quick tips of your own you think are worth sharing? List them in the comments below!


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RewindWords
Review // Love Saves the Day 2017
An explosive closing set from Kano was the cherry on top of another excellent weekend
Photo: Love Saves the Day by Here & Now
Last weekend, some of the Nitelife team returned to our spiritual home, Love Saves the Day. Annually marking the beginning of Bristol's festival season, it's put on by a team of genuine music lovers with years of event experience between them – getting better year on year. In fact, it's one of the only festivals I can think of where original ticket buyers don't keep referring to 'the good old days'.
From 5,000 people in Castle Park at their first one-day event in 2012, to 20,000 people flocking to Eastville Park each day for this year's festival, Love Saves the Day has grown organically with demand from fans – not investors.
Love Saves the Day is known for showcasing different sounds on different days, with Saturday being for the house, disco and techno fans, and Sunday catering to the bass heads. While I'm personally firmly in the Sunday camp, the amount of fun I had on Saturday proves that there is far more to Love Saves the Day than just the music, with general good vibes and silliness in abundance.
While I'm personally firmly in the Sunday camp, the amount of fun I had on Saturday proves that there is far more to Love Saves the Day than just the music, with general good vibes and silliness in abundance
There are also enough stages dotted around the festival that it's certain you'll find something you can dance to. I was kept happy most of Saturday between Shambarber's house and disco-loving Temple of Lust, and the Dance Off stage, which was hosted all day by DJ Die's Gutterfunk, with sets from Die, Zed Bias and Trigga, Addison Groove and Dismantle.
There are enough stages dotted around the festival that it's certain you'll find something you can dance to
Although I'd been planning on catching Crazy P at the Main Stage, unfortunately I got bored of waiting once they were approaching an hour late, and took myself off to fall over a few times to the funky sounds coming from the Roller Disco instead.
However, a group of friends and Crazy P virgins I'd convinced to come see them did hang on, and enjoyed it so much that they downloaded their last album as soon as they got home.
Sunday could have begun on a bad note, when hordes of self-entitled people kept rushing the queue barriers, but love did save the day – with a gooey sense of camaraderie between the majority of non-pushers (who banded together to hold the barriers down) stopping it from ruining anyone's mood too much.
It did mean queuing took much longer than their usual quick march, so we missed out on D Double E and the first half of Holy Goof, which we'd been planning on catching, but we were in and reacclimated in time for the mighty Shy FX.
Veering away from his usual harder sound, Shy FX gave us a set with a bit more of a dancehall lean
Veering away from his usual harder sound, Shy FX gave us a set with a bit more of a dancehall lean – in fact, he didn't even play his staple banger Original Nuttah, but we were all enjoying this new flavour so much we didn't care.
Next, we made our way over to see the second half of Bristol's favourite soundsystem producer, Kreed who was joined by Gardna and Parly B, before pegging it over to Love Saves the Day's brand new stage The Lost Gardens to catch the end of fierce up-and-coming rapper Kojey Radical, who despite not having the biggest of crowds, managed to keep everyone moving at the front of the stage – ensuring that I and probably everyone else at that stage will make sure to catch him again when he's back in Bristol at the end of the summer.
After a quick look in at local heroes My Nu Leng, which seemed to be going off up at the front, we decided to set up camp at Hold Tight's Brouhaha stage, where we lost a few hours skanking to Numa Crew and Vivek, and the beginning of Egoless – including his excellent ska remix of Benga and Coki's Night – before heading over to the Dance Off for an old school set from Zinc.
we decided to set up camp at Hold Tight's Brouhaha stage, where we lost a few hours skanking to Numa Crew and Vivek
We stayed on at the Dance Off hoping for a bit of original grime from Heartless Crew, although after a few songs and much confusion from the crowd, it became clear that they were doing a drum and bass set – which is apparently their thing now. The nostalgia-chasers like me left the crowd, leaving plenty of happy ravers to continue where they left off from Zinc.
Sunday's closing set caused some controversy within my group, with most heading off to see Fat Freddy's Drop, and those of us of sound mind going to see the brilliant Kano, who took to The Blast's Cloud 9 stage with a full live band, including a pianist, drummer and tuba player.
Kano took to the Cloud 9 stage with a full live band, including a pianist, drummer and tuba player
The majority focus was on last year's Made in the Manor album, but not without a few classics like Mic Check, Reload It, Garage Skank, and of course, Ps and Qs weaved through.
Kano's set was right on point and the talented MC was fully engaging for every second of it – even coming down into the crowd at one point – giving us what felt like a genuinely explosive end to the festival. Even those friends who had gone to see Fat Freddy's made it over to have a dance to Kano's last few songs, after admitting they got a bit bored at the Main Stage.
It's hard to imagine how the Love Saves team will be able to top this year's festival in 2018, but we're already looking forward to it.
Photography by Here & Now // Here & Now Instagram
Cloud 9DJ DieFestivalGardnaGutterfunkHold TightkanoKreedLove Saves the DayMy Nu LengParly BrewindShy FXThe Blast
Previous Local Talent // K Stylz
Next Review // Bizarre Ride Live
CameraPhotos
10 August // Backbeat presents Char B
Review // Manic Street Preachers prove to be more relevant than ever at Bristol Sounds
25 February // Nils Frahm
Interview // Dr Meaker release new album, Dirt & Soul
Weekly picks : 23 – 29 October // Kojey Radical, Laid Blak, Friction & a few alternative Halloween parties

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Der Name Pierre de Gondi bezieht sich auf:

 Pierre de Gondi (1533–1616), französischer Geistlicher italienischer Abstammung, Bischof von Paris und von Langres
 Pierre de Gondi (1602–1676), Herzog von Retz

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


a) How many squares will there be in the 5th group?
b) How many squares will there be in the 8th group?
5-17) You have a blue coin and a yellow coin. Place them in the following squares so that the blue coin is always 1 row above (not necessarily directly above) the yellow one. How many different ways are there to place them?
5-19) It is 6:00 am on April 14th. The minute hand turns around 40 times. What date and time will it be?


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Leader: Islamic Revolution gave identity, independence to Iran
TEHRAN, June 4, YJC - Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said the Islamic Revolution gave identity and independence to Iranian society by toppling the previous tyrannical regime.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks when addressing a ceremony held to mark the 38th passing of founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini.
Stressing the grandeur of Imam Khomeini's personality the Leader noted that every effort must be made to prevent distortion of Imam Khomeini's personality and ideas through repetition of ideas cherished by him.
"If something that is true is not repeated with all details and specifications, it may be gradually distorted. Most of you know that there are motivations for distorting the personality of the Imam and distorting the revolution, which was the greatest feat of the honorable Imam," the Leader added.
The Leader said the secret of the success of Imam Khomeini's movement was that he managed to bring the youth and all people into the arena and keep them there.
Ayatollah Khamenei noted that Imam Khomeini's ideas, including freedom, social and economic justice, and encouraging the nation to get rid of US domination were among major factors, which attracted the Iranian youth to the revolution.
The Leader stated that as a result of Imam's ideas, young people even in those countries that are subservient to the United States, like Saudi Arabia, cherish the idea that their country must be freed from US domination.
Ayatollah Khamenei went on to note that the Islamic Revolution, which was led by Imam Khomeini, was not merely change of government and its goal was not merely to oust one group from power and replace it with another group.
The Leader said previous movements in Iran had failed because they sought to achieve a minimum level of goals, but Imam's movement pursued maximum goals and succeeded.
Ayatollah Khamenei further stated that Iranians experienced a "decisive, very important and sensitive" era in the 1980s, describing the decade as seeing "the most violent terrorism" which targeted the Iranian nation.
"During those years, thousands of the Iranian people were martyred by terrorists. The 1980s is the decade of the [Iraqi] imposed war," the Leader stated.
During this decade, the Leader added, the toughest sanctions were imposed on the country in all areas, including on Iran's financial bodies.
Ayatollah Khamenei said the Iranian nation, particularly the youth, managed to resist and overcame all problems during that period.
The enemies have so far failed to deal major blows to Iranians, who have succeeded in making progress and carrying out great tasks, the Leader said.
The Leader stated that Imam Khomeini had described the US as the "Great Satan and an unreliable state," adding that the heads of European countries have confessed that no one can trust Washington, which attests to truth of Imam Khomeini's ideas.
"This is wisdom. The Americans are unreliable with respect to all issues," Ayatollah Khamenei pointed out.
'Al Saud will never defeat Yemen; Bahrain intervention illogical'
In another part of his address, the Leader expressed regret that Muslims in some countries, including Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and Libya, were facing numerous problems even in the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
"The Saudi government is bombarding Yemen day and night and exerting pressure on Yemen. Definitely, this is a mistake," Ayatollah Khamenei said.
"The Saudi government must know that if it proceeds with such an approach even for the next 10 or 20 years, it will fail to achieve a victory against the Yemeni people. This is a crime against the innocent people and will bear no fruit."
The Leader also condemned the "illogical" presence of Saudi Arabia in Bahrain and said the Bahraini government must engage in negotiations with the people of the country.
Ayatollah Khamenei criticized acts of intervention by a foreign country and Riyadh's policymaking in Bahrain, saying such moves were "irrational and unwise" and would create problems for nations.
It is wrong and inefficient to impose one's own will on a nation, the Leader said, adding that this policy would never yield a result "even if it is accompanied by hundreds of billions of dollars in US bribes."
Ayatollah Khamenei further criticized the wrongful presence of foreign countries in Syria contrary to the will of its government and nation, stressing, "The Syrian issues must be solved through dialogue."
The Leader warned that enemies were waging "proxy wars" in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen as well as other parts of the Muslim world.
'High turnout in election shows Iranians' trust in Islamic establishment'
Ayatollah Khamenei also hailed the massive participation of the Iranian people in the presidential election late last month, saying it showed public trust in the Islamic establishment.
The Leader pointed to the Guardian Council's confirmation of the result of the May 30 presidential election in spite of some reports about irregularities in the electoral activities and called on officials to closely examine such cases to prevent their repetition in future elections.
Ayatollah Khamenei called on all Iranians, regardless of the election result, to show forbearance.
Elsewhere, the Leader urged all Iranian officials to reinforce their unity and solidarity in dealing with international developments.
Ayatollah Khamenei also called on the Iranian administration to prioritize production and the creation of job opportunities and fulfill the pledges it made during the presidential campaign.
Iran ، leader ، revolution


Kendall feels like she's losing at life. The only people who will talk to her are ghosts, and she's exhausted from trying to fix their problems. Meanwhile, Brandon thinks she's a liar, her best friend thinks she's sneaking around with another boy, and her dad is getting serious with a new girlfriend. Kendall can't cope with anything else!
Desperate for answers, she decides to visit the one person who might have them—the one person she never wanted to see again. Will her mom be able to help, or will Kendall be stuck without a wisp of hope?


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MFSL CD
Tapestry - Limited Numbered Edition
Gen: Various
Casa de discuri: MFSL
If you ever get in the position of having to choose three albums for a trip to the deserted island, then Carole King's "Tapestry" should be essential. "I Feel The Earth Move", "You've Got A Friend", "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "It's Too Late" ... not for nothing that King received for the album four Grammy Awards, reached four singles Top 10 and sold more than 25 million copies. The sound of the hybrid SACD is slim, simple, direct and truthful, Kings song personally and her piano gracefully. Drummer Russ Kunkel, guitarist Danny Kortchmar and saxophonist Curtis Amy as a guest musician and guitarist James Taylor complement the singer-songwriter perfect. Newly mastered by Rob Lo Verde appears "Tapestry" as a hybrid SACD in Mini-LP cover with consecutive serial number in a limited edition.
189 LEI Detalii
Tapestry - 180gr - Limited Numbered Edition Carole King LP 180 gr
Music Carole King 180g Vinyl Limited Numbered Edition
154.99 LEI Detalii
Music Carole King LP 180 gr
169.99 149.99 LEI Detalii
Music Carole King Remastered Digipak


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Chicago Butcher Rob Levitt on the Meaning of Good Meat and His Local Foods Move
Posted on March 10, 2015 March 10, 2015 by FamilyFarmed.org
by Bob Benenson, FamilyFarmed
Rob and Allie Levitt made big food news in Chicago in January. That was when they revealed that there are moving The Butcher & Larder, their popular meat shop, from its current small storefront in the city's Noble Square neighborhood. They will be shifting to a much larger space within the retail market that Local Foods — a wholesale distributor dealing mainly in locally and regionally grown products — is building a couple of miles north in the Bucktown neighborhood.
Rob Levitt of Chicago's popular The Butcher & Larder meat shop, which is moving this spring into a larger space in the new Local Foods store.
The following are excerpts from an interview with Rob Levitt about his somewhat unexpected career as a leading butcher and his hopes for bigger things with the move, expected this spring, into Local Foods. Rob previously shared his thoughts in a column published by Good Food on Every Table on Feb. 25, and a companion piece about the Local Foods store project can be found by linking here.
[Levitt will conduct a workshop on charcuterie at FamilyFarmed's Good Food Festival on Saturday, March 21. For more information about the Good Food Festival & Conference and to buy tickets, please visit the event website.]
On informing consumers about meat choices:
"I'm certainly not a master butcher. That was never really my goal, to be a master butcher. It was to learn how to do this in a way that maximized these animals that we're buying. We buy from really good sources and we wanted to get as much out of it as we could. And we wanted to show people there was more to an animal than what we're used to seeing, strictly for the purpose of giving people more options. There's a lot of delicious expensive cuts of meat, and there are some really delicious less-expensive cuts of meat. That's why we're here."
Rob and Allie Levitt met while students at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and they worked in restaurant kitchens in Manhattan and Chicago. Rob, who developed an expertise making charcuterie from that experience, discusses their decision to open The Butcher & Larder four years ago — and the role social media played in making it an instant success:
The current Butcher & Larder shop in Chicago's Noble Square neighborhood
"We went to some investors and they thought it was a great idea. It took a long time, but I found this space, the price was right, and everything just fell into place. I had a good amount of time between the closing of the restaurant and the opening of this place to work the social media angle, and people got really excited. People were following everything I would post on my blog or on the shop's Facebook page or Twitter page. People were really interested in hearing more about it, what we were going to do with all the plans we had. We opened to a whirlwind."
About the broad range of customers who The Butcher & Larder serves:
"It's been good. We've developed a really, really loyal following of really wonderful people who seem really excited. And one of the things we don't have is a a specific demographic. We have people who are old and wealthy, we have people who are young and poor, and we have everything in between. They come to us because they know they can find something that they want to eat that they can afford. For some people that's an endless supply of ribeyes and filets, whatever they want. For some people that's 'This is my budget, I'd like something like a steak, what do you have?' We'll work with them with the different cuts we have. It's really nice to work with all kinds of different people."
About making the butchering process open to the public, and how that is going to be an even bigger deal when The Butcher & Larder moves into the Local Foods space:
"People who come in here and ask lots of questions about the meat that we buy and we are happy to answer them. We're not trying to hide anything. Wednesday is when we get most of our animals in and we butcher them right at the table. There's no 'back room.' Everything's right out in the open…. That's why we're so excited about this big move to Local Foods, because we can do everything we're doing but on such a larger scale. We're going to have a giant curing room and there's going to be a big window so you can look right in. We're going to have a bigger butcher shop and there's going to be a separate cutting room, but there's going to be a window into the cutting room. In the middle of production, when we're all back there and there's meat coming in on rails, we're happy for everyone to see what's going on."
On why he thinks being upfront about why being upfront about how animals are raised, what they are fed, and how they are treated are more important than labels such as "local" or "organic":
"To me, local sustainable food is important more because it is a community thing. I want to buy beef from Illinois because I want to support a farmer who is my neighbor. As important is I want to buy a product that I know how it was raised and it traveled a short distance, it's probably going to taste the best. That's all I really care about is sending people home with a product that is the best-tasting thing. If the best-tasting thing doesn't come from Illinois, but comes from somewhere else where there are people who are raising things the right way, then that's just as important. Local isn't better than non-local if it isn't a better product.
"The same thing with organic. If it's not a delicious product, it's not better than something that isn't organic but is a great-tasting product. If a farmer raised an amazing apple that isn't certified organic, it's better than something that's grown in Monsanto's certified organic program. It's all about the transparency. What is Good Food? It's transparent food. If you're shopping at places and they can't tell you where their food came from, then it's something to think about.
"We have a lot of people who regularly want to come and learn. Which is another really cool thing about Local Foods is that we'll have more opportunity to bring people in. Chefs are more interested in buying whole animals and breaking them down and using all these parts. I feel like less common cuts are becoming more of a thing…. I don't know if it will ever get back to a point in time where there's a little butcher shop in every neighborhood, but I think that in the restaurant community people are getting more interested in butchering than they ever have been. Which is great, it's a cool thing to do, but it's something that people have been doing for generations, so it's not like this amazing new thing that's happening. It's just coming back.
"I'm really not a master butcher, but a guy who had a little bit of knowledge, a lot of interest and did the best I could to do this. I'm pretty good at breaking down an animal, but there are a lot of people who are way better than me…. We're really trying to make ourselves known and make what we're doing known. It's less about being the best butchers, and more about being the champions of something we think is really important."
This entry was posted in Butchering, Culinary Trends, Farm to table dining, Food Artisans, Food education, Food Entrepreneurs, Good Food business development, Good Food Festivals, Good Food marketing, Good Food Success Stories, Good Meat, Livestock farming, Sustainable food retailing and tagged butcher shops, Butchering, FamilyFarmed, food artisans, Food Entrepreneurs, Good Food Festival, Good Food Festival & Conference, Good Meat, local foods, meat, Rob and Allie Levitt, Rob Levitt, The Butcher & Larder. Bookmark the permalink.
← Chicago Baker Greg Wade: Making Interest in Good Bread Rise Naturally
Local Foods Store is a New Retail Wrinkle — And Just Maybe the Future of Supermarkets →


Android 2.3 Gingerbread was realsed to the Android Open Source Project just a few days ago and we are already seeing working ROMS for devices. One of the first to appear is Gingerbread for the DROID Incredible.
Thanks to XDA member r2Doesinc we now have a working, although a bit buggy, ROM for the Incredible. It's actually quite far in development with the only two major shortcomings is the lack of GPS and camcorder support – but, as always, given time these will be fixed.


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Updated 26 June, 2019 - 15:52 Ed Whelan
Baffling 3,000-year-old Out of Place Mace Head Found in Poland
An amateur Polish archaeologist has made an astonishing discovery that is 3,000 years old - he unearthed a Bronze Age mace head . This find is rather baffling as it does not appear to belong to any of the known cultures that once inhabited this part of Poland. Furthermore, the mace head seems to have originated in the distant Middle East , which is adding to the mystery.
The Discovery of the Mace Head
The ancient object was found "during a licensed search of an area near Dukla by the Galicja Exploratory Historical Society" according to The First News . This group of amateur archaeologists was looking for artifacts and objects from WWII . They had been informed that there had been a battle in the area in 1939 and during their investigations, they found some shells and coins but then one of them found the mace head . It was found by an amateur archaeologist, Krzysztof Wiśniewski, who works in a local mine.
The mace head was discovered by amateur archaeologists in Poland. (Zawiadowca Historii / Fair Use )
Initially, he believed, that he had found something that had come from an old vehicle, such as a tractor. The Archaeology News Network , quotes Wiśniewski, as saying that "we soon realized that it could be important". The amateur archaeologists contacted a local expert Dr. Wojciech Pasterkiewicz and he visited them at the site.
Bronze Age Weapon
He examined the object and made a stunning discovery. The object was not from the Twentieth Century but from 1000 BC. The First News site quotes Dr. Pasterkiewicz "We know it comes from that time because it fits in with the chronology of similar objects found in other regions".
The archaeologist also revealed that the object was a mace head. It measures about 3 inches (10 centimeters) long, is made of bronze, and it is very well-preserved. The mace was a common weapon in the ancient world , and it was used by many cultures, including Ancient Egypt. The weapon was used to hit the enemy and often used to crush skulls . Their used continued well into the Middle Ages.
An 'Absolutely Stunning' Roman Gold Ring Is Unearthed In England
The Seven Most Deadly Weapons of the Crusades, or Were There Eight?
Metal Detectorists Discover Stash of 550 Ancient Coins Worth £150,000
The mace head, made of bronze, measures about 3 inches (10 centimeters) long. (Zawiadowca Historii / Fair Use )
According to the Archaeology News Network they typically had "a strong, heavy, wooden or metal shaft, and a head made of stone, bone, copper, bronze, iron, or steel".
When the item was made, bronze was rare, and it could only have belonged to a member of the elite. The mace was also a symbol of authority and would have been owned by a chieftain or even a king. Indeed, it remains a symbol of power today and can still be found in many Parliaments and Senates around the globe.
The Mysterious Origins of the Mace Head
It was easy for the archaeologist to determine what was the object and its date. It was far harder to determine who made the weapon and what were its origins. There are no similar examples of the object, dating from 1000 BC, found in this part of Europe. It does not appear to have originated from any of the societies that once inhabited the area.
Who the makers and the owners of the mace head are is an enigma. According to The First News website, Dr. Pasterkiewicz believes that it is "impossible to say exactly where it came from, but it was most likely a Middle Eastern culture". This is based on the similarities between the object and other maces that have been uncovered in the Middle East.
Other types of mace heads discovered in the past in Romania. (Codrinb / CC BY-SA 3.0 )
This raises an important question. Why was this object, that originated so far away, found in the south of Poland? It is possible that it may have found its way to the area via ancient trade routes . Interestingly, the site is located near the Dukla Pass in the Carpathian Mountains and would have been used by any invaders entering the region in the ancient past . The mace head may, therefore, have once been owned by a commander of a foreign army campaigning in the region some 3000 years ago.
Location of discovery of the mace head in Poland - satellite map of the Carpathian Mountains with Dukla Pass in the Carpathian Mountains noted as red dot. (Qorilla / Public Domain )
The mace head is now legally owned by the Polish state . It is expected that it will go on public display in a museum in Rzeszów, which is in the south-east of Poland. More analysis is going to be carried out on the bronze used in the weapon and this may help to solve the mystery of how a Middle Eastern mace head came to be found in Poland.
Top image: The bronze mace head, found near Dukla. Source: Zawiadowca Historii / Fair Use .
trade route
Lithicas wrote on 28 June, 2019 - 16:30 Permalink
Sorry, people, this is not a Bronze Age macehead. It clearly has screw threading, which was not even invented until about 400 b.c. and not used widely until the era of mass production in the 19th century A.D. Most likely this is a 20th c. A.D. faucet head, possibly brass; not bronze.
Hope this article was a joke; if not, this is some real shoddy artifact "analysis".
Jody McCoy wrote on 27 June, 2019 - 19:00 Permalink
The only archeologists baffled by this find are atheists. Such a find lines up with the creation account as presented in the Bible which teaches that early man originated and migrated away from the Middle East, not Africa. Such an item could have been a family heirloom passed down for generations.
aruvqan wrote on 26 June, 2019 - 19:48 Permalink
You know, people travel and bring back souvenirs - hells bells, I have a 3000 year old scarab from a different continent. I really would not doubt that some farmer turned up a mace head and sold it for something to a soldier off on the Crusades or working as a caravan guard and they brought it back and it ended up being passed around ti it ended up in the dig site.
It really isn't rocket science, we have Chinese silk and jewelry in Viking burials, Roman crap in China, and all sorts of crap dragged home from the Crusades in Britain, so why not. SHeesh ...


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September 23, 2019 by JBEI
Jay Keasling, JBEI's chief executive officer, will be awarded the Doing a World of Good Medal by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) at their annual meeting on Nov. 10.
The Doing a World of Good Medal recognizes the achievements of an engineer whose work has had a positive impact on society and the world. Keasling, a pioneer of synthetic biology, will be recognized for his contributions to resource sustainability and human welfare, including a method for the inexpensive production of artemisinin, an antimalarial medicine. The award also recognizes his commitment to fostering secure and inclusive educational and working environments for people of all backgrounds.
"Dr. Keasling's brilliant work, coupled with his passion to solve some of society's most challenging global issues, has resulted in extraordinary advances in healthcare, sustainable fuels and the future of our environment," said AIChE's executive director and chief executive officer June Wispelwey. "He is a genuine example of AIChE's 'Doing a World of Good' motto, and it is an honor to recognize him as this year's medalist."
Keasling is also a professor in the Departments of Bioengineering and of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on engineering microorganisms to produce useful chemicals. At JBEI, the Keasling Laboratory focuses on producing advanced biofuels and bioproducts using polyketide synthases.
Filed Under: Awards, News Tagged With: biofuels and bioproducts
July 29, 2019 by JBEI
Jay Keasling, JBEI's Chief Executive Officer, was featured in NHK World's interview program "Direct Talk". Keasling, a pioneer of synthetic biology, talks about the impact that this interdisciplinary technology can have in people's lives as well as addresses its safety concerns.
Direct Talk is a program that interviews leaders, visionaries and pioneers who shape the world and is broadcast to 300-million households in 160 countries in six different language subtitles.
Watch the interview
Filed Under: Media Highlights, Videos Tagged With: biofuels and bioproducts
In an opinion piece published July 19 in ACS Synthetic Biology, Hector Garcia Martin and Tijana Radivojevic of the Joint BioEnergy Institute collaborated with Pablo Carbonell of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology's SynBioChem Centre, to highlight the opportunities in a radical new approach to bioengineering that leverages the latest disruptive advances in machine learning.
The opinion piece entitled "Opportunities at the intersection of Synthetic Biology, Machine Learning, and Automation" puts forward a new approach to bioengineering that may significantly accelerate metabolic engineering for the creation of all types of bioproducts: from biofuels to biomaterials and medical drugs. According to the authors sustained investment in the intersection of the three domains and strong multidisciplinary collaboration are key to drive forward predictive biology and produce improved machine learning algorithms.
Machine learning methods make inferences from raw data using sophisticated algorithms and powerful computers. In order to be trained, machine learning techniques need large amounts of data. Yet challenges remain on how to acquire large-scale high-quality biological data. The authors see automation as the best way to produce the quantity and quality of data needed for effective machine learning. In the long run the intersection of synthetic biology, machine learning, and automation will helps us better design biological systems for a renewable bioeconomy, and it sets the base for a better understanding of biology in general.
New Machine Learning Approach Could Accelerate Bioengineering
Garcia Martin Lab Website
Filed Under: News Tagged With: biofuels and bioproducts
Héctor García Martín, Deputy Vice President of JBEI's Biofuels and Bioproducts Division spoke to Latino USA about the emerging field of synthetic biology and how it allows scientists to re-engineer biological systems for new purposes, namely how it could lead to new biofuels which would reduce the release of carbon dioxide—the main cause of global warming. Listen here
Filed Under: Media Highlights Tagged With: biofuels and bioproducts
June 24, 2019 by JBEI
By Aliyah Kovner
Often, the findings of fundamental scientific research are many steps away from a product that can be immediately brought to the public. But every once in a while, opportunity makes an early appearance.
Such was the case for a team from the Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), whose outside-the-box thinking when investigating microbe-based biomanufacturing led straight to an eco-friendly production platform for a blue pigment called indigoidine. With a similar vividly saturated hue as synthetic indigo, a dye used around the world to color denim and many other items, the team's fungi-produced indigoidine could provide an alternative to a largely environmentally unfriendly process.
Lead researcher Aindrila Mukhopadhyay holds a vial of purified indigoidine powder. (Credit: Marilyn Chung/Berkeley Lab)
"Originally extracted from plants, most indigo used today is synthesized," said lead researcher Aindrila Mukhopadhyay, who directs the Host Engineering team at JBEI. "These processes are efficient and inexpensive, but they often require toxic chemicals and generate a lot of dangerous waste. With our work we now have a way to efficiently produce a blue pigment that uses inexpensive, sustainable carbon sources instead of harsh precursors. And so far, the platform checks many of the boxes in its promise to be scaled-up for commercial markets."
Importantly, these commercial markets already have considerable demand for what the scientists hope to supply. After meeting with many key stakeholders in the textile industry, the team found that many companies are eager for more sustainably sourced pigments because customers are increasingly aware of the impacts of conventional dyes. "There seems to be a shift in society toward wanting better processes for creating everyday products," said Maren Wehrs, a graduate student at JBEI and first author of the paper describing the discovery, now published in Green Chemistry. "That's exactly what JBEI is trying to do, using tools derived from biological systems – it just so happens that our engineered biological platform worked very well."
Droplets of purified indigoidine, produced by bioengineered fungi, are added to water to showcase the pigment's rich, saturated hue. (Marilyn Chung/Berkeley Lab)
The story began when the team set out to test how well a hardy fungi species called Rhodosporidium toruloides could express nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) – large enzymes that bacteria and fungi use to assemble important compounds. The scientists examined this fungi's NRPS expression capability by inserting a bacterial NRPS into its genome. They chose an NRPS that converts two amino acid molecules into indigoidine – a blue pigment – to make it easy to tell if the strain engineering had worked. Quite simply, when it did, the culture would turn blue.
Going into this experiment, indigoidine itself was not the main interest for the team. Instead, they were focused on the larger picture: exploring how the assembly line functionality of these enzymes could be harnessed to create biosynthetic manufacturing pathways for valuable organic compounds, such as biofuels, and assessing whether or not the fungi represented a good host species for the production of these compounds. But when they cultivated their engineered strain, and saw just how blue the culture was, they knew something incredible had happened.
Aindrila Mukhopadhyay and Maren Wehrs inspect a bioreactor full of their Bluebelle strain at JBEI. (Credit: Marilyn Chung/Berkeley Lab)
With an average titer of 86 grams of indigoidine per liter of bioreactor culture, the yield of the strain – which they named Bluebelle – is by far the highest that has ever been reported. (Other research groups, including the JBEI team, have synthesized indigoidine using different host microbes.) Adding to the weight of the achievement, the record-breaking yield was obtained from a culture process that uses nutrient and precursor inputs sourced from sustainable plant material. Previous pathways required considerably more expensive inputs yet made about one-tenth the amount of indigoidine.
Beyond the potential applications of indigoidine, the study succeeded in its original goal of providing a potential production pathway for other NRPSs – something that is much more valuable than any single product. These complex enzymes have multiple subunits that each perform a distinct and predictable action in assembling a compound out of smaller molecules. Scientists at JBEI and beyond are keen to engineer enzymes that use NRPSs' Lego block-like features to produce advanced bioproducts that are currently hard to make.
"A big challenge is to get a microbe to efficiently express such enzymes. This host has huge potential to fulfill that need," said Mukhopadhyay.
The team's next steps will be to characterize how indigoidine could be used as a dye and to dig deeper into the capabilities of R. toruloides.
This work was made possible by the expertise of multiple JBEI groups including John Gladden from Sandia National Laboratories, who leads JBEI's Fungal Biotechnology team, as well as Berkeley Lab's Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit (ABPDU). The other researchers included Yuzhong Liu, Lukas Platz, Jan-Philip Prahl, Jadie Moon, Gabriella Papa, Eric Sundstrom, Gina Geiselman, Deepti Tanjore, Todd Pray, Jay Keasling, and Blake Simmons. JBEI is funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science. ABPDU is funded by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Bright Skies for Plant-Based Jet Fuels
March 19, 2019 by JBEI
Joint BioEnergy Institute researchers demonstrate that jet fuels made from plants could be cost competitive with conventional fossil fuels
With an estimated daily fuel demand of more than 5 million barrels per day, the global aviation sector is incredibly energy-intensive and almost entirely reliant on petroleum-based fuels. Unlike other energy sectors such as ground transportation or residential and commercial buildings, the aviation industry can't easily shift to renewable energy sources using existing technologies.
However, a new analysis by scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) shows that sustainable plant-based bio-jet fuels could provide a competitive alternative to conventional petroleum fuels if current development and scale-up initiatives continue to push ahead successfully.
"Techno-economic analysis and life-cycle greenhouse gas mitigation cost of five routes to bio-jet fuel blendstocks" published recently in the journal Energy & Environmental Science, provides promising evidence that optimizing the biofuel production pipeline – taking carbohydrate-rich plant material and using genetically modified bacteria to digest the isolated sugars into energy-dense molecules that are then chemically converted into a fuel product – is well worth the effort.
From left: Nawa Baral, Daniel Mendez-Perez Aindrila Mukhopadhyay, Blake Simmons, Corinne Scown and Taek Soon Lee.
"It's challenging to electrify aviation using batteries or fuel cells in part because of the weight restrictions on aircraft, so liquid biofuels have the potential to play a big role in greenhouse gas emissions reductions," said lead author Corinne Scown, a researcher in Berkeley Lab's Energy Technologies Area as well as DOE's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). "The team at JBEI has been working on biological routes to advanced bio-jet fuel blends that are not only derived from plant-based sugars but also have attractive properties that could actually provide an advantage over conventional jet fuels."
How to get fuel from plant material
Currently, multidisciplinary teams based at JBEI are focused on optimizing each stage of the bio-jet fuel production process. Some researchers specialize in engineering ideal source plants – referred to as biomass – that create a high proportion of carbohydrates and a low proportion of lignin, a type of material that, as of now, is more challenging to make useful. Meanwhile, others are developing methods for efficiently isolating the carbohydrates in non-food biomass and breaking them into sugar molecules that bacteria can digest, or "bioconvert," into a fuel molecule. To obtain the highest possible yield from bioconversion, yet other JBEI researchers are examining what genetic and environmental factors make the modified bacteria more efficient.
Once these stages are optimized, JBEI scientists can transition the technologies to commercial partners who may then modify and blend the fuels into ready-to-use products and devise strategies to industrialize the scale of production. Given the vast amount of experimentation and innovation needed to accomplish all this, Scown and her co-authors used innovative analysis methods to assess whether the undertaking could actually reach the end game of a jet fuel alternative that airlines will want to use.
"Our hope is that early in the research stages, we can at least simulate what we think it would look like if you develop these fuel production routes to the point of maturity," Scown said. "If you were to push them to the ethanol benchmark – the technology to create ethanol from plant material like corn stalks, leaves, and cobs has been around a long time, and we can ferment sugars with a 90 percent efficiency – how close would this get us to the market price of petroleum fuels? That is important to know now.
"Thankfully, the answer is they can be viable. And we've identified improvements that need to happen all along the conversion process to make that happen."
Imagining the production process at scale
From left: Co-authors Nawa Baral and Daniel Mendez-Perez
Due to the biomass deconstruction and fuel synthesis technologies developed at JBEI, the theoretical cost of bio-jet fuel has declined steadily in recent years and is currently as low as $16 per gallon, as compared to $300,000 per gallon when JBEI was established, according to co-author and JBEI postdoctoral fellow Nawa Baral. The cost of standard jet fuel is about $2.50 per gallon.
To explore how bio-jet fuel could bridge the remaining price gap, the research team used complex computer simulations that modeled the necessary technology and subsequent costs of complete, scaled-up production pathways at different efficiency levels and with a range of biomass and chemical inputs. The authors simulated a total of five different production pathways to four distinct fuel molecules.
The results showed that all five pathways could indeed create fuel products at the target price of $2.50 per gallon if manufacturers are able to convert the leftover lignin into a valuable chemical – something JBEI researchers are currently working toward – that could be sold to offset the cost of biofuels. The net price of a gallon of biofuel could be lowered further if airlines were offered even a modest financial credit for emissions reduction.
Following some industry research, the team also found that airlines may be willing to pay a premium of as much as fifty cents per gallon because all four biofuels deliver more energy per unit volume, meaning a plane could fly farther on a tank of the same size.
"The development of plant-based compounds that have a performance advantage over their petroleum-based counterparts is an important factor in determining their marketplace viability," said Blake Simmons, a co-author and the Chief Science and Technology Officer at JBEI.
However, as promising as these findings are, getting the biofuel production technology to the gold-standard yields assumed in these simulations will require further advances.
"It's clear that, to get these fuels to commercial viability, we need all hands on deck," Scown noted. "But this analysis highlights the importance of multi-institutional, integrative research centers like JBEI because no group working on one phase of the process alone can make it happen."
The other co-authors on the paper are JBEI scientists Olga Kavvada, Daniel Mendez-Perez, Aindrila Mukhopadhyay, and Taek Soon Lee.
Funded by the DOE's Office of Science, JBEI was created with a mission to develop economically-viable, carbon-neutral biofuels and bioproducts that utilize the sunlight energy stored in biomass.
Filed Under: News, Success Stories Tagged With: BBD, biofuels and bioproducts, LEAD
Scientists Develop Higher-Performance Fuels, Biofuels and Bioproducts
December 3, 2018 by JBEI
-By Irina Silva
Researchers at Berkeley Lab's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and the Advanced Biofuels & Bioproducts Process Development Unit (ABPDU) have developed a new polyketide synthase-based platform and prototyped efficient production of potential biofuels, gasoline additives, and commodity chemicals.
Microbial production of biofuels and bioproducts is typically carried out using natural or slightly modified enzymes within the metabolic pathway, which can inherently limit the types of molecules that can be produced. Type I modular polyketide synthases (PKSs) are multi-domain enzymes that resemble a modular metabolic assembly line that naturally produces a wide range of unique and diverse molecular structures by combining particular types of catalytic domains in a Lego®-like fashion. This versatile biocatalytic mechanism intrinsically offers a wealth of bioengineering opportunities that scientists can exploit to improve both the rate and yield of the biofuels and bioproducts generated by PKSs.
In "Short-chain ketone production by engineered polyketide synthases in Streptomyces albus" published recently in Nature Communications, co-authors Satoshi Yuzawa (JBEI) and Mona Mirsiaghi (ABPDU), present the results of an engineered modular PKS system in the native host Streptomyces venezualae. JBEI and ABPDU researchers were able to demonstrate production of over 1 g/L of C6 and C7 ketones from plant biomass-, a 200-fold improvement over previous efforts.
Final titers of C6 and C7 ethyl ketones with strain ALB188 (left) and C5 and C6 methyl ketones with strain ALB191 (right), in media MM042 with amino acid supplements. Manipulation of cultivation conditions allows tunable production of shorter or longer chain molecules.
Engine tests, performed in the scope of the Co-Optimization of Fuels & Engines (Co-Optima) project, indicate these short-chain ketones can be added to gasoline to increase its octane. This flexible platform could enable biosynthesis of an array of previously inaccessible molecules, allowing fine-tuning of fuel properties, production of highly branched diesel-range biofuels, and a broad range of commodity chemicals.
Other co-authors on the paper are: Renee Jocic, Tatsuya Fujii, Veronica T. Benites, Edward E. K. Baidoo, Anthe George, John M. Gladden, Blake A. Simmons, Leonard Katz and Jay D. Keasling of JBEI, Fabrice Masson, Eric Sundstrom, Deepti Tanjore, and Todd R. Pray of the ABPDU, and Ryan W. Davis of Sandia National Laboratories.
This work was funded by the Joint BioEnergy Institute, a DOE Bioenergy Research Center funded by DOE's Office of Science, and the Co-Optimization of Fuels & Engines (Co-Optima) project sponsored by the U.S. DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). This work was also funded by the National Science Foundation, and leveraged the ABPDU facility which is maintained by BETO and was initiated with funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Filed Under: News, Success Stories Tagged With: biofuels and bioproducts
Metabolic Engineering of Lipids Improves the Respiratory Function of Biofuels and Bioproducts Hosts
October 26, 2018 by JBEI
JBEI researchers define a systems-level model for cellular respiration
Metabolic engineering leads to fundamental discovery about cellular respiration.
While much is known about how enzymes and molecules are involved in cellular respiration, the understanding of the respiration system as a whole remains limited. Researchers at the Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have gained insight into how cellular respiration is affected by the membrane environment in which it occurs. By engineering lipid synthesis to carefully control the membrane composition, researchers found that lipids, which consist of fatty acid molecules and determine membrane viscosity, also tightly control the rate of bacterial and yeast respiration. As lipid synthesis in these hosts is often engineered in order to produce molecules, these findings suggest new ways by which the pathways to produce biofuels and bioproducts could be optimized to maintain proper respiratory function, thereby increasing production.
This work was described in a paper, "Viscous control of cellular respiration by membrane lipid composition" which was published in Science on October 25. The research team was led by JBEI's Chief Executive Officer Jay Keasling, corresponding author and also senior faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In this study, the researchers determined the relationship of membrane viscosity to cellular respiration. Viscosity, in the context of this paper, refers to how fluid a membrane is, and can fluctuate depending on which fatty acids are present.
"We were inspired by an old observation that cells have feedback mechanisms that allow their membrane structure to change", said Itay Budin, JBEI researcher and lead author of the publication. "So we asked ourselves: How will changes in the types of lipids produced by bacterial cells affect their growth and metabolism?" To find an answer, Budin used synthetic biology and metabolic engineering methods to manipulate lipid synthesis and thereby carefully control membrane composition.
Lipids are commonly known as fats and oils. The split into these two categories depends on the physical state of the different types of fatty acids molecules at room temperature. For example, there are small chemical differences (double bonds) in the chemical structures of lipid molecules in solid butter and liquid olive oil, and these are responsible for their characteristic physical properties. Similarly, the physical properties of cell membranes, oily structures only a few nanometers thick, is also dependent on the chemistry of their lipid components. In this paper, the team modulated the viscosity of membranes in cells using metabolic engineering, a process by which JBEI researchers regularly use to control the relative levels of different chemical pathways in cells.
Simulations of ubiquinone distribution on the surface of a bacterial cell.
Budin found that lipids that determine membrane viscosity also tightly control the rate at which bacteria carried out respiration. Cellular respiration occurs through a set of reactions that occur when different enzymes and their substrates collide in the membrane, and viscosity sets the rate at which these collisions occur by random thermal motion (diffusion). Because of this key insight, Budin, working alongside former JBEI graduate student Tristan de Rond, developed a mathematical model for respiration that accounts for the diffusion of its components within the membrane. As inputs, they used quantitative measurements of the abundance and diffusion of the molecular components in the process, which was aided by mass spectrometry work by co-authors Yan Chen, Leanne Jade G. Chan, and Christopher J. Petzold. The team's model described several aspects of bacterial metabolism, such as how it responds to inhibitors or changes in enzyme concentrations. They then showed that lipids also mediate respiratory rates in mitochondria, dedicated organelles used by all eukaryotic cells for energy production. Thus, lipids could effectively set the 'speed limit' by which cells can 'breathe' through their effects on membrane diffusion.
"Itay's research provides us a better understanding of the central metabolism in the two most commonly used hosts used for biotechnology: E. coli and S. cerevisiae," said Keasling. "This is knowledge with ample application in future metabolic engineering efforts. Furthermore, it demonstrates how tools developed by synthetic biology can also be applied to address fundamental questions in biology."
JBEI is a DOE Bioenergy Research Center funded by DOE's Office of Science, and is dedicated to establishing the scientific knowledge and new technologies to transform the maximum amount of carbon available in bioenergy crops into biofuels and bioproducts. This work was also supported by funding from the National Science Foundation.
What Termites Can Teach Us, The New Yorker
The New Yorker article "What What Termites Can Teach Us" talks about the termites ability to turn grass into energy. The article mentions Jay Keasling, JBEI's Chief Executive Officer, as one of the synthetic biology leaders, and quotes Héctor García Martín, JBEI's Deputy Vice President of Biofuels and Bioproducts.


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Home » Waymo self-driving vehicles Test Result
When Waymo started vehicle testing in Chandler, Ariz., in 2016, the company most likely expected some friction with the community: Autonomous vehicle development will at some point lead to replacing human drivers with advanced technology, and that doesn't sit well with everybody. Turns out the backlash has been significant — and violent — with people sabotaging the test vehicles and endangering the safety of the cars' human backup drivers.
As reported by the Arizona Republic and New York Times, the attacks have ranged from sliced tires to thrown rocks, to people attempting to run the test vehicles off the road. Guns have been brandished, and a worrying case had a driver aim a Jeep head-on at a Waymo car to force it to stop.
A driver was said to "find it entertaining" to mess with the Waymo vehicles by brake-checking them, a habit that dated back to an incident where the driver's 10-year-old son was reportedly "nearly hit" by a Waymo car when playing in a cul-de-sac. The Tempe, Ariz., fatality involving an Uber car has also raised tension between Waymo and regular Arizona folks.
Some 21 attacks have been directed toward Waymo in Chandler, with a possibility that not all hostility has been reported to the authorities, and that more unrest will follow. Douglas Rushkoff, a media theorist from New York's City University, spoke with the NYT about the rationale:
"There's a growing sense that the giant corporations honing driverless technologies do not have our best interests at heart," Rushkoff said. "Just think about the humans inside these vehicles, who are essentially training the artificial intelligence that will replace them." Rushkoff is the author of a book that happens to be titled "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus."
In a statement, a Waymo representative said the attacks "involved only a small fraction of the more than 25,000 miles that the company's vans log every day in Arizona".
And Rob Antoniak, chief operating officer of Phoenix's Valley Metro transit system, said Arizona was still welcoming autonomous cars despite the publicized attacks. "Don't let individual criminals throwing rocks or slashing tires derail efforts to drive the future of transportation," he said.
And some of the altercations have been less violent: In one incident, an intoxicated man simply stood in front of a Waymo vehicle to prevent it from moving. Fortunately, it complied.
Waymo self-driving vehicles face attacks in Arizona originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 02 Jan 2019 09:40:00 EST.
Waymo's mission is to make it safe and easy for people and things to move around. We aim to bring fully self-driving technology to the world that can improve mobility by giving people the freedom to get around, and save thousands of lives now lost to traffic accidents.
The World's Most Experienced Driver™:
We've put our technology through the world's longest and toughest ongoing driving test. We've now driven over 10 million miles on public roads and 7 billion miles in simulation. That's hundreds of years of human driving experience that benefits every vehicle in our fleet. With every mile we drive, we never stop learning.
We've tested our self-driving vehicles across multiple locations in the U.S. By driving every day in different types of real-world conditions, we teach our cars to navigate through all sorts of situations.
Waymo Safety Report:
When it comes to driving, experience is the best teacher. Waymo's fully self-driving technology has driven over 10 million miles on real-world roads since 2009. In that time, we've built a comprehensive safety program to guide our testing and development of fully self-driving technology.
Waymo's first-of-its-kind Safety Report provides an overview of Waymo's processes for the safe testing and deployment of this technology, and the work we're doing to make it safe and easy to use.
Download the Waymo Safety Report https://waymo.com/safety.
Waymo Emergency Response Guide and Law Enforcement Interaction Protocol:
Waymo has outlined the procedures that we will follow with police, firefighters, and other first responders for driverless testing and operation in the Waymo Emergency Response Guide and Law Enforcement Interaction Protocol below. This document supplements the overview of how we design, test, and validate our technology in the Waymo Safety Report. https://waymo.com/safety
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Posted in News and tagged Auto News, Google Bus, Waymo, Waymo in Northeast Ohio, Waymo Safety Report, Waymo self-driving vehicles, Waymo self-driving vehicles face attacks in Arizona, Waymo self-driving vehicles in Northeast Ohio, Waymo's mission.
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Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) and Iran's AI-Mustafa International University have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a long-term academic collaboration in the field of research, education and innovation.
With this strategic initiative, JMI aims to explore newer academic areas and various other aspects of education and usher in a new era in building a relationship across different educational institutions.
The MoU will enable the two institutions to collaborate in the field of research, restructuring of courses, development of newer teaching and learning modules and undertaking interdisciplinary studies and promotion of international understanding, said a statement from the New Delhi based Indian Central University.
Moreover, this collaboration will foster faculty and student exchange, research collaborations in various new subjects like humanities, culture, Persian language and literature, management, mass communication and other courses.
To facilitate students with newer avenues of education, the institutions will be conducting conferences, seminars, workshops, sharing of academic data, and publications.
Jamia Millia Islamia signed agreements with three other reputed universities of Iran, namely, Payame Noor University, National Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology and Allameh Tabataba'I University, Iran.


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SaaS as a Business Solution Receives Accolades From CIOs at 3rd Annual SaaScon
Top IT Executives Discussed Software-as-a-Service Model as Viable Solution for Growing IT Management Needs
FRAMINGHAM, MA – April 4, 2008 – A record number of IT executives converged at Computerworld's Software-as-a-Service Conference (SaaScon) in Santa Clara on March 24-26 to share best practices and expertise about implementing SaaS solutions into their businesses. CIOs who spoke at SaaScon agreed that the SaaS model continues to gain market momentum, demonstrating greater value and increased functionality for their growing IT management needs.
IT executives from a number of different of industries discussed their experiences in implementing SaaS solutions, emphasizing how to overcome customization and integration hurdles, the cost vs. the risk, and the security challenges of SaaS adoption. Consistent among the executives, lower investments in software, faster time to deployment and the ability to focus IT resources on core business objectives were among the key benefits of implementing SaaS solutions. Most CIOs agreed that the SaaS model will continue to permeate the enterprise and is quickly becoming a cost effective tool that allows their organizations to deliver services faster and reach more customers.
"SaaScon was a huge success this year as evidenced by not only the record number of attendees but the caliber of the keynote speakers, session presenters and sponsors," said Ron Milton, executive vice president of Computerworld. "SaaScon is the one venue that provided real-world case study examples across a broad spectrum of industries and compelling SaaS implementations now, and in the future."
"SaaScon provided me the opportunity to share information and best practices with my peers. We were very excited to learn more about the benefits of SaaS and how new methods in application delivery are changing the way we use technology," said Basil Blume, vice president and CIO, Colorado Capital Bank.
SaaS providers also had the opportunity to showcase their latest offerings, network with partners and ISVs, and educate end-users on how to incorporate Software-as-a-Service into their business environments.
"SaaScon does an excellent job of bringing together the best providers and the end users to share experiences and address the issues around SaaS adoption. It's a valuable venue for IBM to connect our SaaS partners with potential customers and ensure our strategies reflect the needs of the IT buyers who are increasingly embracing SaaS," commented Dave Mitchell, IBM program director, SaaS.
"SaaScon is more than just a great event — Absolute Performance has made strategic connections with a number of companies that have expanded our partner ecosystem. SaaScon is a must for professionals that need to know the state of the SaaS industry," said Mitchell Ashley, CTO of Absolute Performance, Inc.
About SaaScon
SaaScon is the premier event for Business Services technologies and is designed for business and technical professionals seeking to learn about the latest offerings from providers and how to incorporate Software-as-a-Service into their business environments.
The theme for SaaScon 2008 was "Seizing the Value in Business Services!" Attendees heard presentations from world-class IT executives and learned how CIOs and their teams exploit SOA, Web 2.0 and Business Services. Topic areas included: Moving Mission-Critical Applications to the Business Services Model; Measuring Success, Embracing Best Practices and Avoiding Pitfalls; Understanding a Delivery Model in Transition; Balancing Risk and Reward; and Securing Data You Don't Control.
For more information, please visit http://www.saascon.com .
About Computerworld
Computerworld is the leading source of technology news and information for IT influencers worldwide. Computerworld's award-winning Web site ( www.computerworld.com ), weekly publication, focused conference series and custom research form the hub of the world's largest (40+ edition) global IT media network. In the past five years alone, Computerworld has won more than 100 awards, including Folio Magazine's 2006 Gold EDDIE Award for the best technology/computing magazine, the 2004 and 2006 Magazine of the Year Award, and 2006 Best Overall Web Publication from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE). In addition, in 2007 Computerworld's then editor in chief, Don Tennant, received the prestigious Timothy White Award from American Business Media. Computerworld leads the industry with an online audience of over 2 million unique, monthly visitors and a print audience of 1,222,000 readers each week (IntelliQuest CIMS Spring 2007).
About International Data Group (IDG)
International Data Group (IDG) is the world's leading technology media, events, and research company. IDG's online network includes more than 450 Web sites spanning business technology, consumer technology, digital entertainment, and video games worldwide. IDG publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers in 85 countries including CIO, CSO, Computerworld, GamePro, InfoWorld, Macworld, Network World, and PC World. IDG's lead-generation service, IDG Connect, matches technology companies with an audience of engaged, high-quality IT professionals, influencers, and decision makers.
IDG is a leading producer of more than 750 technology-related events including Macworld Conference & Expo, LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, Entertainment for All Expo (E for All), DEMO, and IDC Directions. IDC, a subsidiary of IDG, is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events. Over 900 IDC analysts in more than 90 countries provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends.
Additional information about IDG, a privately held company, is available at www.idg.com . Note: All product and company names are trademarks of their respective companies.


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Music streaming reaches 500m per week in the UK
Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith help drive the boom on Spotify and Apple Music
By Nathan George 2015-07-25T16:24:00.205Z
Music streaming is thriving at the moment, especially in the UK. Based on new research, there's been a massive surge in the sector across the nation, with 500 million songs being downloaded in a week for the first time ever.
New figures from The Official Charts company show there were 505,849,000 audio streams in the week ending July 16, which is a new record. For comparison, that's nearly double the amount of streams measured over the same period last year.
While that figure was likely boosted by the recent availability ofApple Music - the company's new music streaming platform – it appears that a lot of the UK jumped on the music streaming trend in the first half of 2015. The figures show users streamed 11.5 billion songs during that period – that's up 80% year-on-year.
The huge figure is largely down to guitar-toting red-head, Ed Sheeran. The artist has been the most streamed artist of 2015 so far by a significant margin, with his songs accounting for over 170 million streams. Meanwhile Sam Smith placed second with over 100 million streams.
Geoff Taylor, chief executive of industry body the BPI, said: "It's remarkable that we now speak of billions of audio streams per month - it demonstrates vividly just how quickly streaming is being embraced by British music fans.
"As more consumers explore the enhanced experience offered by premium quality subscriptions such as Apple Music and Spotify Premium, it will help our world-leading record labels invest even more into unearthing the next generation of British talent for fans here and around the world."
The figures also revealed that just 59 tracks have been streamed over 10 million times in the UK so far. Of those, the most popular is Bruno Mars' Uptown Funk, which has been streamed upwards of 45 million times.
Mega deal: get up to 40% off Philips Hue Outdoor lights
Big savings on these cheap Philips Hue Outdoor spotlight bundles
Discredited PS5 leak proves TRUE, as Sony sneaks out official PlayStation info
Sony PlayStation Europe's Twitter account has a new slogan, and it's the exact same one predicted in that discredited 4chan PS5 leak
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Best noise cancelling headphones deals: THE best January sale prices on Sony WH-1000XM3, Bose QuietComfort 35 II, Beats Studio 3 and more
Bose QC35 II and Beats Studio 3 prices slashed!
By Duncan Bell • 2020-01-19T11:45:32Z
CES 2020: Audio-Technica unveils ATH-ANC300TW noise-cancelling, true wireless earbuds
The Audio-Technica ATH-ANC300TW true wireless earbuds have been announced at CES 2020
Best Sonos deals for January sales 2020: BIG offers on Sonos One, One SL, Beam, Sub and more right NOW
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A big leap into the future for early adopters, gym, running and people who just really really hate wires
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Block out the sounds of planes, trains and colleagues with these active noise cancelling wireless and wired headphones
Best wireless headphones 2020: Bluetooth earbuds and headphones are better than ever
Can the wires and keep great sound quality, with great sounding wireless Bluetooth headphones and buds


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Zach Aaron Arrives With Eerily Relevant Third Album, 'Fill Dirt Wanted'
by Jason Scott May 11, 2020, 8:16 am
Woody Guthrie never backed down. With a guitar adorned with "this machine kills fascists," an ideology rooted in much of his work, he often spun his lyrics through rebellious, well-measured intentions. He inspired generations of musicians to speak their mind in the face of any political institution.
Calling upon Guthrie's daring, confrontational spirit, Zach Aaron's third studio album Fill Dirt Wanted is an expertly crafted 12-piece depicting the sorrowful state of humanity. Throughout the last decade, while working various blue-collar jobs, including on several major oil rigs, Aaron tinkered around with music. Following two previous releases, including 2017's Murder of Crows, he manages to unlock a startling storyboard of death, ghosts, and back-breaking pain.
Aaron, with the help of producer Giovanni Carnuccio and engineer Steve Boaz, swings a two-ton barbell. "Fill Dirt Wanted" pops the top of his swelling, inescapable melancholy, his voice often aching and heavy. "Running from the preacher / Running from my sins / Running from my family / I'm running from my fears / Running from anything that gets too near," he confides through sun-baked acoustics.
Misery emerges as the foundation of his record, and he rarely gives the listener time to breathe or rebound. "Animal of Burden" is a slow-burning blues-rocker in which he fusses over his place in life, forever trapped in an oppressive economic system. "I know my place / Fueling all the fires in a rich man's race," he spits. Later, "Shelter of the Storm" unwraps the story of a dear friend's tragic passing from cancer, a gentle reminder of life's fragility, and even his muscular vocals nearly buckle from the weight.
Underneath whatever musical lamplight into which he steps, Aaron twists and snaps the emotions to make you feel every last drop. "Saratoga Light" is a brutally spooky tune, based on a real ghost tale out of Saratoga, Texas, while "No Road Too Cold" and its deceptively glossy, chipper melody drapes across a homeless man's devastating reality. "I have gone astray / But I will face the day I'm not afraid of being alone," he curls his words like campfire smoke.
Aaron's western-dipped folk music matches song-to-song his blissfully evocative lyrics. He pulls humanity into himself, adding in pinches of his own story for needed flavor, and simply asks you to take a closer look. Recorded at Breathing Rhythm in Norman, Oklahoma, and featuring a band of players including Kevin Haystack Foster (guitar, fiddle, banjo, dobro, mandolin, harmony vocals) and Dave Leach (upright bass, piano), Fill Dirt Wanted arrives as an alarmingly relevant record ─ punctuated with closer "Aztec Cafe," a murderous tale set inside a southern border cantina.
Below, Aaron walks American Songwriter, premiering the new album today (May 11), through each track of the new record, officially out this Friday (May 15).
"Fill Dirt Wanted"
There is a lot of low land in my hometown, so "fill dirt wanted" signs are a fairly common thing to see. For whatever reason, while driving home one day, I saw one of these signs and the line "Fill dirt wanted / I gotta fill a hole" popped into my head. When I got home, the song wrote itself.
"Animal of Burden"
This one is pretty much a hard laborer's anthem ─ the driving drums acting as a metaphor for a hammer dropping over and over and over.
"Dayton Train"
There is a railroad crossing on Highway 90 in Dayton, Texas, that has been the cause of frustration for folks trying to get to work on time for many, many years. I wrote the song as a joke, but it ironically ended up being a fan favorite at my shows.
"Shelter of the Storm"
This song is written about a good friend of mine that passed away from cancer not too long ago. He and his wife owned the music venue where I cut my teeth as a performer, and he was just an all-around cool dude.
"Southeast Texas Trinity River Bottom Blues"
I wrote this song with two good friends, Josh Delafuente and Nigel Carey (the aforementioned friend in "Shelter of the Storm"). Nigel used to own a gas station in Cleveland, Texas, so he had a bunch of stories about some… "interesting" people. This song is an amalgamation of all our river bottom stories, mashed into one.
"Dying Hobo Blues"
I wrote this shortly after reading Woody Guthrie's 'Bound for Glory.' I think I would have been a hobo if I were alive back then.
I was part of a songwriter's circle at Franklin's Tower in Spring, Texas, and we decided to throw all of our ideas into a hat one day and each write our own song using all of the ideas. This was mine. I decided to call it potato salad… because I think shit like that is funny.
"Saratoga Light"
This one's based on a ghost story that takes place on BragG Road in Saratoga, Texas. I was very intrigued by this story and even did some "gonzo journalism" before writing this. I went to see the light myself a couple times, went down the road during the daytime, and tracked down an old oilfield graveyard.
"No Road Too Cold"
I passed a homeless man sheltering beneath an underpass in west Texas in the middle of January a few years back. He was holding up a sign that read "No Road Too Cold." I went back to the labor camp I was currently working in (aka the trailer park) and wrote this song ─ another one that wrote itself in the moment. I didn't stop and give him any money or food or a smile or anything…and I still regret that.
This one is about not being able to be happy in a relationship, no matter the circumstances.
I was sitting around the house drinking and thinking about stuff one day when I came across a PBS documentary about the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). I had recently taken a deep dive into Woody Guthrie and Depression-era songwriters at the time, so I was really intrigued by this. There is a part in the documentary where they interviewed men who served in the CCC, and I remember one man in particular mentioning that his time in the CCC was the first time he had ever had two pairs of shoes.
I loved the contentment he had with three meals a day and two pairs of shoes, and it made me want to write a song about the CCC. We have so much nowadays, and we are, for the most part, very ungrateful. While on a solo acoustic tour in the Northeast, I came across a few sites that were actually built by the CCC and made it a point to find a few more (which I'll do whenever touring is a thing again).
The CCC was a very controversial program when it first came about. I didn't want to bring to light the politics of the whole thing as much as the human element and the gratitude these men had for receiving so little in a time of great strife.
"Aztec Cafe"
This is probably my favorite song on the album. It has love, drugs, murder, and a tasty little melody. If I were to add a couple F-bombs, it would be the perfect song.
Photo Credit: Kayla Raborn
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When August Bilstein laid the foundations for the innovation incubator BILSTEIN in Altenvoerde in Germany's Westphalia region in 1873, nobody had any idea of the crucial influence the company's products would one day have on the driving comfort and safety of cars. Instead it was metal window fittings - sold under the catchy name of AUBI, an abbreviation of August Bilstein - that soon made the company famous far beyond the boundaries of Bilstein's local region and even abroad. The name BILSTEIN has for many decades been closely associated with high tech in the field of suspension design, driving comfort and safety. In order to expand this position in the future, BILSTEIN became a division of ThyssenKrupp Technologies AG in 1988, and a wholly-owned subsidiary in 2005. The partnership and co-operation within the group will enable the company to continue to inspire with innovations in the traditional BILSTEIN way. "